Chosen by the Northern Grand Duke

Chapter 14: Imprisonment

An Otherworld mage attacked the plaza.

Someone said it was 4th Rank.

A familiar face. The 2nd Knights’ commander.

An Otherworld mage infiltrated downtown Serzila? Elaine was shocked. At the same time, she realized this was a lucid dream.

Because she saw herself in it.

The 2nd Knights’ commander was reporting to that Elaine and the Grand Duke.

Tracing back, we found a tunnel connected to the Border. Beneath a tavern called Flower District’s underbelly.

Elaine’s eyes widened further.

The commander was talking about the tunnel Ellen and I found last night.

This wasn’t just a random dream.

The dream was grounded in reality.

May we investigate the tunnel? I plan to cross and see where it leads.

Leave it.

The Grand Duke dismissed it.

Because of the imperial decree. Serzila wasn’t free to roam the Border.

She knew why, but it didn’t feel good.

The Elaine in the dream looked displeased too.

The 2nd Knights’ commander seemed to share the sentiment.

His steps were rough as he left the Grand Duke’s mansion.

The scene flowed like wind.

The commander led his knights. They were underground, before the tunnel, exactly as I saw last night.

For some reason, I was there too.

Is this really okay?

A knight asked the commander.

I was trembling, terrified, watching the knights.

Does he look like one of us? Useful if we get him, a pity if he dies. His Grace approved.

The commander used the Grand Duke’s name.

How dare he. Elaine was furious, but there was nothing she could do. It was a dream.

Get in. Go through to the other side.

The commander shoved me into the tunnel.

Go, hostage brat.

A knight kicked my backside. Elaine knew his face.

I went in. My backside popped out again. Another warrior poked me with a scabbard.

Don’t go now, and I’ll hang you on a cross.

I crawled.

Idiot.

A knight shouted at the entrance.

The jeer echoed.

The perspective shifted. I was visible.

Crying in the tunnel, hands clamped over my mouth, afraid of being heard.

That’s Harad?

Elaine found the sight jarring.

The Harad she knew wasn’t like that.

I lingered, then started crawling. How long passed? Light and snow fell into the tunnel.

A white wilderness. A blizzard obscuring everything. Blade-like winds from the Otherworld.

The same Otherworld Ellen experienced last night.

Not entirely nonsense.

The dream was indeed based on reality.

Proof: I didn’t feel the cold.

The wind tore my clothes to rags, but not my skin.

An act.

Seeing me reach the Border, Elaine was certain.

I was pretending to be weak to get there.

Now I’d head to the orange river and hunt the rag-beast upstream.

But suddenly, I cried harder.

Father. Mother.

I didn’t go to the river.

I just crouched, sobbing.

When thirsty, I ate snow.

The sun set and rose quickly.

A minute felt like a day. On the fifteenth sunrise, a black figure appeared in the blizzard.

Shockingly, the Grand Duke.

A waste of an Origin.

He said, dragging the sleeping me back to the Inner Fortress like a corpse.

The carriage stopped.

“Grand Heir, good work.”

Mores, waiting for Elaine’s return, opened the door.

“What a dream.”

Elaine laughed, dumbfounded.

She returned to the mansion, washed, and left the Inner Fortress.

“What? Who?”

Then she heard I’d been imprisoned.

“How?”

Not someone you could just capture.

***

The prison was narrow and cold.

No bugs, but sitting on the floor felt like frostbite.

Not a problem for me.

I never felt cold, only heat. The higher my rank, the hotter it got.

“Damn, it’s freezing.”

A prisoner across from me spoke.

Caught in the act for smashing his wife’s abuser’s skull.

“Wear this.”

I tossed him my coat.

“Is that okay?”

“I don’t feel cold.”

“Thanks.”

He layered my coat over his.

“When you getting out?”

“When the guy I fought wakes up.”

“If he dies?”

“I’ll still get out.”

The man chuckled.

“Weakness is a sin here.”

Weakness meant death. A Northern truth.

Weak Northerners could be mocked. It fueled their drive to grow.

“They do check crimes. That’s why I’ll get out. He started it. Self-defense.”

The man was confident.

I thought so too. He was innocent. Regardless of the fight’s severity, it was mutual.

“But why’d they grab you? Don’t look like a fighter.”

“Don’t know. Got caught to find out.”

“Crazy bastard?”

He chuckled again.

He laughed easily. Maybe still drunk.

“Since we’re here, let’s exchange names. I’m Carlson.”

“I’m…”

“Harad!”

A voice cut in. I pointed through the bars without looking.

“That’s my name.”

“What? Not a crazy bastard?”

My cellmate thought I had backing.

“Seems so.”

Footsteps approached, rough.

Elaine appeared before the bars.

‘Must’ve been shocked.’

I expected Ellen.

“Grand Heir!”

Carlson, recognizing Elaine, bowed deeply.

Elaine acknowledged him curtly and glared at me. She looked shocked.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Got caught.”

“Why?”

“About to find out.”

“What the… Get out. We’ll talk outside.”

Elaine unlocked the bars.

Go? I hesitated.

If it was Ellen, I’d have gone without thinking.

‘I need to find the informant.’

I had to keep my distance from Elaine.

Couldn’t discuss the tunnel either.

“Not coming?”

“Coming.”

I stepped out.

With Ellen, maybe, but with Elaine, I was firmly the underdog.

“Uh, I…”

“Keep the coat.”

I gestured to the nervous Carlson. Elaine snorted.

“Made a friend already?”

“A friend who knocked out a wife-abuser.”

“Good friend. Didn’t kill him.”

I followed Elaine to the surface. The 3rd Squad Leader who arrested me bowed deeply.

I met his eyes, memorized his face, and left the guard building.

“Dream. Did you have one last night?”

“…That’s how you greet people?”

“With strangers, yeah.”

I’d asked Ellen the same question when we first met.

‘Come to think of it, I didn’t ask Ellen yesterday.’

No need to anymore.

Elaine, though reluctant, nodded.

“I did dream.”

“What about?”

“Oddly, you again. Must’ve made an impression.”

Double meaning.

“There was a strange tunnel underground. You crawled through it. Led to the Border.”

My eyes glinted.

When the 2nd Knights’ commander forced me through the tunnel.

A future that won’t happen this time.

If we seal that tunnel, the Otherworld’s plaza attack won’t either.

‘Not just our meetings.’

Because I used the return stone.

Elaine, who fed it her blood, saw my memories too.

‘Not thrilled about that.’

I grimaced.

Elaine knew everything about me, but still…

Hearing it was one thing; seeing it was another. My frail days were embarrassing even to me.

“You were crying your eyes out.”

“It’s a dream.”

“I know. But quite a sight.”

Mocking me already, without even remembering.

How bad would it get if she did?

I didn’t want to think about it.

“How was the hunt?”

I changed the subject.

“How’d you know?”

“Overheard maids on the way.”

“Very meaningful time.”

Elaine’s face said otherwise.

Full of complaints.

‘No fun.’

The knights’ patrol range was safe.

Always the same spots, hardly any beasts.

‘Her standards are higher now.’

Elaine thrived on battle’s thrill.

After tasting the real Border, how could that be fun?

“Why were you caught? You’ve got the seal.”

Serzila’s seal was near-omnipotent in the North. You could go anywhere, do anything short of a crime.

I stared at Elaine.

She stood, staring back.

‘No tact at this point.’

I clicked my tongue inwardly.

If I were Elaine, I’d have left pretending to be busy and returned as Ellen. That’d make conversation easier.

“How much do you know?”

I had no choice but to ask.

Spelling it out for her to take.

“…Ah. I heard roughly through the Intelligence Bureau.”

Elaine took it, surprisingly.

‘Not completely tactless.’

Still clueless for going along so easily, but whatever…

Her moderate cluelessness was convenient for me.

“From Ellen?”

“Yeah. You went to the Border with her. The tunnel from my dream.”

Elaine spoke openly.

Same mindset as Ellen. Confident she wouldn’t be caught.

“No complaints? Border trespassing’s execution.”

“The one who gave you the seal rules this land. If he’s fine with it, how could I touch you?”

Why Ellen loathed but didn’t suspect me.

Because Grand Duke Aratus made me a hostage and gave me the seal.

“Going again today?”

Elaine asked subtly.

“Was planning to, but probably not.”

“Why?”

“The tunnel’s exposed. Got caught there.”

“What?”

Elaine’s pupils shook wildly.

“Can’t use that tunnel now.”

“…”

Elaine slumped.

Like she’d lost the North itself.

***

How much time passed?

“I’m going. Unfinished business.”

Elaine snapped out of it and left hurriedly.

Soon, Ellen appeared.

“What’s this about the tunnel being exposed?”

The switch took less than a minute.

I was dumbfounded.

‘So little effort.’

Is that how you hide?

‘Where’d she change?’

Probably a Bureau safehouse nearby.

With Ellen as the only agent, she likely used it like home.

Or had a dedicated one, special treatment.

‘The latter.’

I eyed Ellen’s Bureau attire and spoke.

“As you heard. Someone reported me. The guards came and took me.”

“Why get caught? You’ve got the seal.”

Ellen repeated her unresolved question.

“Didn’t show it.”

“You got caught on purpose?”

I nodded.

“The hair in the doorframe was gone. But no traces inside. Someone opened it just to look.”

“Who?”

“Someone who knew the Flower District owner’s identity. Ally or rival.”

Probably not an ally.

The owner was a small-time broker.

If an Otherworld mage hadn’t used that tunnel, it wouldn’t be in my memory.

“Maybe they watched me enter and reported me.”

“Could’ve been someone else.”

“Aren’t you an outsider like me?”

Ellen frowned, as if to say, What nonsense?

“Who reports in the North? They handle it themselves.”

“Oh, right.”

Ellen got it instantly.

“Your job’s to find the informant.”

“Why me?”

“You’re Intelligence Bureau, right?”

“…Right.”

“Dig into the 3rd Squad Leader.”

The leader who took the report was suspicious.

Normally, he’d have chewed out the informant for reporting something like that. That’s the North.

“Got it.”

“Can you do it? If it’s tough, ask someone trustworthy.”

“I can do it.”

Ellen replied, stung.

Expected. I knew Elaine was bad at this. Her strength was always swordplay.

‘Oh, and punching.’

Anyway…

Ellen would call someone.

A real agent skilled with information.

“What’ll you do? Not going to the tunnel, right?”

“Can’t. By now, it’s probably reported to His Grace.”

Ellen paled.

She feared the Grand Duke. More like felt burdened.

“I’ll handle the report.”

“You?”

“Probably no big deal.”

I said that, but I was certain.

I knew exactly what Serzila wanted.

“I told you to report it earlier.”

“…Me?”

She loved it the most.