MDRH 27

Chapter 27

Cookie rested her wings over her fluttering heart, patting herself gently to calm down.

[As expected, the Duke is terrifying, Lucy.]

Ah, right. Her voice wouldn’t reach Lucy here.

If she went beyond a certain range, Lucilea couldn’t hear her, and she couldn’t send her voice to Lucilea either.

Cookie gazed faintly in the direction of Lucilea and murmured.

[That’s a little disappointing.]

How nice it would be if she could send her voice even from afar.

[Then I could tell her what’s happening in real time, all lively and vivid.]

Taking a deep breath, Cookie finally pulled herself away from the window she had been clinging to.

Her legs still trembled slightly, but thinking of Lucilea waiting for her gave her strength.

As she carefully stepped on the snow-covered windowsill, thump, thump, thump, thump—tiny, insignificant-looking bird footprints were left on the pure white snow.

[Ouch, it’s cold! Oh, my toes!]

What if her cute little toes froze and snapped off?

[When I get back, I’m going to demand a ton of fruit…]

Feeling unjustly aggrieved, Cookie muttered to herself as she moved to the edge of the windowsill.

Then she peeked her head out and cautiously looked up at the upper floor.

Thankfully, the Duke’s reception room window was tightly closed.

[Heh heh heh, no matter how scary the Duke is, he couldn’t find Cookie, right? He didn’t even notice that Cookie is hiding here, thanks to Cookie’s nimble movements, right?]

Feeling proud of having “defeated” Elbadin, Cookie lifted her chin and wiggled her body from side to side as if dancing.

He couldn’t find me? Did I hide well?

Then, suddenly, she felt numbness creeping into her toes.

[My toes are really going to freeze if this keeps up.]

Thinking she had to get to Lucilea quickly, Cookie glanced up at the sky, then soared straight upward.

[Lucyyyy! Cookie’s comiiing!]

Just then, she saw Lucilea pressed against her bedroom window, looking down at her.

[Yay! Lucy!]

Lucilea opened the window and stretched her arms toward Cookie.

[Lucy…]

The strong wind made the return trip difficult.

But seeing Lucilea spreading her arms toward her, Cookie felt a surge of strength despite the cold gusts.

[Lucy! Lucyyyy!]

“Cookie!”

Lucilea gently caught Cookie with both hands as she flew toward her.

[Lucy!! Huuuh!]

The expression of pride Cookie had just shown turned into sudden tears.

[I thought my heart would explode from fear! Do you know how scary the Duke was?! If I were even a little slower, he would’ve caught me!]

With her characteristic pirung-pirung grumble, Cookie muttered indignantly.

“Oh, I see…” Lucilea agreed wholeheartedly with Cookie’s brief account.

If I didn’t have memories from my past life, I probably would’ve frozen, cried, or fainted too, she thought, just like other children would.

Lucilea gently stroked the small, round back of Cookie’s head with her finger.

“You did well. I was really scared too.”

She had felt that too. The window had suddenly burst open, Elbadin appeared, and Cookie had dodged down to the lower floor before him, making her heart sink.

For a fleeting moment, she even regretted letting Cookie go.

Once Cookie had calmed down a bit, Lucilea met her eyes and asked:

“So? Did you hear what they were talking about? How did the two of them seem? Did they seem friendly?”

[…My toes are frozen too, you know?]

“Oh.”

Lucilea blew warm air on Cookie’s toes and asked again:

“They didn’t fight, right? Was the atmosphere tense?”

Ahem.

Cookie lifted her tiny beak and replied:

[They looked veeeery unfriendly.]

“…Huh? Unfriendly?”

[Yes! Like the village chief of Mille and Nancy from the women’s association.]

“…Ah.”

Lucilea let out a short sigh.

In Mille Village, the village chief and Nancy were sworn enemies.

Whenever they met, they didn’t just grab each other’s hair—they exchanged fierce glares full of curses.

“Just that bad?”

[Yes! When the Duke said, ‘Why did a busy person like you come here?!’ the priest replied, ‘The High Priest wants to see the Duke!’]

Cookie began mimicking Elbadin and the priest’s voices as she recounted what she had overheard.

[Then the Duke also said, ‘Shut up, temple that sucks the high fever out of the people!’ or something like that!]

“High blood, probably.”

[Ah, yes! That’s it!]

Like a child who got the answer right, Cookie was thrilled, but then quickly resumed a serious expression.

[But from that point, things got a little strange.]

“What happened?”

[The Duke made everyone in the reception room leave. Then the priest suddenly started speaking kindly, and the Duke began speaking informally.]

It was as if they were interacting like household staff. The priest was extremely polite in front of the Duke.

What Cookie relayed next made Lucilea’s mind even more complicated.

‘The priest named Lucanel was giving me inside information about the Imperial family and the temple?’

It was unclear how much Cookie remembered and conveyed accurately, but from that alone:

‘It’s not that they’re hostile—they were just pretending to be…?!’

In short, the priest Lucanel was a spy planted in the Duke’s household by the temple.

Stories about the new magic department being a little odd, the empress orchestrating it, and the unknown identity of a certain magician… Lucilea decided to just ignore those.

‘My head is already hurting enough.’

Wow… so many things happened even before the original story even began…

After giving Cookie some fruit and nuts, Lucilea walked over to the sofa and collapsed onto it.

‘The Duke’s family hasn’t completely let go, after all.’

She had thought they hadn’t even prepared because they collapsed too easily in the original story.

‘Yet even so, considering they planted someone in the temple, they still fell too easily.’

Perhaps because Serdian, now the emperor, was just too strong.

Her thoughts reached that far, but it didn’t feel immediate.

‘It’s still too far in the future.’

Serdian had to reach adulthood and ascend to the throne.

And…

‘There’s no guarantee I’ll even be alive by then.’

Her time was only up to that point.

‘In the meantime, I need to improve my relationship with Serdian.’

Whether it was the relationship between Elbadin and Serdian, or herself and Serdian…

‘If either one improves, my chances of survival go up.’

Of course, the original example didn’t include improving her relationship with her biological father, Elbadin.

In Lucilea’s mind, that example didn’t even exist.

Hurrah!

Lucilea sprang up again.

“This isn’t the time to lie around just because I’m full and warm!”

Shouting with determination, she grabbed her coat and left the bedroom.

It was time for dinner.

Pirung-pirung.

Cookie made a displeased sound.

“Oh my, I’ve never seen a parrot before!”

“Me neither! I only saw them in books, this is the first time in real life!”

Lucilea, who had gone to the East Wing dining hall to meet Serdian, couldn’t find him and eventually headed to the main building’s laundry room.

The maids gathered around Cookie.

Cookie blinked sharply and looked at Lucilea.

Lucilea sucked on a stick candy that the maids had given her and innocently asked them questions.

“So, the housekeeper prepared Serdian’s dinner?”

“Yes, Lord Jed went to the Marquis’s house. So the housekeeper took care of the dinner and went to the East Wing.”

“I see…”

So that’s why the dining hall was empty…

‘This brat… there’s no reason for him to avoid me this much!’

Lucilea wanted to rush into Serdian’s room immediately but decided to restrain herself.

If she acted too aggressively, it would backfire.

‘Since it’s come to this, I might as well ask these ladies some questions.’

Though she had never spoken to the servants before and was a little nervous, they were surprisingly kind.

One maid, folding freshly dried laundry, spoke up:

“You didn’t know about the fifth floor?”

Lucilea widened her eyes and nodded.

“No one told me. Ah, I heard a little about it though.”

Huh? The maids looked curious at her.

“What do you mean?”

“What exactly did His Grace the Duke do to go straight to the fifth floor as soon as he arrived?”

“…Excuse me?”

Startled, the maids fell silent all at once.

Hehe, Lucilea smiled innocently.