The vast, enormous bedroom, like an endless sea, was filled with all kinds of luxurious items. It was indeed a room befitting Kyle Letius.

Natasha, looking around the room as large as a small mansion, slowly began to move.

‘I must hurry and find it.’

Not knowing where to start looking, she began from the entrance.

The secret room.

It was a hidden room with a passage leading outside from the emperor’s bedroom, usually located near the emperor’s chambers. The knights were planning to invade through there on ‘that day’.

Therefore, the mission this time was to find the secret room and the place outside connected to it.

‘I heard it’s usually in the floor or near the study.’

Sieghart had told her that the secret room and passage, being large, were mostly hidden in the floor or bookshelf. This investigation would mainly focus on those two areas.

The woman, barefoot, pressed her feet firmly on the floor as she crossed. If something felt off, she examined that spot carefully.

Sweeping across the entire floor barefoot made her feet swell. She felt the heat beyond her reddened soles. She hadn’t even checked half the floor yet, but she was already reaching her limit.

Today was just for preliminary search, so it was enough to check the rest of the floor next time. Natasha decided instead to thoroughly search everywhere except the floor.

To mark where she had checked, she slightly scratched the wallpaper with a needle. It was so small that even the cleaning maids wouldn’t notice.

Having finished the floor inspection early, Natasha next headed to the emperor’s study.

‘The study is unnecessarily large too.’

The study she entered was as massive and luxurious as the man’s bedroom.

This couldn’t have been collected by that foolish man who shunned the written word; it must be heirlooms from his ancestors.

The woman sighed briefly upon seeing the tall bookshelves surrounding the walls. This was no different from the floor.

As before, she started checking from the bookshelf closest to the entrance.

It was a process of lifting books with her fingers to check if there was a door behind.

She swept through the bottom, middle, and very top in order. The unreachable top required using a ladder, taking twice the time and effort.

Moreover, with her crumbled right hand being practically useless, she couldn’t check both sides at once, making it quite inefficient.

‘I’ve only finished the fifth bookshelf just now.’

Natasha, atop the ladder, slowly moved her hand from left to right. Once again, the absence of any separate door behind claimed the bookshelf’s innocence.

Natasha, coming down, moved the ladder she had just been on to the next section. Quite some time had passed, but she hadn’t even finished a quarter of the task.

The woman, unconsciously observing her surroundings thoroughly, let out a deep sigh. She had unknowingly counted the number of bookshelves.

‘…I’ve only finished 30%.’

There was still a long way to go.

Yet, as she repeated the motions, she seemed to develop a knack for it, gradually speeding up the bookshelf checks. The woman finished four more inspections much faster than before.

While trying to examine as thoroughly as possible, time was limited, so she couldn’t be too absorbed. She only made separate notes of suspicious points to investigate more deeply on the second search day scheduled two days later.

‘So far, there have been three suspicious spots.’

It was when she was checking the middle part of the tenth bookshelf.

Clunk.

There was a sound of something catching as she pushed the books.

It stood out the most among the suspicious points found so far. Excited about this promising candidate, she quickly pulled out the book and looked behind.

“This is…”

However, contrary to expectations, what greeted Natasha was a white wallpaper. The hopeless sight revealing no door nearby, which she had encountered countless times.

Then what was that suspicious sound that had greeted her earlier?

Was it just a coincidence, a sound that happened by chance?

It was just as she was about to put the book back.

Clunk.

The sound she had heard earlier echoed inside again.

Much louder, and closer.

But the source of the sound was not the bookshelf, but the door behind.

“…!”

Natasha, sensing the study door opening, turned around startled. Damn it, had she stupidly failed to hear any presence while absorbed in her investigation?

The woman’s eyes widened as she confirmed the intruder while thinking of an excuse.

Thud.

The strength left her hand holding the book. The book fell limply to the floor in succession.

“…Cayena.”

A figure she never expected to encounter this way stood before her.

Cayena Ten.

The friend she believed would be eternal. The woman she loved dearly, who had been the only savior of this world.

Cayena was surprisingly silent. She too seemed flustered, as if she hadn’t expected to encounter Natasha here.

Meanwhile, Natasha, having finished her calculations, picked up the book that had fallen to the floor.

“…It’s nice to see you, it’s been a while. Have you been well?”

Natasha casually put the book back and then asked after the other’s well-being.

“No, never mind. We’re no longer in a position to ask such trivial things.”

She pretended to be nonchalant and started the rest of her investigation. As she couldn’t let Cayena know the exact plan, she only examined the bottom and middle without using the ladder.

The moment the other left and reported Natasha’s presence to the guards, the operation would be in vain. Even if not now, she had to keep the woman’s mouth shut for the duration of the banquet.

Though it was unlikely that her adversary would comply so easily.

“I was still curious though.”

“…”

“You may not like hearing this, but I hoped you’d be happy wherever you were.”

She blurted out anything to hold Cayena back for now. She began to soothe the woman’s sensitive nerves by showing goodwill.

Fortunately, the other didn’t attack her immediately. Enough time had passed to assess the situation, and Cayena seemed rather calm.

Her intentions were unclear. But that didn’t mean she could idly stand by in this ambiguous situation.

The mission would fail if she did nothing, and it would fail if the emperor discovered her.

Then it would be wise to continue the investigation with a glimmer of hope.

While pretending to focus her attention on the other, she secretly examined beyond the bookshelves. As Natasha pondered how to coax and soothe Cayena, she finally found a suitable topic.

“Oh, Cayena. Come to think of it, there’s something I never properly explained to you. We were once precious to each other, indebted and sharing affection, so I want to clear up any misunderstandings between us.”

Having observed and interacted with Cayena Ten for a long time, Natasha knew the woman’s weaknesses well. She was certain that this conversation would strike deep into the other’s core.

“Remember? The day we first met, you greeted me happily but suddenly said I seemed to have changed.”

A moment later, she mentioned their reunion.

Was the moment of happiness at reuniting with a beloved friend, for someone else, an opportunity to meet a betraying adversary again?

After barely shaking off the sudden bitterness that touched the tip of her tongue, she refocused on investigating the bookshelf.

“Yes, I changed. I had to change. To survive.”

“…You said you never wanted to live, yet you boldly utter such contradictory words.”

At last, a irritable voice came from beyond Cayena’s opened lips. The woman’s mocking tone caused a faint smile.

“I didn’t. Not once in the past ten lives. I started this eleventh life hoping it would be different, but my skeptical feelings remained unchanged.”

“Tenth, eleventh life? What on earth are you talking about? Are you saying you repeated your life after dying?”

Cayena asked back as if she couldn’t understand.

“Well, did I repeat it? Or did I return?”

“If you want to have a conversation, make it understandable!”

“It was the first life. Back then, even seeing you, even holding your hand, I couldn’t believe the precious reality of being with you. I might have even thanked God for being able to live life with you again. Yes, it was the cute reaction of a young girl that you had expected.”

Natasha finally confessed everything.

“Sieghart Asthart came to me one day and proposed. Saying he loved me, someone he had never met. Of course, I didn’t believe it at first. There was no reason to join hands with the close aide of an enemy when a man called the dog of the imperial family that had destroyed my family approached.”

The only secret known only to the world’s God and Sieghart, which she had never directly told anyone.

“But the half-year of memories I shared with that man blinded my eyes and clouded my judgment. In the end, I accepted the proposal and took the name Natasha Asthart. Contrary to the expectation of happiness, what actually awaited me was hell.”

Natasha, who was checking the middle shelf of the eighth bookcase, paused for a moment.

“And one of the culprits who created that hell was you, Cayena Ten.”

“…”

“There, you denounced and killed me every hour. You trampled on my pure love, and shamelessly comforted me. Yes, even until the day I died…”

She had finally found it.

The passage beyond the wall.

The emperor’s secret room.