Chapter 283: Room 204, Mission Room – ‘Hotel Cinema’ (7)

– Yu Songee

The moment I sensed danger, the “accident” during the fox hunt flashed through my mind. An unidentifiable entity had fired in my direction, throwing the entire hunt into chaos. Looking back, the Crown Prince’s fury as he tried to identify the culprit in his extreme agitation was completely justified.

What was a gun in the first place? It was a weapon so dangerous that even pointing an empty gun at someone was said to bring bad luck. There was a reason the Crown Prince had used such weighty words such as “assassination” and “treason”.

“Someone is targeting me.”

“What? What?”

Galleon still seemed unaware of the situation. For a brief moment, I suspected him, but quickly dismissed the thought. How could someone who had cared for a nation’s Crown Prince since childhood be an ordinary person?

He must be from a family that had been loyal to the royal family for generations. A development where such a person suddenly harmed the Crown Prince’s fiancée lacked “plausibility”.

– Clatter!

“You fool! What on earth—“

“Aaaagh!”

The coachman’s scream pierced through the inside of the carriage. Quickly grabbing the servant’s arm and leaping out of the carriage, the situation became clear.

“L-Lord Galleon! My lady! Bullets are flying!”

The coachman was already dead, and the carriage’s wheels were broken from the sudden impact. Taking a quick look around, I immediately understood the gravity of the situation. A place with few people, mountains on the right, sea on the left.

This is—

“—a perfect place to die.”

“Pardon?”

Various possibilities flashed through my mind momentarily.

Bandits from the mountains? Pirates from the sea? An attack from an enemy nation? A rival of the Crown Prince vying for the throne?

No, there’s no need to overthink this.

This world wasn’t reality, it was a “movie”. Considering the movie’s runtime at this point, the climax must not be far off. With the story in its latter half, the possibility of a new villain was highly unlikely as it would suddenly derail the already established “romance fantasy narrative”.

I recalled the face of the girl who had tried to kill me with her gaze earlier. It seemed a confrontation between her and I to settle things was inevitable.

At that moment, a familiar voice rang out from afar.

“Catch her! Capture that thieving vixen alive if possible!”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

What kind of idiot noble tries to orchestrate an assassination and then show up at the scene of the crime themselves?

Still, despite my amusement, I couldn’t undermine the severity of the current situation. The carriage was wrecked, and neither I—a teenage girl—or the elderly Galleon could outrun our pursuers.

“Lady Crossbell! This way—“

– Bang!

Like the crack of thunder, a gaping hole suddenly appeared in the throat of the escort waving at me.

In that instant, I wasn’t mad or sad—I was “bewildered”. Even for a powerful ducal family, how could they just outright assassinate the Crown Prince’s fiancée like this?

Seriously, who the hell wrote this movie script!? It might as well be swiss cheese with the amount of plot holes! The plausibility is a mess!

“…”

Plausibility.

Panting, I glanced down at my bracelet.

Plausibility, huh? Come to think of it, it’s a bit embarrassing for “me” of all people to criticize the plausibility in this movie.

Judging from the developments so far, there was no magic or superpowers on this movie’s stage. Even the knights protecting the Crown Prince had never displayed superhuman movements.

In such a world, I had accomplished everything I wanted using the bracelet.

This stupid movie, from the moment we entered with our Blessings and Inheritances, plausibility had long been thrown out the window. So there was no one to blame, and I just needed to do what I had been doing until now…

Twisting the scenario to achieve what I want.

What should I do?

Diverse Perspectives exerted tremendous power in a one-on-one situation. Unless it was a superhuman like Beatrix from Room 201 who could create additional eyes when her senses were deceived, ordinary humans could never resist it.

The problem was that the current situation wasn’t one-on-one. At least a dozen pursuers were chasing us. I could only deceive one person!

“Galleon, I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“How many people in the empire know my face?”

“Why haven’t you caught that bitch yet?”

Harsh words spilled from the lips of a girl whose beauty rivaled that of a goddess of the night. Cedric, a retainer of the duke’s family, calmly tried to soothe the young lady.

“Lady Evelyn, please calm yourself. The Crown Prince’s fiancée—“

“No! I told you she’s not his fiancée!”

“…Lady Crossbell is not alone. The Crown Prince and even the count’s family have assigned escorts… Fortunately, we have numerical superiority, so we must exercise patience.”

“…”

Evelyn slowly caught her breath, assessing the situation.

As Cedric said, things were progressing as she wished. The unworthy girl that “dared” to bewitch the Crown Prince was fleeing in desperation, while the duke’s private soldiers surrounded her and her escorts in a hunt. Unless the enemies could fly, there was no escape.

Finally, the long-awaited news arrived.

“My lady! We’ve captured Lady Crossbell alive.”

The first emotion Evelyn felt upon hearing this news was confusion rather than joy. She hadn’t expected them to be caught so quickly.

“Bring her to me!”

Yet when the family’s soldiers brought the “self-proclaimed Crossbell” in fluttering clothes, Evelyn felt as if the sky was falling.

“That’s not her!”

“Pardon?”

“I said it’s not her! She looks similar, but it’s a different person! Who are you?”

“…”

“This woman is not Crossbell, you… you… idiots!”

As Evelyn’s angry shout erupted, everyone around turned pale.

What on earth is this about? The woman who was in the carriage sent by the Crown Prince himself, with the servant he personally sent, wasn’t Lady Crossbell?

Cedric couldn’t believe it, but it wasn’t like he could refute Evelyn’s words either.

Who was Lady Crossbell?

A mysterious woman who had grown up sheltered within the count’s family and captivated the Crown Prince at the first party she ever attended. Before becoming the Crown Prince’s lover, no one even knew her name, and after becoming his lover, her status became so noble that it wasn’t easy to even see her face.

In other words, Evelyn was the only one here who had met her in person.

“Evelyn! Is this really true?”

“Do you think I’d mistake her? Hey! Who are you?”

The story the silently kneeling girl told was the height of absurdity. She claimed to be Crossbell’s half-sister, and that the real Crossbell had fallen ill with a severe fever two days ago and was unable to leave her bed.

“T-then why were you in the carriage?”

The answer was extremely absurd.

They couldn’t send someone with an infectious disease to a place where not only the Crown Prince but also the Empress and Emperor would be present. Therefore, they had to postpone the engagement, but fearing that if no one rode in the carriage, outsiders might notice something was wrong with Crossbell, they sent her half-sister who looked similar, hoping to delay suspicion.

Of course, they couldn’t fool the Crown Prince, but they thought the Crown Prince wouldn’t want his lover’s condition to be known outside, so they planned to ask him to cooperate with the “act” by explaining the situation.

Cedric muttered with a sigh, “So the real Crossbell never even left the count’s estate…”

At that moment, Evelyn’s mind was working in a different direction.

“Cedric, this situation isn’t entirely bad for us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s take this girl to the palace.”

Sedrick’s eyes widened for a moment before realization dawned upon him.

“You plan to announce that Crossbell has fallen ill?”

“Exactly! The Crown Prince’s fiancée with a deadly plague? Does that make any sense? What if she spreads the plague to His Highness? Or even to the future imperial heir!”

It was a reasonable view. And a safer choice. In fact, Cedric thought today’s plan had been far too risky. Suddenly deciding to kill the Crown Prince’s fiancée? Wasn’t it truly an insane plan?

Compared to that, publicly revealing that the fiancée had contracted an infectious disease could achieve their goal with much less risk.

– Yu Songee

“Girl, you just need to say what we agreed on. Understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Remember. All of this is not for someone’s personal gain, but for the future of the empire. How could we place someone with the plague by His Highness’s side? And—hmm?”

I immediately hunched my body. Evelyn, who had been tilting her head, soon dismissed her suspicion and continued her nonsense.

A plan hastily made in an urgent situation. Honestly, it wasn’t much.

In a world without cameras or the internet, how many people would know what the Crown Prince’s fiancée looked like? I thought no one except Evelyn would know my face.

As expected, once I deceived Evelyn’s eyes, the others also fell for the flimsy lie I made up on the spot and mistook me for someone else. This was good so far, but…

I never imagined Evelyn would put me in her own carriage!

This moment was truly chilling. The bracelet’s illusion had a time limit. When I first obtained Diverse Perspectives in Room 103, it was only 10 minutes. It had gradually increased over time, but still didn’t exceed 20 minutes.

Of course, the illusion on Evelyn had long since worn off, and now Evelyn was simply mistaken due to her first impression and my act of hunching my body and burying my head to the floor as much as possible.

I waited and waited. While the idiotic girl in front of me rambled on about concerns for the empire’s future that she clearly had never thought about before in her life, I desperately waited for the moment when the power of this damn bracelet would recover!

Fortunately, thanks to the movie’s characteristic of “skipping over boring scenes”, the waiting time wasn’t too long.

“Ha! Now’s the time!”

“His Highness—huh?”

I straightened my hunched body and raised my head that had been bowed almost to the floor. Evelyn, who had been observing me with eyes wondering why I was suddenly acting this way, seemed to doubt her own eyes for a moment.

“What on earth—”

“Idiot, you still can’t recognize me?”

A flash from the bracelet filled the carriage.