“Then I’ll be honest, Your Highness. Will you help me after leaving this place?”

“What?”

Leticia was dumbfounded.

After telling her that the Basilinte knights had occupied this entire inn, now she was suggesting they escape?

Setting aside how they would escape, why would they need to when there wasn’t even a reason to?

“You want us to leave in this situation?”

“Yes. Because of this situation.”

Aina glanced at the closed door and plopped down on the bed.

With an extremely tired face, Aina rubbed her face and elaborated.

“Of course, knights surround this inn, and downstairs there’s the head maid who knows magic and is half-obsessed with Your Highness, and on the first floor there’s Lord Chamuka who’s completely obsessed with Your Highness.”

“….”

“But we’re not inside the castle, are we?”

Aina added in a tone that suggested she almost wished otherwise, “The Basilinte castle is practically a fortress. I would have given up if we were still inside the castle.”

She looked somewhat resigned.

But that didn’t mean Leticia could grant Aina’s wishes.

“I have no intention of leaving here. You don’t know, but I’m currently… Anyway, I…”

It was difficult to say with her own mouth, “I’m shocked and want to rest for a while.”

After all, she had left the castle and walked aimlessly away out of guilt, unable to face the people of Basilinte.

She suddenly remembered Chamuka’s voice as he tried to comfort her.

Though not particularly warm, thinking back on it now, it seemed like he was trying to be kind in his own way.

‘…Right. I should go back tomorrow. Have a serious conversation, too.’

One day was enough for this avoidance.

Leticia knew that blindly running away couldn’t be the answer.

This time, truly honestly, even if it meant committing a sin, she wouldn’t pretend to be clean like before. Could she talk it through properly?

She should.

“Haven’t you seen the true face of Basilinte without their pretenses?”

Aina asked in response to Leticia’s trailing words.

“What?”

Today, with every word Aina spoke, Leticia’s mind filled with question marks.

But Aina spoke as if it were no big deal.

“Lord Chamuka is anxious that Your Highness might run away, and Your Highness ran away looking shocked. At first, I thought Lord Chamuka might have pounced on Your Highness, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. And.”

Aina’s hand pointed to the shoes Leticia had taken off under the bed.

“There’s blood on them. There.”

Under the bed lay shoes stained with blood, as if she had visited some crime scene.

“It seems obvious you’ve seen something terrible. Something related to Basilinte.”

It wasn’t difficult for Aina to guess the likely truth by combining the few pieces of information.

“If it had only involved Lord Chamuka, Your Highness’s master, who is devoted to you, would have rushed out by now, but it’s quiet. So it’s not just Lord Chamuka’s pretenses that have been exposed, right?”

Leticia remained silent at Aina’s scathing question.

As if to comfort her, Aina let out a deep sigh and stroked her back.

“Whatever terrible thing you saw… I told you, didn’t I? They only put on airs in front of Your Highness, but in reality, they’re the kind who don’t see people as people.”

But Leticia pushed away Aina’s hand and said.

“Don’t speak ill of Basilinte. It’s not like that.”

“Ah. You’re still on their side. Well, fine. That’s possible too.”

“Aina, you… You’re strange today.”

It was different from usual, starting with how casually she was disparaging Basilinte.

Whatever her past, Aina had lived the last 10 years like an ordinary maid in Basilinte castle.

Leticia had quite often witnessed her blending naturally with the other maids of Basilinte castle, to the point where it didn’t seem awkward at all.

That’s why she had kept her close, but perhaps now…

“Are you thinking of sending me away from the castle, Your Highness?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yes. Well, I wasn’t planning to stay any longer anyway, but that’s harsh. As if our past 10 years together meant nothing.”

“I’m not going to treat you like the nanny, so there’s nothing harsh about it.”

The 10-year-old Leticia might not have known, but the 20-year-old Leticia knew that “the prince’s nanny” had not safely returned to the empire.

She had experienced how closed off this land was over the past 10 years.

Of course, she deliberately avoided finding out what really happened.

She didn’t want to know the unpleasant aspects of Basilinte in detail.

In a sense, the pretentious Basilinte and Leticia, who refused to dig into the truth behind those pretenses, could be called a perfect match.

“I’ll send you wherever you want to go. Except for the empire. Of course, I’ll have someone keep an eye on you.”

Leticia wanted to send Aina away and rest now.

She had received quite a shock today and was too distracted to have this kind of conversation with Aina.

“So stop saying strange things and…”

As Leticia pressed her head, Aina stared at her and muttered.

“Your Highness is irritatingly kind. If you’re going to play the role of ‘Herta,’ you should at least be a bit mean. Why is a person so, hah…”

Aina let out an irritated sigh, messed up her own hair thoroughly, and then bowed her head deeply.

After a moment’s pause, she opened her mouth.

“Please help me, Your Highness. I’ll help Your Highness too.”

“I told you I’m not leaving here. Stop it already!”

Finally, Leticia’s voice rose.

She got up from the bed.

Hadn’t Aina said that Basilinte had occupied this entire inn? Perhaps it would be better to go out and move to another room…

“Even if I know why Basilinte’s curse will never be broken?”

Leticia’s steps toward the door stopped abruptly.

Noticing her reaction, Aina continued.

“Actually, I thought it wasn’t significant since it’s not information about how to break the curse… But it is to Your Highness, isn’t it?”

***

“Lady Astrid…”

“Tell mother I’ll bring her today, so stop sending people.”

Since before sunrise, she had been sending maids, demanding almost every hour when he would bring Leti back.

Chamuka told his family, who were ready to rush over immediately, to wait patiently before the child got scared and ran away.

He told them to give him some time alone and not to act like they were dragging him back in a group.

This was the advice Chamuka had received when he asked non-Basilinte people “how to treat a kind young boy who has discovered his family doing bad things and is shocked.”

He collected a total of 157 samples, and 89% submitted similar answers.

As Astrid advised, Chamuka did not think with his own head.

If he had followed his own thoughts, Leti probably wouldn’t have been able to walk on his own feet from the moment he was found in the underground chamber.

But Chamuka didn’t do that.

He absolutely did not want to end up like his grandfather or father.

Like his divorced grandfather or his father, who seemed like he could be divorced at any time.

So Chamuka left Leticia alone in her room (although they occupied the entire inn) and even called her personal maid to bring her meals (although he drugged that meal with sleeping pills).

This was the consideration he could offer because the 157 samples collected showed only a 0.6% probability that “a shocked kind young boy would run away from his family.”