Chapter 112
“Did you hear? Lady Valdis has disappeared?”
“Again? It hasn’t even been a few days since the daughter of House Noria went missing, has it?”
“These days, young ladies are disappearing every single day. It’s been nothing but chaos because of it.”
The imperial social circle was in an uproar once again.
Because noble young ladies in the capital had recently been disappearing with alarming frequency.
When only the first one or two disappeared, people had thought it was just a youthful runaway or a freak accident.
But the young ladies of prominent families started vanishing one after another, as if by prior agreement.
What had once been a fun gossip topic had turned into a ghost story.
“Aren’t they supposed to have escorts? Why are they wandering around alone?”
“That’s the biggest mystery. Apparently they didn’t even bring a single knight, let alone a maid.”
“I heard there are rumors they slipped out of their mansions wearing clothes commoners would wear.”
“Good heavens. Why on earth would they do something so foolish? A noble daughter roaming the market alone...”
The ladies of the social circle kept fanning themselves and clicked their tongues as if they couldn’t understand.
Then someone cautiously offered an opinion.
“Well, maybe it’s because of that novel.”
“A novel?”
“You know, the Princess’s new work. The Princess Hides Her Identity... was it?”
“Are you saying the missing young ladies are imitating the protagonist in the novel?”
“That’s right. That novel is a bestseller among young ladies these days.”
“Sigh, how foolish can they be? A novel is just a novel.”
In novels, the protagonist breezes through danger with clever wit.
But there was no way young ladies who had grown up like hothouse flowers their whole lives would get such convenient luck.
They must have gone wandering around lost in fantasies and ended up seeing something ugly.
“Serves them right.”
“Exactly.”
Those ladies were worn down by dreary married lives and found vicarious comfort in the fantasies of romance novels.
But when young women actually began disappearing, they all judged the matter coldly.
In any case, news of the girls’ disappearances caused a stir throughout the capital.
And Aurora, the author of the novel, could not escape the ripple effects of the incident.
“Aurora.”
“Yes, Father.”
“For the time being, stop writing novels.”
“Yes...”
Aurora, summoned before the Emperor, had to accept a ban on writing.
Aurora trudged back with weak, listless steps.
She flopped down onto the sofa.
“What did His Majesty say?”
“He told me not to write novels...”
“I see.”
Leon replied indifferently, focusing on carving the pebble in his hand into an invisible sword.
Aurora, hurt by his careless response, pouted.
“How can you answer so casually? My one joy in life has disappeared.”
“It’s fine. You can just keep writing.”
“Father said not to write, didn’t he?”
“Let’s put a hand on our heart and be honest. Did His Majesty tell you not to write, or tell me not to write?”
“Leon.”
“Right?”
The fact that the original author of the two novels that had stirred up the empire was Leon was known to only a few members of the imperial family, and the Emperor knew it too.
In other words, when the Emperor said not to write novels, he was indirectly referring to Leon, not Aurora.
“Don’t draw the line so sharply. We’re already basically one body, aren’t we?”
“Why would I be with you...”
“Above all, I can’t give up my title as a writer. Do you know how hard I earned it?”
Aurora had been called a princess her entire life.
But after she published the novel, people began to see her not as a princess, but as a writer.
Writer Aurora.
What a splendid ring to it.
She could never let it go.
“You’re not even a writer...”
“We have to find the missing young ladies safely. Then Father will allow me to write again.”
“When will we find them?”
“Well...”
The noble families hadn’t simply stood by and done nothing.
They were hiring not only each family’s private soldiers but mercenaries too in an effort to find the girls.
But this was the imperial capital. Its area was vast enough for hundreds of thousands of people to live packed together.
Finding the missing people in such a huge place was no easy task.
More than anything,
“If they’ve vanished as a group like this, then it can’t be a simple disappearance.”
“Then? You mean someone kidnapped the young ladies?”
“That’s almost certainly it. Noble girls pretending to be commoners and poking around in dark places would be delicious prey.”
“Ah!”
Aurora gave a short cry and clapped her hands together.
Rather than recognizing the seriousness of the situation, a deeper interest began to bloom in her eyes.
“The work of a huge, evil back-alley criminal organization! That’s exactly the same as the development from the middle of the novel!”
“Well... yes, that’s true.”
“Good. I’ve decided.”
Aurora rose to her feet with a solemn expression.
“I’ll solve this myself.”
“How?”
“The Princess Hides Her Identity.”
***
It was the late pre-dawn hour, before the sun had risen.
I was hiding in the shadow of a secluded outer wall in the imperial palace’s back garden.
Aurora was trembling on top of a wall that wasn’t very high.
“You really, really have to catch me? Really?”
“I understand, so don’t worry and just jump.”
“You really have to catch me? If you don’t, I’ll resent you even after I die.”
“At this height, even if you fall you’ll still live.”
“I-I’m really jumping, okay? We jump on two, right?”
“Usually it’s not two, it’s three...”
“One, two...!”
Aurora shut her eyes tight and threw herself into the air.
The princess came crashing down in a most undignified heap, cloak fluttering behind her.
“Aaaah——mmph!”
I caught Aurora’s torso in midair and used my other hand to cover her mouth.
Landing lightly on the grass, I immediately ducked down.
-Clack, clack.
The footsteps of the patrolling guards above our heads went on for a long while.
I kept Aurora’s mouth tightly sealed until the sound was completely gone.
Finally, I slowly let go.
“They’re gone.”
“Phew. I thought we’d been caught.”
Aurora let out a long breath.
Apparently quite startled, she placed a hand over her chest and steadied her breathing.
“You told me to just let you carry me over on your back.”
“Then there’d be no romance, would there? Romance is when a man and a woman work together to get over obstacles.”
“I did everything myself.”
“You don’t go pointing out every little thing like that.”
Aurora stood up and brushed dirt off her knees.
“More importantly, how is it? My outfit? Doesn’t it look completely like a commoner?”
Aurora twirled around, holding up her skirt.
She was wearing the sort of commoner woman’s clothes you could find anywhere, but there was one fatal flaw.
No matter how many rough, shabby scraps she wore, she couldn’t hide the uniquely pale skin and dazzling beauty of someone who looked as though she’d never done a day of work in her life.
‘No wonder they all get kidnapped.’
I immediately understood why the noble young ladies were disappearing.
Aurora’s disguise was flimsy beyond belief, but it was more than enough for this operation.
She would be the bait.
“Well, you look more or less like a commoner.”
“Right?”
Aurora giggled.
Saying she looked like a commoner was basically an insult.
But since the person herself was pleased, I didn’t bother objecting.
“Let’s get going soon. There’s no reason to drag this out.”
Our plan was simple.
The young ladies who had hidden their identities and walked around the streets had gone missing all at once.
Our theory was that they had been kidnapped by someone who knew who they were.
So we would disguise Aurora as a commoner, use her as bait, and rough up whoever took the bait to find the missing young ladies.
Only then would the Emperor allow me to write novels again.
That was the plan for this operation.
The one thing we had to be careful about was returning without anyone realizing that the princess had left her post.
“I told them I was focusing on writing, so tell them not to let anyone in until I come out. We should have about a day.”
“Understood.”
Of course, even if we were found out, Aurora would be the one who got scolded.
I only had to say, “My master dragged me off by force!”
“Then let’s go!”
We slipped out of the imperial palace and headed for the marketplace.
The street was filled with a pale dawn mist. Since it was still too early to be active, there were almost no people around.
Only a few merchants who wanted to open for business early in the morning were busily moving about, setting up their stalls.
“Wow. So this is what the city looks like at dawn...”
Much like a certain noble lady who had spent her whole life in a forest manor, Aurora, who had spent most of hers in the palace, seemed to find even this refreshing.
She was busy sightseeing, her eyes sparkling at even the smallest things.
“Have you only ever stayed in the palace?”
“I do go around the streets with my guards sometimes, but I’ve never come out at dawn.”
“I see.”
Even the same place could look completely different depending on the time of day.
I could understand how she felt.
“How about it? Don’t you feel excited too?”
“We’re not going out to play. This is a noble kidnapping case. We’re on our way to solve it, and something dangerous is definitely going to happen.”
“Whatever happens, you’ll protect me, won’t you?”
“I will.”
Unless one of the Three Calamities appeared, I was confident I could protect her from anyone.
By now, I might even be able to get Aurora out if one of the Three Calamities suddenly showed up.
“Still, with Leon around, I can sneak out and walk around like this.”
“Aren’t there plenty of escort knights besides me?”
“They’re all so rigid. No matter how much I try to persuade them, they never budge. They’ll definitely go tattling to Father.”
Aurora pouted.
From the way she spoke, it seemed she already had a track record with that.
Then she soon looked at me and smiled brightly.
“But Leon would never do that.”
“More accurately, he can’t.”
A slave whose master’s command took priority over the Emperor’s order. It was absolutely impossible for him to do something like betray his master by tattling.
“Heh heh.”
Whatever was making her so happy, Aurora couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.
She didn’t like swinging a sword, but wanted an escort too?
She had no shame at all.
“Before we start moving in earnest, I’ll give you a quick briefing on the operation, Your Highness...”
“Wait.”
“Why?”
“You can’t call me that. Right now I’m hiding my identity as the princess, remember?”
That’s not wrong.
“Then what should I call you?”
“Let’s go with Laura.”
Laura.
It sounded like Aurora’s Laura, but to be precise, it was Laura, the protagonist of <The Princess Hides Her Identity>.
In the story, Aurora introduces herself as Laura to hide her identity.
She must have gotten the idea from there.
Besides, the character Aurora itself had been based on Aurora.
“Right, Laura. I’ll explain the plan briefly, so listen carefully, okay?”
“......Why are you talking to me so informally?”
“Didn’t you tell me not to call you Your Highness?”
“I said not to call me Your Highness. When did I say you could speak informally? I’m older than you.”
“......”
Should I pick a fight?
But if I fought here, there would be nothing to gain.
Win and it’d be disrespectful; lose and it’d be disrespectful.
‘Where are a slave’s human rights?’
Ah, right. There aren’t any.