Charlotte Sorofya looked at the starry sky above, her heart throbbing in unease.

  It had been five days since her convoy had left Rosa’s boundaries. She had passed through the Worun Mountain Range to arrive at the southern area of the Ascart Fiefdom.

  As a noble house that had no lack of money, the Sorofyas’ convoy naturally stood out from the others. The convoy consisted of a long procession of opulent carriages protected by an army of 500 soldiers.

  These soldiers were professionals coming from a heretical mercenary band known throughout Sia for its prowess in defensive warfare, and they were in a long-term contract with Rosa. These soldiers possessed the Unyielding Origin Attribute, which was said to have come from the ancient Goddess of Earth. However, it was said that the Goddess of Earth had already passed away in the First Epoch, so the risk of these soldiers falling into depravity was very low, making them trustworthy.

  Most of the famous mercenary bands on Sia were made up of heretical organizations as mercenary was one of the few proper jobs that heretics could take on.

  Most of them wouldn’t take on any mission that involved entering the territory of the Saint Mesit Theocracy, but as the famous saying goes, ‘There’s nothing that money cannot solve, and if there is, it only means that you aren’t using enough money’.

  Given that the person to be escorted this time around was the First Miss of the Sorofya House, the budget allocated for this mission was more than ample—to be more exact, it was ten times more than any escort mission commissioned by any other noble houses. On top of that, the mission itself wasn’t dangerous either, and the destination not too far away.

  In view of the low risks, the mercenaries of the Unyielding Sect weren’t in a good position to turn down a request coming from their long-term customers. It would be foolish to refuse a request from their biggest customers, and besides…… who in their right mind would turn down easy money?

  The mercenaries were expensive to employ, but equally expensive were the personal items that Charlotte carried around with her. It was extravagance beyond the imagination of most people in this world, and that was including nobles as well.

  Consider this, it was not just Charlotte who was traveling here but her entire house.

  Charlotte’s mobile house was known as the ‘Diamond Rivière’, and it was made up of 16 carriages. Every single one of these carriages contained an independent room, be it her bedroom, study, lounge, kitchen, and even the garden she preferred to have her afternoon tea in. Whenever she traveled, these 16 carriages would always be with her.

  However, if that was all, it would be far from enough to blow the minds of the nobles. After all, most major nobles could easily afford 16 large carriages.

  The main reason why the Sorofyas’ Diamond Rivière Convoy was famed across the entire world was because of the amazing magic engineering done on these carriages. Each of these carriages had a door, and these doors were interconnected with one another.

  To make an example, for an ordinary carriage convoy, if one was in the study and suddenly felt like resting, the entire convoy would have to come to a halt so that one could alight from the study carriage to board the bedroom carriage.

  The Diamond Rivière Convoy, on the other hand, had no such limitation. It was almost as if one was truly in one’s own home, able to travel freely from room to room without any hassle.

  So, unless Charlotte were to walk out of the carriage herself, it wouldn’t even feel like she was out on a journey. To travel without feeling like traveling, that was the dream.

  Right now though, Charlotte had voluntarily stepped out of the carriage to gaze at the stars above. The auburn-haired girl didn’t carry her usual air of confidence and decisiveness; instead, she looked confused and weak even.

  Marriage was not something that could be taken lightly by a girl, but political marriage happened to be the norm in Sia. When the interests of the noble houses came first, personal feelings could only be placed second. As a result, the only things that really mattered in a political marriage were one’s background and the benefits that both noble houses could get out of a bond of marriage.

  Charlotte feared her engagement. The thought of having to marry a man she had never met before was frightening, so it was only natural for her to reject it.

  The examples she had seen around her did nothing to change her mind at all. She didn’t think that it was possible for happiness to come out of something so pragmatic and unsentimental, and alas, her mother was the best example.

  Her mother was born from a prominent noble house in the Austine Empire, but she ended up marrying her father, Bruce Sorofya, in a political marriage seeking to alleviate the stiff relationship between Austine and Rosa.

  Admittedly, the goal was achieved, but the price paid was Charlotte’s fragmented family.

  Charlotte’s mother was a bloodline purist, believing that the Austine Empire was the natural ruler of the continent, which resulted in her prejudices against Rosa. Even after giving birth to Charlotte, she refused to raise her daughter personally. In fact, a few years later, she broke up with Bruce and returned back to her country.

  It was not to say that Charlotte’s childhood was all bad—her father treated her very well, and they shared a tight bond with one another. However, when it came to her mother, all she remembered was the stern-faced woman staring at her when she visited Austine a few years ago.

  The misfortunes weren’t just limited to her own immediate family. The Sorofyas was a huge house, and many of Charlotte’s relatives had suffered similar fates. Back in Bruce’s generation, in order to expand Rosa’s influence, each and every member of the Sorofya House had to bear the duty of going through a political marriage.

  One of Charlotte’s aunts suffered domestic violence, resulting in her suffering partial blindness in a single eye even to this day. A cousin of hers had a philandering husband who often spent his days in brothels, leaving her to spend her nights alone in a large, cold room.

  Nobles might appear to be dignified on the surface, but they were just as fallible as any other mortal. There were only so few people who could truly be considered upright and virtuous.

  With plenty of such examples around her, how could Charlotte not be terrified?

  But, despite the fears looming in her heart, she was still grasping onto a spark of hope.

  “Charlotte, your engagement was decided a hundred years ago. A hundred years later, the two of you happened to be born in the same year. Perhaps, this could be the calling of fate.”


  Bruce’s words echoed inside the young girl’s mind, creating ripples in her heart.

  Fate.

  This was a word that carried special connotations in the Sorofya House. It was said that the first generation of High Elves served the Goddess of Fate, and they were able to clearly discern the ley lines of the future. That was also the origin of divination spells and prophecies.

  This word had a special charm that moved Charlotte’s heart, even if just a little. It spurred feelings of anticipation that a young girl of her age would have.

  What if the young man who had become her fiancé wasn’t that horrible of a person?

  While there were horrible rumors surrounding Roel in the past, all of this changed two years ago. The evaluations of him in the Sorofyas’ investigation reports had been steadily improving over time, and there was no denying the massive contribution he had brought to the Ascart Fiefdom through his wise policies.

  Surely, it shouldn’t be a bad thing to at least meet him, right?

  At the very least, her fiancé was someone of the same age as herself, not some 30-year-old prince from another country.

  Charlotte didn’t expect too much out of her fiancé’s appearance, and she was fine with him being weak too. As long as he was an upright, honest, and kind man who could bring her the happiness of a harmonious family, she would be willing to give it a try with him.

  For that, she even dispatched her personal maid ahead of time to check on him.

  “Grace, you have to make sure to take a close look at him.”


  Under the night sky, the voice of the young girl drifted far away.