Chapter 12
I wished time would stop.
Because it was a question I couldn’t drag out for too long.
It would be strange to hesitate. The very act of hesitating over such a simple question would be far too strange.
I tilted my head slightly, as if I didn’t understand the words I’d just heard.
Even if I looked flustered, it wouldn’t seem odd. I mean, come on—what kind of question is this? Am I Lucilia?
How am I supposed to answer that?
Even as all this went on, time was ticking, and dozens of thoughts flashed through my mind.
Am I Lucilia?
It was hard to say either yes or no.
My original life had existed in a completely different world. But that life was already over.
And the soul that was once Lucilia’s was no longer here.
Instead, I was here now.
My body belonged to Lucilia. My soul? Maybe not.
But what mattered was that I would live on as Lucilia.
If the future I live isn’t mine, then whose is it?
“Yes.”
The answer came first—and then came the shock.
I hadn’t prepared myself mentally, but my mouth moved on its own. As if some unconscious part of me, something deep within, had pushed me forward.
I straightened my back and looked at Rudolf. Then, with certainty, I spoke.
“I am Lucilia El Esperuza, the 17th Princess of the Empire.”
As if declaring to myself: this is my life now.
The cold night air slowly drifted by.
No sudden surge of blood from my throat…
That didn’t happen.
The moment I realized that, a wide smile spread across my face.
It wasn’t a conscious smile. Like an exhale after tension released, laughter bubbled out on its own.
The Three Questions of Carlisle are determined not by the objective truth, but by the belief of the person answering. So this only meant that I had answered with confidence—it didn’t mean anything about who I truly was.
Even knowing that, I couldn’t stop smiling.
Somehow, I felt accepted by this world. Like I had seized the future. With my own hands, with my own strength.
“Now then.”
I raised my head—and froze.
Rudolf was staring at me. Intently.
There was no feigned kindness in his gaze, only the piercing sharpness of someone studying a newly discovered specimen.
A dry, cutting gaze, like a blade peeling me apart.
A gaze of inquiry, trying to reveal everything within me.
I had the same thought again as before:
I really shouldn’t let my guard down…
“The final question remains.”
Rudolf spoke slowly.
“Yes, that’s right.”
I forced a smile, lifting the corners of my lips.
It’s fine. No matter what Rudolf thinks, I didn’t die. Even if something seems odd, he’ll probably let it slide.
“Then here’s the final question, brother.”
Let’s end this farce already and go our separate ways. With that desperate hope, I spoke the last question:
“Are you going to kill me now?”
My pitiful-little-sister act, I must protect it at all costs.
With that intention in my heart, I clasped my hands and looked up at Rudolf like I was praying.
Rudolf’s expression twisted into something unreadable.
His once-sharp gaze contorted, and even his lips seemed tense.
Is he angry? Just as I flinched and started to lower my hands—
“Haha…”
Like a crystal bell, Rudolf’s laughter rang through the room.
I was stunned by the unexpected reaction.
…He laughed? Rudolf?
I mean, sure, he had been smiling like a doll the whole time.
But those were clearly forced smiles—and after the final question, he had looked at me with intense suspicion.
Whatever shift happened in his mind, Rudolf was now laughing. And it felt… genuinely amused.
“You really are an amusing child.”
He laughed for quite a while before speaking again.
“No, not today.”
Don’t add conditions to it! Just say no! You’re scaring me!
At that moment, I felt something loosen around my neck.
It felt like fine threads—like spider silk—unraveling one by one. I flinched and looked at Rudolf. The glowing sigil on my neck began to fade from the top.
Finally, the cold sensation that had wrapped around my throat vanished completely.
The Three Questions of Carlisle had ended.
It was a sudden conclusion. I instinctively touched my neck, dazed. Through my fingertips, I felt warmth and the steady thump of my pulse.
I was alive.
That alone was a great relief.
“That was more entertaining than I expected.”
His voice came from a distance. I looked up in surprise.
Rudolf was already outside, standing in the sky beyond the window.
“Let’s meet again.”
Leaving behind those ominous words, Rudolf vanished into thin air.
I collapsed to the floor.
My life had been spared. I had successfully completed the Three Questions of Carlisle, and even afterward, Rudolf hadn’t laid a finger on me.
But… did everything really go according to plan?
“I feel like something went wrong.”
That was the sense I got.
✦✦✦
“Hah.”
Laughter turned into white mist, drifting and fading in the air.
Above Solias, the highest altar in the Imperial Palace—higher even than that—Rudolf stood in the sky.
The sky, filled only with frozen clouds and icy winds, was bitterly cold. But Rudolf showed no sign of discomfort as he gazed downward.
His blue eyes sparkled like stars, fixed on one spot. A white rooftop gleamed quietly under the moonlight.
Rudolf looked down at Opal Palace, thinking of the small, shabby palace’s current resident.
“She really was strange.”
Several years ago, when Lucilia was around ten, Rudolf had once sent someone to Opal Palace.
It was just to gather minor information, but after the first report, he couldn’t help but chuckle.
“I’m not certain, but I believe everyone working in Opal Palace is a spy like me.”
That ridiculous claim turned out to be true within just a few weeks. The spies didn’t even try to hide their identities.
Rudolf’s informant even speculated that the 17th Princess herself probably knew the truth. She spoke so loudly about it that there was no way she didn’t know.
Hearing that, Rudolf had formed an idea of what kind of person the 17th Princess was.
“She endured the humiliation and kept her head down. That’s the best strategy if you lack power.”
Some might look down on such behavior, but Rudolf thought it was smart.
Besides, people like that tend to avoid politics as much as possible. Just trying to survive, they usually cast null votes in the Solea succession election.
Not worth the hassle of recruiting or eliminating. Besides, she was just a ten-year-old child.
When she came of marriageable age, he’d reassess her usefulness. If not, he’d leave her be.
That had been Rudolf’s judgment at the time.
Who could have predicted things would turn out this way?
As Rudolf recalled those memories, he smirked.
When he heard that Richard had personally visited the palace to win over a young princess, he could hardly believe it without seeing it himself.
So this time, Rudolf came himself instead of sending a spy. To see and evaluate the 17th Princess with his own eyes.
When the Three Questions of Carlisle began, Rudolf was stunned into silence by the first question.
Everyone in the Imperial Palace knew of the enmity between Rudolf and Richard. For someone to bring up Richard to his face—it was unimaginable.
After hearing the first and second questions, Rudolf looked at the twelve-year-old girl before him and reconsidered his earlier judgment.
Had she not been humbling herself to survive? Was she simply… an idiot?
Calling him “brother” the moment they met, trying to be affectionate, and treating the rivalry between him and Richard like a petty sibling spat—was she really trying to mediate?
It was so naive it made him laugh.
Brothers fighting, and the little sister steps in to make peace? What next? The emperor is chosen by lottery, and they all live happily ever after?
Whatever fairytales she’d grown up reading in Opal Palace, they must’ve been the ridiculous kind.
Rudolf felt his interest in the 17th Princess fading fast.
Still, two things lingered: Richard’s interest in her, and the possibility that she might be Stella.
Was Richard pursuing her because she was Stella? Or had her innocence stirred some long-dormant sense of family in him?
Either way, it was an interesting situation.
And the girl herself was desperate to reconcile them. Maybe Rudolf could use that to get close to Richard—maybe even uncover a weakness.
With that in mind, Rudolf decided to finish the questioning as planned. She didn’t seem ambitious enough to covet the throne, but he needed to be sure. That’s what the questions were for.
As he prepared to ask the final one, Rudolf felt something strange.
Hard to describe—it wasn’t logical, more of a gut feeling. Something he’d sensed from the very beginning but hadn’t consciously noticed until now.
The girl, quietly watching him as she waited for his question—
She somehow didn’t seem to belong here.
Not because of her dreams or innocence. Her tone, her gestures, her expressions—they all seemed normal, yet subtly off. A sense of incongruity that defied explanation.
The 17th Princess didn’t feel like a twelve-year-old. She didn’t even feel like royalty.
Of course, that was ridiculous. In the Esperuza family, prodigious children were common. Richard, for instance, had beaten an assassin to death with a wooden sword at thirteen.
And given how neglected the 17th Princess had been, her unrefined manners were understandable.
Even so, Rudolf couldn’t shake the feeling.
“Yes, let’s ask the final question.”
And so, at the final moment, Rudolf changed it.
“Are you really Lucilia El Esperuza?”
The girl answered yes.
And then—
“Hahahahaha!”
Rudolf burst into laughter.
No matter how many times he thought of that moment, it thrilled him. His heart raced, and he could feel blood rushing to his fingertips.
That girl had turned pale from a simple question. And after answering, she was relieved to find it was the truth.
That made no sense.
The Three Questions of Carlisle are a magical ritual that determines truth based on the speaker’s conviction.
It’s an ancient magic, bearing the name of the god Carlisle, and its principles remain elusive to this day—precise and powerful. If it could be manipulated, Rudolf wouldn’t rely on it so heavily.
You can’t just lie with enough conviction and pass the test.
Yet the girl had answered without full conviction—and lived.
All he had asked was her name.
So why had she hesitated? And what was that eerie, uncanny feeling Rudolf sensed from her?
Just who is she, really?
Never before had Rudolf encountered a riddle this difficult.
And riddles were the driving force of Rudolf’s life.
“Lucilia El Esperuza…”
Like a child admiring a newly bought toy, Rudolf murmured the name as he looked down at the rooftop of Opal Palace.
