Soon, the door opened, and a bluehaired lady came out with a gentle smile.

“I heard a loud noise, so I came to check. What happened?”

“Lady, everything here is fine. But is everything inside okay? I heard a scream.”

“Ah, you heard that.”

Lady Luhas sighed momentarily, looking a bit troubled.

“If I may speak in confidence to you, Lord…”

Sharing the secret in a hushed voice, the ladyinwaiting swallowed.

“One of our maids is sensitive and sometimes screams during her fits. Her Highness the princess takes care of her generously. After all, she’s someone Her Highness detests greatly.”

Ah, hearing this story, the worry disappeared from the lord and lady’s faces. A small hope was also glimpsed.

What if they became the people of a princess so generous as to take care of even a maid with fits?

“It’s fortunate. We were worried that something might have happened to Her Highness.”

“Why would that be?”

Lady Luhas smiled faintly, as if she had heard an amusing joke. The lord and lady joined her in smiling.

“But is there by any chance…”

“Yes?”

“A wellmaintained road leading to Muwiken territory?”

At Lady Luhas’s question, the lord cheerfully shook his head.

“There’s nothing there except Duke Vicander’s castle. There’s no need to spend money on maintenance since sturdy knights pass through all the time. Instead, I am more proud of the summer garden below. Please mention it to Her Highness.”

The lord looked proud as he smiled. Lady Luhas endured a throbbing headache.

She could already see the princess causing another scene.

.

.

.

“Ahh!”

“Your Highness, please hold still. Your throat will get hurt.”

Inside the colorful and ornate room, the princess’s eyes flickered among the bewildered maids.

“No, in this great Franz, even the roads are not properly maintained! What a disgrace to the empire!”

The princess, who was shouting, narrowed her eyes. Her stomach, which had been upset from riding on the unpaved road, churned again.

It had been a chaotic day when even the water was muddy. The place they had finally found to stay was this lord’s estate.

The princess looked around the room with contempt. This peasantlike, garish, and colorful room was the kind of rustic room the princess hated the most.

“……If only they had maintained the road properly, we would have reached Vicander’s castle by now.”

The princess clenched her teeth, remembering the roads she used to take. The famous summer palace in the south, the autumn beauty in the east where her mother, the empress, had her villa, even the west that bordered other countries.

The places the princess had visited were all connected by clean, wellmaintained roads.

“Your Highness, please lie down.”

Lady Luhas, who had been speaking with the lord, returned to the room. The princess let out a moaning sound again at the worried face of her nurse.

“Nurse, what did they say? Is there a maintained road?”

“……Well.”
A slender hope disappeared along with the nanny’s dark face. The princess yelled “Ack!” in rage. She felt as if she would explode in anger if she did not.

“Your Highness, this place is a poorly soundproofed villa. Please, if you could calm your anger a bit…….”

“Everything’s the worst! How can I even not be allowed to get angry as I please!”

“……I apologize, Your Highness.”

The princess glared fiercely at the Countess Luhas. Her face, showing no other recourse, was the complete opposite of the confidence she had displayed a few days ago when she had promised to find a way somehow.

Unable to even reach Duke Vicander’s territory where she needed to go as soon as possible, she was utterly frustrated.

Her heart was urgent to find that abandoned mine, and she didn’t even know what to say to that halfwit. The fact that the magical seal couldn’t be reversed.

All these problems were jumbled together, bringing a headache. Her throat kept feeling parched and dry.

“……Ha, really. That halfwit. I won’t leave him alone if I see him. Well, he must have gone well along the neglected road, fitting for the wretched thing.”

He fled all this way with that precious thing.

The maids all pretended not to hear the harsh words that burst forth in succession. As they always had.

.

.

.

“……Oh my.”

But the villa’s maids were different. The maids, who were just then arranging the room for the maids to stay in the lower floor, exchanged glances and held their mouths tight.

They had been told that the gentle and saintlike princess was staying in the room above.

The coarse language and the menacing atmosphere, harboring a killing intent, were the complete opposite of the rumors they knew about the saintlike princess. The mouths of the maids looking at each other twitched.

Soon, interesting rumors began to circulate around the villa.

The rumor about the princess who called the villa ‘the worst’ without hesitation spread uncontrollably.

(This is a time separator.)