Chapter 184
She couldn’t push too hard all at once. Slowly, bit by bit—just enough not to raise suspicion.
It can’t be… But if the worst-case scenario I’m imagining is true, then I need to act with absolute caution.
Yoo Jaha had no foundation in this world. No connections, no stable job to guarantee income, not even a proper place to rest her head.
She was living entirely dependent on others for food, shelter, and clothing—without a single coin to her name.
Without Rikanan’s favor, she wouldn’t last a single day in her current circumstances.
Which meant, in essence, that Yoo Jaha was entirely at his mercy. Her current status and freedom were granted solely by his whims—and could be taken away at any moment.
What could she possibly do in a situation like this?
If she had some extraordinary ability, like the protagonists in novels, she might have been able to overturn the board—but Jaha was just an ordinary office worker. The only skills she’d honed in her professional life were cutting corners to get by, putting on a thick skin to refuse unreasonable demands, and dressing up mediocre results to look impressive.
To put it bluntly, like most modern people, Jaha had no real survival skills beyond working a job and earning money. Back on Earth, that had been enough to live comfortably—but here, in a world of magic, swords, and rigid social hierarchy, none of it mattered.
Her strengths—fluency in English, computer skills, making slick PowerPoints, drafting clean documents, the stack of certifications she’d earned for job hunting—what use were they here?
In this new world, Jaha had become utterly powerless in an instant. Without the strength to defend herself, without status, without anything to her name—she had to be careful. A single misstep would be irreversible. No matter how suffocating it felt, she had to endure with patience.
‘I can’t get caught until I uncover the truth.’
Misdirection. Cause a disturbance in the east while striking from the west.
She had to divert attention eastward—to completely captivate them so they wouldn’t spare a glance toward the west.
‘Can I even pull this off?’
Jaha’s fingers tightened subtly around the teacup handle.
‘No—I have to do this.’
I will break free from this nightmare.
After Madame Marie’s lesson ended, Jaha wandered through the mansion. No matter how many times she saw it, the interior was dazzlingly opulent. She had always been so overwhelmed by its splendor that she never noticed anything else—but now, observing with deliberate focus, details she’d missed before began to stand out.
‘This mansion… is strange.’
Every window had some kind of mechanism. At first, she thought they were just unusually shaped locks—but no. A lock should be something anyone could open, yet these devices were overly complex, seemingly impossible for an average woman to operate.
Jaha tested one, trying to open a window. It didn’t budge.
Is this just for security? Or… maybe—
‘To keep people inside from getting out?’
The sudden hypothesis made her hairs stand on end. Swallowing dryly, she moved away as casually as possible, careful not to draw suspicion from the servants. They weren’t on her side either.
She checked every window on the second and third floors—none were without the device. Descending to the first floor, however, she found, to her surprise, that the windows there had no locks at all.
‘If these were really meant to trap someone inside, they’d be here too.’
At the very least, the mansion wasn’t designed to imprison someone. But that also meant the locks weren’t for security—because leaving the most accessible ground-floor windows unsecured while fortifying the upper floors made no sense.
If not for imprisonment or security… then what?
As she puzzled over it, a recent memory resurfaced.
“What are you doing right now?”
“Come here. Come over here and talk, please.”
The way they had panicked when she opened the window. The blood draining from their face, leaving them deathly pale.
A realization struck her.
“To prevent accidents…”
“Ah… So it’s a safety device to prevent falls.”
That’s why the first-floor windows didn’t have them—there was no risk of injury from jumping there.
A bone-deep chill crept over her.
‘Did… the woman he was involved with before try to throw herself from a window?’
The horrific thought made Jaha shudder.
‘How terrifying must that have been…’
No matter how resolved someone might be to die, looking down from that height would send an icy stab through their chest—like being scraped raw with frost. Every cell in their body would scream, begging them to stop. And the moment they stepped into empty air, that sensation of plummeting with nothing to hold onto… they’d probably remember it even after death.
“…Huh?”
Jaha, who had been rubbing her forearm absentmindedly, froze.
What was I just thinking?
How do I know any of that?
I’ve never jumped before.
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