“Let’s split up.”

Veronica firmly suggested in response to Lake’s question.

“Then I’ll…”

“Lord Lining, please follow Lord Thomson.”

“What about you, Miss Veronica?”

“I’ll go alone.”

Lake frowned.

“It’s too dangerous alone. I’ll accompany you.”

“Don’t worry. I haven’t met a single person while walking through here. Even the slum dwellers avoid this place, so we’re probably the only people inside. I’ll just quickly check the nearest exit and come back.”

“But we only have one map.”

“Ah, I… made a copy.”

Lord Thomson interrupted, taking out a piece of paper from his chest.

As he said, it was a rough copy of this map. He had prepared it in case they lost the original.

“Then I’ll take this map.”

“I still insist on accompanying you.”

“But that would leave Lord Thomson alone. He can’t fight.”

“I’ll be fine, Miss Hardness. I can manage on my own.”

Lord Thomson interjected again. Veronica gave him a cold look.

“Lady Arin was very worried about you getting hurt somewhere.”

“…”

“I’m the daughter of a knight. And the daughter of Duke Hardness. I’ve been learning martial arts from my father, and I can defend myself. I’m certainly not weaker than Lord Thomson.”

Addressing Lord Thomson, he nodded, cowed by her forceful manner.

“Still, I can’t let you go alone.”

Lake restrained her again. Veronica stared at him blankly.

“It may not be appropriate to say this in this situation, but I don’t trust Lord Lining either.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Couldn’t Lord Lining stab me in the back too?”

“That would never happen.”

Lies. Veronica couldn’t believe it. She didn’t trust him.

He was a man who had used force against her without hesitation, just like Cassian.

Veronica knew his coldness very well.

“You say the current you wouldn’t do that, but who knows about the you a few minutes from now. People have many facets. I don’t trust Lord Lining, so I want to go alone. Even if you think it’s reckless, I judge this to be safer for me. If you want to earn my trust, build up that trust. Until then, Lord Lining is also someone who could threaten me at any time.”

“…Then why did you call for me?”

“Because I needed someone to be by Lord Thomson’s side.”

And someone to stop him too. Veronica looked down at the map again.

Realizing her face showed sincerity, Lake finally closed his mouth.

When Veronica met his gaze again, his face looked slightly distorted.

“You’re right, this isn’t something to say in this situation. Should I call it honest or reckless?”

“It’s because of this situation.”

“I understand how you feel, Veronica. But even so, I can’t let you go alone. Anyone, not just me, would say the same thing.”

Lake had no intention of backing down on this issue.

Finally, a moment of contemplation arrived. Lord Thomson quietly approached between the two silent people.

“Um… I’ll go with this gentleman.”

He said, pointing to Lake.

“Miss Hardness, if you wait here, we’ll go by ourselves. We may not be able to check everything, but we should be able to properly check one place. Afterwards, we can either send someone separately, or come back with an escort like this gentleman.”

Not a bad suggestion, but. Veronica frowned.

Should she take those words at face value? Reading Veronica’s thoughts, Lord Thomson spoke again.

“I swear on my wife.”

Lord Thomson swore solemnly, placing his hand on his left chest.

If that’s the case. Veronica complied for now.

She wasn’t sure if he would really keep his oath, but since he had staked his beloved wife, it probably wasn’t a complete lie. Looking at Lake, he seemed to agree as well.

“Since the interior is similar, let’s mark the places we’ve been like this.”

Lake carved markings on the passage walls with his sword.

The sword marks were engraved on the hard wall surface. Veronica took out an object from the pouch at her waist and held it out.

“Just in case, I’ll give you this.”

It was a pocket watch. Seeing the object, Lord Thomson shook his head.

“It’s too expensive an item.”

“It’s better to set a time than to part ways aimlessly. Then you’ll need this. I can wait for an hour, no, two hours should be fine. Take it and come back in two hours.”

When Veronica held out the pocket watch again, Lord Thomson reluctantly accepted it.

He could be seen carefully holding it in his hand, afraid it might break.

“Then we’ll be going.”

The two men chose one of the forking paths and entered.

After seeing them off, Veronica crouched in a corner.

She didn’t want to lean against the dirty wall. As she did so, she heard their footsteps fading away.

When the footsteps suddenly stopped, silence descended. A mouse approached in the lamplight.

She shooed it away with her toes and gazed at the pool of light spreading from the floor to the wall.

Staying still was boring, so she looked at the map again.

Honestly, it was hard to make out because it was only drawn with lines, but as she kept looking, she could see the paths.

Suddenly, Veronica’s eyes narrowed. She pulled the lamp closer and illuminated the map.

After looking at it for a while, she held the map up to face her.

As the paper became transparent in the light, one of the intertwined lines caught her eye.

It wasn’t an illusion. At the end of that line, there was a trace of a dot symbolizing an exit.

As if it had been marked to avoid confusion about this path.

She rubbed it slightly, but it wasn’t recently added.

Veronica hesitated for a moment, then picked up the lamp.

She walked towards the marked exit. With the map, there was no worry about getting lost.

She didn’t forget to make inconspicuous marks for the way back.

After passing through two identical forking paths, she finally reached the exit indicated by the map.

“…”

And the front was a dead end.

Veronica felt the wall in front of her. It was definitely blocked. She looked around, but there was no exit visible anywhere.

Sometimes there are things like this. Creating fakes to hide the real thing.

Some paths were twisted complicatedly and made to return to the starting point as a trap.

Lord Thomson had also said that not all the exits marked on the map were real.

But this point had a distinctly added trace, so she thought it might have been someone’s destination who had the map, but well. This path turned out to be a wild goose chase after all.

The brief sense of adventure quickly faded.

Veronica thought it was fortunate that Lake and Lord Thomson hadn’t accompanied her.

She would have been needlessly embarrassed.

Come to think of it, it felt like an hour had passed.

They shouldn’t get lost separately, so Veronica hurriedly turned back.

At that moment, a breeze brushed past her ear.

Veronica raised her head.

She definitely felt a breeze. But there was nowhere for wind to come from with walls all around.

Veronica scrutinized the wall where the wind came from.

There was nothing unusual visible on the common sewer wall.

Perhaps the wind was flowing through some crack in the old structure.

As she reached out her hand towards it, the wind became more distinct. Veronica felt around the wall surface.

Still nothing special was visible. Then, when she touched above eye level, she felt a slight gap.

When she pushed her fingers into the gap, the wall surface trembled and fell away in a square shape.

The removed wall was a wooden board disguised as a wall.

The outer surface was thickly covered with sewer wall material, but the back was in the form of a thin wooden board.

The inside of the underground sewer was dark, and the fake wall was cleverly placed high up, with the texture exactly like the sewer wall, making it difficult to notice.

Where the fake wall was removed, a small hole appeared.

Could a person enter by bending their body? A child might be able to easily.

The wind was blowing from there.

Veronica set down the removed wall on the floor and pushed her body into the hole.

She had to raise her heels to barely enter.

When she reached out her hand, there was indeed a fake wall on the opposite side too. When she pushed it with her hand, it fell away easily.

The first thing she smelled was the damp scent of grass. And the sound of wind.

As her face emerged, the wind cleared her airways.

A prickly sensation was felt on her palms. It was leaves.

When she completely came out, grass and trees were visible.

Veronica stood up, brushing off the leaves stuck to her clothes.

The outer wall she had pushed earlier was disguised to look like a grassy floor on the surface.

Where could this be? As she looked around, she suddenly tilted her head up.

A towering building was visible between the trees.

Even from afar, the grandeur was palpable, and her crimson eyes widened at the unique scenery within the empire.

Veronica quickly checked the map.

On the paper fluttering in the wind, numerous lines pointed to exits that might be real or deceptive.

One of them was this place.

She blankly looked up at the scene before her again.

“The Imperial Palace…”

This was an artificial garden inside the Imperial Palace.

The abandoned sewer in the slums was connected to the Imperial Palace.

A fact no one knew was written on this map.

Instinctively, she felt that this was no ordinary object.

This was a map with a secret passage that could enter the Imperial Palace.

I have a bad feeling about this. Veronica folded the map and put it away, then went back down the narrow passage.

She didn’t forget to cover the outer wall again.

After returning the sewer wall to its original position, she picked up the lamp.

She needed to meet Lord Thomson and Lord Lining quickly. It felt like they should leave this place immediately.

Veronica hurried her steps. It seemed like the agreed two hours were almost up.

Fortunately, it wasn’t difficult to return because she had marked the walls.

As she quickly approached where they had parted, relying on the lamplight, she saw a person on the opposite side.

“La-”

Veronica stopped abruptly in the middle of speaking.

Her crimson eyes stared at the dark figure. The lamp shook violently, creaking, then gradually quieted.

The light moving across the floor finally stopped, clearly illuminating what was in front.

At the end of that light stood unfamiliar feet.