KOWE Chapter 14

A cold silence descended upon the group.

The portal is missing.

The Crown Prince stated it calmly, but for those listening, it felt like being shot in the gut.

The Grand Duke, frowning, asked, “Are we sure the portal is in the kitchen?”

“As far as I know, yes.”

As far as I know, it is too.

‘It doesn’t make sense logically. The portal is the only way to travel to and from this island. Would there be only one?’

To prepare for a malfunction, there would be at least two. And it would be installed in the kitchen, where ingredients are frequently moved.

Seeing the silent group, the Crown Prince elaborated, “There is no door leading to a portal in the kitchen. It must be hidden. So, I knocked on all the walls while we rested, but there are no hollow walls.”

At his words, the group looked around the room.

There were only two doors.

The door we entered through, leading to the corridor, and a side door leading outside the building.

The door leading to the portal was nowhere to be seen.

“Could it be in an adjacent room?”

“The kitchen doesn’t have an adjacent room. Due to the building’s structure, it’s a protruding section.”

“What about another room close to the kitchen?”

“That’s the lavatory. I don’t think they’d bring in ingredients through a restroom.”

“Then, is Your Royal Highness saying…”

“The portal is in here. I just haven’t found it yet.”

The Crown Prince was composed, acknowledging his own lack of success.

You could tell what the others were thinking just by their expressions.

‘There’s no one here who can find what the Crown Prince couldn’t find.’

Yoo Je-in, who swept her long hair back once, forced a smile. “I think it’ll be fine. Even if we don’t go through here… if we go back to the main portal where we originally arrived. Then we can go back, right?”

Coincidentally, at that moment, Kyaaaaaak! A zombie’s scream echoed down the corridor. Minor Character 2 muttered blankly.

“How can we go all the way back there… We came only one floor down with such difficulty.”

“Still…”

“I came believing wholeheartedly that we only had to reach the kitchen. I really can’t take one more step…” Tears welled up in Minor Character 2’s squatting eyes.

Yoo Je-in bit her lip and tried to soothe her. “Or let’s search again properly. This time, we can all search together, can’t we?”

“How can we find what even Your Royal Highness couldn’t find…!”

“I knew it. I said we should have abandoned them and gone by ourselves long ago!”

“Paphry.”

“Brother, this time I really didn’t say anything wrong! Look what happened, trying to drag these baggage along! I’m exhausted too!”

The nuisance man jumped up, uncorked the fruit wine from the ice bucket on the cart, and gulped it down.

He drank it sloppily, letting it spill, then pointed his bottle-holding hand at Minor Character 2.

“Look even now, all she does is weep!”

As if Minor Character 2 was the one who hid the portal.

At his words, even Mascarpone, who had been holding back, started crying uncontrollably.

Amidst the group suddenly plunged into despair, only I stood blankly.

‘Is this… really something to despair over?’

He said the portal isn’t missing; it’s hidden. So, there is a portal here, isn’t there?

Then we just need to find it.

If we absolutely can’t find it, we can go to the main portal.

‘Since the Crown Prince, who knows the structure of this villa best, couldn’t find the portal, everyone seems to be panicking.’

Didn’t the Crown Prince only search for ten minutes?

We can just find it.

‘There’s also someone here who knows more about these magic portals than the Crown Prince.’

Even though she’s crying right now.

With that thought, I looked at that ‘knowledgeable person’.

“Oh, God…”

Mascarpone, who had been trying to maintain her composure despite being a bit prickly, was now sobbing, calling out to God.

‘Why are you suddenly calling out to God?’

I chuckled internally and spoke to Mascarpone. “It seems someone calling you ‘baggage’ made you truly believe you are baggage.”

“…What did you just say…”

“If you don’t do anything, even God can’t help you.”

So, how about trusting your own mind instead of God?

I smirked at Mascarpone, who stared blankly at me, having stopped crying.

“If you want to cry, escape here and cry in a safe place. It’ll only drain your stamina.”

“If we escape here, there’ll be no need to cry!”

“Then don’t cry.”

“Honestly!”

Mascarpone vigorously wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and glared at me, clicking her tongue. It seemed my mere presence and sarcasm made her tears instantly dry up.

‘I have to give her credit for her pride.’

Even though we’re not on good terms.

I beckoned to Mascarpone, who was wiping her red eyes.

“Since you’ve stopped crying, help me out.”

“What do you want!”

“You might have forgotten since you’ve just been following behind after this incident, but Miss Mascarpone, you are the person who can solve this problem best, aren’t you?”

“…What are you talking about?”

Mascarpone’s family runs a merchant guild that distributes magic supplies. Naturally, she would be the most knowledgeable among us about these magic portals.

Isn’t Mascarpone’s mother the Imperial Court Magician?

“The portal in this building, was it installed by your family?”

“…Yes. My late grandmother installed it.”

Even while crying, Mascarpone raised her chin, seemingly proud when her family was mentioned. ‘Oh, are you proud?’ I suppressed the urge to tease her and continued my questioning.

“Then you’d know well about the conditions for a portal installation site?”

“Better than the Princess.”

“Explain it to me. Where can it be installed?”

“…First, it has to be a space of a certain size. It needs to withstand the instantly exploding magical power. It’s usually installed outdoors, and if it absolutely has to be indoors, the walls are usually reinforced thickly so they don’t collapse.”

“Hmm. But the walls here aren’t thick.”

This is a protruding part of the ‘ㅜ’-shaped building. Opening the doors leads directly to the corridor or outside. The wall thickness was uniform.

I looked at Yoo Je-in’s ankle.

‘I don’t know much about kitchen work.’

Isn’t the most common ointment in a kitchen for burns or knife cuts? They don’t even have those, so why would they need to prepare ointment and bandages for sprains?

The floor doesn’t look particularly slippery either.

Unless people often get hurt climbing up and down ladders.

But the kitchen shelves aren’t that high…

“Ah!”

Mascarpone’s voice interrupted my train of thought.

“In the case of a single-story building, they sometimes dig into the ground to install the portal! In that case, they place things that are easy to break on top to detect vibrations coming up from the underground…”

Mascarpone’s voice slowed. Her gaze, which had completely stopped, was directed at the corner.

The kitchen floor, completely covered in sugar. Specifically, the place where the sugar was piled up most heavily. The place where the sugar sculpture, the size of two adult men combined, had collapsed.

“I’ll clear it.”

Darjeeling quickly approached, grabbed a sack, and cleared the sugar on the floor.

The Crown Prince and the Grand Duke approached, carefully tapping the floor.

“It’s hollow.”

He announced the good news.

“Wow!”

‘I wondered why there was so much sugar all of a sudden. It was for camouflage.’

We found it easier than expected.

“Did the chef send the kitchen staff through the portal first, then lock the door one last time, explode the sugar all over the kitchen to hide the entrance, and commit suicide?”

“If the staff had successfully escaped, he probably wouldn’t have committed suicide. The problem is how to open this.”

Mascarpone, whose complexion had instantly improved upon realizing she had been helpful, approached the pondering Crown Prince and Grand Duke.

After inspecting the floor, Mascarpone said, “It seems to be a type of portal where a doorknob appears when a registered owner is recognized. Since it didn’t react even when the Crown Prince was here… the owner must be the chef.”

“How is the owner recognized?”

“Mainly by a palm print or a face.”

Is it the same as unlocking a smartphone? The Crown Prince and I said simultaneously.

“It’s probably the face.”

And our eyes met. The Crown Prince said, “The Princess, please speak.”

“Ah, yes.”

It’s nothing much.

I spoke to the people looking at me. “The chef gets a lot of water on his hands, so his fingerprints… the surface of his fingers would be worn down. He would also often have things on his hands. Instead of going through the trouble of wiping his hands and opening the door every time, he would have set it to the face.”

It has to be the face. A corpse can’t use fingerprint recognition.

“My opinion is the same as the Princess’s.”

Fortunately, the chef’s face, which Darjeeling had cut off earlier, was undamaged.

“Once the owner is recognized, it then responds to intent. By shouting ‘Open!’ or gesturing.”

“Does it have to be the owner for that?”

“No.”

“Then the story is simple.”

The Grand Duke coolly left and picked up the chef’s severed head.

“Sorry, Chef.”

He muttered insincerely and immediately held it up to the place presumed to be the door.

Drrrr. A handle rose up.

Minor Character 2, craning her neck to look at the portal, tilted her head. “The portal handle is red? Did they mark it to make it easy to see?”

No.

That’s not a mark.

That’s…

Thump.

Simultaneously, someone knocked on the ceiling from below.

The ceiling from their perspective, the floor from ours.

A chill ran down my spine.

My tense brain spun rapidly.

‘If the chef sent the staff first through the portal, a rescue team would have arrived. I know the Imperial Palace is fine, even if no one else does. Therefore, what’s down there is not a person.’

Thump.

Why did the chef, who wasn’t bitten, commit suicide here instead of taking the portal? Why did he spread sugar all over the room to hide the entrance before dying? As if he desperately hoped people wouldn’t find it.

Thump. Thump.

My eyes met the anxious faces of the others. They were all clearly thinking the same thing.

What if the chef didn’t send the staff first, but trapped the staff who had turned into zombies down there?

The only one who didn’t read the atmosphere was the nuisance man.

“I’m going first!”

The nuisance man threw down the liquor bottle and rushed toward the door.

“Get out of the way!”

“Lord Paphry!”

Darjeeling tried to block the nuisance man with his arm, but—

“‘Open!'”

His ‘intent’ could not be stopped.

Thump. Thump.