The Villainess Wants to Make Her Husband Slim Down

CHAPTER 37

3 – 6

The center of Mohnton is dominated by an expansive marsh, split into innumerable smaller swamps. People talked about how these swamps were being heated by excess amounts of miasma, causing them to bubble and froth on the surface.

The stagnant marshes reached deep into the earth and had a feral green colour to them. Common grasses and flowers never grew around them, only poisonous and toxic plants and herbs imbued with the magic of the miasma instead. In the shadows of the poisonous plants, brown toxin-resistant toads hopped through the swamps.

This kind of sight is what foreigners who have never been to Mohnton imagine when they think of the territory and is also the origin of Alois' unfortunate nickname, the 'Toad of the Swamp'.

The areas between the swamps were dominated by muddy wetlands covered in moss.

There were no valleys or hills, the land was almost uniformly flat. A vast amount of shallow rivers and streams crisscrossed the landscape, only adding to the damp and humid nature of the land. The land itself was cracked in places, so this water found no shortage of ways to seep into the earth.

Einst was a town built on a large piece of land that was reclaimed from the bogs. By splitting up and draining the swamps, it was possible to dry out the land enough to build houses and roads. The town took on a strange shape as a result, becoming as oval-shaped as the swamp it was originally reclaimed from.

Houses constructed from packed earth and mud lined the streets of the town. The houses had no personality whatsoever, so for an outsider, it was impossible to tell one from another at a glance.

The main street was eerily quiet, without the cheers and shouts of children playing or the gossip of women going shop to shop. The men who were heading out to the swamps to their mining jobs would silently step in time through the streets like soldiers on a march.

In that way, life in this town had continued unchanged for over 200 years.

At first glance, it was a place incredibly strict in their ways, valuing modesty above all. An old town that put pragmatism before feelings.

However, in the hearts of the people, there was a certain pride that gave way to an insidious sort of pleasure.

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– It's all so strange.

Camilla frowned as she looked at the town of Einst.

The sky was overcast and the streets were shadowed by dark grey clouds. The miasma was even stronger than in the capital, just being outside hurt her skin. The wind that blew off the rooves of the old earthen houses was desperately cold, making the winter air even more unbearable.

Camilla was staying at another one of the Montchat's residences in Einst. It was a stone mansion on the main street. To put it simply, Alois eventually had to give in to Camilla's demands.

After they were finished visiting the victims in Einst, they would move on to Grenze. Once their visit to Grenze was complete, the investigation into the manastone veins could begin. Whether that took a few days or a few weeks, Alois was determined to find the source of the disaster using his magical power.

At the moment, Alois was busy greeting the influential men in the town. Rather than quickly breezing through the greetings from the members in the room, he was held up listening to the complaints of each and every one of them individually. She couldn't help but think it was some form of harassment.

A few days had already passed since the disaster struck. As far as she could tell, there weren't any real implications of damage to the town.

According to what they had heard, the damage hadn't occurred at a mining site, but deep inside a forest that people rarely entered. Although a magical explosion had occurred underground at wherever the disaster site might be, the main issue was the earthquake caused as a result. Not to mention the release of vast amounts of miasma. Apparently many trees had been toppled and a lot of the wildlife suffered. Yet whilst it had caused a dreadful fright, it was quite a distance away from the populated towns and villages in this area so the damage to person and property was minimal. There was one house in town that collapsed due to the earthquake and several people with high magic power were involved in accidents due to the miasma, but other than that, the town was unharmed.