The Serpent of Paradise - Chapter 23

Mikhail stood on a hill and gazed across the endless plains. At one point on the plain within his line of sight, a crowd of people was moving about busily. Behind them, as they dug into the ground with pickaxes, ran a line crossing the plain. It was a railway.

Mikhail watched the railway being laid. The Central Plains of Novgod were still a place where hardly any humans ever set foot. Though vast, the land was too cold for crops to grow properly. The only things living there were moss-like plants that barely reached ankle height and the animals that fed on them.

Mikhail gazed across the plain and let out a short sigh. It was a familiar sight, but for some reason, he didn’t like it today. That dull green. Mikhail thought of a clear, bright green. A vivid color refreshing enough merely to imagine.

‘Where did I see it?’

Were the trees in Sokolov that color? Mikhail snorted. Since when was he the sort of person to become sentimental while thinking about colors?

His gaze swept across the dark green plain again.

Even this scenery was only visible because summer was approaching. Once winter arrived, everything would be buried beneath the snow. It was a place buried beneath cold that humans could hardly endure for more than half the year. Consequently, railway construction was only possible for the five months from spring to early autumn. That was why Novgod’s railway projects progressed so sluggishly.

Most of its primary trading partners lay to the west, and traveling by sea was faster, so the shipping industry flourished overwhelmingly more than the railway industry in Novgod. Railways were difficult to find anywhere in Novgod except the west, where its cities were concentrated. So when Mikhail first announced that he would build a railway across Novgod’s Central Plains, people reacted as though he were insane.

“Lord Mikhail!”

Igor was struggling up the hill below. As Mikhail watched him and lowered his head slightly, a dull pain rose from his right side.

“….”

Mikhail frowned. Igor reached the top of the hill, panting, and sighed when he saw Mikhail, as though he had expected this.

“For goodness’ sake, if you’ve been stabbed in the stomach, please rest in the carriage. Do you really have to come all the way here and supervise the work yourself? Sergei was grumbling about whether you didn’t trust him, so I only just managed to placate him by promising to send him five crates of good vodka.”

So that was apparently the bargain responsible for the loud voices he heard below. Mikhail looked at the shirt beneath his suit jacket. Red blood had already seeped out and stained the fabric.

“Look at that! I knew the wound would open again!”

When Igor spoke while raking his hands through his hair in irritation, Mikhail chuckled.

“Anyone who saw you would think you were the one who was injured.”

“It’s even more infuriating because I’m not the one who was injured! I should’ve loaded your food with sleeping drugs and dragged you straight back to Sokolov!”

At Igor’s grumbling, Mikhail looked toward his wound. He was injured a week ago.

‘I thought the Empress Dowager had been unusually quiet lately.’

While he was at Edenhurst, news arrived for him along with the boxes from Ilenka. The emperor suffered another seizure.

The Empress Dowager was extremely sensitive about the health of the emperor, who was the foundation of her power. Mikhail assumed she had grown anxious again, but he was attacked while inspecting a shipyard some distance from Sokolov.

It began with gunfire, and when that failed, it turned into hand-to-hand combat. The cold blade driven into his side left a deep wound and sharp pain. Without hesitation, Mikhail drew the dagger concealed inside his clothes and plunged it straight into his attacker’s neck.

‘An ambush, and they stab me in the side? They might as well be playing games.’

They should at least aim for the neck or the eyes.

Mikhail generously decided to dispose of the bodies as well. The previous night, Sergei dug three holes near the railway. He had done such an excellent job that although he clearly pointed out where they were buried, the spots looked no different from the surrounding ground. They would rest quietly on this plain. And Sergei would receive five crates of vodka.

His life wasn’t in danger, but because Mikhail didn’t want anyone to know he had been attacked, he continued according to schedule. Crossing the Central Plains was faster on horseback than by carriage. As a result, the wound, shaken relentlessly while he rode, failed to heal and frequently reopened.

But he couldn’t rest. This railway project was extremely important to him. Beyond the Central Plains lay the easternmost reaches of Novgod. Mikhail intended to connect the empire’s east and west completely.

‘The purchases are all complete too.’

With the war against Schweik in the empire’s south making the long southern detour difficult to use, land prices in the empire’s eastern territories were now no better than scraps of paper.

The empire’s east had no decent cities, only small villages scattered here and there. Most of it was permafrost where farming was impossible, forcing its inhabitants to stake everything on the sea. After the war, even those few residents left because they could no longer endure the poverty, leaving the land practically ownerless.

Avoiding the Empress Dowager’s notice, Mikhail bought all of it. Many people handed over tracts of land as large as Sokolov for only a few gold coins. They had probably acquired it for even less themselves anyway.

The transactions were divided among several different names, but ultimately, most of the east fell into his hands. Mikhail hadn’t purchased that land out of a desire to collect garbage.

‘Coal. Iron ore. And gold.’

Dozens of other minerals besides those. All of them lay buried in the empire’s east. He sent the finest geologists to confirm it again and again.

‘The reserves should be dozens of times greater than Ils’s.’

The empire imported all the coal needed for its factories, trains, and other industries from northern Ils. It was even said that half of Novgod’s import expenditures went toward buying Ilsian coal. Mikhail recalled the lumps of coal brought to his office. The coal was far higher in quality than Ils’s. What would happen once he began mining and supplying it?

As Mikhail wiped away the blood with a handkerchief, Igor said, “When we return this time, please get some proper rest.”

Igor’s advice was sincere. More than ten years had already passed since he began working with Mikhail. In all that time, Igor had never once seen Mikhail take even a single day off. Not only did he work without holidays, but he followed a strict schedule every moment until just before he fell asleep.

Even if he was currently at the age when his body was at its strongest and most vigorous, working like this was bound to wear something out.

“It’s hardly the first time I’ve been stabbed. Why are you making such a fuss?”

“Who said this was only because you were stabbed? Of course, being stabbed is part of it, but don’t you also have to get married this time? You should start paying attention to Edenhurst as well.”

Igor thought of Edenhurst, which should have fallen into complete ruin by now. They were probably suffering from poverty unlike anything they had ever experienced. And the countess likely believed the Empress Dowager was behind it. In truth, Mikhail arranged everything.

“Ah, Edenhurst.”

At Igor’s words, Mikhail murmured as though he had just remembered it. Then he realized what the green he wanted to see earlier belonged to.

‘That woman.’

Anastasia Lauderdale. The woman who briefly caught his interest in dull, shabby Edenhurst. The green he was thinking of was the color of her eyes.

When Mikhail remained silent, Igor seemed to think this was his opportunity and quickly continued, “Since you’re getting married, why not take a long rest? The Empress Dowager already sent someone after you once, and with the emperor’s recent seizures looking serious, she’ll probably restrain herself for a while. Besides, if you rest for any other reason, people will wonder whether something happened and become wary. But if you rest after getting married, they’ll simply think nothing of it.”

“What exactly will they think nothing of?”

“What else? They’ll think Mikhail Sokolov is finally trying to produce an heir. It’s a good thing. You can use the opportunity to dispel those rumors that you prefer men.”

“Ah, the rumor that I make you and Yuri bend over on my bed every night and take turns fucking you?”

“Aaagh!”

Igor scrubbed furiously at his arms as though the mere thought horrified him.

“In any case, don’t you need to have children?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”

Pressing the handkerchief against his wound, Mikhail walked down the hill.

Children. That was something Mikhail truly had no interest in. He didn’t care what happened after his death. He simply enjoyed expanding his businesses.

A woman who would bear his heir.

Mikhail thought of Elizabeth’s face. She was the very model of an aristocratic lady. Beautiful features, an elegant manner of speech, and conduct without a single flaw. A woman who would bring him a count’s title.

That was the extent of his impression. Mikhail didn’t even feel that he liked or disliked her. To have children with a woman like that. Considering the ties he would form with other nobles in the future, it would certainly be better to have children. The more he had, the more families he could become connected to. But….

“She doesn’t turn me on.”

A decidedly crude remark emerged from his handsome face.

He would marry her, but he didn’t particularly want to embrace her. He could do it if necessary, but was there any reason to go out of his way?

After erasing Elizabeth’s face from his mind, Mikhail pictured another woman. The woman who lay in the bed where he should have slept.

A painfully thin body, mangled feet, and a haggard face. While she lay there, Mikhail opened a book beside her and began reading. But no one knew that during all that time, he never turned a single page.

The moment the woman lying there awoke and met his gaze, Mikhail found himself approaching and staring at her before he realized it.

What would it be like if that woman came into his bed?

If he took her as she was now, she would probably faint before they even managed to do it properly. There was no way a body that looked liable to break if he merely gripped it too hard could withstand him.

‘Then should I restore her health first?’

According to what he learned, even while the count was alive, she received no proper education and spent the entire day sitting alone in her room and praying. After the count died, she grew up amid neglect so severe it bordered on abuse, without even receiving proper meals. She was practically an imbecile incapable of living anywhere outside Edenhurst.

Mikhail tried to picture Anastasia’s face. He remembered her frightened face and her tearful face, but he didn’t think he had ever seen her smile. What sort of face would that woman make when she smiled?

Mikhail stopped as he was about to mount his horse and looked down at himself for a moment.

“Ha.”

A derisive laugh at his own expense escaped him. Apparently, his body was aroused by novelty.

Mikhail mounted his horse and immediately began to gallop away.

“Where are you going?”

Igor, who hurried down after him, shouted from behind. Mikhail didn’t answer and urged his horse onward. In the direction his horse was headed lay someone’s paradise.

***

Mikhail looked at his bloodstained fist.

He returned to Edenhurst without resting after leaving the Central Plains, but the moment he entered the mansion’s forest path, he heard a scream. Ignoring the throbbing wound in his side that still hadn’t healed, he ran toward the sound.

The moment he grasped who was there and what was about to happen, he threw a punch without hesitation. His fist, aimed directly at the center of the man’s face, a vital point, was steeped in murderous intent.

With a single blow, the man who was disgustingly fumbling with his open trousers collapsed sideways.

Startled by the sound, Anastasia opened her eyes, and their gazes met. The clear, translucent green eyes he wanted to see ever since the Central Plains gazed at him, wet with tears.

Mikhail swallowed dryly and thought,

I have to take this woman.