Chapter 26.1

Welcoming an unrelated man into the bedroom was unthinkable, even in the practicality-driven North.

Thus, Arina and Arad met in a space used as both an audience hall and a reception room.

In the audience hall, the maids attending to the Grand Duchess and the knights temporarily assigned to her guard after her loss of strength were sparsely positioned around the room.

“I greet Your Highness, the Grand Duchess.”

Arad, looking slightly fatigued—perhaps from staying up all night—paid his respects to the Lord of the Snowfields.

‘Could it be… Arad lost sleep, plagued by thoughts similar to mine?’

The Grand Duchess felt her chest tighten as she observed the weary expression on Arad’s face.

‘No! You and I must not grow closer! For your safety, above all else!’

With a peculiar sense of melancholy, as if she were a tragic protagonist in a romance novel, Arina regarded Arad.

“What brings you here? And your complexion… you look exhausted. Is something wrong with your sleeping quarters?”

She gripped her hands tightly.

“Ah, no. I simply stayed up all night making something.”

“I-I see. What were you making?”

“This.”

Whether he understood the depth of her emotions or not, Arad casually held out a bag he had spent the night crafting.

‘It’s beautiful…’

Arina couldn’t help but think this as she looked at the bag.

It was a design she had never seen before—a completely novel style that was fresh and captivating.

Even for someone like her, who had spent her life wielding a sword and roaming battlefields, the bag evoked an instinctive desire to possess it.

‘I’ve never seen a bag like this. Could it be inspired by the Golden Age?’

Her attention was particularly drawn to the neutral-element magic stone embedded at the center of the bag.

At a glance, it seemed to be a top-tier stone, and upon closer inspection, she noticed a small and intricate magic circle finely engraved upon it.

“This bag is not just an ordinary bag. It has four different enchantments.”

But the elegant exterior of the bag was just the beginning.

“Magic? Enchantments?”

As Arad’s explanation continued, Arina recalled the golden carriage he had arrived in.

“That’s right. It’s easier to demonstrate than to explain.”

Opening the bag he had completed overnight, Arad began to demonstrate its various features.

“The first enchantment is a spatial magic. This small bag can hold items as large as a storage chest. To retrieve an item, you simply imagine its image.”

She was utterly captivated as she listened to Arad’s explanation.

While he spoke, Arad continued placing large objects—far too big to fit in the bag—inside it.

“Incredible…”

“He truly is a mage!”

“A bag with a spatial enchantment! Is this a reproduction of an artifact from the Golden Age?!”

The maids serving Arina and the knights standing guard also looked on, mouths agape, as they listened to the explanation.

The bag Arad had spent the night making was truly extraordinary.

Once the demonstration of the first feature, the spatial enchantment, was over—

“May I borrow a dagger?”

“O-of course. Lend him a dagger.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Thank you.”

Arad proceeded to showcase the bag’s other features.

“Even if it gets scratched like this…”

Without hesitation, Arad drew the dagger he had borrowed from a knight and slashed the bag.

“Ah!”

“!!”

The maids let out involuntary cries of dismay, and Arina’s eyes widened in shock.

Meanwhile, the knights focused their full attention on the dagger in Arad’s hand.

Their focus, however, didn’t last long.

“Over time, the bag repairs itself automatically. Of course, the necessary materials and tools must be inside the bag for this to work.”

“!!”

Even the knights, who had been concentrating on the dagger in Arad’s hand, were left stunned by the activation of the bag’s self-repair magic.

“It also has a cleaning enchantment. If dirt gets on it, it’s immediately washed away. It doesn’t stain either.”

Next, Arad demonstrated the bag’s cleanliness feature.

This time, he poured ink from an inkwell in the audience hall onto the bag.

After the self-repair magic demonstration, there were no longer any cries of distress from the maids.

“Wow…”

“It’s completely clean.”

Instead of dismay, the room was now filled with sounds of admiration.

“And lastly, the bag allows for ownership registration. Once the user’s signature is imprinted, no one else can open it.”

With that, Arad concluded his demonstration of the bag he had crafted through an all-night effort.

The moment the demonstration ended, a shadow of greed flickered in the eyes of everyone in the audience hall.

Not only the maids but even the knights on guard duty.

“…”

Naturally, Arina was no exception.

‘A bag that rivals the artifacts of the Golden Age. It’s priceless.’

No, Arina thought, even artifacts from the Golden Age couldn’t compare to this.

“Could it be… is this bag something you plan to sell after the Arad Salt?”

Her voice trembled as she asked.

The desire to possess the bag had now been overtaken by her curiosity as a ruler—how it could benefit the North’s finances.

How much could they gain if they sold a bag like this to the Empire? Even just putting it up for auction would attract all the gold coins on the continent.

“Unfortunately, it’s not an item that can be easily mass-produced. First of all, the magic stone embedded in the bag is a top-tier one.”

“I-is that so? Well, using a top-tier magic stone for a single bag is indeed extravagant.”

The bright visions Arina had been entertaining of endless riches were dashed by Arad’s explanation.

“But there would surely be demand. The wealthy nobles and royalty of the Empire would certainly buy it. And this is the North—the place where the continent’s largest supply of magic stones is produced. There are even top-tier magic stones stored in the High Tower.”

In a cautious tone, Arina made another suggestion to Arad.

“Well… the conditions to create it aren’t something I can meet every time. Crafting it consumes an enormous amount of mental energy, and that’s not something I can recover quickly.”

Even with Arina’s appeal, Arad shook his head with a serious expression.

“Luck also played a big part. This time, beginner’s luck was particularly on my side, which is why I was able to complete it in one night.”

“I see… so there’s no helping it.”

Arina understood the implications of Arad’s words.

She thought of the master blacksmiths of the North who had created legendary swords.

Those blacksmiths, after forging one of the finest swords with Northern Iron, would often look as if they had aged ten years overnight.

“However, I could produce bags with lower performance. Using mid- to low-tier magic stones, I could create bags with only a spatial enchantment. Those could be made in decent numbers.”