Rosie's Games

Chapter 133: Bandits 1

Rosalind was lucky that she had died. Or at least that's what Rosie thought while staring at Fraunces. The woman had been staring at her for hours. Perhaps that was an exaggeration. In fact, Rosalind was just really too tired to count.

"Satisfied?" she asked Fraunces. "Dame Fraunces, I know that I am pretty but there is no need for you to stare at me like that."

"What are you?"

"A primordial beast in human's skin?" Rosalind said. josei

"You are not blessed. Your hair is somewhat different than those Lux people."

Rosalind nodded but did not explain anything. She turned her head away. "Thanks to you, we were not able to gather enough food," Rosalind said. "Are you prepared to give your food to the maids?"

"If you did not burn the food, we would have food by now."

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

"The Duke will surely hear about this."

"You are too childish," Rosalind said. "No wonder the Duke refused to marry you."

"You— " Dame Fraunces touched the hilt of her sword. "How dare you."

"Am I speaking nonsense?"

"You do not know me."

"I do not need to know you enough to know that you are childish."

"You— "

Again, Rosalind turned her head away. Since that incident, Fraunces refused to leave her carriage and would use the pretense of guarding her against the beasts. Then the woman would spend her time staring at Rosalind as if… as if she wanted to open her skin and take a look at what was inside.

"Luckily, the Duke did not follow us," Tabatha who was staying with them to pour them tea and wine tried to defuse the situation. "I heard that despite not being a Duke yet, that man had been doing all sorts of tyrannical things, creating troubles for his father. Many merchants would talk about this in Wugari. They said that the Duke in Lonyth is quite troublesome."

"That man… I am going to castrate him one of these days," Fraunces said.

"I thought Wugari and Lonyth have a good relationship?" Rosalind chimed in. The three Kingdoms were known because of their alliance.

"What do you know? The books made from the south knew nothing! The blessed families only wanted to teach everyone the history that favors them." Fraunces said.

"Are you saying that Lonyth and Wugari are at cross with each other?"

"Not at that point at least. However, the current King of Lonyth had always wanted to form an alliance with Wugari. He wanted to marry the first princess, the sister of our current King since they were younger. Rumor has it that the Lonythian King already had two wives when he proposed the marriage alliance and thus our Wugarian King immediately declined. This caused some problems. Until now, the atmosphere between the two is considered tense."

"I am also quite familiar with these rumors," Tabatha said. "There were many songs in the streets about the King with two wives who wanted to marry our Princess."

Rosalind listened as the two women gossiped about the king of Lonyth. It was honestly very entertaining to listen to the locals of those places talk about the North. In the past, she had talked to emissaries from the North but they never talk about rumors or anything like that. They talk about business and the economy and more things that would cause her more headaches.

Thinking back, she never had anyone like this even in the past. The maids would never talk to her or even the soldiers working for her husband.

"As I was saying, the Duke of Lonyth is jealous of our Duke. After all, that man is already old and bald. Our Duke is young and handsome. No one would even dare to compare the two." Tabatha uttered. "Isn't that right Lieutenant?"

"Hmph!" Fraunces snorted. "What about you? Where did you come from? I heard this was the first time that you traveled since your parent's death?"

"I— " Rosalind blinked before she nodded. "Indeed. I spent my time praying for them to the goddess."

"You did what?"

"I— I burned paper and prayed to the goddess every day."

"You spent years praying to someone like that?" Fraunces said.

"Whatever do you mean?" Rosalind asked. Since meeting the Duke of the North, she had already met a lot of people who does not really believe in the goddess. This was the exact opposite in her past life.

Next to the Empress and the Emperor, Rosalind always heard about the miracles that the goddess did. She slowly hated the unbelievers while she solely believed in the goddess— the omnipotent goddess.

"The goddess… many people in the north no longer believe in her," Fraunces said sternly. "When in the north, you should not mention this matter to the other people. Many people in the north had lost their lives in the name of the goddess and then the people from the blessed families abandoned them. If the goddess was real, she would have already removed the blessing from those people who were not doing her will, no?"

Reasonable, Rosalind thought inwardly.

"The northerners have seen too much death. They no longer believe in some random god. If anything, they only believe in themselves."

"Not even the dark lord?" Rosalind asked.

"The dark lord is a different matter. There is an entirely different religion in the northern Kingdoms that is focused on trying to find where the blessed individuals sealed the dark lord. It has been hundreds of years and they still found nothing."

"A different religion huh…" Rosalind has heard of those people before. Many empires actually considered them terrorists because they tend to do some extreme things to try and kill more people in the name of the dark lord.

"The Empires had been hunting them but hunting them in the north can be very different as most of them can easily run around without a coat. They have lived in the north all their lives, their immunity to the cold is different than that of someone who came from the south."