Chapter 04

“Ah, I finally feel alive again!”

I hummed to myself as I vigorously moved both arms.

Squeak, squeak—the frozen windowpane produced a cheerful scraping sound. Wherever my cloth passed, the glass gleamed crystal clear, without a single smudge.

The muscles that had been stiff from being cooped up in bed all week pleasantly stretched and pulled. The slight stimulation made me feel as though an old blockage had finally been flushed away.

Come to think of it.

‘There’s no way the Grand Duke ordered me to do maid work out of consideration because he was worried I’d get bored.’

I tilted my head slightly as I wiped even the corners of the window frame clean.

‘He must have taken a dislike to me, after all.’

No doubt he had ordered me to work as a maid so that I would be thoroughly humiliated—the mad princess from an enemy kingdom whom the Emperor had forcibly dumped on him.

I shrugged.

‘But what can I say?’

Humiliation or whatever. I didn’t care in the slightest.

‘If anything, thanks for the opportunity.’

To the servants of the Grand Ducal House, I would look like a princess who had completely lost her mind, while to the guild members watching me, it would look as though I was diligently playing the part of a crazy princess.

Either way, it wasn’t bad.

Squeak, squeak—

I scrubbed the smudges from the glass even harder.

But who was it?

Who exactly was the spy planted by the guild, the one secretly leaving bottles of medicine in my room?

“Princess. Please, just give me the rag now and come inside, okayyy?”

Celine anxiously called up to me from beneath the ladder. I ignored her and pressed my nose against the window, peering inside.

‘Could it be the stableman who glared at me when we happened to pass each other in the hallway a few days ago?’

Or perhaps the gardener who had smiled pleasantly at me when our eyes briefly met in the garden outside my bedroom window?

“Princeseee…”

Or maybe the head butler, who came to check on me every single day?

‘Yes. The head butler definitely had the sharpest eyes.’

They were exactly the sort of eyes you’d expect from a spy.

Squeak, squeak—

“Princess, pleaseee. At least come down from the ladder, okayyy?”

Celine’s voice was almost on the verge of tears.

“Now, Celine.”

I answered in a solemn voice without stopping my window-cleaning.

“Your big sister here is in the middle of a very important investigation, you know?”

Celine’s eyes widened.

“B-Big sister…?!”

“Shh.”

I kept my hands moving diligently while glancing around the Grand Ducal House.

“Just be quiet for a little while.”

“Princess…”

I roughly soothed the dejected Celine before returning to scrubbing the window until it squeaked.

My fingertips had begun to sting from the icy winter wind, but compared to the times I’d dug through frozen soil, this was barely even ticklish.

The moment I was hit by the cold wind, I suddenly thought of the southern village.

‘Oh, right. By now, Crovein must have grown thick with toxins.’

If I hadn’t been accused of being a witch, I would have been climbing the mountain and digging up Crovein around this time.

Crovein. It was a rare medicinal herb that could only be obtained during the winter. It wasn’t completely non-toxic, but thanks to its blood-clotting properties, it was classified as a medicinal herb.

Luckily, it grew wild in a particular area of the mountain behind Billot Village, where I used to live. Every year, from late autumn through the bitterest part of winter, I would diligently gather it.

Combining the blue sap extracted from Crovein bulbs with Bellostin flower petals produced the strongest hemostatic agent, and it was absolutely essential for me, since the blood flowing through my body was highly poisonous.

‘Haah… The hemostatic medicine is in my bag…’

I gently bumped my forehead against the glass and swallowed a sigh.

“Once you spend a night with the Grand Duke, I’ll return your belongings to you.”

Damn it.

I ground my molars together.

A night or whatever—the Grand Duke hadn’t even shown me his shadow!

In reality, it didn’t matter all that much because the contents of my research journal were already stored in my head. But the hemostatic medicine was a different story.

‘If I get even the slightest wound, I’m dead.’

No matter how careful I was inside the Grand Ducal House, accidents always happened unexpectedly, in places you never imagined.

If I happened to injure myself and my blood began to flow, not only could the people who came into contact with it be harmed, but I might once again be branded a witch who killed people with her blood and end up dead.

‘That’s why I’ve been trying to be careful.’

Even when cleaning the windows along the outer walls of the Grand Ducal House, I checked even the tiniest splinters sticking out of the wooden frames one more time before wiping them down. I wore long, thick clothes and gloves to keep my skin covered, and I worked only in places where there was nothing pointed or sharp that could hurt me.

Being so careful with every movement made fatigue set in a little sooner.

I casually draped the rag over the window frame and looked around at the scenery surrounding the Grand Ducal House.

‘Come to think of it, this northern Grand Duchy is practically nothing but mountains, too.’

Those rugged mountain ranges, covered in white snow and radiating a gloomy, desolate atmosphere. At a glance, they looked like a natural paradise overflowing with enormous quantities of poisonous and rare medicinal herbs.

Perhaps there was even Crovein somewhere in those mountains.

Just thinking about fragrant, deadly weeds made my heart race, and an intense instinct to climb those mountains began to stir within me.

The thrill of breaking through solid, frozen earth and discovering a jewel-like poisonous herb bulb buried beneath it!

And then—

“Ah, I’m going crazy because I want to dig up some dirt.”

“…What?!”

The thought escaped my mouth before I could stop it, and Celine, who had been anxiously waiting beneath the ladder, flinched and took a step backward.

Her pupils were trembling as though an earthquake had struck.

“Ah, did I just say what I was thinking out loud?”

“…P-Princess.”

Once again, Celine’s eyes grew moist.

“She’s doing it again.”

I let out a small chuckle and climbed down the ladder.

“Is this the first or second day you’ve heard me say things like this? This is just my everyday life, Celine.”

I added that she’d been putting up with me for a whole week now, so she should be getting used to it by now.

“Huuuh!”

Celine finally burst into tears.

“I’m scared of you, Princess!”

Oh, dear.

It seemed our Celine was still far too innocent and young to handle me.

Well, that was fine. This was also exactly what I’d intended.

After stepping onto the ground, I gently stroked Celine’s hair and asked,

“Celine, where is the head butler right now?”

“Huh? He should be in his office on the first floor. But why are you looking for him?”

“Because I want to go sightseeing around the Grand Duchy.”

“…What?!”

Since I’d thought of the hemostatic medicine, I suddenly wanted to go out and see the bustling streets of the Grand Duchy.

Even though I was technically a hostage, I was still a princess, so I had been given quite a large allowance for maintaining my dignity.

‘I’ll use that to stop by an herb shop and buy the ingredients for the hemostatic medicine.’

Ordinary hemostatic agents couldn’t stop the bleeding from my wounds. So I’d have no choice but to buy the ingredients myself and make it.

And if I was lucky enough to find Crovein, even better.

‘But to do that, I need to leave this estate…’

Naturally, there was no Grand Duke around to give me permission.

Then who was the person I needed to obtain permission from while the Grand Duke was away?

Without hesitation, I ran downstairs to the first floor and barged directly into the head butler’s office.

“I want to go sightseeing around the Grand Duchy!”

Hendrick answered my demand in his usual emotionless manner.

“That would be difficult without His Highness’s permission.”

Well, that was the answer I’d expected.

But I wasn’t about to back down.

I was the crazy princess of this place, which meant I was perfectly entitled to say crazy things with complete confidence!

I smiled sweetly.

“Really? Then I’ll get permission directly from the Grand Duke.”

“…Pardon?”

The head butler adjusted his glasses and looked at me.

I shrugged.

“I’ll go to him myself. You said he’s somewhere in one of the northern mountain ranges, right? I’ve been curious about what magical beasts look like anyway, so this works out perfectly. I can dig some dirt on the way, too.”

“…”

“And if that’s not allowed either… Well, then, I suppose I’ll just hang from one of the outer windows until the Grand Duke returns. Even if I’m a hostage, I imagine it would be rather troublesome if a princess froze to death while hanging from a window of the Grand Ducal House.”

“…”

At my ridiculous and shameless threat, Hendrick’s brow furrowed.

He put down the documents he was holding and let out a deep sigh.

“…If you agree to be accompanied by a knight escort, I will permit it.”

At those words, I smiled brightly.

“Thank you, Hendrick. May you be blessed with good fortune.”

“…”

The permission came much more easily than I’d expected, and I left the office with a huge grin on my face.

Before the head butler could change his mind, I hurriedly prepared to go out and left the Grand Ducal House.

The only disappointing part was…

“Let’s go, Princess. We will escort you.”

“We will ensure your safety.”

“…Well, yes. Fine.”

There weren’t just one, but two black-clad knights accompanying me.

I was already suffocating beneath a thick cloak and scarf that covered my entire face to conceal my conspicuous appearance. And now I had to drag a pair of escort knights around with me?

‘What kind of sightseeing trip is this? It’s like I’m being escorted around as some kind of hardened criminal.’

If this was how things were going to be, there was no point in leaving Celine behind!

I lamented inwardly as I stepped out of the carriage and swept my gaze across the bustling streets of the Grand Duchy.

The Grand Duchy’s downtown area was larger and more magnificent than I’d expected.

I’d assumed the harsh weather would give it a bleak atmosphere, but instead, it was overflowing with a vitality that seemed capable of swallowing even the biting northern winds.

The rough bargaining voices of mercenaries and northern residents bundled in fur clothing mingled with the clang of blacksmiths’ hammers, creating a chaotic symphony of noise from every direction.

I glanced at the knights and then looked toward a slightly more secluded alley.

‘I think I saw the sign for an herb shop somewhere down that alley when I was in the carriage earlier…’

But there was one problem.

Even if I found the herb shop, I couldn’t take these knights with me.

They would never let a supposedly mentally unstable princess wander into an herb shop and buy poisonous herbs.

‘How am I going to lose them…?’

I was deep in thought about how to shake off the knights when—

Perhaps the heavens had decided to help me, because at that exact moment, a commotion broke out on one side of the market.

“Eeeeeek—!”

“Catch him! A pickpocket! Get that guy in the red vest!”

In front of one of the busiest shops in the district, a series of frantic shouts erupted.

A cart full of apples overturned, while sacks piled onto another cart came tumbling down after someone shoved into it.

People scattered in alarm, screams erupting from all directions. It looked like a battlefield.

“Get that bastard!”

At that moment, a man in a red vest being chased by someone violently pushed his way through the crowd and came straight toward me.

“Move!”

The man drew his sword and shouted menacingly.

The two knights guarding me instinctively stepped in front of me and drew their swords at the same time.

Clang—!

The sharp sound of metal striking metal rang out, and the surroundings instantly descended into chaos.

I realized it in that moment.

‘Now!’

The eyes of not only my escort knights, but everyone gathered in the busy street, were completely focused on the commotion.

I didn’t let the brief opportunity slip away.

I pulled my scarf higher to cover my face and sprinted away without looking back.

Drawing on my experience running through the mountains, I slipped into a narrow, dark alley. The first thing that caught my eye was a tree rising as high as a two-story building, and without hesitation, I climbed it.

Whenever I encountered wild animals while gathering herbs in the mountains, I would sometimes climb trees like this to avoid them.

‘Good thing I changed into commoner clothes before coming out.’

If I’d come out wearing the cumbersome dress of a princess, I wouldn’t have been able to climb the tree, let alone hide in the alley.

Of course, even in commoner clothes, I was wrapped tightly in a cloak from head to toe and wearing gloves, so climbing the tree was still somewhat inconvenient.

‘At least being bundled up like this means I won’t get injured.’

After reaching the top of the tree, I spotted the knights in the distance.

They seemed to have belatedly realized that I’d disappeared and were searching for me.

“We don’t have her over here!”

“Check the other alleys! Hurry!”

The knights searched the nearby alleys before eventually moving off in the opposite direction.

I hid among the branches cast in the shadow of a building and watched the knights disappear into the distance, quietly giggling to myself.

‘They’d never imagine that the princess climbed a tree.’

Phew.

Only then did I finally let out a sigh of relief.

Then—

I felt someone’s gaze on me from somewhere.