Like he said, the royal…something.
Royal…blood?
Images of Sil slipping out of his trance from royal blood flooded my mind. If royalty did something to the blade, it would transform…
Simply having a royal hand hold it…didn’t transform it. Okay, what if I unsheathe it?
I slipped the dagger from its sheath. The blade was just as sharp and beautiful as when Derek showed me before. But it looked no different.
Okay, royal…
Hmm… It’s gotta be blood, right? Should I?
My fingertip? Just a little nick in the fingertip, clean with the dagger. It’s not like I’m gonna slash my hand again, so it should work as a little test. This feels right.
But just as I braced myself for the cut—
“Your Highness.”
Klifford’s quiet voice reached my ear. I looked to the side and met his gaze. I could practically hear his gaze growling, Please don’t tell me you intend to harm yourself again with that dagger.
Bull’s-eye.
But I’ll never know for sure until I try it!
I mean, I can’t think of any other—
No, wait, I can.
Isn’t there another way?
I mobilized the full extent of my past life otaku knowledge. In times like this, when blood is needed to unlock something, there’s usually a way to get around that rule!
Like, some other bodily fluid besides blood. In other words—
I brought my lips to the blade of the dagger. Saliva was a bodily fluid, just like blood! Since spitting on it would just kill the mood, I decided to kiss it instead. Your move, dagger!
If this doesn’t work, guess I’ll have to use blooooood?!
“…!” I gasped silently. The blade’s color changed. It took on a bluish hue and a symbol glowed on it. I stood before the second door, transformed dagger in hand, then slid it into the keyhole. I didn’t even need to turn it. Just touching it to the lock made it click. I pulled out the blade. The color returned to normal, and the symbol disappeared.
And with my left hand, I gave the door a gentle push…and it opened.
My eyes fell to the dagger in my right hand. How did the physics of it even work? There were two keys. The first was this dagger. And I was able to open the second door…because of my royal blood? Maybe the true key was a person with royal blood. By putting our bodily fluid on the blade, we transform it into the second key—
“Splendidly done,” Derek said, staring at the unlocked door.
“I couldn’t have done it without Uncle Dearest telling me how.”
(Even though I had forgotten the most important part of what he said…)
I handed the dagger back to Derek.
“This room—maybe it belonged to Duke Kihlgren,” Derek murmured as he stared at the dagger in his hand.
The only member of the Nightfellow family with royal blood would have been Duke Kihlgren—the younger brother of the former king, my grandfather. Duke Kihlgren’s son, the former Duke Nightfellow, passed away before his father without leaving behind any descendants, so Uncle Dearest did not have royal blood. This meant Uncle Dearest, Lucinda, Derek—nobody in the current Nightfellow house could open the door without the help of royalty.
But when he was still alive, Duke Kihlgren could have opened it by himself.
“……Let’s go inside.”
I was eager to enter, but this wasn’t the castle. I was still a guest here. As a resident of this house, Derek should go first. When I indicated this to him, he nodded. He slipped past me to push, and the lightly cracked-open door opened all the way.
As I took my first step into the room, I had a sudden realization. This was a Nightfellow family secret.
“Derek, I’m not sure Klifford should—”
Can he come with us?
Derek turned around and smiled awkwardly.
“As a Nightfellow, I should probably say no…but he can come in as long as he doesn’t breathe a word of what he saw here. I trust you to make sure of that, Princess.”
“Understood. Is that all right, Klifford?”
“No problem, Your Highness,” Klifford answered dispassionately, bowing his head.
Well, even if I didn’t swear Klifford to secrecy, he wouldn’t really be interested in this Impossible Room anyway…
Now I finally followed Derek into the room.
And…
“…”
…it was empty.
That’s all that could be said about the room. Only a bookcase and a desk proved that it was once used. There weren’t many other things in it except a thick layer of dust in the dark. The only light came from the two opened doors we came through. Still, the few furnishings were clearly high-quality items, as they should be, being in the house of a duke.
“Is that…?”
Derek shuffled over to a point in the room. He picked up a cloth on the desk.
“…!” I stopped breathing. There was the framed portrait, hiding underneath.
The name Rufus Nightfellow was inscribed on the lower right-hand corner of the painting. Without this particular placement, one might assume it was the name of the artist.
He was likely in his twenties. He had golden hair and amber eyes. The only difference was his hairstyle. The absence of a facial scar made him look even more like that mysterious young man than Rust.
No mistaking it. It’s the same face.
And in a corner of my heart…I was relieved to see it. Relieved to see that this painting wasn’t the same one I saw hanging in the hallway of the second floor when I used to frequent this villa. If I had happened upon this painting back then, I might have had a nervous breakdown.
“You know, he really does resemble Rust Byrne. Well, resemble isn’t exactly the word here.”
Yeah. He basically is that mysterious young man, I answered in my mind.
Derek had said those words partially to himself. Then he turned to me and asked, “Princess…you knew Duke Kihlgren and Rust had the same face, didn’t you? Is that why you wanted to visit me? To see for yourself?”