The Ice Age Came And I Just Got Married - Chapter 21

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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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Episode 21
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Nathan wondered how on earth the situation had come to this.
He’d only wanted to survive……!
And he’d been faithfully following his superior’s orders……!
Men built like mountains seized Nathan’s collar and shook him.
“If Charlotte doesn’t come back, you die.”
He couldn’t fathom why he had to die in her place.
Separated from the combat squad, they’d been lying in wait, watching for Charlotte to emerge. But as time dragged on, she showed no sign of appearing.
“Damn it, did this girl betray us?”
“Captain, I told you that seemed likely.”
“We’re going in.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Cheswind is at the front gate anyway.”
Charles pushed open a side door and stepped through. Then he came back out.
“Huh? Captain. Why’d you come back out?”
He’d opened the door and gone inside, yet he’d somehow ended up back outside. Charles spun around, bewildered by the impossible situation.
He opened the door again and entered. But in an instant, he stood outside the wall once more.
“What the——?”
Still, he opened the door again and stepped through, and again—yet each time he ended up back where he’d started.
“Captain, you’re not messing with us, are you?”
“What the——!?”
Charles seized his hulking subordinate by the collar and hurled him straight through the doorway.
And to their astonishment, the man catapulted back out of the door as if fired from a cannon.
“What in the name of——?”
Panic was spreading through the group.
“This is the Forbidden Land! The Devil’s Village!! The r-rumors were true!”
“Gasp! He’s right! He’s right! W-we have to run, don’t we?”
Chaos mounted. Nathan watched the rabble’s hysteria unfold with a blank stare. For men of such size, they were awfully cowardly.
From what he’d gathered, these people were all criminals.
Hardened criminals who’d killed many alongside this crew—the sort beyond redemption.
“Damn it. Just look at them, the moment things get interesting!”
Charles drew his blade and drove it into the throat of the panicking subordinate.
A strangled gasp.
Blood erupted in a fountain as the man toppled onto the pristine white snow.
The temperature of the moment plummeted in an instant.
Drenched in blood, Charles turned to face his men.
“Now, who else wants to try? You go in there and bounce back out again, you’ll end up like that bastard—dead.”
Creak—
And then the door swung open. From the inside.
The figure that emerged was not the one Charles had anticipated. But it was someone he’d been waiting for even more than Cheswind’s wife.
Marcus.
Golden hair finer and more refined than any nobleman’s, bearing and dignity in every movement, beauty to match. A radiant figure indeed.
It was a shame the personality didn’t match the looks.
With one hand in his trouser pocket, he strolled out leisurely and bent forward in front of Charles, peering down at his face.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
Charles felt an overwhelming urge to backhand that arrogant, feminine face.
But he noticed the rifle slung across Marcus’s back. He couldn’t afford to move recklessly.
‘Damn it! Damn it!!!’
Charles clenched his teeth. If Marcus had a gun, Charles had no chance of winning.
The way that pretty-boy face combined with marksmanship made Charles want to tear his hair out in frustration.
‘No. We have the numbers.’
Right. Overwhelming numbers always gave an edge. And in that moment, another figure emerged from behind Marcus.
A woman with dark blue hair and a sharp-eyed face: Charlotte.
Charles knew at once, by instinct. She had betrayed them.
His face twisted slowly with rage.
“……Charlotte, you little traitor! I knew it would come to this!”
Charles raised his blade and charged forward.
Marcus reflexively stepped in front of Charlotte and raised his rifle.
He brought his finger to the trigger, aiming at the approaching Charles when—
Crack!
A thick wooden club appeared from nowhere, striking Charles hard across the temple. He lost his balance and tumbled across the ground.
It wasn’t Charlotte who’d done it, and it wasn’t Marcus either. The one who’d struck Charles with the club was Nathan.
“A pleasure to meet you, Chairman Rutherland. I’m Nathan Holt, aide to Duke Cheswind.”
At Nathan’s polished greeting, Marcus returned a reluctant nod.
Like Logan, Marcus was famous enough to appear in the newspapers daily, so it wasn’t particularly strange for a duke’s aide to recognize him.
“Thank you, Holt. Introductions can wait—”
Marcus glanced over Nathan’s shoulder and swiftly chambered a round into the shotgun.
Bang!
At the same moment, a shot rang out from the rooftop.
It had to be Eve up there.
The bullet struck the ground near the remaining thugs’ feet, sending them scrambling for cover—but Charlotte moved faster, her blade flashing toward them.
‘Ten men total.’
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire erupted from all directions.
Marcus watched Charlotte move through the air, tracked the men’s positions, and pulled the trigger with perfect calm.
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang—
Not a single miss, not a moment’s hesitation. The thugs fell as one, their legs blown out from under them.
Five remained.
Sweat beaded at Marcus’s jawline and fell away. Despite the bitter cold, he was drenched in perspiration.
“Kill that bastard Marcus first!”
Charles was on his feet now, charging at Marcus from the side—
“Not a chance.”
Marcus pivoted and brought the rifle to bear without hesitation.
Bang!
The shot tore through the snow flurry.
He pulled the trigger again and again.
Bang-bang-bang-bang!
Every remaining thug took a bullet to the leg and dropped.
Some of those he’d already shot whimpered and sank deeper into the snow.
He should have ended them like Logan would have—cleanly, finally. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to take a life.
The reality he’d overlooked in his safe, sheltered existence crashed down on him now, cold and undeniable.
Marcus thought his hands were burning.
No.
Not burning—something was boiling up from deep inside him.
‘I’m going mad. I’m so angry.’
At the ruffians who’d pushed things this far. At their stupidity, their cruelty. The rage was consuming him.
Hah.
Marcus breathed slowly, deliberately.
‘Eve will be here soon.’
He wanted to have things wrapped up before she arrived.
In truth, the battle was already decided. All the men were wounded, and even if they tried to counterattack, they posed little real threat.
There was no reason left to be angry.
And yet the anger persisted, burning on.
“Ungh—”
Marcus narrowed his eyes as he watched Charles writhe and moan.
Vermin.
Curses rose all the way to his throat.
But in the end, he didn’t draw his blade.
If he killed Charles now, he’d become no different from them.
Marcus exhaled deeply, then opened his mouth slowly.
“You know, Charles, I’ll give you this—you’ve taught me something.”
Charles lifted his head with difficulty, groaning.
“I have more humanity in me than I thought.”
The words came out almost a laugh. Even he found it absurd.
He’d spent his whole life chasing numbers and results.
He’d always seen himself as a cold, unfeeling executive to his employees.
He’d thought his subordinates were generous to follow someone who’d given them nothing.
“I thought I treated my own people like spare parts.”
He fell silent for a moment, staring at Charles.
The man before him was also his employee. Yet at the same time, he was an employee who had killed his own people.
“But once I’d lost them, I understood the truth. The rage was unbearable.”
Marcus’s eyes, which had been coldly fixed on Charles, trembled for the first time—a slight, barely perceptible tremor.
Marcus closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again.
Charles still made nothing but pained sounds. Marcus wondered if the man was even hearing him, yet he continued regardless.
“You called me a demon because you needed someone to hate. Not because I actually am one.”
His voice was flat.
Colder, even, than when he’d raged.

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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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