Chapter 88
If left like this, he would end up taking poison. And if that happened, even if he managed to escape from here, there would be no guarantee that he would recover. So I quickened my steps.
What was truly fortunate was that—whether because of the room I had been kept in, or for the sake of security—not a single other person appeared for quite some time. I went to the room I had been in, took a few seeds, and then headed toward Rex.
Perhaps he had regained consciousness in the meantime, because Rex was moving only his gaze back and forth, his arms and legs still bound.
“A–Aisha-nim…!!”
“Shh. Someone might come.”
“Are you all right? Just what… is… this…?”
“I’m fine.”
“But… but they… clearly…”
Rex’s eyes had grown moist before I knew it.
“I’m a little special.”
“Special…?”
“I’m a child quite loved by God.”
Rex, who had no way of understanding what I meant, merely tilted his head.
“It means I will never die.”
If God had intended to let me die, there would have been no reason to go through the trouble of turning back time. But that didn’t mean I was safe. The God I had seen was not so benevolent. They were beings who, in order to create a priestess to worship them, would take those standing at the edge of despair—take their desperation—and shape them as they pleased.
So it might end with simply keeping me barely alive. That was why I didn’t let my guard down.
“What do you mean…?”
“First… Rex. They won’t kill you.”
“…Pardon?”
“They need to charge you with the crime of killing me. So don’t entertain foolish thoughts. Like saving me and escaping this place, or trying to get out on your own.”
“Aisha-nim… how can you be so calm in a situation like this?”
At those words, I was momentarily speechless. Indeed. Why was I this calm? As if nothing had happened. As if it were nothing at all. I was afraid of dying too—afraid of everything ending like this without doing anything—and yet… why was I so calm?
“Well… because I know I won’t die?”
“…Aisha-nim really… doesn’t seem like a child.”
“We can talk about that later. For now… escaping from here comes first. Rex, you trust me, right?”
“Of course I trust you.”
“Then do as I say.”
“As long as it’s not telling me to leave alone, or to stop worrying about you, I will.”
For a moment, I was at a loss for words. I blinked at him.
“Rex. Think about it. I won’t die anyway.”
“And what if you do? No one knows what can happen. So… so please don’t think so lightly of throwing yourself away. We have to think of a way to get out of here.”
“Mmm… But I wanted at least you to get out. If you made it out safely… then maybe you could save me too….”
“Do you think they would let me go so easily? If they meant to pin the crime of killing you on me, they wouldn’t do it half-heartedly.”
His words were true.
“You were trying to sacrifice yourself, weren’t you? Let me out first, and then think about the rest. That’s what you decided, isn’t it?”
My chest prickled at that. I had thought that since I had God’s protection, something would work out. That was why I had intended to knock Rex out first and think about what came next.
“……”
“Let’s leave together. I have a good idea.”
“A good idea?”
“His Highness the Grand Duke will definitely come looking for us. Then all we have to do is get out of here.”
“And if he doesn’t come? What then?”
But Rex didn’t look worried at all.
“Trust me. You wrote a letter before you came out, didn’t you?”
“Ah, even so… They didn’t lock us up here without reason. Wouldn’t the Grand Duchess have her own plans?”
Of course, it felt overwhelmingly like she didn’t. Honestly, I wasn’t even the Grand Duke’s biological child, so perhaps she thought killing me wouldn’t cause much trouble.
If not that, then perhaps she truly wanted to kill me even if it meant suffering some consequences—or perhaps she had some other method in mind.
“That may be so. Surely she didn’t imprison us here without any thought.”
“Ah. It seemed like she thought that if only I were gone, she could control the Grand Duke’s house as she pleased again… Maybe she became so fixated on that one idea that she failed to see anything else.”
“I think so too. The Grand Duchess Mama has always had everything go her way. Ever since you arrived, nothing has gone according to her will, so perhaps….”
We nodded at the same time.
“She probably acted on impulse.”
“Then how do we get out now?”
“Rex, from what you can tell… where do you think we are?”
“I don’t know. I was fed something and passed out, so I remember nothing. Did we perhaps leave the Grand Duke’s estate?”
“I was conscious while being dragged here. And this place… I think it’s still inside the Grand Duke’s estate. I was out of it too, so I’m not sure exactly where….”
I slipped the seeds I had been clutching tightly—intended for Rex—into my pocket and untied the restraints holding him down.
“Isn’t it strange there’s barely any surveillance?”
“Ah. Now that you mention it.”
“Setting aside where I was kept, the fact that no one is even beside you means….”
“Is it because they know we absolutely can’t escape?”
At Rex’s question, I let out a small sigh.
“It could be both. Either they thought we absolutely couldn’t escape, or they were in a situation where they couldn’t assign guards.”
By the time the ropes were fully undone, he flexed his arms and legs, checking his condition.
“And I think I know now. It’s probably the latter—they couldn’t assign guards. If His Highness the Grand Duke begins investigating, the first place to be suspected would be here. And with all of the Grand Duchess Mama’s funding sources currently under investigation, she can’t trust or use anyone else.”
Hearing that, I could understand a little better.
“Then we can just leave.”
They must have thought they could kill me this time, since they had already seen the seeds’ effects through Lari. And if they feared the seeds that much, it meant they had witnessed their power themselves.
“…Pardon?”
“Let’s go.”
I smiled brightly at him and held out my hand. After hesitating, Rex stood and took it.
“You said you’d always hold my hand.”
“Ah….”
“Let’s go. If, as you say, His Highness the Grand Duke is investigating this place….”
“But we don’t even know where this is….”
“I just felt it while being dragged here, but I think this is the basement of the Grand Duchess’s residence. At first I thought it might be a tower… but that’s just how it feels to me.”
I couldn’t explain every detail to him, but that was simply the sense I had.
“If Aisha-nim says so, then it must be right….”
Still hesitant, he took my hand and moved slowly. The interior was quite dark—so dark that the place I had been kept almost seemed bright in comparison.
“Is this the right way, Aisha-nim?”
“Probably.”
Even if we simply walked in the opposite direction from where I had been kept, it should lead outside. No fool would cultivate difficult or dangerous things near the entrance.
“Do you think it’s night now?”
“It should be.”
The people who had said they would go eat and watch Rex for a day had implied that a full day had not yet passed. I had dozed off briefly as well but woke up soon after. At most, it should be early evening.
“I’m nervous. This is my first time experiencing something like this.”
“It’s my first time too.”
“You look so perfectly fine that I thought you’d been through this kind of thing often. I heard you grew up in an orphanage, so I even wondered if orphanages were such harsh places to survive.”
“Of course not. I lived like an ordinary person too.”
If anyone had experienced things like this often, it would be the twins, not me.
‘Ah… the children are going to cause a fuss.’
Given that they had already been getting scolded by Rohen lately, the thought was disheartening.
At that moment, a wall appeared before us. After walking down a straight corridor for a long time, we had reached it.
“Is it blocked? We might have to find another way.”
“Wait a moment.”
Something about leaving like this felt strange. I was sure this was the right place… yet it was blocked. The strangest part was the floor. It felt uneven, somehow misaligned.
“Isn’t this… a door?”
That was why I said it.
“A door?”
“Yes. It feels like stairs going up….”
No sooner had I finished speaking than Rex kicked what stood before us—the thing that looked like a wall. I worried that if I was wrong, his leg might break, but unexpectedly it didn’t. The “wall” shattered.
Perhaps because of the impact, the door… opened toward us.
“…Ah. I guess it was a door you pull.”
“…Well. It looked like a wall and made us misunderstand, so it can’t be helped. And is the door what matters right now? We found the exit, so let’s hurry. Then, excuse me for a moment.”
Before I could even respond, Rex scooped me up into his arms. Then he began to run swiftly. I hadn’t thought I was slow, but being carried in Rex’s arms made everything feel incredibly fast. The stairs flew past us.
At times like this, I was reminded that he truly was a knight. At the same time, I grew worried. What if there were knights outside? What if we were discovered?
And yet… it was strangely quiet.
