Chapter 2
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Huff, huff…
Mina yanked open the door at the end of the long corridor and burst outside as if bouncing out. She spat out ragged breaths that climbed all the way to her chin and looked around. A gigantic maze garden wrapped in darkness was planted right in front of her.
Argh! Where the hell is this place?
She couldn’t get a sense of where she was at all. It was her first time in the imperial palace, so every corridor looked like every other corridor.
‘That place with the dazzling lights must be the banquet hall, right?’
She had to get back to the banquet hall as quickly as possible. Mina absolutely didn’t want to get caught by Leopold with his eyes flipped, and she also didn’t want to be blamed for leaving her seat at a ball held for her younger sister. Mina hurried her steps.
‘Ughhh… my feet hurt. When am I going to reach the banquet hall? This damn imperial palace, I was wondering why everyone rode in carriages or on horses in novels…’
She kept moving toward the light, but she just couldn’t get any closer to the banquet hall, as if she were spinning in place.
That was when it happened. From behind pitch-black garden trees, a low voice like a cave suddenly came out of nowhere.
“You will discover old memories within the place where you remained? Is that all?”
“As far as I know, yes.”
She heard another man’s voice, too.
‘……!’
Mina realized instinctively that she’d taken a wrong turn. Looking around, this was a place with hardly any people because all manpower had been poured into the banquet hall, and it was, literally, the perfect place to have a secret conversation.
If she went past here as it was, it seemed like she could reach the banquet hall entrance, but at the moment she hesitated, afraid she’d be spotted by them.
Rustle.
‘N-No.’
If they were hiding to talk, there had to be a reason for it, and she was making noise! Mina quickly twisted to run, but maybe because she wasn’t used to the shoes, the instant she took a step, her ankle gave out.
“Kyaah!”
Even as she stumbled and fell, she desperately flailed through the air, frantically searching for something to grab. In that moment, a hard arm shot out and, in an instant, snagged Mina around the waist. Caught in a fierce grip, Mina’s body lifted up into the air.
“Eek!”
A huge hand roughly clamped over Mina’s mouth as her scream burst out. The distinct smell of leather gloves stabbed at her nose. Facing a massive silhouette in the darkness, Mina’s eyes went wide.
Then, from behind the huge man’s back, a low voice rang out.
“What is it?”
“Dunno. Some wench.”
The man in the dark, still covering Mina’s mouth, slowly turned his body toward the light.
‘A-Are you doing this to see my face? No, I hate this…!’
She struggled to break free, but the lamp light that hit her in an instant poured mercilessly over her face. Mina stopped thrashing. Then she fought desperately not to close her eyes that wanted to squeeze shut from the sudden exposure to light.
‘I need to see your face too! Even if I die, shouldn’t I at least know which bastard’s hands I’m dying in?!’
But unfortunately, Mina couldn’t see the attacker’s face. A red cloak trimmed with thick gray fur and gleaming armor came into view one after another, but because he was wearing a silver helmet, she couldn’t see his face at all.
Mina’s eyes bulged.
‘What kind of attacker wears a helmet in the middle of the night, in an empty garden, for a secret meeting? Aren’t these guys total freaks?’
As if he’d noticed her suspicion, a sinister voice echoed out from within the helmet’s slit, split in the shape of a cross.
“From the look of you, you seem like some noble’s daughter… You should be standing beside your future husband and elegantly sipping on wine, so what in the world are you doing, running around like a crazed colt in a dark garden?”
The low voice flowing out from the black gaps of the helmet, like a pitch-black cave where nothing could be seen, was bizarre beyond words.
“Could she be an enemy spy?”
The other man whispered. The man standing in the darkness had also pulled a large men’s hat low, so she couldn’t see his face, either.
“A spy?”
In an instant, the hand holding her tightened hard. It was a brutal grip. Mina barely swallowed the groan that threatened to spill out.
“Then there’s no choice but to get rid of her right now.”
“……!”
Aren’t these guys insane? They’re going to kill someone just because they suspect her! What kind of ridiculous setting is this?
Panicking, Mina grabbed the hand covering her mouth with both hands. She thrashed with all her strength, trying to drag it down, and shook her head violently. Spy, my a*s! She was just an incredibly unlucky poor female college student who’d transmigrated into a novel she happened to be reading!
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