The Tyrant's Daughter-in-Law Chapter 9

“Actually, I don’t know myself. I only know that when someone appeared to inherit my father’s will, the Marquis told me to show him this safe and then left.”

Adam looked at me with the same certainty he had when I declared I would rebuild the Marquis estate.

I narrowed my eyes and looked up at him.

“How can you be so sure there are things inside that qualify as assets?”

“It was something precious to the Marquis, and I know it has spiritual-ist value. And it could be something that helps the country greatly…”

Honestly, even to the most casual observer, it looked like a massive safe with the message ‘This one’s important!’ written all over it.

Spiritual-ist value.

From what I knew, the world had very few things related to spirits.

Because spiritism was almost entirely determined by the affinity of a spiritist’s spirit.

And if it was something that could help the country… what on earth could it be?

“What if I just break it open with a drill?”

I said, tapping the safe with my soft, chubby knuckles like tapping a tangerine.

Hum, it’s surprisingly hard.

“A drill?”

“A saw or something. Anything with physical force.”

But Adam shook his head at my words.

“It’s a safe made from mithril. Without the key, it’s absolutely impossible.”

“And that key is something I need to find.”

I hadn’t expected it to open easily, anyway.

Adam nodded like an NPC handing out quests.

“If you are the one who will inherit the Marquis’s will, you will undoubtedly find the key.”

Yeah, even just looking at Hugo’s oracle, I’d expected that nothing valuable would come into my hands easily.

“By the way, one is already in my possession.”

I looked up at Adam in slight surprise.

“For over ten years, while looking for someone to continue the Marquis’s will, I kept this carefully stored away.”

Adam smiled faintly and pulled a round stone from his pocket, handing it to me.

I caught the stone with both hands, my round eyes sparkling as I exclaimed,

“Whoa!”

The stone was a flat piece with a marbled pattern of brown and blue. It felt heavy and cool to the touch.

This was one of the three keys?

I inserted it into the slot, and with a sharp clink it fit perfectly.

“It fits perfectly! Now I just need to find the triangle and square ones, right?”

Since I’d received one from Adam, two remained.

“I have a pretty good guess where one of the remaining two is.”

Adam continued.

“It’s in the Grand Duchy of the Northern Territory, the Marquis’s ancestral home.”

“I heard you stored it there.”

I recalled what I’d heard about the Northern Territory.

A land of eternal blizzards where you only saw snow no matter how far you went.

As you fought through the powerful predators of the ice fields—the monsters known as White Bears—you eventually saw the towering ice walls that seemed to touch the sky.

There, there were iron-blooded soldiers in armor made of metal that neither rusted nor froze.

And the ruler of the Northern Territory: the Maila Grand Duke.

They were as cold as ice and merciless, dividing people only into enemies or allies.

‘I never knew my dad was the son of the Northern Grand Duke.’

The description of the Maila Grand Duchy in the web novel had been the typical Northern Grand Duke, but our dad, the second son of the Northern Grand Duke…

‘He looked so soft and round. Not at all like a person from the Northern Grand Duchy.’

At least in the portraits.

Well, the Northern Grand Duke didn’t necessarily have to father only Northern Grand Dukes.

The problem was that I had absolutely no idea how they would view me.

My dad had already left the Grand Duchy and received the title of Marquis in the Empire, and I had never met any of them since I was born.

My dad hadn’t met them either. Cousins?

“Did you say you contacted the Grand Duchy last time?”

“Yes. But there’s still no reply about the letter. Since it’s such an inaccessible place, it might take a while to arrive.”

“Then I’ll have to wait for the reply.”

Just thinking about meeting my grandfather and relatives made my stomach tighten.

I continued carefully.

“Then where do you think the remaining key is?”

“I believe one of the spiritists that the Marquis lived close to was entrusted with it.”

“A spiritist?”

“Yes. That’s why I contacted the newspaper and published an article about the young lady’s return to the capital. If the heir of the Maila Marquisate is back, the spiritist holding the key to the inheritance will respond to the young lady’s news.”

“Ah…”

Adam must have thought it through thoroughly as well.

“But since there’s no contact yet…”

“Yes. Either he’s a spiritist so distant from society that he hasn’t heard the news, or he doesn’t know what significance it holds for the Marquis. In truth, many spiritists have a personality that doesn’t care about outer-world gossip, so we might have to go looking for him ourselves.”

Adam spoke with a hint of difficulty.

‘No way. I can’t give up just yet!’

The fact that there was a safe and a key meant it was a quest to find it, right?

Even if it took time and effort, at some point I would open the safe.

“Both remaining keys are difficult to obtain right now. Keep looking for them, Adam.”

“Understood. Young lady.”

I stared at the safe with a pensive gaze.

What on earth was inside?

Beyond the towering wall in the open courtyard of the Grand Duke’s fortress, a newspaper blown by the blizzard was suddenly pierced through by a sharp blade rising into the sky.

The old man wore armor-like clothing, his white hair frosted and stiff from the snow, swaying faintly in the gale.

He slowly sheathed his sword, the newspaper impaled on the blade caught in his hand with a rustle.

His sharp, azure eyes followed the letters in the newspaper beneath the wall’s shadow.

A headline caught his gaze.

The daughter of the former Great Spiritist Marquis Heizen Maila, Arinell Maila (11), returns to the capital.

The black-and-white photograph, printed using alchemy, showed a young girl with a soft, cream-like face and hair tied in twin braids, smiling brightly.

For a long time he stared at the girl’s photo with his sharp, cold eyes.

“Your Highness the Grand Duke.”

“Your Highness the Grand Duke.”

A man and a woman in armor approached and, in turn, bowed their bodies to their lord in the strict etiquette of the Maila Grand Duchy family, placing their hands on their chests.

Their hair was as stiffly frozen as ice, and their gazes were as sharp as falcons.

“A letter has arrived.”

The woman in armor, her blonde hair tied in a ponytail, reported to the Grand Duke. Her voice was hoarse and rough.

“It’s… Heizen’s child.”

The man in armor beside her continued.

They were twins, the eldest son and daughter of the illustrious Maila Grand Duchy.

They were also masters of the hunt who had inherited the terrifying lineage of the Grand Duke, who had once pierced the thick hide of a monster called the White Bear with a single sword and ended its life.

Whoosh—

The fierce wind howled against the wall and froze the soldiers’ mustaches.

The Grand Duke, who had stood there for a long time with his dry lips pressed together, staring coldly at the newspaper as it froze, spoke.

“Send a reply. When summer comes, we will be there.”

Although the gentle season when the south wind blew had begun, the air in the north remained cool, and the era of the barbaric enemy’s dominance continued.

His sharp eyes were gleaming.