I get it. I'm supposed to be overjoyed. I mean, anything is better than being dead, no?

Being trapped in the world of the shittiest book you've read, as an insignificant character that's destined to die is nothing. Being dead later is always better than being dead now, right…?

The night breeze was soft against my skin. The air was chilly, making it even cozier to hold a warm bowl of soup in my palms. The croaking of the frogs had started a couple of minutes ago, and the longer I sat there, huddled over on a rock, staring into the muddy trail, the angrier I got.

“I have shit to do,” I couldn’t help but mumble, eyes watering .

Yet here I am.

I slowly sipped on the bowl, watching the muddy road where my carriage’s traces remained. 

I looked down at my wrists. One had been roughly bandaged by Alice this morning, and the second felt limp and slightly hot, fresh blood droplets rolling off the new bite mark and onto the mud.

I still couldn't believe it.

I can't fucking believe this.

My eyes blurred with new tears and my lower lip shivered. "I just got a therapist... I couldn't even attend the first session... And what about my residency?" My eyes widened in realization. "What about those dreams!?" I begrudgingly looked up at the starry night.

What about my mother's wish...

I sobbed, unable to stop the embarrassing squealing sounds leaving my lips and my hitched breaths as I wiped the tears off my face using the prickly sleeve of my clothing. “This sucks so fucking much…” I sniffled, drinking up the remains of the soup in a swift motion.

Now that it came to this mess of a new reality, I couldn't allow myself to cry like this. I had to be stronger than this. I needed to plan, get ahead, and ensure I survived.

I can be as sad as I need to be later.

I need to think. Think back on the story, on how it benefits me, on how I can use it in this situation.

The carriage ride to this current location was five uncomfortable hours long. I found that to be baffling at first, but then I remembered that this was a time when journeying was a suicide mission, with high risk, low entertainment, and long, painful hours of sitting idly.

My assigned dining spot was a rock facing the road we came from. The carriage was parked somewhere far up the road from where I could barely perceive it. If I crossed the trail, I would be in a forest that stretches along the road, lengthening over the horizon.

Far up the muddy trail, I could see an old coachman making his way into the dark, holding his belly — probably to go relieve his natural urgencies. Behind me, I could hear chatter and laughter echoing in the distance.

The knights supposed to be guarding me and the maids assigned to care for said knights were all gathered there enjoying their lives.

I wanted to, but I couldn't fault them for that.

What I can fault them for, however, is the fact that they shoved my lonely ass here, surrounded me with four ‘Prison Stones', or whatever they’re called, with a warning that if I left my assigned perimeter I would be scorched to death somehow.

"Listen here," one of the two knights accompanying me said, a sly grin on his barely visible face. "You try to escape, you'll..." He threw a playful look at his young colleague who walked on my other side. "You'll burn!" He warned, his eyebrows arching to emphasize the words. "Right, Holison?"

His colleague, Holison, laughed. "Right. WE might not be here to guard you, but something WORSE is!" Holison leaned over to me, grinning. "Prison Gravels!" He proudly stated.

"Prison Stones." His friend coughed.

Holison's grin fell as he caught the words, and clumsily straightened. "Yes, Prison Stones. That is what I said." He reassured me, then turned to his friend with a hesitant look. "... But Fars, our division can't afford them st—"

"Either way!" Fars yelled, shaking his head while his gaze lingered on Holison. "If your silly little mind tells you to run away," He sneered at me, grabbing me by the wrist and propelling me towards a random rock. "Remind yourself that you'll be scorched to death the moment you endeavor to."

I had regained my balance swiftly.

"That's your dining room for the night, my lady." He pointed at the large rock surrounded by ant nests. "Now, be good, and don't try anything funny."

I couldn't help but throw a half-begrudging, half-skeptical look at the two. The idiot knight gave a half-assed courtesy before getting pulled away by his friend. And thus they disappeared into the shadows.

Through the loud noises, I discerned footsteps closing in on me, which had me wiping my tears away in haste.

“Do you unwind in my presence or something...” I sniffled, standing up.

I patted my puffy eyes in hopes of camouflaging that I had been bawling here alone for thirty minutes, then threw a look back. “Alice?”

And there she was, this body’s lady-in-waiting.

Nights in this world were the darkest I had ever seen, and even still, I could perceive her figure, faintly moonlit. I could make out her delicate, plain features and striking, peculiar eye color.

“I came to retrieve the bowl, my lady.” She said through her monotone voice.

Retrieve the bowl, my left butt cheek.

This constant resting poker face, with her piercing, cotton-candy pink monolid eyes, her low bridged, round nose, and her shoulder-length straight brown hair, sitting right above the collar of an off-white print gown, with black flower bud patterns all over.

All of it was the bane of my existence.

Because no matter how I tried to shake her off, to get her away from me, to sit alone for five fucking minutes, I couldn’t. Why? Because she would find her way back here.

To somehow be somewhere near me, the excuses are never-ending.

Worst of all, I couldn’t read her in the slightest. No matter how I tested the waters, no matter what I said or did, not only did she remain unreadable, but she made it feel like she was the one seeing right through me.

“Do you how many days it will be?” I asked, sitting back down. “This journey.”

She thought about it for a moment before speaking. “About ten days, my lady.” She knelt and seized the bowl.

Ten days, huh?

Based on the map I sneaked a peek at from the coachman’s belongings this afternoon, we will reach that place in a week.

Meaning I had one week to execute my plan. Seven days to make sure I survived.

“Is there anything else you need, my lady?” She asked.

Allies. I need to find at least three trusty people to sneak me out of this hell. Shit.

I turned around to look up at her, and there it was.

That look.

“Yes.” I nearly sneered, facing the distrustful, cold look in her eyes. That look was the biggest reason why I could never trust this woman. "Are there stones threatening to set me aflame if I tried to get too far?"

Eyes set on her monotone expression, I expected a solemn lie, if I even got an answer.

But Alice remained quiet. Her pink gaze lingered on me while she thought.

The corners of her mouth curled up. "... No. There are none." She simply said. "I shall be back in a while." She alerted me before walking away.

<“Oh my goodness! Lady Estelle, have you heard?” Merinda ran up the stairs, holding a folded newspaper.

“Be careful, Merinda.” Estelle worried, standing atop the staircase, “You might fall!”

“My lady,” Estelle’s friend was out of breath as she spoke, palms on her knees. “Penelope Ashdown!” She said. “She…” Estelle watched her maid with worry in her violet eyes, more worried for her health than what she would say. “She is dead!”

Estelle’s eyes widened, watering at the mention of death.

“Oh dear,” she held a hand over her mouth. “How come?”

“It is all over the newspapers! They were attacked by lake monsters, the Slithering Fokchik breed!” Merinda said. "It is said that everybody who attended her died alongside her. How tragic is that?!" Merinda looked up, batting her hazel eyes at a surprising sight. “My lady, are you crying?!” It was Merinda’s time to worry. “Are you alright?”

“That poor girl…” Estelle sat on the stairs, disregarding the dust they must have collected, because she didn't shy away from being natural in all of her actions. “To face death in the end… How pitiful.”

“What is the matter?” William’s deep, deep voice sent chills down Merinda’s spine. She sprung up, head lowered.

“Your grace,” She said, addressing the man walking up the stairs, eyebrows furrowed.

Wholeheartedly Yours,

Chapter 41>

William Westenburg had joined the scene and the topic changed soon afterwards. The author used this as a reason for Estelle and William to reconcile after she cheated on him, or at least tried to, and they went out for a fancy dinner afterward, to cheer her up.

That small mention in the book of how this character dies. That was the only clue I had about when my second death was due.

“Interesting…” I muttered.

Penelope Ashdown's trial and death were a tool to advance the plot and nothing less.

“Now that I think about it,” I looked up at the misty sky and the blurry moon. “I guess Penelope Ashdown was destined to die regardless of the trial’s result… How pitiful indeed…”

And with that thought, Day 1 of this journey had finally come to an end.

~

Day 2: Start

The sun had barely risen by the time I successfully made it out of the campsite.

While I was walking back with a tipsy Alice yesterday night, watching the knights passed out outside their beds, on the ground, and in the cold. Some were singing asleep, others were hugging their armor or cups of spilled beer, and some maids were yelling nonsense, dancing to no music, and sleeping in tents that weren't their own, I couldn't help but feel the urge to attempt an old-fashioned escape shot from this place.

I mean, they're basically asking me to, aren't they?

I thought about it for a good five seconds and then decided that risky endeavors are my forte and that I could totally pull this off.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that everyone was beyond hammered and completely knocked out when I woke up before dawn. The entire place reeked of alcohol, too.

And that's how I ended up here.

“Ow,” I breathed at the sensation of a thorn stuck to my foot.

Though the gloom prevented me from the sight of my bleeding feet and ankles, I had enough of a vivid imagination to paint a clear enough picture for myself.

I was still barefoot, dragging my dirty talons across the grassy, gravelly hill leading to my Checkpoint, out of air and out of sweat to shed.

Since no one thought I could rid myself of the shackles they made me sleep wearing, leaving the tents was easy.

A bracelet of gold goes a long way when given to the right person. And the drunken money-hungry coachman I paid before going to bed, while Alice was out of sight, happened to be more than proficient in pickpocketing.

The only real worry I had while traveling till here was that I might get zapped by some kind of sorcery from those stones they spoke of. But I’m pretty sure they were bullshitting me, those two knights.

Prison stones are too expensive for a measly handful of knights to afford, and to use on a weakling such as this body's owner. Even in the book, they were only once, and that was with the Magic Tower Head's permission, so...

The road I took was the one we came from. To my left stretched yards and yards of yellowish greenery along a meadow, and to my right were woods characterized by such tall and bulky tree trunks that I could barely imagine what the leaves resembled. I was climbing the muddy road as I had mapped an escape route inside my head yesterday during dinner.

Now I just needed to make it to the traveling merchant stand I glimpsed through the window deeper into the woods yesterday, and I would be saved.

“Crazy people,” I muttered, tightening my hold on the thick and crusty fabric of my everything-at-this-point-covered attire, holding it up to not tumble while I dragged my feet uphill.

I could hear my heart beating inside my head, and the sound got louder the higher the sun rose above the horizon to my left.

“First of all…” I whispered to myself, quickening my step. “I’m too young to be confined.” I was breathing aloud at this point, keeping my gaze down to make sure I didn’t catch a boulder with my foot. “Second of all,” I looked up to measure the distance before I reached the large boulder; my checkpoint. "I'm too young to be dead."

A brownish, man-sized boulder appeared in the distance, filling me with excitement.

Now I just need to take the route carved beside it, which leads into the forest.

“Excuse me?” A voice resonated to my right, within the woods.

Every inch of my body had gone numb at the unexpectedness of this voice. Slowly, I turned my head towards the person calling to me.

And as soon as I met his gaze, I couldn’t help but hold my breath.

The man emerging from the woods was a knight, as showed his (tilted?) bronze shoulder armor and brown leathery attire. The kingdom’s Slithering Black Snake emblem was carved on his short chest plate. His skin was a rich brown color, lightly contrasted with the black color of his messy hair. His cheekbones were prominent and his jaw well-defined, with a goatee making his triangular-shaped face even more distinct.

But his complimentary features didn’t hold a candle to the pleasing nature of his eyes. A round, hooded golden gaze.

This color I don't remember ever reading about in the book.

How can that be?

“Y-Yes?” I replied, mustering up a pleasant smile.

The stranger looked around me, as though looking for something familiar. His eyebrows were slightly furrowed and his mouth was in a light pout. 

I don't think he's trying to discern my identity.

“Do you perhaps know how I could get back?” He asked, yawning.

He wiped sleep off the corner of his eyes and scratched his jaw.

“Back where, Sir?”

“To the campsite.” He remembered to add. “I believe I am lost.” He admitted, shoulders slumping.

“Oh! Well, I am afraid I cannot help you, Sir. I know not of any campsite in the area.” I said, internally proud of my smooth, sophisticated language.

His golden gaze lingered on mine for a moment, blinking in hesitancy.

“Who…”

I could feel droplets of sweat run down my right temple. The fatigue of crossing such a distance with this frail body was slowly catching up to me.

“May I ask you to identify yourself?” He squinted his eyes. “Your appearance is... familiar.” He nodded, thoughtful.

Shit.