Timid and Shy - Chapter 62

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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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62.

Sophia’s breath clouded white in the cold. Sleet hammered against the carriage windows. Helen and Sol, sitting beside her, gripped their blankets tightly.
Just moments before, Sophia had seen the sea for the first time in her life. Gray and black beneath the overcast sky, darker than the heavens themselves, yet it struck her as beautiful nonetheless.
Helen pulled the blanket closer and spoke.
“The sea must be deep—the color is so intensely dark. The southern seas are shallower and blue like sapphires.”
“Is that so? I’ve never been south. I suppose even the sea differs from place to place.”
“Next year, let’s go south together. If we leave in late winter, we can spend spring in the south. They say the southern spring is warm, but more than that, every street blooms with flowers—it’s supposed to be breathtaking.”
Sophia hoped it would be possible. But Oberon’s affairs would demand they survive the winter, whether in failure or success.
Sophia felt a pang of regret, but she closed the carriage window. Helen exhaled in relief and spoke.
“If you hadn’t closed that window, I wouldn’t have been able to speak to you the moment we arrived in Oberon.”
“Because you’d be sorry to leave Oberon?”
“No. Because I’d be frozen to death. Would you want to talk to someone trying to kill you with cold?”
Sophia pointed forward.
“It’s this cold, and yet he insists on staying outside. That strikes me as even stranger. Helen… are you truly certain about Gunter? He can barely stand being in the same space as you.”
“In his own way, it’s rather endearing.”
Sophia let out a hollow laugh. No one who’d seen Gunter’s height and build would dare say such a thing aloud. Sol made a face as though he might be sick.
“I can’t tell if it’s the carriage motion making me nauseous or your words.”
Helen made an effort to kick Sol’s foot from beneath the blanket.
Sophia looked at Helen and Sol.
“Stay close to Gunter. If anything feels dangerous or suspicious, tell him at once. If something seems off about how things are unfolding, stay near Gunter. Do you understand? You shouldn’t have had to suffer like this.”
“Suffering? I’m thrilled. I’m going to the scene of an incident. You said Oberon is quite suspicious. Now that I think about it, his letters became rare the moment you returned to Ariel.”
When Sophia looked at Helen with curious eyes, Helen nodded and continued.
“When the Academy was at its quietest, his letters stopped entirely—does that make sense? He was clearly approaching me with intent. The fact that he grew distant when you weren’t in the Capital, then resumed contact the moment I arrived in Ariel proves it.”
Sol spoke as if exasperated.
“Have you never considered he just dislikes you?”
Helen said nothing and yanked Sol’s blanket hard. As they wrestled over it, Helen spoke.
“Once we arrive, we’ll see how he acts. He’ll have heard the rumors about the salt mine by now. If he treats me differently than he treats your sister, then he’s plotting something.”
“Didn’t you just say there’s not a man alive without schemes?”
At Sol’s words, both Helen and Sophia nodded.
“That’s true enough.”
There had never been a plan to bring them along. Yet Pina, Helen, and Gunter had all opposed Sophia going alone.
Moreover, if only Sophia and Gunter traveled to Oberon, they would grow suspicious. So at Pina’s suggestion, Helen had joined them. Helen, of course, had wanted to come along as well.
“Since he approached me first, I should go to Oberon too. After all, he came to Ariel to see my face.”
And Sol had attached himself to the group besides.
“You can’t send just Sophia and Helen. I want to go too. I’ve never seen a harbor before, and I’m quite good at playing the spoiled child who wanders around sightseeing.”
Helen gave him a skeptical look.
“You’re really just going to see the harbor?”
Sol replied.
“See? Even Helen fell for it.”
Thanks to Pina and her attendant’s approval, the party of four had been formed: Sophia, Helen, Sol, and their guardian Gunter.
Sophia had certainly abandoned any thought of risky maneuvers on account of Helen and Sol. She could guess why Baron Ariel had not objected to their accompanying her.
‘He trusts I won’t put them in danger.’
Sophia reviewed her plan once more. It would be best to meet with the Oberon Marquis Regent or the Oberon Marquis rather than Lord Oberon, and to broach the subject of the salt mine and the betrothal.
‘I’ll casually mention my concern that the salt mine lies too close to Saturn. If the broken engagement damages the cooperation between Ariel and Umbriel, how will Oberon respond?’
The complications that might arise from provoking Oberon made Sophia tense anew. Disputes between Saturn and Ariel quickly turned to armed conflict. Yet on the other hand, it would be solid proof that Oberon was Saturn’s puppet.
‘The reward for capturing a traitor is territory.’
The news she’d let slip to Oberon might well bring an emissary from Saturn to Ariel under the guise of a field investigation.
‘If an emissary comes, would they go to the Capital first? Could it be Wiscom? Wiscom betraying the Empire? Is he that foolish? Though it would be amusing if Saturn’s emissary crossed the Titania Mountains directly.’
Among the suppositions Sophia and Baron Ariel had made was that Cressida might be directing Oberon to topple Umbriel and Prince Robert.
If Saturn could be used to eliminate Prince Robert, wasn’t it precisely the sort of gambit Cressida would attempt?
Sophia and her family were finding it difficult to reason out Oberon’s motivations. Even Baron Ariel had said so.
“He covets an impoverished place like Ariel to raise his rank? Either he’s deficient or mad.”
Sophia wanted to see the Oberon Marquis. She was curious what sort of person could move toward a single objective for decades.
While lost in such thoughts, the carriage arrived at the gates of Oberon Castle. The Marquis’s stronghold lay near the harbor. From the watchtower, one could likely see the ships moving in and out of Oberon Harbor.
Sophia opened the window again. She heard Helen sigh beside her. But soon Helen opened her own window and looked out.
As befitted a domain that had accumulated wealth over centuries, the avenues and roads were well-maintained. The castle stood tall and was meticulously kept, and great mansions lined its flanks—not unlike the ancestral seat of a marquess she’d seen during her travels through the Central Region.
Helen let out a gasp of wonder.
“Oh my! Oberon does look quite prosperous, doesn’t he? I really should be kind to Lord Oberon.”
Gunter, sitting beside the coachman, flinched. To Sophia’s ear, she could almost hear him sigh.
‘No matter how much the Emperor trusts him, there’s bound to be a significant difference in wealth between an Inspector and a noble’s son.’
Helen had little interest in wealth itself, but she was constantly gushing with admiration to provoke Gunter. As if responding to her, Gunter continued to flinch at each exclamation she made.

***

The carriage finally came to a halt at the entrance of Oberon Castle. Lord Oberon stepped forward to greet the party.
Lord Oberon’s attire dazzled the eye once more. It was an outfit that seemed to prove his wealth through his clothing—a coat with gleaming gold buttons and lustrous fur trim, shoes polished so brilliantly they hurt to look at.
During the carriage ride, Sophia had been unable to sit still and had fidgeted constantly, and now her dress was wrinkled terribly—a source of great embarrassment.
She brushed away the wrinkles from her dress hem with her hand and descended from the carriage. Lord Oberon greeted the party with a radiant smile. Sophia had to admit it.
‘He’s handsome.’
Sophia glanced at Helen, but Helen was smiling and stealing glances at Gunter. Gunter was frowning as he looked at Lord Oberon’s face.
Sophia shook her head. Helen enjoyed Gunter’s suffering even as she professed to care for him.
Behind Lord Oberon stood a man older, heavier, and with a more languid expression than him—Oberon Marquis Regent, the elder brother of Lord Oberon and the firstborn son of the Oberon Marquis.
The Marquis Regent wore simpler clothes than Lord Oberon, but his fingers sparkled with jeweled rings far larger than his nails.
Sophia thought that if she married Oberon, she would be able to spend money without restraint. But besides these two, no other family members of the castle had appeared.
‘No wife, no children visible… Was the Marquis ill? Why is the welcome so sparse?’
Lord Oberon spoke.
“This is my elder brother, the Marquis Regent. Just call him the Marquis Regent. In my Territory, I scarcely hear even the word ‘Lord,’ so I would appreciate it if you all called me Lord Oberon without hesitation. Please, do not hold back.”
Sophia found his explanation intriguing. Though he spoke in jest, there seemed to be a note of sincerity beneath his words.
‘A second son overshadowed by his elder brother… But would he be without ambition? Or perhaps he is seething with it instead.’
Sophia curtsied and spoke.
“Thank you for the invitation, Lord Oberon. I hope we are not imposing.”
The Marquis Regent stepped forward and spoke. His voice was as weighty as his bearing.
“Imposing? Surely Baron Ariel is well? My father suffers from the infirmities of age and cannot engage in outside activities, and I, merely a Regent, lack the standing to visit and maintain relations with other lords as I should. I fear our connection with the neighboring nobles has grown distant. Please convey my apologies to Baron Ariel.”
Sophia thought his excuse for having ignored Umbriel and Ariel all this time was quite fitting.
Sophia looked around and spoke.
“Are the rest of your family inside?”
The Marquis Regent replied with a regretful expression.
“My wife has taken all the children on a journey to the Southern Region, which is why we receive you in such modest circumstances. I beg your understanding. My brother and I maintain the castle each winter. The Marquis has not risen from his seat for some time now, I’m afraid, and I ask your forgiveness.”
“I wish for the Marquis’s swift recovery.”
The Marquis Regent offered his thanks and led the party inside.
The party was shown to their respective rooms. After a brief rest, there came the evening welcome banquet. The Oberon Marquis Regent attended it with an utterly humorless expression.
From the Marquis Regent’s demeanor to the table itself, all was bleak and barren. Lord Oberon, as if apologizing for his brother’s attitude, smiled throughout and attended to Helen, Pina, and Sophia.
Gunter was absent from the banquet. It was customary, he said, for an Inspector not to attend such gatherings.

***

That night, after the welcome banquet had ended, Sophia sat before the fireplace in exhaustion when Helen came to find her. Helen, too, seemed tired as she settled herself beside Sophia.
Helen spoke.
“Before the banquet this evening, Lord Oberon asked me something. He wanted to know if there really is a Salt Mine in Ariel. So I told him yes. I said we’ve already begun production.”
“That’s unexpected. I thought he’d ask me instead. I was planning to bring it up quietly when meeting with the Marquis Regent or the Marquis. But looking at the Marquis Regent’s attitude, he doesn’t seem inclined to engage with me at all. The betrothal itself—he only goes through the motions. He doesn’t seem interested at all.”
Helen opened her mouth cautiously.
“This is something I heard, though… well, my friend said she couldn’t guarantee its truth, so please just take it as hearsay.”
When Helen began like this, it was usually gossip she’d picked up from her friends. Sophia leaned forward slightly. Helen, too, leaned toward Sophia and spoke in a whisper.
“After hearing about how Lord Oberon danced with me before, my friend offered to look into it. Apparently, before he approached me, Lord Oberon only ever approached young noblewomen from Count and Marquis families. So I asked her to find out in detail who he approached and why he failed to achieve betrothals or marriages with them.”
“That was the friend whose family runs the publishing house, wasn’t it? Can a publishing house really uncover such things?”
“You remember all those scandal novels and gossip about nobles that flooded the market before? Since then, every magazine house has been collecting rumors about noble families. It’s like they maintain not just a directory of noble names, but a scandal encyclopedia. Every major magazine has one.”
“Really? That’s impressive. So Lord Oberon went after noblewomen from families of even higher rank than the Marquis.”
Helen nodded.
“Since Lord Oberon is a second son, he can’t inherit a title, so it seems he only pursued young noblewomen from families that could grant him one. Oberon is respectable enough—wealthy and noble. He was aiming for young noblewomen from families with even higher titles than the Marquis.”
“So why hasn’t he been betrothed to anyone yet?”
“Well… it seems Lord Oberon prefers men. There are even rumors he was Philip Wiscom’s ex-lover.”

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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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