KVZS 08

“It’s okay.”

When Praha saw Yoo Sara get up on her own, he felt like a terrible person.

A faint smile, then a shaken expression as if caught off guard.

A hand that slightly lifted, then hesitated and shrank back.

Everyone saw her outstretched hand fail to find someone to hold it and slowly lower again.

He felt like he would not forget the look in her eyes for a long time.

When was it again? I watched a movie with some college friends once. Afterward, we talked about it.

“Breaking up is difficult, so you make ‘the decision to break up.’ If it were easy, you’d just do it. You wouldn’t need to make a decision about it.”

“Who said that?”

“The director who made the movie.”

Because in the end, people either fail to break up, or even if they succeed, the process is painfully exhausting and difficult. That’s why they make a movie about it and call it Decision to Break Up.

I agreed.

“Come to think of it, when people make resolutions, they decide to save money, decide to quit their jobs, decide to stop drinking. Nobody says they’re making a decision to go home after work and lie down.”

“That’s not a resolution, that’s greed. The greed to lie down….”

“Calling lying down greed… are we slaves?”

So what I mean is, if keeping myself from acting up were easy, I wouldn’t have gone so far as to make a “decision not to act up.”

Not acting up is hard.

Especially in a situation where an idiot is wandering around right in front of me.

Maybe my stress had really piled up that much?

This sudden possession, random people picking fights with me, heartless people who didn’t even help me up after I fell.

Maybe I took out the anger rising up my throat on that nuisance guy for no reason.

And to attack someone by clinging to their appearance too. What a petty thing to do.

My personality seriously sucks….

‘Yep, I’ll do the self-reflection after I get home!’

I cut off my wandering thoughts. It wasn’t too late to reflect later while lying in my own bed.

The first goal was getting home.

While making a “decision to go home, lie down, and reflect,” I looked around at the others.

While I had been spacing out and the nuisance guy had been muttering to himself while rubbing his elbow, everyone else had been tending to themselves in their own ways.

“My soles hurt…. They’re red.”

“That’s probably because the soles of your shoes are too thin. Thick socks would help.”

“I feel like stealing even the maids’ socks right now.”

“When we wake up tomorrow morning, our legs are definitely going to cramp.”

Watching them, I finally realized why the Crown Prince and the Grand Duke had wasted so much time here.

‘These people have no stamina.’

They didn’t have the endurance to walk quickly from here to the left staircase, and from there to the kitchen, without resting.

Even moving from one end of this massive villa to the other was too much.

‘To an office worker like me who rides the subway every day, this is nothing. But for these nobles who are aristocrats to the bone, this is the hardship of a lifetime.’

Of course, technically I’d possessed a duke’s daughter now too, but still….

‘Come to think of it, they said this Lady Yoo Sara has the same name and appearance as me…. But I haven’t actually checked how similar we are. At least the arms and legs look almost identical. Isn’t there a mirror somewhere?’

Nope. There wasn’t. And this was not the time to look in a mirror.

I alternated my gaze between Supporting Character #2, who had tossed aside noble dignity and taken off their slippers to massage their bare feet, and the nuisance guy, who was still sweating buckets.

Their faces were pale.

‘Maybe I only damaged everyone mentally even more by fighting with the nuisance guy for no reason.’

I quietly asked Supporting Character #2, who looked the kindest among us.

“Was it really hard? Walking all the way here.”

“Hm? …Yes. I don’t usually walk much, so it was a bit difficult.”

“How much do you normally walk?”

“Well… on sunny afternoons, I sometimes go to the park.”

“Oh, you take walks in the park?”

“Hm? No. We go to where the lake is visible and spread out a mat with friends.”

“So you walk from the entrance of the park to the lake? About how many steps?”

“I’m not sure. We always stop the carriage right in front of the lake.”

……Isn’t that basically saying you don’t walk at all?

“I can’t remember very well, but how did we even get here after coming through the portal?”

“The carriage dropped us off at the front entrance.”

“…….”

So I was escaping with people who normally didn’t even walk five minutes on their own feet….

My “decision to go home and lie down while reflecting” instantly changed into a “decision to exercise.”

Once I got back, I was exercising. The swimming I did three mornings a week would become five.

I just prayed I’d never have to run away with these people.

“Lady Yoo Jein, how is your ankle?”

“I tried using my power… but I don’t think I’ve fully recovered yet. I’m sorry.”

“No, please don’t say that.”

A faint white light briefly flickered at the tips of Yoo Jein’s fingers before disappearing. After removing her hand from her ankle, she looked at the Crown Prince as though she felt unbearably guilty.

‘The divine power I imagined could revive the dead and talk to gods and stuff. Why are the gods here so stingy? They could at least heal an ankle.’

Though honestly, healing even a small wound with divine power was already incredible.

“I’ll take a look.”

After leaving the entrance guard duty to Dazzling, the Crown Prince and the Grand Duke approached us. The Crown Prince checked Yoo Jein’s injuries, while the Grand Duke came to me.

The division of roles made it painfully obvious they were conscious of what had happened earlier.

The Grand Duke knelt on one knee in front of me.

“Lady, show me your hand.”

Without even waiting for an answer, he grabbed my hand and cleaned the wound with water soaked into his handkerchief.

When my hand instinctively shrank back, the Grand Duke held it firmly.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No.”

“Think carefully. You fell pretty badly earlier.”

Unlike his blunt tone, his touch was gentle.

His long fingers brushed against my palm. The blood was wiped away like dust being brushed off with a paintbrush.

‘It tickles so much I feel like I’m going to laugh….’

“Really nowhere else?”

“Yes.”

Watching us, Mascarpone clicked her tongue.

“Stop being prideful and just say it, Lady.”

When I looked back, she curled up one corner of her lips mockingly.

“You love getting attention, don’t you? If not now, when else are you ever going to receive the Grand Duke’s attention?”

There she goes picking a fight again.

There actually was a reason Mascarpone kept provoking me like this.

Several years ago, at a concert hall.

Mascarpone mocked Yoo Sara for not following the dress code.

And Yoo Sara grabbed her by the hair right there on the spot.

Yoo Sara didn’t care because her reputation was already at rock bottom, but Mascarpone supposedly couldn’t even go outside for a while after that incident.

At that moment, the Grand Duke frowned slightly.

“You two, are you going to keep fighting?”

Huh? I didn’t even say anything.

“Instead of fighting, focus on me. The handsome healing fairy treating your injured hand.”

“Seriously….”

The Grand Duke tore the handkerchief in half like paper and wrapped the clean half around my palm.

Then he asked casually, pretending to focus on treatment.

“Lady, do I really have a good body?”

“Don’t you own a mirror?”

I answered coldly.

The Grand Duke scratched his cheek.

“I do look in mirrors. But hearing someone openly call me a man with a good body is… kind of… I don’t know.”

“You feel proud?”

“I’m embarrassed. …I also never expected you to say something like that.”

“Oh. Right.”

That definitely wasn’t something the original Yoo Sara would’ve said.

I didn’t feel like talking anymore. (I’m still upset with you people!) So I turned my attention toward Yoo Jein and the Crown Prince.

Under the hem of Yoo Jein’s dress, her tiny feet were visible. Her feet were so small, yet the heels were absurdly thin and looked unstable.

The Crown Prince glanced at the shoes somehow supporting her forty-kilogram body weight.

Then—

“Excuse me.”

He grabbed one heel in one hand and snapped it off cleanly.

“The Lady was right. I should’ve done this much earlier.”

As he said that, he subtly glanced my way, trying to start a conversation.

I ignored him.

‘The Grand Duke too. And the Crown Prince has been watching my mood this whole time.’

Then the Crown Prince suddenly called the nuisance guy’s name.

“Papri.”

“What, hyung?”

“I don’t think I said this earlier.”

“Huh?”

The Crown Prince looked down at Papri while stretching his neck.

Then he stopped moving.

“I do not consider anyone here a burden.”

“…….”

“These people are my guests. If not for me, they would never have been invited here and forced to experience this.”

“Therefore, responsibility for their safety lies with me.”

His perfect face tilted crookedly to the side.

“If I invite guests and then call them burdens just because circumstances changed, who would ever answer the imperial family’s invitations again? Or is this hard for you to understand because you have no guests to invite?”

‘The nuisance guy has no friends. I knew it.’

Papri said nothing. Neither did the Crown Prince after that.

The break was over.

Instead of the Crown Prince and Grand Duke, who needed to protect the group, Mascarpone and Supporting Character #2 helped support Yoo Jein.

The formation changed.

Grand Duke / Dazzling
Nuisance Guy
Mascarpone / Yoo Jein / Supporting Character #2
Crown Prince / Yoo Sara

Why was I at the back again?

Because I didn’t want to walk next to the nuisance guy.

So, with nobody speaking, we crossed the center and headed toward the left hallway when—

“Aaaah!”

The fuming nuisance guy suddenly kicked the wall hard.

Bang! Bang!

His thick-heeled boots slammed into the wall, sending vibrations through it. The armor decorations hanging nearby shook from the impact. Supporting Character #2 flinched. The Grand Duke cheerfully remarked,

“Papri, do you really think that’ll break it?”

Suddenly, chills ran down my spine.

I looked toward the central staircase we still hadn’t fully passed.

The mouths and hands of the zombies piled on the stairs—not dead yet, merely unable to move because they’d been severed—twitched at the vibration and noise Papri had caused.

The grotesque sight of the exposed flesh swelling and shrinking made my hair stand on end.

I grabbed the Crown Prince’s sleeve beside me.

“Your Highness.”

“…Yes.”

“You said earlier… that dead attendant might’ve come through the servants’ passage, right?”

“Yes.”

“Could you tell me again exactly where that servants’ passage is…?”

“……Inside the wall. A hidden passage built within the wall itself.”

Inside the wall.

The same wall the nuisance guy had just been kicking hard enough to make the corpses on the stairs react.

“Your Highness… what do you think the chances are that the attendant with the severed arm locked the passage door before dying?”

Before I even finished speaking, the Crown Prince understood immediately and whipped around.

The wall was rattling.

The curtain-covered wall.

For a “secret passage,” it was rattling enough that you could tell exactly where the entrance was.

I looked ahead. The others, who had overheard our conversation, met my eyes.

Then their gazes slowly shifted behind me too.

Clatter. Clatter.

The sound continued.

Clatter. Clatter-clatter. Clatter-clatter-clatter-clatter-clatter-clatter-click-click-click.

BANG!

“Run!”

[Imperial Villa — Second Floor Hallway]

Grand Duke / Dazzling
Nuisance Guy
Mascarpone / Yoo Jein / Supporting Character #2
Crown Prince / Yoo Sara
(Surviving)