IBLMS 05

Chapter 05

Come to think of it, if Rana hadn’t been strong, she wouldn’t have been able to pull Anise out of the lake by herself. The day Anise had her accident while Dayvin was away, it was Rana who dragged me out of the water and gave me first aid.

“My lady, please go upstairs. I’ll prepare something delicious and bring it to you.”

After speaking kindly, Rana disappeared into the kitchen with a bag of fruit. I headed to Anise’s study on the second floor with Dayvin.

Since the windows had been shut while we were out, the air felt stuffy. Perhaps thinking the same thing, Dayvin opened the windows first to ventilate the room, then placed the documents he had brought from Mr. Smith’s office on one side of my desk. I sat down, idly swinging my legs back and forth, and picked up the newspaper Rana had brought that morning.

“Hmm.”

As I flipped through the pages, I frowned. Once again, there wasn’t a single article about what I had been through.

The emperor’s fiancée nearly died, and no one mentions it? I even handed the criminals over to the police.

“This definitely isn’t normal.”

Even the servants who had quit working here should have been spreading rumors outside, yet everything was eerily quiet. The police who visited the mansion also seemed suspicious.

Whenever we captured an assassin who had broken into the estate and handed them over, a police officer I had never seen before would appear. That officer would look flustered upon seeing the assassin, say they would call for backup… and then disappear without a trace. After that, another unfamiliar officer would show up.

Since the same thing happened every time we reported it, I began to suspect that the police themselves had been infiltrated.

“Is there bad news in the paper?” Dayvin asked, noticing my expression.

“Isn’t it bad news that there’s no news about me again?”

At my answer, Dayvin’s face also turned serious. As someone who had personally subdued the assassins and handed them over, he probably understood better than I did how suspicious the situation was.

Was it the Duke of Laptan acting alone, or was the emperor turning a blind eye?

Was the emperor really uninvolved in Anise’s assassination attempt?

“Ugh, this is giving me a headache.”

He was both the ruler of this empire and Anise’s fiancé, so whether he was on my side or not would completely change how I should act going forward.

“Honestly, I just want to run away as soon as possible…”

In the original story, the empire fell into complete chaos. Other nations constantly provoked military conflicts, eyeing its territory, and ordinary citizens suffered under rapidly rising taxes due to military spending.

Yet while commoners struggled, the nobles indulged in luxury and focused only on their power struggles. Empress Lanie, in particular, had an extreme sense of privilege and had no intention of understanding the suffering of the people.

Violent crimes like serial murders and disappearances became frequent, making public safety unstable. But the police only cared about nobles and ignored the commoners. Then rumors spread that the empress herself was behind the serial killings, having fallen into black magic and kidnapping and murdering women and children. Public sentiment quickly turned hostile.

In short, the empire’s future was a complete disaster.

“For now, it’s still okay.”

I recalled the peaceful streets of the capital I had just seen. It was hard to believe that such a place would eventually turn into a slum.

My plan was to escape quickly and settle in another country before the original story truly began. I had already decided where to go.

“But would immigration be processed quickly?”

A normal immigration process would probably take a long time. And I needed to take Rana and Dayvin with me. Given the constant threat of assassins, I began considering other options.

“What do you think about applying for asylum in another country with the evidence we’ve gathered?”

“Asylum?”

“I mean, my life is in danger right now. Wouldn’t that let me move quickly to a country willing to accept me?”

Dayvin stared at me in shock for a moment before speaking carefully.

“…Are you planning to leave the empire?”

“Well… I’m starting to think the emperor might be on the enemy’s side too…”

Since I wasn’t certain, my voice lacked conviction. Dayvin looked startled, then calmly shared his thoughts.

“…There’s a high chance that imperial spies have infiltrated foreign embassies. If His Majesty finds out, he will personally stop your asylum. It would be a huge disgrace for the empire if the emperor’s fiancée sought refuge in another country due to assassination threats.”

“Ah…”

That made sense.

I nodded in agreement.

“In that case…”

Rolling my eyes thoughtfully, I asked again,

“What if I say I’m going abroad for recuperation, leave the empire, and then apply for immigration from there?”

Perhaps flustered by my repeated mentions of going overseas, Dayvin blinked before replying,

“Well… since you’ve never traveled outside the empire before, that might draw attention too.”

“…I’ve never been abroad?”

I was genuinely surprised. Dayvin gave a bitter smile as he explained,

“Yes. Since you’re engaged to His Majesty, going abroad could lead to international issues if anything were to happen, so you never considered it.”

I reopened the newspaper and muttered,

“There are tons of overseas travel ads here though…?”

“Yes, nobles and wealthy individuals travel abroad frequently.”

I stared blankly at the travel advertisements. She had all that money and never traveled abroad?

Recalling the list of assets Mr. Smith had shown me, I asked,

“…Did I used to dislike going out?”

“No, you enjoyed going out. You just couldn’t go very far.”

I frowned. Anise liked going out, yet she had been unable to travel far, as if tied down by a leash—simply because she was engaged to the emperor.

And in the original story, she was murdered for that very reason.

“On top of that, her fiancé—the emperor—destroyed all the evidence after being threatened by nobles, right?”

Wow. What a meaningless death.

Feeling sorry for the original Anise and angry at her fiancé, I bit my lip.

The protagonists had said Anise and the emperor had a good relationship, but I couldn’t believe that. If they were close, how could he not contact her even once?

“It’s already been over two weeks since I possessed Anise.”

If they were truly close, shouldn’t he at least have checked in?

Of course, letters sent to the emperor had resulted in people going missing, so maybe he had his reasons. But even so, doubts remained.

If he knew he couldn’t reach me, wouldn’t he have tried to find out why?

That meant he probably hadn’t tried at all.

So were they really close? I doubted it.

It even seemed likely that the original Anise had been trapped in that relationship. Either way, I didn’t like the idea that she had endured so much because of the emperor.

“In that case, I’ll go travel abroad in her place!”

I’ll enjoy traveling and help Anise’s soul rest in peace!

As I looked over the destinations in the newspaper, I asked Dayvin,

“What’s the first thing I need to prepare for traveling abroad?”

“You’ll need to apply for a passport at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs first.”

Ah, so passports exist here too.

Just as I nodded, a series of ringing bell sounds echoed throughout the mansion.

I lifted my head from the newspaper, and Dayvin’s eyes immediately sharpened.

It was the signal—

Intruders had entered the estate