Chapter 13

Translator and Editor: Lea and Ishy

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Chapter 13

I and Ash were now trapped shut in this room.

I rubbed my face as I saw the pieces of the canopy of my bed torn apart and scattered on the floor.

“Looks like I’m going to be stuck here forever.”

[No! T-That can’t be true!]

“Do you know you’re stammering?”

[A-A little, it’s true that it’s dangerous, but t-this is your home, right? H-How dangerous can it be?]

I couldn’t bring myself to believe in him when his feathers were trembling with fear.

“Oh, really? Then, let’s say the knife from the still life picture on that wall comes to life and darts toward my neck.”

[Gasp……! Don’t say that! That’s really scary!]

He shouted in astonishment.

I stopped as I felt bad scaring the little creature.

But even if I didn’t scare him…

Squeak!

“Ahh!”

As soon as I jumped up from my seat, the blackwood chair I was just sitting on broke into two pieces.

[Olivia!]

“Oh my God. What the hell…”

I stared helplessly at the wreckage of the chair.

‘How did this break down?’

First of all, a chair made from solid blackwood couldn’t be broken just because someone sat on it.

Secondly, the chair leg appeared to be sliced neatly.

Thirdly, the pointed part of the wood was facing the roof.

‘It’s sharp enough to skewer a body.’

Wouldn’t it have penetrated my body if I was still sitting?

[O-Olivia…]

I gritted my teeth at his trembling voice.

At first, I thought it was just a strange phenomenon, but it was gradually turning into a dangerous attack.

And I could foretell what was causing it.

The evil spirits will continue to seek you out to devour you.

Wicked beings hidden in the darkness after escaping the boundaries of Rutoru forest sow all kinds of seeds to cause harm.

‘What do I do?’

I clenched my fist tightly.

I had already tried all the ways to escape, but each one of them failed.

I could instinctively feel that there was not much time left until the attacks became more aggressive.

[There! T-The window!]

“I see it, too.”

Needless to say, the glass of the windowpane was cracking.

The same window that I tried to break earlier.

The bright colors of the sunset were reflected along the cracked lines of the glass.

For me, they were numerous forms of weapons waiting to stab me.

“Ash. When the window breaks, don’t look back and run outside.”

[What? What about you!]

“I will be right after you.”

It was a lie.

I couldn’t escape by jumping off the window because my room was situated on the third floor of the building.

Creak, creak, creak!

The glass kept breaking with a creepy sound, with the sharp edges turning towards us.

I tore off the wooden frame hanging on the wall and grabbed it like a shield.

“Get ready. Ash.”

[I can’t leave you alone. No, I won’t go!]

“Don’t be stubborn and listen.”

[Don’t talk nonsense!]

“Whatever, you never listen to me.”

I hid behind the frame after I caught the bird flapping his wings in front of me.

His small and fragile body wouldn’t be able to stand a single hit from a glass piece.

‘Let’s try it.’

I would only have one chance to escape.

Though I grew nervous, I was ready for the attack.

But, it did not go as I expected.

Crash!

The glass pieces that were aiming for us stopped and plummeted downward. After hitting the floor, they broke into smaller fragments.

[Huh? What happened?]

Ash asked, his black eyes wide open.

But I didn’t know the reason myself.

Perhaps because of the sudden silence, I felt goosebumps on my skin.

I heard someone behind me.

“My lady, why was the door frozen shut… Oh, my.”

I turned around to see Mary standing outside my door.

She looked pale, holding the tray tightly with both hands.

‘The door is open?’

The same was true for the window, too. It looked as if it was never locked.

The evening breeze coming in through the window felt refreshing.

All that was left was me standing in the middle of a ruined room.

My solemn posture with the frame in my hand was a bonus.

“My Lady?”

She could barely make a word out, her eyes switching between the room and me. She had a devastated look on her face.

“What happened…..?”

If I was sweating due to fear earlier, it was due to a different situation this time.

How could I explain this?

If I told Mary the truth, she and the other servants would call me crazy.

I sighed, touching my forehead with the back of my hand.

“Sorry. I guess I’ve been under a lot of stress.”

“Let’s just say a noble lady got hysterical about her issues.”

***

Mary helped in solving the situation very well.

She quickly called in the other servants and instructed them to fix the room and the furniture.

“I think you should stay in another room for a while until we replace the window.”

“It’s not necessary…”

I tried to refuse because I felt sorry for increasing the work of the employees.

“It gets quite cold at night, my lady. You won’t be able to sleep properly with the cold wind rushing in through the broken window. What if you catch a cold?”

When I nodded, Mary smiled satisfactorily.

Moving the room took less time than I thought.

Not much of my luggage was moved either because my room was scheduled to be fixed very soon.

“Then, my lady, rest peacefully.”

After Mary and the other servants stepped out, I looked around the room I was left alone in.

‘It’s quite simple.’

I didn’t realize it before because I used to live in a very small room in my previous life.

Olivia didn’t have the burden of a noble lady as a punishment.

She could always leave home, saying she was going out on a trip.

‘Come to think of it, Olivia always wanted to leave the mansion of Viscount Brienne.’

Olivia didn’t like the house.

She was always afraid of her father, who neglected her and sometimes even hit her. She also used to avoid the maids who harassed her.

On the day she left the mansion in the novel, and it was described as an ‘escape’.

‘But I’m okay since I’m in a good environment.’

Unlike the original, the servants were polite, the rooms they prepared were pleasant, and the food was of good quality.

The Viscount was a bad guy, but he was never antisocial.

The more I thought about it, the more questions arose in my mind.

“That’s weird.”

[What is?]

Ash popped up in front of me all of a sudden.

“Ahh, when did you get here?”

[What’s weird about this?]

I turned the topic to his curiously twinkling eyes.

“It’s nothing. Did you check everything already?”

[Yes. I checked your room again and I don’t feel threatened anymore. I think it’s all gone.]

“It’s too early to be relieved. You never know when they’ll start attacking again.”

My judgment of the mansion being the safest place in this world was proved wrong.

I was vulnerable to being attacked anytime, anywhere.

It felt like I was playing a survival game with death traps everywhere.

[Don’t worry, Olivia. I’ll make sure of your safety whenever you need me.]

I felt his reassurance, so I tried to hide my anxiety with a smile.

[Isn’t this room similar to the previous room? The size and the furniture are the same.]

This room was also situated on the third floor. What changed was the direction it was facing.

[You can see the garden from here. If you sit at the window during the day, you can see a lot of flowers. Honestly, the scenery of the detached building was a bit boring.]

I could only see the grassy field from the previous room because its window was faced toward the back of the mansion.

Thanks to what happened earlier, I could now see flowers growing in a flowerbed.

I gazed down for a moment at the flowers that the gardeners had forgotten to change.

The red flowers still hadn’t lost their freshness.

“Pretty.”

I was lucky that the beautiful flower bed was not disturbed despite the commotion earlier.

[Oh!]

It was Ash’s exclamation that woke me up from my thoughts.

[I’ll be right back!]

“Where are you going when the sun is setting?”

But even before I finished talking, he flew out of the window.

His small body disappeared in an instant.

‘Nothing will happen to him, right?’

He seemed quite flustered when he left.

I glanced at the sky and let out a worried sigh.

“Why the long face?”

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