Who was the one who would inherit the title of baron if the current baron died? Rodolph. Who might feel like he was in danger of losing that title to the baron’s more competent second-oldest son? Rodolph. Who had invited the baron to go on a hunting trip this week for the first time in what seemed like forever? Rodolph.
An oppressive silence had settled over the room. Though Kaoru was the mastermind behind this little chain of events, she couldn’t help but squirm over how much she didn’t want to be here anymore.
“Sorry, but can I leave now?”
That wasn’t going to happen, of course, and Kaoru was instead led to one of the guest rooms. Before that though, she didn’t forget to ask the baron if it was all right to have a maid bring her the parts she would need to fix her ‘device.’
I was left all alone in the guest room. I covered the doorknob with a cloth so they couldn’t peek through the keyhole. I went ahead and opened the curtains as well. We were on the second floor, after all, and it’d be harder for anyone to get close to the window if I had it wide open like this. Didn’t want anyone trying to spy on me through the cracks in the curtain either.
I had asked the maid to bring me things like scissors, a file, and a whole bunch of other tools as well. Had to make it seem like I was actually trying to “fix” something, and I was thinking about just hocking everything once I busted out of here. I was flat broke, dang it! I made sure to order a bunch of food as well: sausages, candy, and all that other good stuff. Though the maid warned me it was almost lunchtime, I told her I didn’t want to look like a pig stuffing my face when I was in front of the baron, which convinced her to bring me what I asked for. The real reason, of course, was so I could stuff all of it into my Item Box for later. I was slowly getting everything ready to break myself out of here.
Oh yeah, and I had my potion-making abilities handy to take care of drinks, so there were no problems there.
By the time lunch came around, things seemed to have settled down from earlier. I guessed that, once they calmed down and thought it over, nobody would think the baron’s barely twenty-year-old son would do anything like that. It seemed like he was let off the hook without anyone really grilling him about it. Darn.
On the other hand though, I didn’t see that Riche guy around anywhere.
I wonder if me pulling a Maya and passing along all those messages through the maid worked... Like, “It hurt having my arm twisted,” and “I’m scared he’s going to get violent or try and take away what’s precious to me again,” or my favorite, “I shake so much when I see him that I can’t repair my device.” Well, I guessed it was true he could just be out and about, or was off somewhere else. Oh, and “pulling a Maya” just meant putting on a performance that rivaled the main girl from this famous shoujo manga (it was about acting, from way back in the day), especially so you could trick or deceive someone. It was a classic.
Conversation at the table was sparse. There wasn’t much common ground for aristocrats to talk about, and that went even doubly for me, the girl who was born and raised in another freakin’ world. The baron had asked me how the repairs were coming along, and I made sure to tell him it would take a few days. It’d be just peachy if that made him think I wouldn’t try running away so long as I was absorbed in fixing my thingie. But still, nighttime was a long way away. They brought me here first thing in the morning, after all!
Finally, I made it to dinner. After safely wrapping up our mealtime conversation without incident, I went ahead and made another request to the baron.
“Would it be all right to have another girl who’s just about on the same wavelength as me to help me out?”
“And what would you mean by ‘wavelength’?”
“Oh, it just means someone who’s compatible with the waves that magical energy gives off.”
I made up some random crap to explain it, and the baron allowed it without a second thought. Why wouldn’t he? There were no downsides to it for him, since not only would this girl keep a lookout over me, he could also have her report how the repairs were coming along as well.
After carefully scrutinizing my options, I decided to go with a young maid who was probably about fifteen or sixteen years old, with blonde hair down to her shoulders, and a pair of emerald green eyes. I told her that she could chill in her room for now, and that I wanted her to come by later when I called for her.
With that, I headed back to the guest room they gave me.
The evening wore on, and, soon enough, everyone was fast asleep except for the staff working the night shift. I slowly opened the door to my room to find a guard standing right outside. It was supposed to seem like he was there to protect me, but I already knew he was supposed to keep me from running away.
“Call that girl for me, please.”
With a nod, the soldier retrieved the maid who was waiting on standby in a nearby room.
I spent a good while having her do things like place her hand on the watch and concentrate really hard on it, and all sorts of other pointless stuff, as I waited for my chance. When that time came, I declared that I was hungry and asked the maid if she could get some tea and snacks. The girl immediately left, then came back just barely ten minutes later with a light meal, a pot of tea, and a bunch of dishes all stacked onto a trolley. Dang, that was fast... I wondered if they already had a late-night snack prepared for me because rumors of my supposed “huge appetite” had spread or something.
The girl closed the door and began pushing the trolley into the room. Right when she was close enough to me, I grabbed her hand to pull her away from the cart and got her closer to the bed. Totally unaware of what was going on and at my mercy, that was when I pressed the handkerchief against her face.
With the maid now laying down in bed, I was busy stuffing anything and everything I could from the room into my Item Box. First up was the dresser. There were a few dresses in there that I could only assume used to belong to the baron’s daughter once upon a time, but I wondered if he put those there for me or something. If anything, I could at least say it seemed his daughter wasn’t as chubby back when she wore these.
Next on the list were the candlesticks, the pictures on the wall, the desk, the chairs, the carpet, the spare change of sheets in the chest of drawers, then, upon further consideration, the chest of drawers as well. Everything on the trolley was going in as well, of course, but I wasn’t taking the trolley itself with me; not yet. The real reason I asked for all these snacks wasn’t just to build up a stockpile of food, but because I had a feeling I could hock the type of tableware aristocrats used for a tidy profit. And there was one more reason as well...
When I was just about finished packing away my loot, I stripped the girl and changed into her outfit while I packed away my own clothes. I made sure to save her at least one of the spare bedsheets and covered her with it. After I got her down off the bed, I packed it away too. I spread out a towel on the floor, then used the scissors the maid had brought me to snip off my hair so it came just down to my shoulders, the same length as the girl out cold on the floor. I balled up the towel—my freshly cut hair and all—and tossed that in my Item Box as well, then placed the white, frilly maid headdress I took from the girl on my head.
And for the cherry on top: a potion. The one I just downed would change the hair color and eyes of whoever drank it. After I finished that off, I placed my hands on the cart.
The door slowly opened, and a girl exited the room. After taking a bow while facing the door, the blonde-haired maid stayed slightly bent over her trolley as she deliberately made her way toward the kitchen. The guard posted outside had no interest in children, so he barely even glanced at her. His mind was occupied thinking about the curvy maid who was just hired the other day, trying to find ways to keep himself occupied and get through the long, long hours until morning came...
There wasn’t a soul to be seen this late into the evening. Kaoru packed the trolley away into her Item Box and snuck away from the baron’s residence. Even if anyone were to see her now, they would most likely think she was just a maid running errands for a guest, or, at most, maybe she was off to have a little rendezvous with a boy or something. They probably wouldn’t even take a second glance at her as they pretended not to see her.
In the end, Kaoru’s breakout was a success, and she made her escape without her being spotted by anyone. With that, she disappeared into the night.
The following were Kaoru’s conditions for picking the girl who would “help her”:
They had to have hair and eye colors completely different from her own. Moreover, their hair had to be much shorter than hers, and at a length where the difference was night and day. Finally, they needed to be around the same height and body type as her. The girl unfortunate enough to meet those criteria was sleeping in a room where even the carpet had been whisked away. The handkerchief that had been pressed against the girl had been soaked in a potion where, even if you breathed the slightest amount in, it would knock you out, but would leave no negative side effects.
The girl Kaoru had thought to be fifteen or sixteen...was actually only twelve years old.