“Haha! The priests can’t come into this room today. It’s a purification ritual, or something, that they’re doing with their bare bodies. Look at this wig! It looks just like my real hair, right?!”
“Your Highnessss! Where are you going? It’s dangerous!”
The always-calm Barbara was so agitated that she was desperately trying to stop me. I laughed awkwardly. Barbara didn’t know that I had been kidnapped and returned in the early hours of the morning. Debbie had put Barbara to sleep before coming with me. Of course, when Barbara woke up and saw me groaning, she looked a bit strange and massaged my body, but she must have just assumed it was muscle soreness from a forced march by carriage the day before.
Barbara is the Empress’s person. The Empress, me, and Prince Adrian are all in the same boat now, opposing the Empress, but I didn’t know how much information I should reveal. To be precise, I didn’t feel comfortable revealing the entire truth of my relationship with the Castrain family. So I deliberately smiled brightly like a mischievous girl and said in a nonchalant tone.
“No, no, it’s okay. It’s not dangerous!”
“That’s right, that’s right. I’m a specialist! I can protect one person, Your Highness!” Debbie smiled cheerily as if she wasn’t trying to hide her specialness. Barbara’s face flushed.
“You were talking to the young master Cortez for a long time a while ago. What’s going on all of a sudden? Can’t you tell me?”
“I just want you to be safe.”
“I came here to serve Your Highness. I can’t send you somewhere that might be dangerous without knowing anything.”
“If I had only lived safely, what would have happened? The Empress would have been stripped of the little power she had just for bringing me into the palace, right? And I would probably be branded as cursed?”
Barbara fell silent. Was she thinking of the incident I had just caused with the Empress in the Imperial Palace? I gave a hollow laugh when I saw her expression.
“Thank you for worrying about me.”
How much could I trust her? How much could I tell her? I didn’t know. It was too difficult. However, I sometimes felt it was unfair for people who had more precious things than I did to get hurt because of me. I would feel more at ease if she had just come as the price for a deal, like Debbie had.
“We can’t be late. I’m leaving!” I ran out through a passage I had secured earlier, lest she see my troubled heart while she was silent. I heard Barbara yell, “Ah!”
“Your Highness!”
“I’m leaving too! I’ll buy you something delicious if I can! If I can’t, I’ll steal something from the kitchen for you later!”
“DEBBIEEEEE!”
Was it just my imagination, or was her voice full of more resentment when she was yelling Debbie’s name? I awkwardly touched the wig on my head.
Flux had told me a few pieces of information about the temple’s corruption, which he presumed was related to the Empress. It was very interesting, but there wasn’t much I could verify while stuck inside the temple.
So, I remembered. The card for <Hecate’s Tavern>. It was a card I received as payment for telling the Castrain family the location of the Gloriana’s Emblem a while ago. Of course, the main branch of <Hecate’s Tavern> was in the capital. But that didn’t mean there weren’t local branches. There was one at the northern end, which belonged to the Castrain lands, and one at the southern end, right here in the city of Artura.
My mom (in my previous life) always told me not to hold onto things until they turned to garbage.
I smelled the grass. With every step, I heard the rustle of grass underfoot. I glanced at the temple grounds. There were surprisingly few people around. The number of official priests in the temple where I was staying was smaller than I thought. There were a few young boys who were called apprentices or novice priests and were in charge of miscellaneous tasks. And then there were outsiders who came and went to deliver various goods to the temple.
Flux said that he had pulled some strings with the outsiders and the apprentice priests. That’s why I was able to find a secluded path and leave in the middle of the day.
“It’s here.”
We went through a small back door that had been made for workers to use so they wouldn’t disturb the priests during prayer time. This was the most important part. The temple was built in such an open space that it was difficult to sneak around. I saw a carriage painted in the same white as the white sand and got in. Debbie exchanged a knowing glance with the coachman and got in beside me. The carriage galloped at a reasonably fast pace.
“You said Gregory and Kronen were having a secret talk, right?”
“Yes. They sent all the knights away under the excuse of having to maintain urban security, just to talk.”
“Ugh, I can’t believe Lisianthus actually followed the knights. I thought he would have just blown up at them and refused to go.”
I shivered. If Lisianthus were here, secrecy, my butt…
“When he comes back and sees that Your Highness met with Young Master Flux and is now brazenly going into the city like this, he’ll spit fire from his mouth, you know?”
“Oh, from his mouth, not his hands?”
“…I’m joking. What are you imagining?”
“I wonder if Lisianthus could do it. Like… holding an oil bottle in his mouth and then lighting it with his hand so it looks like he’s breathing fire…” As I spoke, I realized it sounded like a PokXmon. No, there were divine beasts and demonic beasts here, so maybe a demonic or divine beast that could do that actually existed.
“Your Highness, is setting things on fire a hobby of yours…?”
Debbie didn’t hide her bitter expression. Now that I thought about it, Debbie knew the truth of the incident where Lisianthus and I held hands and burned the Rose Palace to everyone’s horror…
“Oh, speaking of which, I wonder if the construction of the Rose Palace is going well. I’d feel more at ease if they made a bunch of secret escape routes for me.”
“It’s probably going well. The young master…”
“The young master?” I frowned at her slip of the tongue. Debbie cleared her throat as if she had made a mistake.
“No, it was Lady Vivi! She said she would naturally grant any request from Your Highness.”
“Ah, our Vivi.”
My face melted into a soft expression.
That’s when it happened.
Jolt. The carriage stopped. When I got out, the street was bustling with people. Debbie and I carefully looked for our target. It was a pawn shop in the basement of a three-story building located in a corner of the street. As soon as we entered the building, a strong, musty smell of dust filled the air.
In stark contrast to the shabby-looking outdoor pubs and teahouses that were crowded with people, this place was so empty it felt ominous. It wouldn’t have been strange for rats to be running around on the floor.
We stepped down the stone stairs and knocked on the heavy wooden door. A small window in the door creaked open, and someone peeked out, their eyes barely visible.
“Who are you?”
Debbie glanced at me. I spoke in her place.
“Three silver coins under a black eaves.”
“…”
Instead of a reply, the door opened slightly. An ordinary-looking middle-aged woman frowned at us. “What, little girl? Did you come here without anything to sell? This isn’t a place for ladies-in-waiting to bring their noble young masters for fun…”
Instead of sighing, I fluttered the card I had kept in my arms.
The woman immediately shut her mouth and led the way. As soon as we entered a small room with all its entrances blocked and covered with a black cloth, the door was closed behind us. A woman with her face covered by a veil was holding a pipe in her mouth.
“Princess Titania. You are truly fearless.”
Instead of answering, I smiled brightly. With Debbie’s help, I was disguised as a common maid. I had my hair bundled up in a hairnet and was wearing a plain brown wig. I had put on a dark foundation and drawn freckles on my face. I couldn’t cover my green eyes, but there were no conditions to guess that I was “Princess Titania” just by my appearance. However, there were only a few people who knew the location of the <Hecate’s Tavern> branch. Among them, a person in my age group who had a card like this. If they also knew that Princess Titania had come all the way to the South for the offering ceremony, it would have been harder for them not to know my identity.
I snorted at the woman and said, “Hecate’s Tavern, why did you make a customer come all the way here to complain?”
“…What?” The woman frowned as if she had heard something she couldn’t believe.
“I think I was told you would find me within a week. But a week since I got the card? Let’s see… how long has it been?”
I clicked my tongue in a pathetic manner and looked around the room. The emoji sword that was wrapped in a cloth around my waist hummed.
