The Ice Age Came And I Just Got Married - Chapter 12

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 12
Part 3. The Intruders
But the moment they caught sight of Logan and Marcus emerging from the village entrance, they vanished in a heartbeat.
They’d run.
‘Hmm.’
They seemed to be on some kind of search mission themselves.
‘Marcus mentioned before that there was a Rogue Gang pursuing him.’
Could that be them?
They’d come from the direction of Rosebrook’s city center, it seemed.
Beep—
And that was when it happened.
A shrill ringing suddenly pierced my skull.
The sensation was identical to when the novel Bitter Frost had surfaced unbidden in my memory.
But this time, I wasn’t seeing fiction—I was perceiving something else entirely.
A voice rang out with crystalline clarity.
【The Winterstone—you have it safe, yes?】
【Yes, sir! It’s secure.】
【Guard it well. We’ll need it when we raid that village tomorrow.】
More precisely, I was hearing a conversation.
Next, the figures of armed men who’d vanished from my sight moments before materialized before my eyes. I could hear their words as clearly as if I stood among them.
But the true shock came next.
A Goldstone in their bag blazed with presence, as though broadcasting its location.
I understood at once, instinctively.
That Goldstone was signaling me. It was calling out to be found.
So to piece together what was happening: this was it.
Since absorbing the Winterstone, I’d begun to perceive the locations of other Winterstones.
Moreover, I could now see or hear the circumstances of anyone carrying a Winterstone.
And so, just now, I’d learned that the gang prowling around Dotori Town was carrying a Goldstone.
‘There are far more Winterstones than I thought.’
Remarkably, the moment I grasped that sensation, I could suddenly perceive exactly how many Winterstones existed within Rosebrook and where they were located.
‘It seems there’s a distance limit.’
Since I couldn’t sense any Winterstone aura beyond Rosebrook’s borders.
The Rogue Gang that had been lurking around Dotori Town vanished completely. I kept watch for several more hours, but they never reappeared.
Logan and Marcus were making their way back into the village. I lowered the binoculars I’d been holding and grabbed the shotgun, heading down.
We gathered in the greenhouse for a strategy meeting.
Though I had to converse while tending to the vegetable garden, thanks to Chippy’s insistence on keeping us working.
Tap!
Chippy shoved an empty basket at me.
A sign that I shouldn’t loiter—I should be laboring. That ornery little squirrel.
I sighed and picked up a small hoe.
After my family’s collapse, I’d done every manner of menial work imaginable, so gardening was hardly a burden.
“Don’t do this with your delicate hands. Stop.”
Marcus seized the hoe from me, and the ornery squirrel crouched down and batted his backside with both front paws. Though the impact was negligible.
Beep—!
“The creature’s ordering me to do it?”
I gestured toward the ornery squirrel and reclaimed the hoe from Marcus’s hands.
Then I turned over the soil of the spent bed.
Removing roots and weeds, breaking up the hardened clods into finer earth.
“I never imagined a world where a duke and duchess would till a potato field together,” Marcus muttered.
Jack was the one speaking.
“Or where a railway company chairman plants cabbage seedlings.”
I opened the seed pouch and dropped carrot seeds one by one. If I planted them too close together, the roots wouldn’t develop properly later.
After completing a full circuit, I tipped the watering can Logan had brought and moistened the soil. A soft, earthy fragrance rose from the damp earth.
Outside, the world remained frozen solid, but within the greenhouse, spring was blooming anew.
All of it was thanks to the greenhouse’s guardian.
I glanced at the ornery squirrel standing atop the central table with both arms spread wide, gathering its essence.
Eccentric and genuinely strange, yet so bitingly adorable and unremarkable that I found myself unable to dislike it.
‘What in the world is that creature?’
The novel mentioned only that Chippy was the greenhouse’s guardian—it never revealed the specifics of her true nature.
“Jack, hand that to me. I’ll do it.”
“Chairman, why do you only pick the easy tasks? Aren’t you supposed to be an expert?”
“When the boss says dig, you dig.”
“But it’s the Duke who feeds us now, not the Chairman?”
Logan worked in silence, carving furrows with his spade, while Marcus continued his bickering with Jack. Without a word, Logan stuffed a raw potato into Marcus’s mouth as a midday snack.
“Focus on your work.”
His voice dripped with irritation. His gaze was equally sharp and menacing.
Yet for all that, he’d still handed over the snack and shown a kind of solicitude.
“Ptui, ptui — fine, fine, I get it. But really, you’ve never had any dignity, have you? And you’re supposed to be a Duke?”
“My identity lies closer to soldier, if anything.”
Logan answered without hesitation, brushing his hair back from his face.
On the surface they seemed a touch at odds, but they appeared to be getting along better than I’d feared, and for that I was grateful.
“So does everyone have a plan?”
Everyone turned to look at me at my question.
“The Rogue Gang.”
Marcus and Jack had acquaintance with the Rogue Gang, apparently. Or more precisely, they’d ended up fleeing to Dotori Town after being hunted by them.
Marcus added further explanation.
“The thing is, they stole something important from us.”
“Something important?”
“A key. The Naval Base Key. They probably don’t even know what it opens yet.”
The Naval Base at Rosebrook Harbor….
It was the place where the Ice Age Research Institute supposedly lay hidden.
The general public had no access, so little was known with certainty, but I’d heard that my Second Elder Brother worked there.
Though he’d never told me exactly what research he conducted.
“Why were you carrying the Naval Base Key in the first place?”
At my question, Marcus scratched his cheek with an awkward expression.
“The weight of power, I suppose?”
According to what Marcus added, he’d had dealings with the higher-ups of that Rogue Gang since before the Collapse.
More precisely, they shared a very deep and bitter history.
“Well, that works out nicely. I want the Goldstone that the Rogue Gang possesses. We’ll retrieve the key and secure the Winterstone too. Two birds with one stone.”
At my words, Marcus turned toward me — or rather, he swiveled around while still crouching.
The sight of him in his formal coat wielding a hoe reminded me of some eccentric artist’s peculiar masterpiece.
“Honestly, I can’t wrap my head around what our junior mentioned. You say that even though I’ve absorbed the Winterstone I was given, I can now locate another Winterstone’s position, and through it eavesdrop or spy on them? How is that even possible?”
“That’s precisely what I’d most like to understand — how any of this is possible.”
Just then, Logan stuffed another potato into Marcus’s mouth. Or shoved it in, to be more accurate.
“The lady is having difficulty. You talk too much for someone who’s just boarding here.”
Marcus spat out the potato and griped to me, pointing at Logan.
“Junior, are you really not divorcing this brute? Since you own the house, does that let him get away with human rights violations?”
I heaved a sigh.
“You’re not interested in strategy discussion, are you?”
Logan answered me.
“Eve, I can handle it alone. I’ll just go wipe out that Rogue Gang entirely.”
I had to admit the idea seemed entirely feasible coming from Logan….
“Even so, it’s dangerous to go alone. I trust your combat strength, but consider the temperature outside.”
Everyone fell silent in agreement with my point.
When you spend time in a town that’s relatively warm, you can sometimes forget just how harsh and terrifying the world beyond is.
Logan and Marcus, having gone out on reconnaissance today, would have felt the outer temperature all the more keenly.
“Chippy, come here.”
I called to the temperamental squirrel who was wandering through the Vegetable Garden, inspecting whether the seedlings and seeds had been planted properly.
The finicky squirrel, having been examining the traces of labor, immediately straightened to attention at the sound of its name.
Then it sharpened its posture and walked toward me with purpose.
The men’s gazes all turned to me.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Do you think I’m abusing that little thing?”
“That’s not it — so why does that foul-tempered squirrel look so disciplined?”
I felt deeply wronged.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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