Chapter 272.1

There was a carriage standing for quite some time at some distant place from the front gate of the palace. It was rather far to get a clearer view of the palace, but this was all for the best. Getting a bit nearer would likely arouse the royal guards' attention and a carriage that stands for too long outside the gates would look suspicious.

Right then, there was a carriage coming out of the palace. Kasser only heaved a sigh of relief after he checked that it had safely passed through the gate. Three knocks on his carriage soon followed. It was a sign from the warrior outside to inform him that the queen's carriage had departed from the the palace grounds. But it looked like he need not need signal for that.

As a matter of fact, not once had Kasser took his eyes off the front gate. His mind and body were on full alert, his Praz too was on the look out to run straight to the queen in case of any emergency. Kasser's whole body was surrounded by a blue aura, emanating heat to its surroundings.

But as Kasser closed his eyes, his Praz was sucked back into his body and disappeared by the time he reopened his eyes. He clenched his hand into a fist and opened it after a while, staring down with a faint sense of unfamiliarity.

'I never knew it was this easy to take full control over it.'

Truly, all the horses outside remained calm the whole time although his Praz manifested in full. This could only mean that he was capable of taking control over his Praz while making sure the presence of it was kept hidden from the surroundings.

He gave two taps to his carriage, and the carriage departed at his signal.

***

Eugene closed the window curtain after seeing her carriage pass by the front gate. She pulled at her left sleeve, which was rather tight around her wrist, and finally untied it to loosen it up. Soon, a tiny squirrel staying hidden within her sleeve escaped from it in a nimble movement.

The squirrel began to climb up along her left arm to her shoulder only to climb back down along her other arm before landing on the back of her right hand. All smiles, Eugene stroked at its chin with her fingertip.

"You did a great job. Wasn't it hard to stay still the whole time in such a tight place?"

Eugene was soon lost in her own thoughts while she stroked Kid's back.

In the bookshelf which the priest had escorted her to, had indeed stored plenty of books on its shelves. Among them were books, thick with fancy covers which resembled the ancient books that she remembered seeing from the secret room hidden within the palace's library back in the Hashi Kingdom, while there also were some books with their cover so worn-out that she dared not to even touch them.

And when Eugene picked up a book from the shelf, a memory of her imposter crossed her mind. In the memory, her imposter had run her eyes through the spines of the books on the bookshelf before she let out a sigh and murmured.

[I guess I'll start from here today.]

Instantly, when the thought occurred to Eugene that it was pointless to search through the library, she turned and left the place without turning back.

'She must have made countless visits to the library as much as the time she needed to gain what she wanted. That means I would need to invest as much time as she did in the library in order to find something useful from there.'

The trouble was, Eugene hadn't got that much time to spare. To return to her kingdom before the dry season comes to an end, the longest she could stay in the Holy City would be two months at most.

So instead, Eugene tried to place herself in her imposter's shoes. She imagined herself as a nine-year-old girl waking up to find herself in a foreign world in someone else's body. And as it happens, the owner of the body was an only daughter of a prestigious family of both wealth and power.

'I bet she was overjoyed with the changes at first.'

But her imposter must have encountered the first obstacle by the time she started to cope with the language. She realized that Dana had already seen through her identity from the beginning.

Eugene bet her imposter had been extremely restless to have someone who knows about her secret around her. She must have lived in constant fear that Dana might find a way to change her back into her old self. However, her fear had faded eventually with time while she enjoyed her new life, living in plenty, as a noble lady from a noble family.

However, she soon encountered a second obstacle yet again. She would have lived without worries if she were an ordinary child, but the owner of the body was in fact an Anika. Hence, the imposter must have realized that she was without the power of Ramita, unlike other Anika.

'I guess that's when she had told Sang-je that she's going to retrieve her Ramita... although it's more exact to say she was planning to steal it, but anyway, she must have wished to possess the power of Ramita with all her heart.'