Chapter 45
Since the night Lia had “been with” Kartian, she had been endlessly busy. Not because there was work to do, but because there were things she needed to check.
In reality, what she needed to check was mostly just the letters sent by Freya and the ones she had received. But since she had decided to check everything without a strict deadline, there were a lot to go through. Especially before she had possessed this body, Freya had exchanged many letters with various people.
Among them, Lia was carefully examining the letters between Freya and the Marquess of Sarontien.
Yet, she hadn’t found the result she wanted.
Surely, Freya must have been behind the young lady of the Sarontien family bringing cookies with walnuts, but there was nothing in the letters confirming it.
Of course, contrary to Lia’s suspicion, it was possible that Freya really had nothing to do with it. It could have been a perfect coincidence.
But Lia’s instincts, based on Freya’s attitude, said it was no coincidence.
Freya was definitely the culprit.
The reason she couldn’t find proof now wasn’t because Freya was innocent, but because something had been hidden.
Even though the Emperor had asked for all letters sent from the palace, perhaps a few had been deliberately withheld.
Or… maybe they were hidden in code.
Just in case, Lia carefully examined the letters Freya had sent to the Sarontien family. Anything would do. Even a small clue would be enough.
She reread the letters several times, this time arranging them in chronological order.
Then, something felt off. Reading them normally seemed fine, but putting them in order made some things not fit.
For example, a letter supposedly sent yesterday began with, “It’s been a while. How have you been?”—written in today’s letter. Or sudden topic changes appeared.
There was no set format for letters, but these things were really strange.
Also, some letters seemed to have far too much empty space for such simple content. Could something be hidden in that blank space?
Looking at the letters with more than half empty, it was possible something had been written there invisibly.
The way to check it…
Lia’s gaze fell on the candle on her desk as she thought for a moment.
The most common method. If you shine light on paper, hidden writing can appear.
As expected, when Lia held the candle over the letter, hidden letters appeared.
“Quite meticulous, I must say.”
She had a cold expression.
However, even after seeing the hidden letters, she couldn’t understand them. The revealed letters were scrambled, unable to form proper sentences.
Then it must be a code. There’s no reason to go to so much trouble for such meaningless sentences.
Still, there was progress.
Lia tried shining the candle on other letters Freya had sent, but none of them had hidden letters. Only the letters exchanged with the Marquess contained them. This meant something secret was happening between Freya and the Marquess. She already knew that from the original story, but now she had solid evidence.
If she could only decode these scrambled letters, she could deal with Freya—and even the Marquess, who could be a major threat later. She felt sorry for the Sarontien young lady, but there was no choice.
“So, I have to combine these letters. I never thought I’d be decoding ciphers in this world.”
After becoming Empress, Lia had gone through all sorts of things, and she was beginning to feel exasperated.
At the same time, she thought: do I really have to handle this myself? Am I allowed to deal with Freya?
Since Freya played a major role in the original story, Lia hesitated to deal with her lightly like others.
But she couldn’t ignore it. She didn’t know how long she would remain here, or what kind of threats Freya might pose during that time.
So far, she hadn’t been a real threat. The allergy could be treated with medicine.
But who knew how long Freya would continue using such weak tricks? With Lia possessing Riarna’s body, she couldn’t predict what extreme actions Freya might take.
Being passive was not Lia’s style. So it was better to deal with Freya before she could target her.
At that moment, there was a knock, and a maid entered, holding a simple dessert. She had brought desserts before, but this time it was a different maid.
Usually, Lia’s personal maid Laila would visit and serve her. But this maid was not Laila.
“Where’s Laila?” Lia asked casually as the maid placed the desserts on the desk.
“She isn’t feeling well today, so I’m serving just for today,” the maid replied politely, bowing. Her eyes flicked briefly toward the letters on Lia’s desk.
“Laila isn’t feeling well? What’s wrong?”
Although she hadn’t known her long, Lia felt slightly concerned that her personal maid Laila was sick. She had been the first proper maid Lia had met here, showing no hostility or distrust.
“She seems to have caught a fever from overworking the past few days,” the maid explained.
‘Overworking?’
Lia frowned. Her personal maid shouldn’t have much to do besides what Lia assigned.
Since Lia was not used to having a maid, she hadn’t asked Laila to do anything extra. That allowed Laila to serve her comfortably.
But catching a fever from overwork? Could she be doing something else besides attending to Lia?
However, after reading the reports from the other maids yesterday, Laila hadn’t done anything besides serving Lia.
Lia felt an uneasy twinge.
