The Ice Age Came And I Just Got Married - Chapter 63

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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 63
Nathan, who had been listening quietly, suddenly bowed his head to me.
“I apologize.”
“For what?”
“For passing judgment on whether you possess the qualities befitting a duchess, without proper grounds.”
His apology amounted to an admission that I did, in fact, have what it took to be a duchess.
It wasn’t a matter of great importance to me, but I wanted to think well of Logan’s aide, so my mood didn’t sour.
“You were simply fulfilling your role as an aide,” I said.
I answered with a shrug.
“And isn’t leniency in forgiveness also a mark of a leader’s character?”
At my words, Nathan’s lips trembled as though ashamed. The corners of his eyes flushed.
“I doubted the Duke’s judgment, and thus failed in my duties as an aide. I will reflect on this.”
He had a point there, I suppose.
But not all of Logan’s decisions proved right, either.
I turned my gaze back toward the interior of the tent. Logan and Marcus were occupied with treating Vincent.
Evening had fallen without my noticing, and the room had grown dim.
It was the kind of night that invited too many thoughts.
* * *
“Jack’s good at first aid, though.”
Marcus stared at Vincent, who was moaning softly, his expression tinged with concern.
Then he shook his head.
“But the way that bastard looked at our junior— it rubbed me the wrong way. Honestly, it’s rather satisfying now.”
“That’s what I wanted to say.”
Nathan voiced strong agreement with Marcus.
Especially since our conversation, Nathan had made a visible show of his newfound approval toward me.
In any case, we had cleared one hurdle.
The lack of food for four days was a problem, but with water alone, we could manage somehow.
While Vincent slept, I decided to attempt making fresh water using Bluestone.
I should make proper use of what I’d obtained from Arnels, the traitor I’d met at the Naval base.
Up until now, I’d only used it to defend against attacks from wolf packs alongside the woolly mammoth, never in actual practical application.
Bluestone could produce ice, snow, and water, but there was a prerequisite.
One needed the raw material to create all these particles.
You couldn’t create something from nothing. Bluestone’s power worked by drawing together the moisture particles drifting in the atmosphere and crystallizing them into tangible form.
But in conditions like these—at negative seventy degrees Celsius during a deep freeze—even the humidity in the air was sparse.
Scooping snow from outside would be inviting the cold indoors, a form of suicide, and the moment I broke a window, this room would become a tomb in an instant.
I quietly considered the moisture I could feel seeping through the cloth covering my mouth.
“What are you doing?”
Logan, sensing my intention with uncanny accuracy, asked.
“Making drinking water.”
At my words, Nathan’s eyes went wide as saucers, fixing on me.
Marcus wasn’t surprised—he knew I’d absorbed Bluestone at the Naval base—but he did regard me with curiosity.
Humans generate more heat than one might think. Ordinarily it’s just wasted energy, but in an enclosed space like this, the situation changes entirely.
The breath exhaled by five people carried a substantial amount of water vapor.
Those moisture particles that would normally have formed frost on the walls, hampering insulation, were my target.
I placed my hand over a kettle sitting in the room and began finely controlling the power of Bluestone.
As a cool current pulsed faintly through my body, the air in the room undulated subtly.
“Good heavens. What is this?”
Nathan let out a sharp exclamation of wonder.
The invisible water vapor scattered through the air was being drawn by the Bluestone’s aura, gathering at the mouth of the kettle.
Like transparent threads interweaving, clear dewdrops began forming in the empty space, falling plink, plink into the bottom of the kettle.
“What on earth is Winterstone, anyway? That it can do something like this. It’s truly like magic. Could it be that ancient power they speak of—magic itself?”
Marcus murmured, his voice thick with wonder. But there was no one here who could answer that question.
Everyone present was ignorant of the truth.
Once the kettle was full, I placed it on the Redstone piled on the floor, so the water would stay warm.
Shortly after, white steam began rising from the kettle’s spout—lukewarm water, neither quite cold nor quite warm, like life itself, born from overcoming the arctic chill.
“We should give the patient water first.”
Drip—
The moment the words left my mouth, my nose began to bleed.
The strange part was that the moment blood came, my head spun violently.
Ever since I’d absorbed Winterstone, nosebleeds had actually felt refreshing—so why was this different?
When Eve pulled out a handkerchief and held it to her nose, Logan’s expression was unreadable, but one thing was unmistakable—he was panicking.
The back of his hand trembled slightly as he pressed against her nose.
“Eve. You’re all right.”
He whispered it to her.
Marcus and Nathan seemed to be shouting something beside them, but for some reason, she couldn’t hear it well.
“It’s nothing.”
Logan continued speaking as if soothing a child.
“So there’s no reason to be frightened.”
And only then did she realize—she had been wearing a shocked expression.
For some reason, her stomach was churning.
Why was this happening?
“It’s all right, Eve.”
But as Logan spoke those words, cracks were spreading across his face.
In the end, watching Logan wear an expression far more anguished than her own, she went limp—and lost consciousness.
Chapter 10. Logan and Eve
Charlotte gathered the wax remnants that had dripped and hardened on the candelabra and floor.
She said she would recycle them for use.
Aiden sat quietly with his chin propped on his hand, observing the scene.
‘Come to think of it, all the top-performing Academy students are gathered here.’
The Royal Academy of the Granden Kingdom evaluated and selected people solely by ‘merit’.
So among them, the students ranked in the top performances had even reached the ears of the crown prince, Aiden.
Brian and Marcus had graduated as valedictorian and salutatorian of the sixteenth class; Logan, Eve, and Charlotte were the valedictorian, salutatorian, and third-ranked graduates of the eighteenth class.
Aiden thought the shelter’s personnel had a rather competitive composition.
Of course, their survival prospects were higher than those of ordinary people.
Moreover, Eve among them was majoring in Northern Glacial Environmental Change Research, and he recalled that she had also contributed a special column to the newspapers regarding the First Ice Age.
She was a standout salutatorian, and one of the talents Aiden had regularly received reports on and kept a close eye on.
Aiden felt a sharp desire to incorporate Eve into his survival settlement once again.
And no matter how much he thought about it, he still couldn’t make sense of Logan and Eve’s marriage.
“Honestly, I didn’t even believe it when I heard that the two of them had set up a shelter in a place like this.”
It was then that Brian spoke softly.
“I still find their marriage bewildering. But now, looking at them, it seems like they suit each other rather well.”
In the dark house, in the space where candlelight barely kept the darkness at bay, it felt as though he were offering a confession.
“The two of them, Rutland, and Nathan and Raven are all alive, aren’t they?”
Silence settled over the living room on the first floor of Eve House.
It had been four days now—four days since Eve and her group failed to return.
No matter how much they maintained heating with Redstone, warmth could never reach the human heart.
Charlotte had been fiddling with the gathered wax scraps, while Jack stood by the window, continuously peering outside with binoculars.
But no matter how much he parted the leather patching the window and looked outside through the binoculars, Jack could see nothing.
Aiden, surveying the somber atmosphere, finally spoke.
“They’re alive.”
“Sir?”
“At least if it’s Chestwind.”
Aiden spoke calmly, leaning against the back of the sofa.
“You didn’t witness what kind of man he was on the battlefield. If you had, you wouldn’t worry like this.”
Of course, Aiden had offered these words as comfort. In temperatures like these, the odds of even Logan meeting a blizzard head-on and surviving were slim.
But it was also true that Logan was a man who rarely died.
Though he was half-prepared to give up hope, Aiden resolved to believe in that tactless man’s will to survive.

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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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