Chapter 55

"Alesia, we should take the pot off the stove soon, or it will burn."

"Oh no! That's bad!"

She hurriedly removed the pot from the heat. She had been lost in thought and almost let the stew burn. It was her father's favorite, a heavily spiced lamb stew for tonight.

"Is everything okay? Isn't it hard to fill the pot with water?"

"No, Dad. It's no problem at all."

"His Highness has also told you not to overexert yourself."

"It's fine, really. I could do twice as much without any trouble."

That night, she said, "I'll go to bed early just to be safe," and lay down on her bed, but she couldn't sleep.

She was worried. The hidden room in the palace. According to the books in the library, when the rebellion broke out, the people who stormed the palace quickly executed the royal family and the upper nobility.

This means that all the people who knew about the hidden room were suddenly killed on the same day. It's highly likely that the current royal family doesn't know about that room.

What if someone had fled to the hidden room during the rebellion? What if the body had been left there for decades without being found?

Now, the only person who knows about the hidden room is probably me. The craftsmen who built the hidden room are probably at the end of their lives. The lifespan of commoners is not long.

(Perhaps there is a forgotten body lying there. It could be someone I know.) Once I started to doubt, I couldn't get it out of my head. Even though I know it's a foolish delusion, I can't help but imagine sending a pitiful body back to its family.

At first, it was just a fleeting thought, but the image of a person lying in a small hidden room, having starved to death, became increasingly clear in my mind. Not checking the hidden room is now as bothersome as walking with a pebble in my shoe.

So the next morning, after filling the barrel with water, I requested an audience with Prince Edna.

"What's the matter, Alesia?"

"Your Highness, I know it might sound ridiculous, but I sometimes feel a bad presence in the palace. Since the presence is faint, I think it must be in a place I haven't been. I was hoping to tour the palace with your permission..."

"Oh! A bad presence? We must investigate this! I'm very interested in exploring the palace I've lived in for so long!"

Prince Edna looked at me with sparkling eyes, which was a bit different from my plan. I had planned for her to be scared, but now it's different. However, I still want to check the hidden room. I need to remove the pebble from my shoe.

The three of us—me, Prince Edna, and the maid—set off.

We didn't go straight to the hidden room; we took a roundabout way, turning back several times. We were on the third floor of the west tower, and just as we were about to reach the hidden room, the door of a passing room opened, and a young man who looked like Prince Marks came out. He glanced at me and called out.

"Edna? What's going on?"

"Brother Moshe! Alesia said she feels a bad presence in the palace..."

"Your Highness, it might just be my imagination!"

"Bad presence? That's serious. You're the magician, right? Can I join you?"

My plan was getting very different. What should I do?

I wasn't supposed to search for the hidden room with both the prince and princess and the maid. Maybe I should have just endured the pebble in my shoe.

What if there are several old bodies lying around? They might faint. If it was just Prince Edna, I planned to quickly check inside and say, "Your Highness, you can't see this!" But with Prince Moshe joining, I'm not sure if that will work.

While I was thinking all this, looking at Prince Moshe's face, he said sadly, "Is it impossible?" ...Well, my plan is different, but there's no choice.

"Of course, it's possible."

We were at the end of the third floor of the west tower, where two doors were side by side. I pointed to the left door and asked them to open it. It seemed to be a room that wasn't used much. There were several shelves, and chairs and tables were covered with white cloths.

"Alesia, is this it? Do you feel the bad presence here?"

"Yes."

I steeled myself and approached the left wall. I stared at it intently. The entrance to the hidden room was in front of a shelf. I could feel the excited expressions of the two princes and the puzzled gaze of the maid.

"I'll move this bookshelf."

"Let me do it."

The much larger Prince Moshe lifted the empty shelf with both hands and moved it aside. I had memorized the method to open the hidden room's door since last night. If asked why I knew, I would say, "I'm a magician," and that would be that.

I squatted down and pushed the third stone from the bottom, which was slightly different in color. A part of the floorboard a few steps to the right slightly lifted. I lifted and removed the floorboard, stepped on the stone inside, and heard a thud from inside the wall. Then, I pushed the top part of the stone I had pushed in with all my strength, and a section of the wall, just large enough for a person to fit, retracted. By pushing this section to the left, I could enter.

"Wow! Alesia, you know how to do this!"

"Yes. I'm a magician."

I pushed the retracted part of the wall to the left with my weight. The wheels at the bottom made a heavy rolling sound. The entrance appeared. I quickly peeked inside, blocking the entrance with my upper body to shield the three people behind me from the view.

However, it was too dark to see anything. When I tried to step back to let in some light, Prince Moshe quickly stuck his head in. Then he screamed.

"Ah!"

Oh, this is completely different from my plan.