<Episode 24>
***
As time passed while confronting the emperor, the sky outside was stained with deep darkness.
Red roses were blooming beautifully in the garden at night, covered in pitch-black shadows.
The crown prince, who had been walking silently by my side for a while, spoke.
“Weren’t you hurt from what happened last time?”
“Oh, it was okay.”
“thank god,…I was so distracted at the time that I kept regretting not being able to properly check on my well-being.”
The crown prince chattered in the lively tone of a boy of his age.
Pale green eyes turned to the pendant hanging around my neck.
“That pendant suits you well.”
“You’re fluttering me.”
The crown prince smiled a little at my answer and spoke in a slightly calm voice.
“It’s a royal relic that my mother had. When she passed away, it was left alone without an owner.”
The second prince, Handel Hanal Ruairi, was not the Empress’s descendant, but the son born to the new Empress after the Empress had died.
This pendant I wear around my neck is a relic that only the emperor’s companion, the empress, can have.
……I came here with the intention of breaking off the engagement once I achieved my goal, so my conscience was a bit pricked.
“Ahh!”
At the moment when I was distracted feeling the slightest remorse and thinking about the future, the crown prince, who had been walking quietly next to me, suddenly screamed and fell on the floor.
“Your highness?”
I said, looking down at the crown prince in embarrassment.
“S-sorry. Suddenly, the floor was so slippery….”
The crown prince answered with a gloomy face.
“………..?”
I looked down at my feet.
It was so dry that dust was flying around.
Where on earth is it slippery?
The crown prince must have realized that what he was saying was nonsense, as he tried to get up from the ground with a red face.
however…..
“What’s this…….”
A bewildered voice was heard.
What was it now?
I lowered my head with a clear frown and made a bewildered expression.
Was the dirt that touched the crown prince’s buttocks frozen solid?
Exactly, only the place where the prince sat down was frozen to form a shining smooth surface.
I looked down blankly at the bizarre scene.
The crown prince tried his best to get his butt off, which had become one with the ground.
“Why, why is that happening…”
However, the solidly frozen ice did not seem to break.
“This, this, I mean….sigh….”
As she was looking down at the embarrassing scene, the crown prince, who had been stuttering for words, eventually burst into tears.
“Uh, Your Highness.”
The prince’s face turned red as he shed tears.
Ugh… that would be embarrassing.
Yes, it’s totally embarrassing…
“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu….”
How should I resolve this difficult situation?
I looked down at the prince who was sobbing like a child and looked around, unable to do anything.
Why did he have to leave all his servants to walk in the garden alone?
I can’t do anything, I have to bring someone myself.
As I took a step forward with that thought in mind.
Tak.
“uh?”
Suddenly, snowflakes fell on my eyelids.
And when I looked up at the sky at the sudden coldness.
“ah!”
I faced the scene of the quiet night sky, then I recalled the memories from last time and let out an exclamation.
Last time Perion framed me, something cold, not sure whether it was a snowflake or a piece of ice, touched the tip of my nose from the empty ceiling… Didn’t it?
“……It is the same.”
I felt a sense of déjà vu with the same vivid sensation as then.
furthermore.
“It got cold again.”
I let out white breath and muttered seriously.
I have definitely experienced this strange phenomenon before.
That day, a huge wall of ice came into the crown prince’s palace and crushed the entire palace.
Even after that day, didn’t I keep having a strange occasionally when I was alone?
…This cold energy that seems to freeze my lungs.
It was not an illusion, they were all the same!
I folded my hands and looked around.
‘Tell me your name. Tell me, and I’ll remove all that ice.’
The unknown boy who had suddenly disappeared when he heard my name came to my mind like a fantasy and seemed to smile that strange smile at me again.
but.
“Huh, huh, definitely….”
To put that sense of déjà vu to shame, nothing happened.
Only the crown prince’s sobs echoed throughout the empty space.
……Was I on guard for no reason?
I was embarrassed for my excessive caution, so I just blinked and tried to comfort the sobbing prince.
“Your Highness, it’s okay. Do not cry.”
“Well, I-I didn’t mean to do this….”
“Yes, I know very well. Your Highness doesn’t look ugly at all.”
I tapped the spot where the crown prince was sitting.
I can’t help him on my own.
Since summoning spirits was prohibited, there was nothing I could do.
“I’ll get someone! Please wait a moment!”
Let’s just call a servant like I first planned.
I ran fast.
In the garden at night, bright red roses were blooming on both sides.
The more I ran, the more red flowers seemed to run with me.
But it’s really strange.
No matter how much I run again and again, there was no end.
“……uh?”
At some point, I stopped and muttered.
“Obviously, it should take less than 5 minutes to leave the garden.”
It seems like it’s been over 10 minutes, but why can’t I still see the end of the garden?
I shook my head and looked around.
The flower garden, with red roses blooming beautifully wherever the eye could see, was no different from the sight I had seen before.
“……..”
However, the once attractive red became strangely creepy, causing me to fell unexplained resistance.
The moment I realized something was wrong, fear and chills came over me as if they had been waiting for me.
I instinctively wrapped my arms around myself and muttered desperately.
“okay. Let’s go a little further…”
It must be my imagination. I guess I just had a strange delusion.
I tried to console myself and walked slowly.
After about 10 more minutes passed.
“…This is not normal.”
I finally acknowledged that the current situation was abnormal.
Cold sweat ran down my neck.
If it were any other time, I would have summoned the spirits immediately without much thought.
But now……
“l can’t summon the spirits…”
It’s driving me insane, what should I do with this?
“You, children of indestructible life. Answer the call of him whom you have blessed with an immortal heart. [Naiad].”
I tried reciting the summoning spell just in case, but it was still the same.
Before I entered the imperial palace, when I recited the summoning spell, an indescribable feeling would well up in my chest, but now I couldn’t feel it at all.
It was because of the spell that prohibited the summoning of spirits.
…In the original novel, witchcraft was never treated in any significant way.
Even the power of the Spirit King was blocked, so where on earth did the power of that magic come from?
“What should I do….”
However, that was not the most important issue right now, as I was faced with an unidentifiable, strange situation taking place in this imperial palace where summoning spirits was prohibited.
I was worried about how to overcome this difficulty.
Sigh-
At that moment, a bunch of bright red roses seemed to pass by in front of my blurred vision, as I was lost in thought.
I rubbed my eyes and stared straight ahead.
Was it an optical illusion?
Hodduk-
“W-what!”
Did it even hear my whispers?
The vine with its lovely rose flowers writhing as if it were alive, trampled and hugged the rose trees next to it and began to increase its size.
I was horrified by the bizarre sight and took a step back.
The tall rose vines moved all the rose trees around and soon created a single path.
“…….this……”
I stared blankly at a scene I could not believe was real.
If you had seen it in bright daylight, it would have looked like a beautiful arched rose path.
It was made in such a strange way that there was no way I could feel its beauty.
“……..”
I hesitantly walked over and touched the vine.
The vine was quiet, as if it had done its job.
“What…, does it mean to go in there?”
I looked into the red and dark passageway and muttered softly.
Just by looking at it, I can clearly feel a suspicious atmosphere, so why would I go in here?
But nothing would change if I kept standing still
“What do I do…….”
still.
“Let’s try one more time…”
I muttered softly and turned around.
And then I stared blankly ahead.
This was because the path I had walked on just a moment ago had disappeared without a trace.
The path I had walked on was blocked by green shrubs that I don’t know when they first grew.
“……ha ha ha.”
Goosebumps appeared in my every tiny pore.
All escape routes have disappeared.
I turned around in tears.
A dark road greeted me as if it was the entrance to the underworld.
⋯⋯⋯⋯The only option I had, as I could not summon any spirit, was to step into the strange passage created by this rose vine.
***
I kept going forward.
How long did I walk for? The dark and eerie passageway suddenly came to an end.
There was light.
I saw a dim light in front of me and happily ran out of the gloomy passage.
“……castle?”
Outside the road was a deserted castle that seemed to have been abandoned for a long time.
In the imperial palace… was there a place like this?
I looked up at the huge, desolate old castle.
The exterior of the castle was grayish-white, and its walls were filled with pure white frost.
Outside the window, which was wide open and torn on one side, a large pillar of bluish ice was sticking out, as if piercing the sky.
It was definitely that ice.
“……that day.”
It appeared to overlap with the ice wall that attacked the crown prince’s palace.
In short, it was a very shabby castle.
So much so that I instinctively felt that it was a place I should never enter.
***
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