The carriage had no emblem, which initially caused my confusion. The attire of the visitor suggested he was an envoy representing the royal family, and it seemed they needed to arrive discreetly, hence the absence of any official insignia.

He hurried straight towards the duke in the garden. The duke, initially looking puzzled, exchanged a few words with the visitor and then quickly boarded the carriage.

I surmised that the royal family must have summoned the duke.

There had been a few occasions in the past when the duke was called away like this. The royal family, being a privileged class with the power to summon nobles, and the Serpentine family being notably loyal to the crown, made this an unsurprising event.

As I was about to turn away from the window and lie down on my bed, a thought struck me.

‘Wait a minute.’

I halted, turned my head sharply, and looked out the window again. The unmarked carriage, carrying the royal knight and the duke, was now speeding away through the main gate.

Didn’t this situation mean that I now had an opportunity to move?

‘This is my chance, right?’

Seizing the unexpected opportunity, I sprang up from my spot and walked towards the door as if I was about to burst out immediately.

With the duke summoned to the royal palace and uncertain of when he’d return, I needed to act fast. Just as I was about to impulsively open the door, my movements halted abruptly.

Have I ever been this proactive?

Moreover, my mind was racing so fast that I feared making a grave mistake at this crucial moment.

‘Calm down.’

My heart pounded with both the tension of the impending action and the thrill of possibly meeting the protagonist, constricting with every throbbing beat.

After recalling the Serpent’s Passage blueprint I had studied for the past five days, I visualized two possible entrances to the passage that could lead to Zachary’s location. One was in the duke’s private office, and the other, though farther away, was the large bathhouse.

The passage in the private office was risky due to the high chance of encountering servants, who, while obedient to me, were primarily loyal to the duke. Any interaction with them could lead to information leakage.

“The bathhouse…”

That left me with only one viable option.

The largest bathhouse in the mansion, typically used by my mother or the duke.

I pondered how to naturally explain my visit to the bathhouse. While exiting from the bathhouse could be casually explained as coming from a nearby room, entering it was trickier to justify. Given my frequent fainting spells, it was unlikely I would enjoy a long, hot bath. I usually took quick baths, so there was no real need for me to visit the bathhouse, and the chance of encountering servants on the way was high.

Of course, there was a more cumbersome passage, involving multiple transfers.

‘No choice, I’ll use the bathhouse as my return route. For going there, I’ll take the indirect passage with several transfers.’

I unfolded the now well-worn blueprint, which I had almost memorized, and tucked it into my pocket. Then, I took out the phosphorescent stones I had prepared for this day and tapped them together, causing them to emit light.

With a determined expression, I knocked six times on a section of the wall in my room and watched carefully.

“…Sigh.”

Smoothly, a door hidden by sorcery revealed itself.

The opening was only as big as the entrance to a children’s slide, pitch-black inside, making it impossible to see anything. One wrong step could lead to a concussion in this sewer-like Serpent’s Passage.

How much tumbling can I endure in there? Can I return safely?

And I have to switch passages at least five times…

Staring at the dark, seemingly endless tunnel, I steeled myself, repeatedly muttering to gather courage before stepping in.

I am a serpent, I am a serpent, I am a serpent.

“I am a serpe— Ahh!”

I stumbled right at the start and slid down the tunnel like on a slide.

So much for being a serpent.

***

“Huh, ugh. Huuh.”

Which passage is this? It seems like the last one.

With trembling hands holding the glowing stone, I struggled to my feet. I had taken the wrong path midway and had to switch passages twice more. I was already feeling my physical limits. My body ached, my head throbbed, and I felt like I was coming down with a fever.

Turn left, turn left, turn right, jump down, climb up… At some point, the tension of meeting Zachary had long evaporated.

If I had to endure this arduous journey every time to meet Zachary, wouldn’t it be better to just let him dismember me? This is truly beyond human endurance. Just as I thought I must be nearing my destination, I started searching for the exit by knocking upwards six times.

So far, all the entrances had been mostly above or to the side, so I kept knocking, but for some reason, no door appeared.

‘That’s strange.’

The blueprint showed the paths but not the precise locations of the entrances. That’s why I had to knock on potential exit areas like this each time. Puzzled, I inadvertently leaned forward and knocked six times on the floor.

It wasn’t even a ‘just in case’ scenario. It was more like a habit, something I did without thinking.

“…Huh?”

Why is the door opening from the floor?

“Oh, oh no!”

My body was already leaning far forward, so naturally, I fell towards the opening in the floor.

The gaping hole in the floor was sheer terror. Bracing myself for a severe injury, I tightly closed my eyes, expecting a hard crash and maybe even a broken bone…

Bang!

“Ah, uh.”

As expected, there was a loud noise. My body did hurt.

However, there were no broken bones or knocked-out teeth. Something soft yet firm, like a cushion, absorbed the impact like a chair, saving me from severe injury.

‘This is maddening. Look at my heart pounding.’

Unfortunately, I wasn’t immune to fear, especially acrophobia. Although I was unharmed, I was trembling, unable to open my eyes. But then, a faint sound of groaning reached my ears.

Urgh.

As I calmed my racing heart and listened closely, the intermittent sounds became clearer.

When I finally opened my eyes, I was utterly frozen, unable to breathe properly, my mouth agape in shock.

I had landed right on the lap of an impending disaster.

It was an incredibly unfortunate situation. Too shocked to even scream, I quickly scrambled off the lap with a pale, terrified face. Even as I caused a minor commotion, Zachary remained motionless, staring blankly into space.

‘…Is this really Zachary?’

While it was likely the only person here would be Zachary, his appearance was so shockingly different from what I had expected that it was hard to believe.

Without prior knowledge, and if I hadn’t been here before, I wouldn’t have believed what I was seeing. Zachary’s appearance was that shocking.

Zachary’s limbs were severely bruised by the iron chains that bound him, creating wounds so deep that they seemed on the verge of severing his limbs. His skin was almost entirely obscured by the crimson blood, making it difficult to find any unmarred flesh.

The intermittent groaning I had heard was probably due to the severe pain he was in. His condition was so dire that he seemed incapable of feeling pain or reacting in any meaningful way.

His black hair was dripping with blood at the ends, and his face was smeared with dried blood.

His exposed eyes were different from when I first saw him. The defiance he once had, promising to spare the life of anyone who would release him, had vanished, replaced by a vacant stare that seemed devoid of any spark of life.

Zachary Thaddeus.

Having read about him in a previous life, I couldn’t recall every detail, but I had a general idea of his childhood personality.

My sister, having witnessed his later cruelty, had said something that stuck with me. She asked why the sun-like boy, who knew only how to love others, had turned into someone who sought meaningless revenge, destroying everything in his path. Her tearful plea had even brought tears to my eyes.

‘It’s over. This can’t be undone.’