RPL 6

Chapter 6

Just like in the original, the shackles that had bound my ankles came undone the moment the door opened.

That was precisely why I had only longed for the door to open and paid no attention to the things that actually bound me.

Kisella and Yunid stared blankly at me for a while, then turned and walked away.

I hurriedly followed behind them, and they did not stop me.

“Where are we going?”

Two pairs of round eyes turned to look at me at the same time.

“My palace.”

Kisella answered briefly.

“You……”

Yunid furrowed his brow as if about to say something, then closed his mouth.

And he turned his head with a sharp whoosh.

‘Didn’t he notice?’

I narrowed my eyes slightly.

For some reason, Yunid’s small, round back of the head looked extremely suspicious.

From the beginning, Yunid had neither believed my claim of being a fairy nor stopped doubting my identity.

On top of that, in a situation where I had opened and walked out of a door that could only be opened with imperial blood, he was acting far too quietly.

‘Even if Kisella didn’t, someone like Yunid would normally point that fact out and question it.’

So why was he asking nothing? Why was he not stopping me from following them?

‘Because he’s the male lead?’

My steps gradually slowed. I took in the backs of the children growing distant.

Something I had failed to consider when I was desperate to escape. No—something I had deliberately tried to ignore.

They were characters in this novel.

‘And central ones at that—the male lead and the villainess.’

The moment that thought crossed my mind, an ominous warning siren blared in my head that I must not follow them.

“What are you doing? Why aren’t you coming?”

Kisella suddenly turned around and shouted with a pout.

“Uh…… uh, I’m coming.”

But what good was a warning siren? If I didn’t follow them, I had nowhere to go.

While walking behind Kisella and Yunid, I encountered quite a few people.

Every single one of them was startled out of their wits upon seeing me.

‘What is it?’

I tilted my head.

It didn’t seem like they recognized me. If they had, they would have done something.

They simply stared at me with wide, blank eyes and faces full of shock.

‘Doesn’t matter.’

As long as my identity hadn’t been exposed. And I had followed the children in the first place while already accounting for the possibility of being found out.

Thinking little of it, I continued to follow behind the children.

And a short while later, I learned why people had been so horrified at the sight of me.

“Imperial Princess Kisella! Th-this, this, this……”

The moment we arrived at Kisella’s room, a young woman gasped in horror upon seeing me.

“Who is this filthy child!”

……It was because I was dirty.

I stuck out my lower lip and looked myself over.

I had washed as thoroughly as I could before coming out. Even catching a cold in the process.

“A fairy.”

“Pardon?”

“I said a fairy. Here, the bathroom. Do you need a maid?”

Kisella answered the woman’s question nonchalantly and guided me to the bathroom.

It seemed this child had brought me here in order to wash me.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Y-Your Highness! If you put such a dirty child in the bathroom……!”

“If I put her in?”

“The bathroom will get dirty!”

“Then the maids can just clean it, right?”

Long live the Imperial Princess. Long live shamelessness.

I inwardly cheered three times and stepped into the bathroom.

Inside the bathroom was a huge, splendid bathtub with steam rising from it.

The marble pillars and statues standing here and there, and the bathtub made of stone that looked expensive at a glance, seemed to be a clear demonstration of just how grand the life of the imperial family was.

I immediately took off my clothes and stepped into the bathtub filled with warm water.

‘Come to think of it, I’m an Imperial Princess too, for now.’

The treatment is really different, isn’t it?

I scooped up water with one hand and let out a short laugh.

Until just a moment ago I had been desperately longing only to get outside, yet the moment I did, I was complaining about how my circumstances were different.

It was impossible not to find it funny.

‘……What should I do from now on?’

I leaned my head back and looked up at the ceiling engraved with beautiful patterns.

In the original, Regina had stayed in Kisella’s palace.

Kisella had even shed her own blood for Regina, so giving her a room and hiding her would not even have been a matter for consideration.

And not long after, the emperor had come to meet Regina.

But the current me had not become friends with Kisella, and on top of that I had even lied, so I was in no position to ask for a room.

‘Should I meet the emperor first?’

To escape the status of a criminal, I did need to meet him.

Although she had been imprisoned because of the empress’s treason, strictly speaking Regina was not a criminal.

This novel prohibited guilt by association. Therefore, unless there was evidence that she had participated in the treason like the empress’s family, Regina could not be punished for the empress’s crime.

But allowing the daughter of a traitor to live as an Imperial Princess inside the imperial palace was problematic.

In particular, the nobles who supported the current empress—Kisella’s mother, who had been a consort at the time—had risen up fiercely, insisting that Regina’s right to the throne be stripped away.

If only Regina were gone, Kisella would become the sole heir and eventually emperor.

“Imperial Princess Regina is hereby imprisoned.”

In the end, the emperor resolved this complicated problem by imprisoning Regina.

Thus Regina was imprisoned not for the reason that she “had” participated in the treason of the executed empress, but for the reason that she “might have.”

However, even if she had been imprisoned without crime, once she had received a sentence, escaping midway made her a criminal.

‘It shouldn’t be difficult.’

I cupped both hands together, filled them with water, and wet my face. Water dripped from the tip of my chin.

To escape that criminal status, I had to make the emperor revoke the imprisonment sentence.

Since it was the emperor who had needed me and tried to make me escape, there was nothing difficult about it.

Just like in the original, when the emperor pressed me about whether I had participated in the previous empress’s treason, I only needed to insist on my innocence.

“Yes. The emperor needs me, after all.”

With my wet face, I faintly smiled with a hollow laugh.

The emperor had wanted to bring me out in order to check the growing power of the empress, Kisella’s mother.

The empress’s power stemmed from being the mother of the sole heir to the throne, Kisella; if another heir to the throne appeared, that momentum would inevitably be broken.

The empress knew this as well, so she would oppose the revocation of my imprisonment.

The emperor had tried to use Kisella in preparation for that.

‘If I am a traitor, then Kisella, who helped me escape, would also become a criminal who aided a traitor.’

The story had gone off track, so all Kisella had done was meet me by chance, and I had come out on my own.

‘But if it’s the emperor, he’ll frame it as Kisella having gotten me out.’

Therefore, this matter would be concluded, just like in the original, as the mistake of the young Imperial Princess Kisella, and I would escape imprisonment and live as an Imperial Princess.

‘And after that……’

The thought of having to live in an unfamiliar world in the body of a young child made a sigh come out on its own.

Moreover, the future that was predetermined was not particularly bright either.

“No.”

I forcibly shook my head. Whatever it was, it would be better than imprisonment.

Probably.

* * *

After washing and coming out, I was led by the hand of a woman named Nipe and made to put on a plain dress that Kisella would clearly never wear.

The clothes were large. Even the slightest movement made them slip down past my shoulders.

Still, I had no complaints. It was far better than putting the dirty single set of clothes back on.

“Are you the child of some noble house?”

Nipe, who was tidying my hair, glanced at me through the mirror and asked.

After looking at me and saying things like how dirty I was, now that I looked neat she must have thought of a noble child.

Even though my physical condition had been so terrible that I couldn’t wash thoroughly in every corner, I still looked like that.

‘Is it because I’m an Imperial Princess in name, so I have some kind of dignity……’

Feeling somehow pleased, I looked at my reflection in the mirror and then lost my words.

Far from dignity, a small, extremely thin girl was staring at me with sunken eyes.

The pure sky-blue pupils were so white around the edges—or perhaps because of the dark circles under her eyes—that rather than looking pretty, they looked creepy.

On top of that, the dirty hair that had been grown out like an animal’s and was full of frizz from being damaged.

Cheeks sunken from malnutrition and cheekbones that looked relatively protruding.

Even a pale face reminiscent of a vampire.

All of them were elements that added to that creepiness.

Above all, it was the gloomy atmosphere that wafted thickly from the child’s body, something that could not be pinpointed and explained.

In conclusion, Regina’s appearance was, to put it harshly, like a living corpse, and to put it kindly, like a story-filled house spirit from some horror movie.

Except for the lack of wrinkles.

‘……She must have just thought I was a noble because Kisella brought me.’

Otherwise there would have been no way she would have me use the bathroom, the clothes, and even the attendance.

‘Come to think of it, why is Kisella giving me this kind of help?’

Simply because I was dirty?

“It’s a rare silver hair color. When it catches the light, it turns blu……ish……”

While I was trying to guess Kisella’s intentions, Nipe’s hand, which had been murmuring to herself while combing, stopped.

Through the mirror I could see her face growing pale.

‘Did she realize?’

Well. This hair color wasn’t common, after all.

I stood up from my seat. I intended to go see the emperor.

“W-wait a moment! Where did you come from? Yes?”

Nipe blocked my way and asked.

“From the castle.”

“Which castle? Perhaps your name, what’s your name?”

I did not answer, and after prying a few more times, Nipe went outside before me.

Thinking she had gone to tell Kisella, I was just about to grab the doorknob when—

“Where did Nipe go?”

The door burst open and Kisella appeared with a sullen face.

‘It’s not Kisella?’

In that case.

I hardened my expression.

Kisella was the empress’s child and still young, so everyone currently around Kisella would be people the empress had assigned.

Therefore, the woman named Nipe had clearly gone to report the problem that was “me” not to Kisella, but to the empress.

My heart grew urgent. I had to meet the emperor before the empress, having received her report, made a move.

Because there was no telling what that woman might do.

“Wow! You really look like a fairy!”

That was when it happened. Kisella’s sullen expression melted away as she exclaimed in admiration.

“……”

I paused for a moment as I recalled my own appearance.

The fairy Kisella knew seemed quite different from the fairy I knew.