Chapter 06
Seeing a sturdy wooden sword instead of a well-sharpened steel one, Serena’s mind went blank. Double Hanson confessed with a face of genuine repentance.
“This is my training equipment. I was working without shifts and stopped by home briefly. I accidentally grabbed the one from my trainee days. The weight was the same, so…”
Apparently, there was equipment storage at the entrance of Hanson’s home, and he kept his trainee gear there too.
He’d grabbed it in a hurry while leaving, but since he wouldn’t need to draw his sword anyway, he thought it would be fine. Something like that.
“I thought it would be fine since I have a spear. I actually hadn’t needed to draw my sword for two days…”
The anger that had flared up subsided at the word ‘two days’.
‘Right. People can make mistakes like that when they work for two days without going home. And they said he’d been doing this for a whole month.’
“You at least brought the dagger, right?”
“The dagger… actually, I left my shield behind too.”
There was no dagger in his bosom. And on his empty back, a buckler should have been attached. It was equipment she hadn’t thought about since she rarely saw soldiers using shields.
“Hoo.”
As the princess sighed, the soldier wobbled as if struck by a typhoon.
“Right. Fine. What’s done is done. Even if it’s a wooden sword, give it to Chrome.”
“Yes, sir! Understood!”
Serena silently walked toward the corridor. As the highest-ranking person, Serena said nothing, and everyone followed in a rush.
Hanson took the lead, followed by Serena, Philia, Chrome, and Lavenda. Lavenda was making a grimace and muttering, “This is a nightmare. It’s all a dream.”
‘It really is a corridor.’
The inside of the passage the three had come from was exactly as they’d said—a corridor. Though the material was different from the lobby, it was a stone structure, wide enough for four people to stand side by side. The ceiling was lower than the lobby, but not uncomfortable for walking or swinging a spear. The walls would be more of an obstruction than the ceiling.
‘It’s bright, but I don’t see any lighting.’
It was bright, but she couldn’t find where the lighting devices were installed.
Serena focused, scanning the walls, ceiling, and floor for traps. She wouldn’t let anyone move forward without her permission.
“There were no traps on the way we came.”
“Some traps activate depending on the direction of movement.”
“They sure built it carefully, considering all that.”
“Can’t we just poke around with the spear as we go?”
“We’ll do that if we find something suspicious.”
“Don’t keep talking and disturbing Serena while she’s concentrating!”
“Correcting! Now!”
“Sorry.”
“Ugh, this must be a dream.”
‘Hmm.’
Something more distracting than the constant chatter while she was concentrating caught her attention.
‘Hmmm. There’s nothing?’
Serena, having decided to give it her all since she’d stepped up, searched for traps with great enthusiasm. She’d expected to find one quickly.
‘There should be a minefield of traps from here to there!’
The Huaim family’s mausoleums were packed with vicious traps from beginning to end. That was normal.
But there were no traps.
‘Is there none at the entrance? Or are they trying to lull us into a false sense of security before striking?’
Either way, it was a big problem.
‘I’m starting to want to do something else.’
Serena’s limited concentration was showing its limits. Staring so intently made her eyes hurt, and she’d been tense the whole time.
Her throat was also dry. Actually, her throat had been dry since she woke up. She’d forgotten because so many things had happened.
‘I want to switch out. But I’m the only one who knows about traps. And it’s too soon to say I want to rest.’
She was checking the floor, walls, and ceiling, so their pace was slow. Forget turtles—they were moving at a snail’s pace.
‘Yes!’
They say there’s no rule that you just have to die. Fortunately, Serena found an excuse to rest.
“The path splits into several?”
A fork in the road. Not just one, but five! A whole five of them!
To the naked eye, all five forks looked identical. Hans and Chrome pointed to the third path in the middle.
“We came from here!”
“My cart is over there.”
Lavenda pointed to the far-right path.
“I came from there. I thought about going another way, but that one seemed the brightest…”
“None of you went further inward?”
“Like Lavenda, I followed the light and moved!”
It seemed everyone had woken up near the fork. In fact, when they approached the middle path, a cart was visible.
“Oh my! My precious things!”
Chrome ran to his cart without Serena’s permission. No one, including Serena or the others, had time to stop her.
Fortunately, there were no traps. Chrome grinned and pulled the cart out.
‘This old woman.’
Serena clenched her fists, trembling.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Huh?”
“I asked what you think you’re doing.”
“I saw my cart, and there were no traps—”
“I told you some traps activate depending on the direction of movement! It’s lucky there were no traps this time, but what if there had been? What would you have done then! It’s one thing if you died alone, but what if others got caught in the trap too? Do you think your shabby cart and five lives are equal? Do you?”
She was already on edge from using her rarely-used brain and concentration to search for traps. Chrome’s reckless act poured oil on Serena’s anger.
“I didn’t mean it like that. This is all my possessions, so…”
“If you die, your possessions become useless too.”
“I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
She wanted to scold him more, but Serena held back. When scolding in anger, it’s best to keep it brief. In this situation, making the atmosphere worse would do no good.
“Don’t do that again.”
“I’m sorry. I won’t. This bumpkin from the mountains was too hasty.”
‘While saying that, isn’t she thinking inwardly that there were no traps and the princess is just overly sensitive and irritable?’
A sprout of suspicion grew inside Serena. Serena trampled it hard so it wouldn’t grow. She was tired and exhausted, so why was such a strange sprout of doubt growing?
“Let’s rest for a bit.”
At Serena’s declaration of rest, everyone let out sighs of relief. Having been tense and then witnessing the princess’s anger, they seemed quite shaken.
“I’m dying…”
Hanson crouched down, then glanced around and leaned against the wall, looking up at the ceiling. The tightly closed ceiling probably reflected his and the others’ feelings.
Lavenda crouched down and began pressing her hands. She diligently pressed acupoints that relieve tension and fatigue.
Chrome seemed cowed for a moment, then opened the tarp covering his cart and checked inside. He seemed to be checking if his belongings had spoiled while left unattended.
Philia, of course, stuck close to Serena and chattered.
“You must be very tired. Shall I massage around your eyes?”
“No. When your hands and surroundings are dirty, you don’t do massages. Especially not near the eyes.”
“Then shall I rub your shoulders?”
“I, I’ll do it!”
At the word “rub,” the masseuse jumped up. Serena waved them both off and stared blankly into space.
‘Ah, I’m so thirsty. I want some zero cola.’
Since being reincarnated as a princess, her diet was better than in her past life, but sometimes she craved specific foods. Right now, she was particularly craving a cold zero cola.
‘Supercooled and poured into a glass so it forms ice crystals—that’s the best. I’m going crazy.’
Feeling she couldn’t take it anymore, Serena asked the four.
“Does anyone have water?”
“Here it is!”
Hans respectfully offered the canteen at his waist. It was completely empty.
‘This bastard, twice?’
First he gave her a wooden sword when she asked for a sword, and now an empty canteen when she’s thirsty?
As Serena knew, sending an empty lunchbox meant “die quietly and don’t be a bother.” What meaning did an empty canteen hold? Was the sensitive princess supposed to shut up and die?
“It’s empty.”
“I, I’m sorry! I didn’t know!”
“But since you have a canteen, we can fill it with water. Can we drink the water from the fountain?”
“I have a water jug too. It’s empty though.”
Chrome showed them his water jug and several containers loaded on the cart. There was also a small iron pot.
“We could boil it and drink it with that! But firewood…”
“Philia. Boiling water doesn’t make all water drinkable. The fountain water could have poison dissolved in it, and boiling doesn’t filter out heavy metals.”
“Ugh, poison?”
“Still, the pot is useful. Put it here.”
“Here?”
Chrome placed the pot where Serena indicated. Serena took a deep breath.
‘First time using this since last summer.’
Scraping together her depleted concentration and mental strength, she recalled in her mind what she wanted, what she desired, what she wished for.
The clearer the image, the better. As the image in her mind became a clear form, Serena recited the incantation.
“What I desire is cool ice.”
As Serena finished the incantation, a block of ice about the size of a child’s head formed above the pot. The ice settled into the pot.
“Eek! The princess is a mage?”
“Wow!”
“Waaah!”
“As expected of Serena!”
Everyone except Philia, who already knew, was astonished.
‘Ugh, my head hurts. It’s been too long since I used it.’
A sword rusts if not sharpened, and a book gathers dust if not read.
Having used magic for the first time in so long, the side effect of a headache followed, as if chastising Serena’s laziness.
But Serena managed her expression without showing it.
“There’s nothing to be surprised about.”
Because this was the only spell she knew how to cast.
‘But magic is really difficult.’
Since she’d reincarnated into a fantasy world, she wanted to learn magic. But when she actually tried, it was different from what she’d imagined. It was hard and difficult.
The princess used a trick. She picked one desired spell and learned only that.
The teachers who taught Serena lamented that she was wasting her talent, but the parents didn’t listen, and the student wanted to play—what could be done?
And all that talk about talent was just flattery. It was a standard phrase that followed whenever a royal studied.
‘I did learn light and fire magic since they said they were basic, but I’ve never used them since, so I don’t know if they’d even work.’
To learn the 3rd-tier ice creation spell, she had learned a few 1st-tier and 2nd-tier spells. But she’d never cast them since learning.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say the ice creation spell, which she used every summer, was the only magic Serena could cast.
Not knowing the truth, people simply looked up to the princess as ice suddenly formed in midair.
Because Serena had adjusted it in advance, the ice melted quickly. People rejoiced as they drank the cool ice water.
“It’s really refreshing.”
“I feel alive again.”
“I didn’t know water could taste this good.”
“Delicious!”
They’d rested and quenched their thirst with cool ice water. The group’s morale had risen significantly.
“Then let’s go down the path where Chrome and Hanson woke up.”
They decided to leave the cart at the fork for now. Chrome lagged behind Lavenda, sending longing looks back.
“The rats might nibble on them.”
“This is a mausoleum. Rats can’t enter.”
As a mausoleum, entry by rats and insects was fundamentally blocked. Over time, rat holes might have appeared, but at least in principle.
“But I saw a rat.”
“Really? I guess a rat hole appeared somewhere. Maybe this earthquake opened up a path.”
Serena didn’t think much of it. Rats were common animals you could see anywhere.
‘The enshrinement chamber should be fine, right? I don’t want to see anything unpleasant.’
An enshrinement chamber swept through by a horde of rats. Coffins knocked over, corpses eaten, covered in rat droppings.
Unless the bodies had become skeletons, the bodies enshrined in mausoleums usually became mummies, so she really didn’t want to see it. She didn’t even want to imagine it.
“A rat?”
Lavenda alone was horrified. She seemed to dislike rats.
“Was it big? What did it look like?”
“It was a huge one.”
Chrome drew in the air the size of the rat he’d seen.
‘Is that a dog?’
The rat was as big as a puppy. Even bigger than a Chihuahua.
Truth or lie? The truth about the size of the rat Chrome had seen was revealed sooner than expected.
*Squeak.*
“Eek!”
A black shadow fell before the group. The large black shadow dropped from the ceiling, startling everyone, then climbed the wall and returned to the ceiling.
Coarse fur, ominous gleam in its eyes, pointed whiskers, a crafty snout, and a long, hairless, disgusting tail. It was clearly a rat. The rat sniffed the air, then clung to the ceiling and fled.
Serena’s mouth fell open.
‘Is that a nutria?’
How big could a rat get, really? She wanted to grab her past self by the collar and shout.
‘No, this rat is that huge!’
It was too big. It looked exactly like a plague rat, but the size of a poodle or Maltese.
“That startled me!”
“Yes! That’s exactly what I saw! No doubt about it!”
“So that’s a rat! I’ve never seen one!”
“No, Philia. There are many types of rats. That one is… a very big one. That shouldn’t be the standard for rats.”
“How do you know, Serena? Surely rats don’t appear in the palace?”
“I read about it in a book.”
“As expected of Serena, so knowledgeable!”
“……”
While everyone added their comments, startled by the giant rat, Lavenda said nothing. She was biting her lower lip and fidgeting. Her complexion grew darker and darker.
