The carriage bore no crest, which had confused me at first. Judging by his attire, the man had clearly come as a representative of the royal family, and since this visit had to be discreet, they could not very well display the insignia.
He sprinted straight toward the Marquis in the garden. The Marquis, who had been watching him approach with mild curiosity, exchanged a few brief words with him before immediately boarding the carriage.
Only then did I roughly infer that the Marquis had been summoned by the royal family.
This had happened before a few times. The royal family was the privileged class who could order nobles around at will, and given that House Serpentine displayed such fierce loyalty to the crown, it was hardly unusual.
I thought as much and was just about to turn away from the window and lie down on my bed when—
Wait.
I froze, snapping my head back toward the window. The crestless carriage, carrying both the royal knight and the Marquis, was already dashing past the front gate and away into the distance.
Which meant, right now, I had time to move.
This is my chance.
I leapt to my feet, seized by the sudden opportunity, and strode toward the door as though I might burst it open.
Who knew when the Marquis would return from being summoned by the royal family? I had to act quickly. My hand seized the door handle in impatience—but then I froze, like I had slammed into an invisible wall.
Had I ever been this proactive before?
Besides, I was so hasty now that I risked making a major mistake at a time when I needed rational judgment the most.
Cool your head.
Thump, thump, thump. The tension of what I had to do, and the pounding excitement that I might finally meet the protagonist, squeezed tight around my chest.
I brought up in my mind the diagram of the Serpent’s Passage I had stared at to tatters these past five days, and focused on the two entrances that supposedly led toward where Zachary would be. One was in the Marquis’s private office, and the other, farther away, was the grand bathhouse.
The passage in the private office posed too high a risk of running into the servants. And though they did obey me, strictly speaking their obedience belonged to the Marquis, not to me. Word would surely reach him.
“The bathhouse…”
That left only one choice.
The largest bathhouse in the mansion—the one mainly used by Mother or the Marquis.
I racked my brain for how to slip in without raising suspicion. Coming out of the bathhouse, I could easily say I had been in one of the nearby rooms. But going in was harder to excuse. Given how often I fainted, there was no way anyone would believe I had gone for a long soak in a hot bath. I usually only bathed quickly, so I had rarely used that bathhouse at all. And the odds of meeting servants on the way were high.
Of course, there were the longer, more roundabout passages as well—utterly tedious, but usable.
Fine. I’ll take the long detour on the way there. Coming back, I’ll aim for the bathhouse.
I unfolded the blueprint I had nearly worn thin from handling, then tucked it inside my inner pocket. Next, I took out the glowstone I had prepared for this very day. A few taps together, and it lit up.
With a grim face, I rapped six times on one wall of my room, then fixed my eyes on it.
“…Haa.”
Swish—
The concealed door, hidden by sorcery, revealed itself.
The opening was no bigger than the mouth of a children’s slide, and inside it was nothing but pitch blackness. One misstep and I would surely crack my skull. It looked like nothing so much as a sewer.
How many times would I end up rolling around inside here? Would I even come back alive?
And I would have to switch passages at least five times…
I stared into the yawning, lightless tunnel, then clenched my resolve once more, repeating under my breath as I stepped inside:
I am a snake. I am a snake. I am a snake.
“I am a sna—agh!”
From the very start I slipped, sucked into the passage as though down a slide.
Snake, my ass.
***
“Huff… hhhugh, huff.”
How many passages had it been? This should be the last one.
My trembling hands clutched the glowstone as I pushed myself upright. I had taken two extra detours after a wrong turn, and my stamina was at its limit. My head throbbed, my body ached, like I was coming down with a fever.
Left turn, left turn, right turn, drop down, crawl up… Somewhere along the way, all tension about meeting Zachary had evaporated.
If I had to endure this torturous path every time just to meet him, maybe it would be better to let him cut off my limbs instead. I was thinking such things when I finally felt I must be close.
Tap, tap, tap—six knocks searching for the entrance.
So far, all the entrances had been either above or to the side. But no matter how much I knocked now, nothing revealed itself.
Strange.
The blueprint showed the paths, but not the exact positions of the entrances. Which was why I had to knock each time I neared one. Tilting my head, I absentmindedly leaned forward and tapped the floor six times.
Not even thinking what if. Just a habitual motion.
“…Huh?”
Why did the floor open?
“W-whoa!”
My body was already leaning forward, so of course I tumbled headlong down.
The gaping floor was sheer terror. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing to be badly injured. Surely I would slam down with a crash, break a bone, lose a tooth at least—
Crash!
“Ah, ugh.”
As expected, there was a huge sound, and yes, it hurt.
But nothing broke, no teeth flew. Instead, something both soft and firm had caught me, like a chair, absorbing the impact.
Gods, my heart is going to burst.
But fear was my greatest weakness. Especially heights. Though I was unharmed, I kept my eyes squeezed shut, shuddering.
And then, in my ears, a faint groan.
A groan.
Forcing my racing heart to settle, I listened carefully. The intermittent, broken sound became clearer.
When I finally opened my eyes, I couldn’t even breathe. I clapped my hand over my mouth, frozen.
I had fallen onto the lap of the impending disaster.
Disaster upon disaster. I scrambled off his knees, pale and shaken, as though fleeing, but Zachary remained unmoving, his vacant eyes staring into nothing.
…This is Zachary?
Of course, who else could be here but him. But the state he was in was even more shocking than I had imagined.
If I hadn’t had foreknowledge, if I hadn’t known this place, I never would have believed what I was seeing.
His limbs bore iron shackles that had bitten so deep they seemed ready to sever flesh and bone, leaving raw, bloody wounds. His pale skin was so drenched in red that it was hard to find any untouched patch.
Considering I had fallen from such a height, the jolt to him must have been considerable. Yet he had only let out those faint groans—because his body was already too ruined to even feel pain anymore.
His black hair dripped with beads of blood. His face was streaked with dried, crusted filth.
The eyes, half-revealed beneath heavy lids, were not the same as before. Gone was the fierce defiance of the boy who once declared his identity and begged for freedom in exchange for sparing our lives. Now they were void, lifeless eyes that looked as though his very flame of life might snuff out at any moment.
Zachary Thaddeus.
Though it had been long since I read the book in my past life, I still roughly remembered what kind of child the protagonist had been.
Later, when he grew cruel, his sister had said to him: “Weren’t you once like sunlight? A child who knew only how to love? Why do you now create meaningless sacrifice, burning only with vengeance, trying to destroy everything you see?” That scene, when she wept and pleaded, had even drawn tears from me.
This is ruined. This can’t be undone.