The Ice Age Came And I Just Got Married - Chapter 5

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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 5
* * *
Three hours before the disaster struck.
The port city of Rosebrook.
Marcus Winston Rutherland had arrived at the Rosebrook branch of the Rutherland Railway Company early that morning.
A problem had arisen with the rail freight transport.
In particular, he’d heard unsettling news that trains carrying supplies and provisions bound for the northeastern region of Granden Kingdom were experiencing delays in departure.
“Close the harbor before it’s too late!”
“The dying sea is warning us! The mist is a harbinger of catastrophe!”
“Stop driving people to the sea! Guarantee the fishermen their livelihoods!”
“Guarantee it! Guarantee it!”
Recently, dense sea fog blanketing the harbor had brought a string of disappearances.
At first people dismissed them as coincidence, but as the pattern repeated, they began to murmur that it was a sign of disaster to come.
And at last, the Environmental Protection Group and the city’s fishermen had taken to the streets since morning, their protests in full swing.
‘Come to think of it, mist has been settling over the harbor quite often lately.’
Such a thing was rare in the Southern Continent, which prided itself on clear skies year-round.
Especially at dawn, thin ice had begun forming in puddles and dry winds had started blowing—phenomena once unheard of here.
Moreover, the sea temperature had apparently dropped below seasonal averages as well.
As a result, fish catches were declining and marine life was exhibiting abnormal behavior, dealing considerable hardship to the fishermen’s livelihood.
“Certainly strange, I’ll grant you that.”
Marcus stopped his thinking right there.
Strange, yes. But his concern extended no further.
“If it bothers you, shall I have people clear it all away? Money can solve anything. We’re the Rutherfords, after all.”
Marcus turned his head at the question from beside him. A young man with a composed smile caught his eye.
The lean-faced youth, whose freckled face was marked by a sharp, nervous intensity, was Marcus’s aide: Jack Harper.
“Spare me. That would be beneath our dignity.”
He clicked his tongue irritably and stepped into the train platform.
Jack Harper followed at a quick pace in his wake.
Marcus enjoyed affecting the airs of nobility.
So he listened to the music the aristocracy favored, adopted their manner of speech, and had mastered their codes of conduct.
Being adopted as the ward of Count Rutherland had not been enough for him. He wanted to become truly noble through marriage to a noblewoman.
And he knew just the nobly born maiden who fit his plans perfectly.
Eve Rania Everhart.
The delicate lady, burdened with chronic illness, was unpopular as a marriage prospect.
Eve was precisely that sort.
So Marcus had set his sights on her and devoted his efforts, only to find one person consistently standing in his way: Logan.
Though Logan had never exchanged a single conversation with Eve, he had quietly appointed himself her guardian.
So thoroughly that other male students didn’t dare approach Eve’s side.
Of course, Marcus refused to yield and continued playing the devoted friend even after graduating from the academy.
But then one day Logan suddenly withdrew from school, submitted his withdrawal papers, and word came that he had married Eve.
That had been a week ago.
It was gossip that even Marcus, who prided himself on his information networks through his business dealings, had failed to obtain beforehand.
Jack Harper remembered all too well how stunned Marcus had been.
‘Beautiful women lining up before him, and yet he had eyes only for that of all places.’
Jack Harper shook his head. In the meantime, the station master of Rosebrook’s train platform and the staff of the Rutherland Railway Company, who had spotted Marcus, came rushing out with blanched faces.
“C-Chairman! You’ve c-come in p-person!”
“W-we are h-honored, sir.”
Without exception, everyone who laid eyes on Marcus went pale and stumbled over their words.
Marcus, acknowledged for his capabilities at a young age, had a reputation for being exacting and cold.
A heartless man of ice and stone.
They said he’d been smooth-tongued and playful during his academy days, but it was difficult to imagine now, looking at him as he was.
“Frost forming on the rails at dawn, causing delays? Does that even make sense? This isn’t the north—frost in the south can’t accumulate that much.”
Exasperation edged into Marcus’s voice. His aide Jack Harper answered promptly.
“That strikes me as odd as well, sir. Apparently the engines themselves froze and the engineers struggled considerably trying to thaw them.”
Standing on the train platform and gazing quietly at the station building, Marcus noticed a faint layer of frost on the glass window.
He raised his gloved hand and wiped across the pane.
The frost cleared from the glass.
Troubled by this rather unusual phenomenon, he withdrew his pocket watch to check the time.
The current time was ten o’clock in the morning.
Ordinarily, frost that had formed at dawn should have melted away once the sun rose in the morning hours.
Yet frost still clung to the windowpane.
Jack, the aide who had been watching Marcus quietly, added one more thought.
“There’s talk that temperatures are dropping day by day. It could be temporary, but with the weather changing like this, perhaps we should have the Rutherland Railway Company equipment inspected as well.”
…….
Marcus fell silent for a moment, then nodded after a long pause.
“Yes. Begin preparations.”
“Very good.”
Jack quickly relayed the orders to the station master and railway company officials waiting for Marcus’s response.
Marcus checked his pocket watch.
“We’ll call it a day here.”
After leaving the platform and returning to the hotel, Marcus intended to rest in his room until the evening meeting.
He quietly withdrew a photograph from inside his coat—more precisely, one clipped from a newspaper.
In that photograph, standing beside Logan with a radiant smile, was Eve Rania Everhart—or rather, the woman who was now Eve Rania Cheswind.
‘Her beauty hasn’t changed one bit, and if anything, it drives a man to madness all the more.’
Marcus sighed and carefully folded the photograph again, tucking it back into his jacket’s inner pocket.
People speculated freely that he wanted to fully enter aristocratic society, that he was after Eve.
None of them could fathom how vast and deep the truth beneath that surface truly was.
Then it happened. Outside his room, commotion erupted. The world beyond the hotel windows bore the same chaos. When he looked out, he saw the entire city blanketed in pristine white snow.
……?
What was this?
Snow, suddenly? Had he misread something?
But even after rubbing his eyes and looking again, the entire city remained buried under snow.
Alarmed, Marcus rushed out of his room.
“Help us! The st-stable roof collapsed under the blizzard, and our husband broke his leg!”
“Our child is buried in the blizzard!”
“The tracks derailed from the sudden blizzard, and the train—!”
“A major carriage collision—at least thirty injured—!”
Marcus stood in the chaos of the hotel lobby, massaging his temples.
Damn it, what was happening?
The end of the world had come.
And it came without warning.
* * *
We did not sleep a wink in the cave.
After that strange air current passed through, we managed to stay awake by trading pointless jokes back and forth.
“We first met when we were fifteen, didn’t we?”
But Logan gave an unexpected answer.
“No. When we were ten.”
“What?”
We had met when we were ten years old?
Startled by his answer, I lifted my face from where it had been resting against his shoulder. Our crimson eyes met at such close range that I felt suddenly embarrassed and looked away again.
“I first saw you at Norton Amusement Park. It was quite an impressive scene—I still remember it.”
Logan recalled the past in his measured voice.
“You had your hair caught in a monkey’s grip.”
And he speaks of it so wistfully.
“I thought your scalp was being torn off, but then you bit the monkey’s arm.”
…….

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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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