“She’s still the princess of the group, after all. Though she’ll be a tragic princess.”

Though it was something she heard very long ago, Erica remembered these words clearly. She could never forget the day she died, no matter how much time passed.

‘His way of speaking is exactly the same as Manager Kim.’

Could Manager Kim have also fallen into the reservoir and died with her that day? And then reincarnated here together with me?

Come to think of it, the things the marquis had been doing seemed like someone corrupted by modern capitalism who had lost their humanity. It made sense if he was a modern person.

‘I started fighting to protect my child, but it turns out my child’s enemy was my enemy……’

But you can’t be certain based on circumstantial evidence alone. After getting suspicious, Erica spent two weeks trying to find proof.

The disguise as an ordinary maid without magic power was unexpectedly helpful. Since she posed no threat, the guards didn’t watch Erica closely, and with the excuse that she had to serve the Grand Mage, she kept requesting various things. A few days ago, she was finally able to leave the prison, though under surveillance.

Then yesterday, while passing through a garden, she overheard voices flowing out through an open window.

“Hey, you bastard! Just because I called you Your Majesty, do you think I’m really your lackey?”

Those words were also similar to what Erica heard on the day she died in her previous life. It seemed to be Manager Kim’s habit of speech.

‘But to dare say such words to ‘Your Majesty’ in this era……’

Another piece of circumstantial evidence became certainty.

The king is that bastard cuckoo.

‘We reincarnated together. The three who died at the same time.’

Only then did Erica understand the intention of whoever had reincarnated her here.

What deep divine intention to abandon that ruined life and start anew. It meant they should finish things here. While preventing a child with the same fate from meeting the same end.

A life where her father’s fake bastard stole everything from her. Elodie’s life was fundamentally no different from the life Erica had lived in her previous existence.

‘Stop the wheel of repeating fate. No, completely smash it to pieces.’

Erica firmly planned to smash it to pieces.

‘First, I need to get close.’

Today too, the marquis came to visit Grandma Greta. Now that the carrots had run out, the marquis only used the whip.

T*rture, kill. While the marquis poured out all kinds of threats, Magnus, who had followed the marquis, pitied Grandma — no, regretted wasting her skills — and stopped the marquis.

It seemed sincere, or perhaps the two were putting on a show, playing good cop and bad cop.

“You might endure t*rture, but what about your maid? That maid who has no magic power and is utterly ordinary.”

Today he even made the despicable threat of torturing Erica.

‘This won’t do anymore. I need to start the operation now.’

Erica followed the marquis, who was leaving angrily after gaining no results today.

“Um…… Marquis.”

The marquis, who had been whispering with Magnus while walking down the corridor, whipped around and glared at Erica with sharp eyes. Erica bowed and cowered like a maid, hesitantly bringing up her business.

“Perhaps…… couldn’t I be of help?”

A mere maid?

The marquis’s twisting eyes said that.

What great information could you have?

The marquis’s eyebrows, which soon rose crookedly, said this.

‘I do. I certainly do.’

Erica glanced back at the room where Grandma Greta was imprisoned, acting nervous about being caught, and made it obvious she had important information. Finally, the marquis asked.

“Help, you say. What kind of help?”

“I actually…… have a hidden ability.”

“Ability?”

At the word ability, Magnus and the guards became alert and tried to move Erica far from the marquis.

‘No, not that kind of ability!’

Erica hastily explained.

“Oh, I don’t use magic. I don’t have holy power either. The ability I have is foresight.”

At that moment, the marquis’s eyes widened.

“I sometimes have prophetic dreams.”

“Then why did you lie to me, saying you were an ordinary maid?”

“That’s…… because the Grand Mage was listening, I couldn’t speak honestly……”

Erica lied. She said she actually had the ability to have prophetic dreams, and Grand Mage Margareta had hired her knowing this. In other words, she sold her dreams for money. The Grand Mage talked about Erica’s dreams as if she had dreamed them herself, stealing the credit.

“Who would believe a worthless maid if she said she had prophetic dreams? You’d need to be at least a Grand Mage for people to believe you.”

So at first, she didn’t mind selling her ability to the Grand Mage for small change, but gradually she became more and more resentful, Erica complained while mixing in her best acting.

“She gained all that honor thanks to me, but only gave me a tiny bit in return, and someone else received all the gratitude……”

Manager Kim, who had worked under the chairman his whole life, would empathize with this maid’s resentment at having her achievements stolen by her employer.

Since there was a relatable reason for betrayal that the marquis could empathize with, he surely wouldn’t suspect that Erica’s sudden defection had ulterior motives. She made up this story based on that calculation.

“That must have been difficult.”

Seeing the marquis, famous for having no interest in others’ pain, say such things, it seemed he was recalling his previous life as Erica intended.

“Actually, I had a prophetic dream last night too.”

The marquis’s dim eyes suddenly flashed.

“In the dream, I saw the winner of this war.”

“Who was it?”

“You, Marquis.”

The marquis’s pupils began to shake greatly.

“So you’re trying to side with me before it’s too late because you want to live.”

Erica didn’t deny it.

“Marquis, she was on the enemy’s side. Don’t take it too seriously. Who knows what tricks she’s trying to pull. And suddenly claiming prophetic dreams. I find it hard to believe.”

Though Magnus said the right thing, the marquis didn’t seem to listen to a word, not even glancing at Magnus, and asked Erica with a fascinated expression.

“I’ll…… win…… this war?”

“Yes, I clearly saw it in my dream. And my dreams are never wrong.”

Looking straight into the marquis’s increasingly curious eyes, Erica recalled an old saying.

Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated.

The enemy didn’t know Erica, but Erica knew the enemy. She had approached with the lie about prophetic dreams precisely because Manager Kim from her previous life was famous for not just liking fortune tellers but believing in them blindly. She thought it probably wouldn’t be much different in this life, and judging by his reaction, she was right.

“How do I win?”

“I can’t know that much, but I saw dwarves in the dream.”

Erica said there had been a dwarf army in the victory parade she saw in her dream. From how arrogantly they acted, it seemed they had played a decisive role in the victory.

The marquis’s expression twisted strangely. It wasn’t at all an expression of doubting Erica’s words. Rather, it was an expression of already being displeased because he believed her words about the dwarves acting arrogantly in the victory parade.

She had actually already heard while coming and going in the palace that he had joined hands with the dwarves. Before they could suspect she was speaking from eavesdropping, Erica boldly threw another bait to bewitch the marquis.

“And I also saw the princess. She was sitting on the throne.”

“……”

The marquis’s face hardened with shock.

“What kind of crazy talk is this? That woman has clearly lost her mind, so don’t take her seriously, Marquis.”

Magnus gestured to the guards standing behind Erica. It meant to quickly drag this crazy woman away. However, the marquis, who had been staring at Erica with a bizarrely twisted expression, stopped Magnus.

“I…… not only spared that damned thing…… but put her on the throne……?”

“Please don’t be angry, Marquis. I’m only telling you what I saw.”

The marquis looked at Erica, who was trembling as if terrified, with sharp eyes for a moment, then withdrew his gaze and muttered to himself.

“That damned thing is the child of the oracle.”

Even without Erica giving hints, the marquis picked up the hints himself. In that head of his, thoughts would now extend in the direction Erica wanted.

“Has that child you saw already become an avatar of revenge?”

When Erica nodded, the marquis’s expression brightened noticeably.

“The oracle said she would become an avatar of revenge, but it didn’t say she would achieve revenge. The oracle doesn’t necessarily have to be realized unfavorably for me.”

As expected, the marquis’s thinking was flowing according to Erica’s plan.

He found his son — the current fake king — distasteful. He would now be starting to think that Elodie, who had legitimacy as true royalty and was still a young child easy to manipulate, was much better. Moreover, if the legitimate princess followed him, wouldn’t the enemies lose their justification for driving him out?

As a bonus, if the child of the oracle who would eliminate war from this world became his servant, the marquis would become the master of the oracle. It had to be tempting.

‘How about it? Tempting, right? So don’t harm Elodie.’

Erica’s purpose in deliberately encouraging the marquis to kidnap Elodie was to save Elodie from the marquis’s potential threats. With dwarves occupying the land of the elves, wasn’t it an unpredictable situation?

However, saving Elodie’s life wasn’t the only purpose for which Erica had stirred up the marquis’s greed.

“We’ll rest here for a while.”

The soldiers descending the mountain stopped at their commander’s order and sat down in a wide clearing. Though all those who quenched their thirst with water bottles and had simple meals looked tired, only their eyes watching the surroundings flashed sharply. And rightly so. They never knew when or where ambushed enemies might jump out.

With the complete extermination of the undead just around the corner, Grand Mage Margareta had been kidnapped by the marquis. Duke Pendrel judged that the rear was cleared and immediately ordered an advance to the capital, but bad news struck in just one day.

Dwarves had suddenly begun invading the land of the elves. Along with human mages and spirit masters. Though dwarves had invaded the land of the elves countless times before, the elves had defeated the dwarves without much difficulty on their own. In the past, the elves’ forces hadn’t been worn down by nearly a year of war like now, and the dwarves had no mages or spirit masters.

But now that the marquis had attached the royal palace’s mages to the dwarves, things were different. A few days later, at Iriel’s urgent request for support, Duke Pendrel had no choice but to send half of the elf spirit masters and two wyverns in the army heading to the capital to the south. It was an unavoidable decision since they couldn’t ignore their alliance, but it was a huge loss for an army facing a difficult battle against enemies who had fortified the capital and were waging a siege.

Most importantly, there was no one left to make mana bombs. The marquis, as if he knew this well, brought back the undead army he had hidden. Though their numbers were fewer than before, the marquis’s changed tactics made them just as troublesome.

To reach the capital, they had to cross the mountains surrounding it. The marquis had ambushed undead throughout this gateway and attacked the army crossing the mountains. Though mana bombs the Grand Mage had made remained, since they no longer moved in groups, the effect was minimal and the bombs were consumed quickly.

On top of that, dwarves joined in—beings specialized in fighting in rough terrain like mountains.

“We were promised a very mouth-watering reward.”

According to a captured dwarf, the marquis had promised to hand over all the land of the elves. They had no interest whatsoever in whether the human king was real or fake, and were a race with only greed remaining. In that regard, they were excellent mercenaries for the marquis.