“If you keep joking around, you’ll lose the opportunity you’ve been given. It’s cold outside, so please go inside.”

“…Nonsense, it’s summer.”

“Still, it’s not good to be exposed to the wind for too long.”

And Idren retied her clothes. Ophelia looked down as he skillfully tied a tight knot.

“I’ll be going then.”

“…Alright.”

After replying, she had nothing more to say, so Ophelia simply stepped back. Salode was already waiting impatiently behind her for his turn. He seemed to have something to say separately before the other left.

Returning closer to the castle gate and looking back, she immediately met Idren’s eyes.

Whether he had been looking at her while talking to the financial advisor, the man immediately said something. Reading his hand gestures and lip movements, it seemed to be something like “Please go inside.”

To be honest, she wanted to watch until he left, but if she stayed outside after being urged several times, she would look like someone anxiously waiting alone.

No matter how much she cared about him, she didn’t want to appear that way, so Ophelia turned her back. She could always look down from the castle walls anyway.

Hurrying up to the walls to look, Idren was still talking with his financial advisor. While he had only exchanged a few words with her before dismissing her, the man seemed to have a lot to say to the financial advisor he had been meeting with daily recently.

Looking down at the two men conversing, Ophelia realized she hadn’t told him to have a safe journey. It had been so long since she had wished for someone else’s well-being that she had forgotten.

Of course, she hadn’t said such awkward things in her past life either.

Back then, Idren hadn’t said anything to her about the war. So Ophelia heard the news of her husband’s departure from the financial advisor’s mouth, not from the person himself.

She couldn’t remember what expression Salode Chesa had when he told her about the man’s departure, but Ophelia was certain his expression hadn’t been very good.

Salode was originally quite loyal to his king. Not just him, but all of Chesa’s people were deeply attached to Idren.

Among them, Salode was the only one who would clash with her.

Among the royalist nobles who didn’t like her but didn’t openly oppose her, Salode was the only one who had snidely remarked to her a few times. Even that was wrapped in a veneer of politeness.

It was technically disrespectful, but Ophelia didn’t mind. After all, wasn’t the marriage a losing deal for them from the start? A queen who wasn’t particularly helpful in any way was bound to be an eyesore.

Anyway, in her past life, after hearing about her husband’s departure from Salode, Ophelia had gone to see Idren off. It wasn’t because they were close, but because as the wife of the king leaving the castle, she couldn’t not go out to greet him.

She didn’t remember well the conversation they had then, but it was probably stiffer than now. Something like “I’ll be going,” “Yes.” That sort of exchange.

Past conversations with Idren were all like that. He was always polite and never asked for anything.

According to Idren’s claim, he liked her even back then, but Ophelia hadn’t felt it much. The inner thoughts of a man she wasn’t close to were none of her business.

If he really liked her, he should have approached her. As she looked down at her husband below the castle walls, Ophelia thought unconsciously. Idren was now mounting his horse, having finished his conversation.

She ducked her head a little, inwardly concerned if he would look up at the walls, but Idren didn’t look back until the end. It was as if he didn’t expect her to be looking down.

Although there was no need or reason to feel hurt, Ophelia furrowed her brow slightly at the uncomfortable scene. How foolish. She thought as she followed his figure with her eyes until it was almost hidden by the people following him.

In truth, that harsh judgment was justified. Ophelia couldn’t understand the man who suddenly acted mature at times like this, when at other times he would cry and complain that it was too much.

If he was going to cling, he should just cling; if he was going to act pitiful, he should just act pitiful. Acting neither here nor there like that, wasn’t he always failing to get his fair share?

Well, wasn’t he a man who couldn’t get his share from the beginning? She had been thinking lately that Idren’s behavior had been wrong from the start.

Saying he had liked her since before they were married, he had never shown any sign of it throughout their married life in the past.

It was just a selfish thought, considering it was uncertain whether she would have accepted it if Idren had acted like this back then, but Ophelia didn’t care.

So what if it was selfish? She was bound to always appear selfish to that man anyway.

Even as her mind was in turmoil, the procession steadily moved away. When the familiar back finally disappeared from view, Ophelia turned around. A breeze that would be cold compared to the south, but was lukewarm for Edegrun, brushed her cheeks.

Feeling that breeze, Ophelia thought she would like it to get colder soon. For some unknown reason, it felt like that would make her feel better.

Salode Chesa was the type of person who didn’t regret the choices he made.

Such people usually fell into two categories: those who were cautious and made the best choice after sufficient deliberation before deciding, or those who were arrogant enough not to doubt that their choice was the best.

Salode was a person with an appropriate mix of these two types. He was cautious at crucial moments, and arrogant after the time for caution had passed.

Fortunately, he had enough self-confidence to avoid others’ suspicions, talent to support that confidence, and morality to control that talent.

However, the strongest thing among what he possessed was a longing for an ideal world, compared to which the previous three were nothing.

Of course, Salode knew that he was obsessively attached to his ideals. Whether it was acquired or innate, that standard sometimes pushed him to the point of difficulty.

It usually put him in front of difficult dilemmas that were hard to choose from.

For example, as it did on a certain day about two years ago.

That year, Edegrun had an unusually high number of people who died from cold and starvation, and unlike the impoverished streets, the royal family was more prosperous than ever. That disparity, clear even to those standing on either side, was very visible to his eyes that moved between both sides.

Salode advised his mother, the head of the family, to make a remonstrance, but she disagreed. The reason was that as the head of the family, she should think more about the family.

It was a reasonable choice from her perspective, as the Chesa territory with its silver mine that seemed inexhaustible had no one dying of hunger even during the economic downturn.

It was a bit difficult for him to agree, though.

However, since he couldn’t do something that the family head didn’t agree with, Salode just did some poor relief a few times and that was it.

Getting acquainted with the royal household’s chief steward was a coincidence. Because beggars gathered most in front of the royal palace, he went there most frequently, and in doing so, he encountered the royal household’s chief steward a few times.

The chief steward with a face full of wrinkles also often came out to the castle gate with relief supplies. And then he would just serve silently and go back in.

But unlike the elderly man, Salode was young, so he eventually became irritated with the endless relief activities.

At that time, he was somewhat young – growth usually stays stagnant for a long time and then proceeds all at once – so he immediately approached the chief steward and asked.

“Aren’t you tired of this?”

The man didn’t answer. However, Salode, who had realized after months of relief that there was no answer in this system, was more persistent than his silence. He followed the chief steward wherever he went and talked to him.

“No matter how much we distribute supplies, nothing changes.”

Of course, the royal household’s chief steward continued to ignore him. Salode didn’t give up and always spoke one more time than the number of times he was ignored.

Until one day, when he got an answer.

“Then what do you think needs to change?”

The answer came out neatly and clearly.

“First, we need to reduce taxes.”

“Tell me why you think so.”

“Excessive tax collection drives people onto the streets, and we can’t collect taxes from those on the streets, so the taxes on those remaining are even more excessively collected, aren’t they?”

“Then how do you plan to lower the tax rate?”

“Well, first, those in official positions should remonstrate with His Majesty the King.”

That was the only way he had learned so far to correct wrong choices made at the very top.

However, the old man who should be closest to serving the royal family and should be the guardian of those rules was skeptical.

“There are things in this world that don’t change just by talking.”

And the chief steward disappeared for a while. Salode went to the castle gate several times to meet him again, but always returned empty-handed.

The chief steward reappeared about a month later, when the cold was at its worst. It was enough time to become dissatisfied with the increasingly excessive reign of the royal family, like the daily changing cold.

The old man told him.

“There is an army.”

It was a sentence without a subject, but it wasn’t difficult to understand. Salode asked.

“Who agreed to provide it?”

“Soer in the north.”

“Soer, ha, do you think the situation there is different from Edegrun?”

Soer was famous for always being hungry. The weather was cold, the land was poor with no decent harvest, and all human and material resources were consumed in border defense.

“It’s different. They have an army there. We just need to bring in money.”

“From where?”

Then the old man just stared at him without answering. Salode let out a hollow laugh as he read the meaning of that gaze.

“You’re crazy.”

However, that night, he eventually laid hands on his mother’s safe.