I sighed and pulled the tray cart towards me.

‘Let’s eat first.’

Honestly, I had no appetite. But because my physical condition had suddenly worsened, I had to force myself to eat, even if reluctantly.

“Cough, cough.”

Suddenly, I started coughing. I reflexively covered my mouth. The coughing continued for a while with no sign of stopping. When I checked my palm, there was a clot of blood pooled in it.

With a troubled look, I walked to the bathroom. I disposed of the blood clot and thoroughly washed my hands that were stained with blood.

The frequency of coughing up blood had significantly increased compared to before.

Shouldn’t I be getting healthier just eating and doing nothing in this room? Why is this happening?

If I told Zachary about my condition, would he let me out of here?

‘At this rate, something really bad might happen…’

Perhaps he would be glad if I died without him having to lift a finger.

Clench. I clenched both hands. The contemptuous look he gave me the last time I saw him was truly terrifying. It would come back as a nightmare even if I just dozed off briefly.

But I couldn’t stay locked up in this room forever. At first, I was so preoccupied with thoughts of Zachary that I couldn’t think straight, but not anymore. During the repetitive days, my head gradually cooled, and I started thinking rationally.

There were issues as important as my relationship with Zachary.

‘I need to know what’s happened to not only the Serpentine family but also the Solaris Kingdom.’

The glittering remnants of holy power that appeared in Zachary’s eyes. This was the description I had seen in the original work just before Zachary went berserk.

Above all, he had both the power and the grudge to burn down the Solaris Kingdom, including the duke’ estate. Therefore, I needed to find out as soon as possible if he had killed imperial citizens in his maddened state, just like in the original work. If that was the case…

‘Then I must find a way to bring Zachary back to normal somehow.’

If he was killing innocent people, I had to stop him even at the risk of my own life.

Not only were many people’s lives important, but more than anything, I didn’t want to see him later destroyed by madness after committing massacres.

So if Zachary was currently on a rampage… I didn’t even want to think about it, and I had kept putting it off as long as I could, but in fact, I knew the most accurate and certain solution.

‘The female protagonist would be needed.’

I needed to find the original work’s female protagonist who melted Zachary with just her sunny personality. That would be the least I could do in this fictional world.

However, I couldn’t act rashly. Since nothing was certain yet, I needed to get out of here first.

I stared intently at the door. There was a pattern to those who brought meals. So far, I had only observed their movements without budging. If I had made any attempt to leave, their behavior would have changed, wouldn’t it? So I deliberately let them lower their guard.

So they always push in the food cart like this, and not long after, immediately…

‘Here it comes.’

They bring in tea.

Creeak, as expected, with a slight noise, the door opens a crack. The cart is pushed through that gap.

Perhaps leaving it alone deliberately for the past few days had an effect. Their momentary lapse in attention became an opportunity for me.

I was hiding beside the door and quickly grabbed the hand that appeared slightly.

“Excuse me.”

Now I can ask something! Cheering inwardly, I pulled the hand towards me.

‘A child?’

The person who came along with my hand seemed younger than I thought, like a boy. He was tall but had a hunched posture. He was covered entirely in white clothes, with a hood pulled over his head. Through the slightly revealed gap in the hood, I could see the pale face of the child.

“Ee, eek!”

The child immediately sat down on the floor. This caused the cart to overturn, and with a loud noise, tea spilled onto the floor.

Fearing the hot tea might splash on the child, I quickly pulled him towards me.

“Are you alright?!”

What a terrible thing to happen because of me…

I just wanted to talk a little.

Fortunately, the boy wasn’t scalded by the tea, but broken glass pieces were dangerously scattered everywhere. Then, there was a clanking sound from above.

‘The knights.’

They too were wearing white armor from head to toe. Moving with disciplined motions, they pointed their spears at me. The long spears looked ready to pierce my body immediately.

I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the imminent pain, but nothing happened. Rather…

“P-please spare me! I didn’t s-see anything! Please!”

The trouble fell on the boy whose wrist I had grabbed. The spear tips were aimed at the boy’s neck, not mine.

‘Not me… but why him?’

Anyone could see that I was the outsider. I was the one who had acted aggressively first.

Yet they were showing a fierce determination as if they would kill the boy. If left like this, something terrible seemed about to happen. I immediately stepped forward.

“This person has done nothing wrong. If you want to harm someone, harm me.”

With the sound of armor moving, I felt the knights’ gazes fixed on me. In that moment, I saw the long corridor stretching behind the knights. Judging by the sacred ceiling paintings densely covering it, it seemed to be quite an ancient castle.

But I could only confirm this very briefly. The knights were incredibly quick. They immediately straightened their spears as if nothing had happened and grabbed the boy behind me.

“I have just one question. The person who brought me here, why…!”

They lifted the collapsed boy and went out, immediately closing the door. It was as if they were treating me as a nonexistent person.

I was completely flustered by the events that unfolded so quickly, without time to do anything.

‘But what’s this?’

Something was stuck to the palm of my hand that had grabbed the boy’s hand.

It was a thin, crumpled piece of paper. It looked like a paper doll cut out in the shape of a person.

[Oscar.]

Letters appeared overlaid on the paper, then immediately disappeared. And then, the following words:

“Look… outside?”

What on earth is this? While I was frozen in surprise, the letters that had appeared on the paper vanished.

Look outside? Suddenly?

With a dubious expression, I lifted the paper doll, but unlike before, it went limp like ordinary paper. As if pushed, I went to the window.

However, there was nothing particularly noticeable outside the window.

‘Just people who look like servants walking around…’

They were moving luggage in a group. Most of the servants here were wearing long hoods pulled over their heads. Among them was the child who had been in an awkward situation because of me earlier. I could see the child’s face as his hood slipped off while carrying luggage.

‘He’s safe.’

As I was thinking how fortunate that was, one of the servants’ steps suddenly slowed.

As my gaze fell on them in confusion, they suddenly raised their head.

My eyes widened. The person immediately looked straight at me. As if they had known from the start that I was here.

‘…Erhan?’

He looked like Erhan, yet not at all like Erhan. The gray hair and eyes were gone, replaced by ordinary brown hair and brown eyes. Above all, even his features looked somewhat different.

‘Is it not him?’

Still, for some reason, as soon as I saw him, I immediately thought it was Erhan. Even though he looked quite different. I felt a sense of familiarity from the man exuding a strange atmosphere. As I was staring at him, unable to look away for some reason.

“Wh-what is this!”

Something chilling happened. Suddenly, the paper in my hand stood up on its own!

Startled, I dropped the paper, but it fluttered as if riding the wind and then clung to my ear.

“…Ugh?!”

The paper doll was like a living creature.

Just as I was hurriedly trying to tear the paper off my ear, I heard a voice.

“Oscar.”

I froze for a moment, then moved my lips.

“Erhan?”

It was definitely Erhan’s voice for sure. I quickly looked outside, but the man I had thought was Erhan was no longer looking in my direction.

But now I could be certain that he was Erhan.

“So it really was you, brother?”

How did this happen? Why was Erhan, who should be in the kingdom, here?

“How did you come here, brother? How did you know I was here? And why are you dressed as a servant…?”

“Listen carefully. You need to leave this place immediately.”

I opened my mouth.

It seemed Erhan had come to help me escape from here. It looked like he had come with great difficulty, but I couldn’t easily say I would leave. Strangely, the words to agree wouldn’t leave my mouth.

Now that it came to actually leaving, why did I keep…

“The madam is very ill.”

Then, as if sensing my wavering heart, Erhan said. It was news I never expected.

“Are you talking about our mother? Mother is sick?”

I had been brought here, almost kidnapped, the day before my wedding. She’s usually overprotective to an extreme degree, so she must have found out that I disappeared…

“Is mother in a very bad condition? It’s not because of me, is it? Or…!”

“There’s something more important than that.”

I frowned. To me, nothing was more important than my mother being ill. I was about to press Erhan again.

“Oscar. You need to leave this place as soon as possible. If you stay here any longer.”

Erhan, standing below the window, slowly raised his head.

“We will die.”

At that moment, blood trickled from Erhan’s nose. But I couldn’t just keep staring at him. I too…

‘It wasn’t my imagination.’

I wiped the blood that had burst from my mouth. The increasingly frequent bleeding. And my body getting worse whenever Zachary was nearby. Above all, Erhan showed the same symptoms as me. All these facts pointed in one direction.

‘The holy power… is harming me.’

I was dying. Slowly.