The Isolated Marchioness Just Wants to Make a Living - Chapter 214

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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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Part 2, Episode 19
3. Behila’s Strange Flower
“Mm.”
Alpheus murmured as he entered the Warp coordinates.
“That’s the land we saw before, right?”
Behila.
The easternmost territory closest to the western lands.
It was land that Gillab had been promised from birth, and despite its modest population, it sprawled wider than most. Since it bordered the west, the climate was naturally mild and inland.
“Right. Remember when we tilled up that tomato field?”
The tomato field near the Warp was a place where Alpheus had dug with particular enthusiasm, shovel by shovel.
“Has it really been seven years already?”
I shrugged my shoulders with a sigh.
“Really? To me it feels like barely two years have passed!”
Alpheus spoke with eager anticipation.
“Let’s take a stroll through that tomato field before we go. It’s a place full of memories of mining Magical Stones, isn’t it?”
“No scattering memories everywhere. There are plenty of memories in Sears too.”
“Then at least let us stop and look around for a moment!”
“That much is possible.”
I nodded readily.
“The one in a hurry isn’t me anyway—it’s Gillab. Well, as always.”
Not long after the Warp activated, we arrived in Behila.
Traveling with the carriage, I examined the landscape beyond its windows.
Gillab had been fussing about as though some great disaster had struck, but the land was plainly peaceful.
Behila was especially one of the well-maintained territories. Since the lord made a fuss every day, any hint of trouble was nipped in the bud before it could take root.
“So we’ll look around for a bit, then meet with the Second Prince soon… hm?”
Alpheus opened the carriage door and jumped back. The area around the Warp was absolutely covered in garlic.
“Goodness.”
I shrugged and murmured under my breath.
“He really is being ridiculous.”
The people of Behila were among the most devoted garlic-eaters on the continent. I could picture it clearly enough.
“Garlic helps keep monsters at bay! I saw the Imperial distribution materials—everyone’s spreading it everywhere, implementing it immediately!”
Gillab had scattered garlic not only around the Warp but beyond the very borders of his territory.
“I’ve even hung rope from the trees. I saw it myself—vampires can fly too. I won’t let such things set foot or wing on my land!”
Having witnessed a vampire himself at the reception, Gillab’s terror must have been immense. I could imagine how he must have been bouncing about.
“Buy up Defense Scrolls from the Magic Tower! Spread them to every house! Attach them to every tree!”
Looking out the window at the surroundings, I could see Defense Scrolls against vampires affixed to every tree.
Even if the Magic Tower had been selling Defense Scrolls at a discount, I doubted that was their intention for such lavish expenditure.
“For heaven’s sake.”
I shook my head.
“Even Sears doesn’t do this.”
The Sears Marquis Territory had to protect me, so naturally security was a priority. I rarely left the territory—our defenses were meticulous.
But… we certainly didn’t attach Defense Scrolls to every tree.
“This is so like Gillab’s territory.”
I sighed and rested my chin in my palm.
Alpheus had stepped out of the carriage and was looking around curiously, but I felt no desire to join him.
‘Gillab definitely has no idea what’s really going on.’
Gillab, third son of the Duke of Dibostane’s house, had a considerable age gap from his older brothers.
The Duke and Duchess had given their youngest son a fine territory and believed they had done their duty; they paid him little further mind.
The Duchess was preoccupied with preventing the Young Duke Ethan from losing his place as heir. And with Audrey and Marcel pressing their claims so forcefully, her anxiety was constant.
The Duke spent all his time wavering indecisively between the two women.
Caught in the middle, Gillab grew up siding with his mother and eldest brother, but took on no real role.
He was too young at the time, lacked the temperament for serious matters, and showed no exceptional talent in any particular field.
‘Quite clever, certainly, but nothing more than that. And fundamentally, he’s not physically capable.’
Surely both Ethan and the Duchess of Dibostane would have excluded Gillab from all their schemes as irrelevant.
‘Even if they’d sided with the Dark Mages, they wouldn’t have told Gillab. They’d fear he’d make a fuss about it.’
Indeed, when Alpheus had once mentioned seeing a Dark Mage in the east, Gillab had bounced about in sheer panic.
‘This matter too must be something the Duchess of Dibostane and the Young Duke never consented to at all.’
The fact that Gillab had written to the Imperial Family was unthinkable to the Duchess of Dibostane, who was already losing her imperial connections.
Maximus had once said something like this:
“If any band of Dark Mages remained on the continent, they’d surely be in the east.”
Even after eliminating the Crown Prince, Maximus had numerous political rivals—half-siblings below him in rank, all born to an imperial consort of noble house blood.
So Maximus needed to expand his support base.
‘At this very moment when all continental folk fear Dark Magic… if I could just seize any thread of a lead, there’s no faster path to the Crown Prince’s seat.’
Maximus was probably the one who welcomed Gillab’s letter most of all. For the east had always been the land that aroused his deepest suspicions.
‘And at the same time, it could put us in danger.’
Alpheus was simply thrilled that Maximus had asked for his help and thought nothing beyond that, but my mind was churning with worry.
‘Probably better to just show our faces and then hole up in the Sears Territory.’
Leopold hadn’t returned yet. Until Leopold and Harrison brought substantive intelligence, hiding safely was also a valid strategy.
In the meantime, Alpheus returned to the carriage.
“The tomato field is exactly as it was back then. I talked to a farmer I happened to meet—he said it’s always been similar. The only difference is that the quality of the tomato harvest gets worse every year.”
I answered somewhat sullenly.
“I can guess the reason well enough, but… anyway, let’s go.”
As we made our way toward Gillab’s mansion, my eyes caught on a flower field that covered an entire hillside.
‘Hm?’
I furrowed my brow and pressed my face closer to the window. The whole field was covered in flowers I’d never seen before.
“Wait—aren’t those sunflowers?”
Alpheus was startled and spoke up.
“They’re really beautiful!”
The hillside draped in yellow blossoms was certainly lovely, but I shook my head.
“They look similar, but those aren’t sunflowers. Sunflowers don’t grow that small.”
These were clearly the flowers Gillab had called the “strange flower.”
I’d never seen such blooms anywhere. These unfamiliar flowers covered the entire hillside.
“Behila’s climate is like the west’s. But we don’t have flowers like those in the west either.”
I murmured, furrowing my brow.
Yet though they were novel to me, they didn’t look ominous or seem to emanate any sinister energy.
“But does Gillab have a mansion here in Behila? He didn’t have one back then.”
Hearing Alpheus’s question, I nodded.
“He built it while you were unconscious. Gillab’s come of age long ago, and since he’ll need to establish his own branch family after marriage, it’s a mansion for him to live in with his own family.”
Though Gillab held no noble title, as the third son of a ducal house, a mansion befitting his station had been constructed.
Well… he could receive a new title if he accumulated military merit. But I doubted that would happen.
“The Special Ability is an inheritance that passes through bloodlines. In other words, the surname ‘Dibostane’ can’t be dispensed carelessly.”
In our own house, it was no accident that Uncle received a title under the separate surname Hawin.
“When Ethan rises to the Ducal seat, Gillab’s surname will change to Behila. And from Gillab’s descendants onward, the principle is that they won’t be born with the Special Ability. Though there are very rare exceptions.”
Especially in Nogen and Dibostane, which preserved the Special Ability, this principle was rigorously observed.
“In any case, this place marks Gillab’s true beginning. The construction took an age because security was such a priority.”
“So that little Gillab is just going to keep living there now?”
“First of all, Gillab isn’t little, and he’s worried there might be shoddy construction, so he hasn’t completely moved in yet—he’s been going back and forth from the Duke of Dibostane’s Estate.”
I continued with my arms crossed.
“But he’s probably staying at that mansion continuously now. It’d be safer than the Young Duke of Dibostane’s residence anyway.”
I could picture Ethan raging that Gillab had brought Maximus to the east.
‘At least I’ve thrown Marcel at him, so he’ll leave things alone for now, right?’
Together with Audrey, Ethan would become a proper rival to reckon with again.
“So just handle him perfunctorily and we go back to Sears.”
Gillab’s mansion was starting to come into view in the distance, and I urged Alpheus.
“It’s all over now. We don’t need to get involved. Right?”
Protagonist syndrome—meddling everywhere—had to be nipped in the bud early.
“It’s not our responsibility to soothe his whining. It’s the Second Prince’s.”
I added with arms still crossed.
“What’s more urgent for us now is placating knights back in our territory who complain that we don’t have plums. That’s the more pressing matter for you and me.”
Alpheus regarded me quietly. Then he broke into a bright smile and answered readily.
“Right, Brisa!”

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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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