chapter 8
“It’s okay.”
When Praha saw Yoo Sara getting up on her own, he felt like he was a truly terrible person.
The faint smile she had worn before turning into a flustered, wavering expression.
The hand that had started to rise, only to shrink back.
Everyone had seen it—the hand she had reached out, unable to find someone to take it, slowly lowering again.
The look in her eyes at that moment felt like something he wouldn’t forget for a long time.
When was it again?
I watched a movie with some of my university friends, and afterward we talked about it.
"The reason it’s called Decision to Leave is because breaking up is hard. If breaking up were easy, you’d just do it. You wouldn’t need to make a decision to do it."
"Who said that?"
"The director who made the movie."
Because people either fail to break up in the end, or even if they succeed, the process is painfully difficult and emotionally exhausting. That’s why someone makes a movie about it and calls it Decision to Leave.
I agree.
"Come to think of it, when we make resolutions, we make resolutions to save money, quit our jobs, or stop drinking. We don’t make resolutions to go home after work and lie down."
"That’s not a resolution. That’s greed. The desire to lie down."
"Calling lying down greed? Are we slaves or something?"
What I’m saying is this:
If it were easy for me not to stick my nose into things, I wouldn’t have needed to make a resolution not to interfere.
Not interfering is hard.
Especially in situations like this, where an idiot is wandering around right in front of me.
Maybe I’d really been under an enormous amount of stress.
Getting suddenly transmigrated into another world.
People picking fights with me from every direction.
Heartless people who didn’t even help me up when I fell.
Maybe I’d vented all the anger that had been building up on that nuisance of a guy.
And in doing so, I’d resorted to the cheap tactic of attacking his appearance.
My personality seriously sucks...
"Yes, yes, I’ll do my self-reflection when I get home!"
I shoved aside my wandering thoughts. Repentance could wait until I was lying in my own bed.
Objective Number One: Get home.
Resolving to “go home, lie down, and reflect on my actions,” I looked around at the others.
While I’d been spacing out and the nuisance guy had been rubbing his elbow and muttering to himself, everyone else had been tending to their own aches and pains.
“My feet hurt... They’re all red.”
“That’s probably because the soles of your shoes are too thin. It’d be nice if we had some thick socks.”
“I feel like stealing a maid’s socks.”
“When I wake up tomorrow morning, I’m definitely going to have muscle cramps.”
Watching them, I finally realized why the Crown Prince and the Grand Duke had wasted so much time here.
These people had no stamina.
They simply didn’t have the endurance to walk briskly from here to the staircase on the left, then from there to the kitchen, without stopping.
The same applied to moving from one end of this enormous villa to the other.
For someone like me, an office worker who rides the subway every day, it might not seem like a big deal.
But for these people—nobles down to their bones—it was the hardship of a lifetime.
Of course, I was technically a noblewoman now too...
Come to think of it, this Lady Yoo Sara supposedly had the same name and appearance as me.
But I hadn’t actually checked how similar we were.
My arms and legs looked almost identical.
Is there a mirror around here?
No.
There wasn’t.
And this was definitely not the time to look for one.
I alternated my gaze between Supporting Character #2, who had completely abandoned noble dignity and was massaging her bare feet, and the nuisance guy, who was still dripping sweat.
Their faces were pale.
Did I make things worse by picking a fight with him?
I casually asked Supporting Character #2, who seemed the nicest.
“Walking all the way here was pretty exhausting, wasn’t it?”
“Huh? Ah... yes. I’m not used to walking very much.”
“How much do you usually walk?”
“Well... on nice afternoons, I occasionally go to the park.”
“Oh, you take walks in the park?”
“Huh? No. We go to a spot overlooking the lake and sit down with friends.”
“So you walk from the entrance to the lake?”
“I’m not sure. We always have the carriage stop right in front of the lake.”
...
So that means you don’t walk at all.
“Maybe I’m remembering wrong, but how did we get here after leaving the portal?”
“The carriage dropped us off at the front entrance.”
“...”
So I was escaping with people who normally didn’t even walk five minutes under their own power.
My resolution to go home and lie down instantly transformed into a resolution to exercise.
When I got back, I was working out.
I’d increase my three-times-a-week dawn swimming schedule to five.
I just prayed I’d never have to run away with these people.
“Lady Yoo Jein, how is your ankle?”
“I tried using my power, but... I don’t think I’ve recovered enough yet. I’m sorry.”
“No, please don’t apologize.”
A faint white light flickered at Yoo Jein’s fingertips before disappearing.
She looked utterly guilty.
The divine powers I imagined could raise the dead and talk to gods.
Why are the gods around here so stingy? Surely they could heal an ankle.
Though, admittedly, healing even a small injury through divine power was impressive.
“I’ll take a look.”
The Crown Prince and the Grand Duke approached after leaving Dazzling to guard the entrance.
The Crown Prince examined Yoo Jein.
The Grand Duke examined me.
The division of roles made it painfully obvious they were conscious of what had happened earlier.
The Grand Duke knelt on one knee before me.
“My lady, show me your hand.”
Without waiting for an answer, he took my hand and gently cleaned the wound with water soaked into his handkerchief.
I instinctively tried to pull away.
He held my hand firmly.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“No.”
“Think carefully. You fell pretty hard.”
Despite his blunt tone, his touch was gentle.
His long fingers brushed against my palm.
The blood disappeared as though dust were being swept away with a paintbrush.
It tickles so much I might laugh...
“Really nowhere else?”
“Really.”
Mascarpone clicked her tongue.
“Stop being stubborn and tell him, my lady.”
I turned to look at her.
She smirked.
“You love getting attention, don’t you? If not now, when else are you ever going to receive His Grace’s attention?”
There she goes again.
To be fair, Mascarpone did have a reason for constantly provoking me.
A few years ago, at a concert hall.
Mascarpone mocked Yoo Sara for not following the dress code.
Yoo Sara responded by grabbing her by the hair.
Yoo Sara’s reputation was already terrible, so she didn’t care.
But Mascarpone had reportedly been too embarrassed to leave the house for quite some time afterward.
The Grand Duke wrinkled his nose.
“Are you two going to keep fighting?”
Hey.
I didn’t even say anything.
“Stop fighting and focus on me. The handsome healing fairy treating your injuries.”
“Seriously...”
The Grand Duke tore his handkerchief cleanly in half and wrapped one piece around my palm.
Then he asked casually, pretending to focus on the treatment.
“My lady, do I really have a good body?”
“Do you never look in mirrors?”
I answered coldly.
He scratched his cheek.
“I do. But hearing someone outright call me well-built is... I don’t know.”
“Proud?”
“Embarrassed, actually. And I never expected you to say something like that.”
“Ah. Right.”
That definitely wasn’t something the original Yoo Sara would have said.
Having no desire to continue the conversation—
I’m still upset with you people!
—I shifted my attention toward Yoo Jein and the Crown Prince.
Yoo Jein’s small foot peeked out beneath her dress.
Her feet were tiny, yet the heels she wore were absurdly thin and looked dangerously unstable.
The Crown Prince glanced at them.
“Excuse me.”
Then he snapped the heels off with one hand.
“Lady Yoo Sara was right. I should have done this earlier.”
While saying that, he glanced at me, obviously trying to start a conversation.
I ignored him.
The Grand Duke too.
And the Crown Prince keeps watching my reactions.
The Crown Prince stood up and suddenly called out.
“Papri.”
“Yeah, hyung?”
“I don’t think I said this earlier.”
“Huh?”
The Crown Prince looked down at him.
Stretching his neck, he finally stopped and spoke.
“I do not consider anyone here a burden.”
“...”
“They are my guests. Had it not been for me, they never would have been invited here and put through this ordeal.”
His perfect face tilted slightly.
“If I invite people here and then call them burdens just because circumstances changed, who would ever accept an imperial invitation again?”
Then he added coolly:
“Or is that something you wouldn’t understand because you have no guests to invite?”
He has no friends. Knew it.
Papri said nothing.
The Crown Prince said nothing further.
The break was over.
Instead of the Crown Prince and Grand Duke, who needed to stay alert, Mascarpone and Supporting Character #2 helped Yoo Jein walk.
The formation changed.
Grand Duke / Dazzling
Papri
Mascarpone / Yoo Jein / Supporting Character #2
Crown Prince / Me
Why was I in the back again?
Because I didn’t want to walk next to Papri.
No one spoke as we crossed the central hall and headed toward the left corridor.
Then—
“AAAH!”
Papri suddenly kicked the wall repeatedly.
BANG! BANG!
His heavy boots slammed into it hard enough to make the decorative armor nearby rattle.
Supporting Character #2 flinched.
The Grand Duke cheerfully remarked:
“Papri, do you really think that’ll break it?”
Suddenly, a chill ran down my spine.
I looked back toward the central staircase.
The zombies piled there weren’t dead yet.
They had simply been dismembered and rendered unable to move.
At the vibrations and noise Papri created, their severed mouths and hands twitched.
The grotesque sight of torn flesh swelling and contracting made my skin crawl.
I grabbed the Crown Prince’s sleeve.
“Your Highness.”
“...Yes?”
“You said earlier that the dead servant might have come through the servants’ passage, right?”
“Yes.”
“Could you remind me exactly where that passage is?”
“...Inside the walls. Hidden within the walls, like a secret passage.”
Inside the walls.
The same walls Papri was currently kicking hard enough to shake the staircase full of corpses.
“Your Highness...”
I swallowed.
“What do you think the chances are that the servant with the severed arm locked the passage door before he died?”
Before I could even finish, the Crown Prince understood.
He spun around.
The wall was shaking.
The curtain-covered wall.
Shaking enough that you could actually tell where the entrance to the secret passage was.
I looked ahead.
The others had heard us too.
Their gazes slowly shifted past me toward the wall.
Clunk.
Clunk-clunk.
The noise continued.
Clunk. Clunk-clunk. Clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk-click-click-click.
BANG!
“RUN!”
[Imperial Villa – Second Floor Corridor]
Grand Duke / Dazzling
Papri
Mascarpone / Yoo Jein / Supporting Character #2
Crown Prince / Yoo Sara
(Alive)