IPTCS 17

~Chapter 17~

The cushions also huddled together near the swing chair, so now the area around the large old tree looked like some kind of playground, covered in a colorful array.

Picking up a fruit from the basket, Eugene ate it while lying in the hammock and thought.

*This household is doing well.*

*They have excellent pet welfare.*

If there were a rating system, it would be a hundred out of a hundred. She wanted to give it a ‘like’.

Eugene liked her newly acquired hammock and swing chair so much that for a while, she practically lived there during the day. To keep herself from getting bored while lounging alone, she brought over a huge pile of reading material from the study, and time flew by quickly while she looked through them.

Eugene mainly chose books with a lot of pictures from the study, and those books were incredibly special.

Because the picture books in this world weren’t simply illustrated.

*’Even pop-up books felt like magic.’*

She remembered the first time she saw a pop-up book at a bookstore in the past. Each time she turned a page, she watched paper illustrations become three-dimensional structures, building up on the page according to their design.

It was an art form one couldn’t help but admire. She was already moved by the intricate illustrations alone.

*’And this is real magic.’*

With hands lightly tense with anticipation, Eugene opened the picture book she had brought. It was a book with a blue sea depicted on the cover.

*Whoosh-.*

First, a wind blew. A refreshing wind that sprang from the opened pages tousled her hair and rushed off somewhere.

An unknown scent that came with that wind brushed past her nose. It was a clean, somewhat sweet smell.

*’Is it the scent of this flower?’*

She traced the petals of the blue flower drawn on the very first page. A velvet-soft texture, very thin yet smooth, was felt on her fingertips.

The book was about a sea where waves made of blue flowers crashed.

Eugene became completely engrossed in the magical book where the author’s imagination was recreated for all five senses.

*Thump.*

Finally, she closed the last page.

“Wow.”

Eugene let her mouth hang open inelegantly.

“Whoa.”

Her mind was still in a daze. Hugging the book she had already finished reading tightly, she fell into thought.

*’This author is a genius.’*

She wanted to see their next work. Each time she turned a page, it felt like a waste, but it was so interesting she couldn’t stop, couldn’t tear her eyes away, and ended up reading it all in one breath to the very end.

Lingering for a while in the afterglow of the ending, carefully savoring the story, Eugene opened the book again, went back to her favorite parts, and chewed on each and every letter.

*’Ah. I love it so much.’*

Sometimes there were moments like this.

When your heart is so full. When you don’t know what to do with this emotion you can’t spit out and can hardly digest.

Now was such a time.

This feeling was too big to hold inside her body, making her unable to stay still and fidget restlessly.

*’Ah…….’*

*Bolt upright.*

She got up from her seat.

*’I love it so much!’*

And then she ran out just like that.

*’Euaaaaah!’*

Screaming something inside that was either a shriek or a cheer, Eugene ran like a filly with fire under its hooves, not even knowing where she was going. She just ran.

Anywhere.

Anywhere was fine as long as it was a place to pour out this overwhelming energy.

After running around haphazardly like that until her legs were exhausted, Eugene finally arrived at a corridor inside the palace she had never been to before.

*’Huh?’*

She thought she had already been to most places, but to have an unexplored location still remaining… this palace really was incredibly huge.

Relatively, there were fewer decorations in this corridor than in other places. Only small pillars carved with some figures were placed sporadically; there were no splendid paintings decorating the walls or decorative weapons inlaid with jewels in sight.

Maybe that’s why she hadn’t come to see this place before.

When touring the palace, Eugene had followed the shiny, eye-catching things.

*’What is this place?’*

Eugene stood before a strangely plain door.

Unlike typical foundation myths or victory commemorative paintings that drew the eye with paint made from ground jewels or flashy frame borders, the picture on this door had no decoration.

It simply seemed to depict a battle, with people holding weapons arranged in contrast above and a subjugated crowd below.

*’Beastkin……?’*

Strangely, the Beastkin on the lower side were depicted very large, even compared to the army above.

Considering that propaganda paintings typically depict the victors or the powerful as large, it was odd that Beastkin, who were merely a slave class, were drawn so prominently.

After staring at the figure standing, trampling a large wolf-like Beastkin, Eugene opened the door and entered the room.

*’Hmm?’*

She looked around the room she had stepped into.

It looked like an ordinary room with a table, chairs, and bookshelves lining the walls.

There were no signs of use, as if it was a rarely used place, but it was still cleanly maintained without a speck of dust anywhere.

If there was anything peculiar, it was the piano placed in one corner of the room?

But decorating rooms with musical instruments wasn’t particularly special.

Eugene had seen rooms elsewhere with harps or large cellos placed against the walls.

*’Is the keyboard the same?’*

She suddenly wondered if the piano here also had the same 88 keys of the seven-note scale. Eugene went and sat on the piano bench, placing her hands on the keys.

*’They look similar…….’*

Rather than counting each one, she’d figure it out by playing something.

Eugene tried playing something she had learned long ago, recalling her vague memories of her school days.

*Da da da-. Da da da-. Dum dum dum-. Dum dum dum.*

It was the only thing she remembered: Chopsticks. Something seemed off about the *do, sol, mi, do* return, but she didn’t care.

It felt good to touch an instrument after so long, so Eugene merrily banged on the piano to her heart’s content.

*’Come to think of it, I wanted to learn that thing.’*

Eugene recalled a scene from a movie she had watched that left an impression. It was a scene where students learning the piano playfully competed and dueled on the piano…

*’Is it like this?’*

They seemed to sweep across the keys like this, *whoosh*. Eugene swept her fingernails across the keys from the far left her arm could reach to the far right.

“Ouch!”

The keys were harder than expected. Her fingers, clacking in quick succession, protested with pain.

“Augh…….”

As expected, specialized skills weren’t for just anyone. Eugene thought, expressing respect for music majors.

*’Was it with the back of the hand?’*

She thought they swept with their hands flipped over like this. Or was it the opposite? Tilting her head, Eugene tried sweeping the keys in the opposite direction with the inside of her hand this time, but.

“Ow.”

It failed again. As she was holding and rubbing her sore fingers.

*Click.*

A sound was heard in the quiet room.

“Huh?”

It was from where the bookshelves were.

Unlike bookshelves in other rooms, which were usually attached to the wall so the inside looked bright, the bookshelves in this room were arranged back-to-back, so the inner shelves weren’t easily visible from outside. The sound came from around there.

“…….”

The piano.
And the bookshelves.

Something clicked in Eugene’s mind.

Alfred. Where did that name, now synonymous with butlers, come from?

*’The *Batcave?’*

The entrance to the famous bat hero’s hideout was hidden by exactly this kind of mechanism.

Her heart pounding as if she had become an explorer discovering a relic, Eugene ran to the bookshelf where the sound came from.

“As expected!”

With the eyes of a hawk, Eugene meticulously examined the books on the shelves and found a slightly protruding spine.

*’Do I press this?’*

With a pounding heart, Eugene pressed firmly on the discovered book spine.

“…….”

And nothing happened.

“Huh?”

Feeling vaguely unconvinced, she pushed the spine with all her might again, but the bookshelf still showed no change.

The bookshelf didn’t split open to reveal a passageway, nor did a magic circle suddenly appear beneath her feet to teleport her somewhere.

“What the…….”

Muttering disappointedly, Eugene hung her head low, failing to notice a faint glimmer of light that momentarily connected her hand to the area around the book.

“Phew. I should tidy up and go back.”

Saying this to herself in a deflated voice, Eugene grabbed the shelf and stood on her toes, trying to pull the book she had shoved in messily back to the front.

“Whoa?!”

And before she could react, she was thrown somewhere by the bookshelf, which suddenly rotated rapidly.

* * *

“What?”

The boyish, god-like face contorted into that of a menacing demon.

The attendant, who had unfortunately been saddled with the role of reporting the disappearance of the young girl His Highness cherished, gulped upon seeing Prince Michael’s murderous expression for the first time.

*Blink blink.*

Eugene blinked her eyes, trying to adjust to the sudden situation she had fallen into.