Chapter 6. Decision to Escape

The fresh air flowed freely with the wind. Iella paused to take in the bright scenery that she hadn’t seen in a long time and then lifted her head. She stretched out her hand, which had been lightly resting on her forehead, and spread her fingers wide. The clear blue sky filled the gaps between her fingers, and the space where her hand had shaded was now bathed in bright light.

‘Refreshing.’

Since entering Ailexia’s body, she had been confined to the bedroom. The reason boiled down to one person: Allen.

‘Despite my efforts, we ended up being unintentionally intimate…’

Ugh. Iella tried to recall the events of that night, which still eluded her, but soon gave up. The only thing she remembered was calling his name.

But perhaps it was better not to remember. After all, it happened in someone else’s body. It felt oddly uncomfortable, like peeking into someone else’s private life.

Of course, she hadn’t chosen to enter this body, and despite the haziness, her consciousness was her own, so it couldn’t be entirely considered a third-party event.

‘Still… it feels a bit… off, right?’

Iella concluded, nodding slightly. It wasn’t just about preserving her own romantic notions about her first night.

Moreover, now wasn’t the time to leisurely ponder the events of that night.

She hadn’t fled immediately because she thought acting without a plan would be more dangerous. So she decided to move cautiously and prudently. In the process, she avoided leaving the bedroom to prevent any encounters with the main character of the original story.

But the situation changed. Since she didn’t go to Allen, he came to her. And then that happened.

Staying here had become too dangerous.

“You must have felt suffocated staying inside for so long. How do you feel now that you’re outside? The weather is nice.”

At that moment, a somewhat unfamiliar voice interrupted her thoughts. Iella turned her head calmly, not showing her surprise. She saw a woman with brown hair and deep golden eyes dressed in a maid’s uniform.

It was Vanessa Hurd, Ailexia’s personal maid.

Iella met her the day after she had been intimate with Allen.

While she was trying to make sense of the situation, chewing over a single phrase from her faint memories, Vanessa knocked on the door and entered. Until then, she had avoided showing herself to the servants, even having her meals left at the door, so it was their first encounter.

But unlike Iella, Vanessa acted nonchalantly and even familiarly, offering to assist with her bath. The three servants who came with her moved skillfully under her experienced direction.

By the time Iella regained her senses, her body, exhausted from the intense affair, was clean and refreshed. She saw multiple reflections in the mirror of people attending to her. At that moment, Iella blushed deeply.

There wasn’t a single spot on her skin visible through the gown that wasn’t marked. It was evident to anyone what had happened. Iella, unaccustomed to such exposure, felt extremely embarrassed, her mind going blank.

So she waited impatiently for the attendants to finish. She closed her eyes, repeatedly telling herself it wasn’t her body to lessen the embarrassment. Then her thoughts drifted back to the previous situation.

Perhaps because of the hand brushing her hair or her relaxed body, her thoughts flowed more smoothly than before. What should she do now? She pondered the vague question.

Should she escape immediately, or stay a bit longer? Which would be less reckless and less dangerous? As the attendants finished their work, her thoughts leaned towards one side. Iella made a decision.

And the first step of that decision was now.

“Lady Ailexia, how about taking a light walk? In the meantime, I will quickly finish the preparations.”

Iella nodded and accepted the parasol Vanessa handed her with a respectful demeanor. However, inside, she was filled with tension. She worried about her hands trembling.

‘The thoroughness of preparing for tea time immediately after I said I would go for a walk. This efficiency is troublesome for me, even if it might be normal for Ailexia…’

The reason she was more nervous in front of Vanessa than usual was simple. As Ailexia’s personal maid, Vanessa likely knew even the smallest details that others wouldn’t. With only a few descriptions and guesses from the novel, Iella had to be extra cautious around her.

‘Let’s get out of here quickly.’

Iella sighed inwardly as she adjusted her grip on the parasol. The thought of spending the day in the open air already exhausted her. Aside from Vanessa, several other pairs of eyes were on her.

But sometimes, crises are opportunities.

Iella decided to move with her purpose in mind. She began walking leisurely toward the inner part of the garden.

Even from a brief glance earlier, she could tell that the secondary palace grounds were quite vast, much larger than what she had seen from her room. It wasn’t something one could call small, even as a formality.

Thanks to this, there seemed to be enough distance to temporarily escape the eyes of the servants preparing for tea time near the secondary palace building. However, she needed to move quickly since there wouldn’t be enough time to explore everything.

Soon, the distant sounds of people faded completely. Only the rustling of leaves in the gentle breeze surrounded her.

Confirming that no one was around, Iella closed the parasol and lightly held her skirt to avoid staining it with grass. She then turned her shoes toward the well-maintained bushes beside the path.

Without hesitation, she crossed the neatly trimmed shrubs and approached the tall, sturdy wall that loomed impressively. This was her main objective.

“It’s even taller up close.”

The sunlight glinted as if to hinder Iella from gauging the height. She squinted reflexively and lowered her head, clenching her fist and lightly tapping the wall. However, her white, delicate hand, unused to hardship, felt a tingling pain from the rough surface.

Fortunately, there was no swelling or severe redness, so she quickly dismissed her concerns and walked along the wall.

Her searching eyes diligently scanned the ground where the wall met the earth.

After much deliberation, Iella had decided to escape. It wasn’t an impulsive choice. Staying inside the secondary palace seemed more dangerous than going outside.

The main reason was Allen.

Looking back, he seemed more unstable than Iella had thought. His emotions were neither stable nor consistent, as if he could explode at any moment. The frequent emotional swings in a short time were all evidence of this.

The next reason was the unknown voice she had heard.

For now, Iella didn’t know how to overcome that voice. She wasn’t even sure if she could. If she stayed in the secondary palace and got entangled with Allen again, the same thing might happen.

‘It’s better to try something else than to keep experiencing such things in someone else’s body.’

Thus, her first action was to find a way out.

‘The budget for maintaining the palace is certainly not small. And it requires a lot of manpower.’

There was no budget allocated for Ailexia, who wasn’t officially declared as imperial family. It was only natural. At best, she was a guest of the secondary palace. As a result, there weren’t many servants in the secondary palace, enough for Iella to remember all their faces.

This meant there had to be some gaps somewhere.

‘But what’s been bothering me since earlier is…’

Iella thought about the surprisingly decent meals in the secondary palace and the well-maintained garden she had just seen.

“For that, the overall quality of life is quite good.”

Her steps gradually came to a halt.

She didn’t have high expectations of finding a way out. She was just considering all possible options. But once she started thinking, questions arose.

Could she really enjoy such luxury? If she were just a guest, it might be possible, but Ailexia was more like a lodger with scandalous rumors tarnishing the imperial family’s image.

‘Or is it because the imperial family has standards and doesn’t openly shun her? Despite all the rumors, they haven’t taken any special measures.’

But if that were the case, it was even stranger. Why would they keep someone who constantly spread scandalous rumors? The imperial family had no reason to tolerate someone who was diligently tarnishing their reputation and status.

‘Could it really be related to the former emperor? If so, that might make sense…’

At that moment, she heard the sound of several measured footsteps beyond the wall. The approaching sounds stopped nearby, followed by the voices of people conversing.