It was a wonder how a child imprisoned before Diana managed to survive in such a place.
"It seems this isn't enough."
Diana patted the crestfallen Noel on the head.
The cursed items they found throughout the castle were numerous but had such a weak concentration of curses that they couldn't fully restore Diana's health.
"I wish there was someone cursed very strongly."
"That's a chilling thing to say for a child," Diana responded nonchalantly.
"If someone was that strongly cursed, wouldn't they have died already?"
"That's true. Hehe." Laughing, Noel was clearly different from ordinary children.
Noel, the illegitimate child of the Beatrice family, unmentioned in the novel, and whom she never expected to meet before her death, quickly became dear to her.
In this bizarre castle filled with traps, having someone to share warmth with was comforting.
Days passed, and they were still unable to escape the castle, barely surviving within its walls.
Thankfully, there was a pile of bread in the kitchen sufficient for their meals.
But a bigger problem than hunger was the gradual disappearance of the cursed items in the storeroom.
Diana was becoming bedridden again, unable to move.
We need to get out, but there's no way.
Waiting for their captor to show up proved fruitless; there was no sign of anyone.
She didn't expect her family to come looking for her either. No one came for her even when she was dying. She couldn't rely on her family for help.
She needed to find a solution.
Gripping her violet hair in frustration, Diana gazed out of the wide-open window.
It seemed like the third floor from the corridor, but entering from the door, it was at the top of the castle.
Swoosh! The wind blew, and the endless black forest trees outside swayed like ocean waves.
This is the Forest of Beasts. Diana swallowed her fear upon realizing this.
Whoever the crazy person was that imprisoned them here, they wouldn't be left alone once they got out. Diana vowed to confront whoever was behind this.
Diana, with her pink eyes flashing, shifted her gaze to the hand axe on the table.
"A hand axe won't do."
Even slamming the hand axe against the main hall's door didn't leave a scratch; it only made her hands sore.
She had just wasted her already limited energy.
Caw!
How to escape from here? As she pondered, gazing blankly out the window, a crow appeared.
"Huh?"
Despite the bedroom being at the very top of the castle, the crow was precisely in front of the window, flapping its wings and looking inside.
"A bird?"
"A scout bird?!"
While Noel tilted his head in confusion, Diana, who had been staring blankly, suddenly got up from the bed in a hurry.
"Wait!"
The crow turned its head away after seeing Diana's face.
"Hey! Don't go!"
Could it understand her words? Indifferently, the crow looked back at Diana as if to say, "What are you going to do about it?" It seemed to have a cheeky expression, or was that just her imagination?
If her memory served her right, that bird was a scout bird used only in the North.
There are people nearby! She couldn't miss this opportunity.
What to do? She needed to send a rescue request to the crow's owner.
Frantically looking around, Noel offered her a gem.
"Sister, use this. Crows like shiny things. I read it in a book."
"Noel, you're a genius!"
Teaching himself to read without anyone's help, he was a genius indeed, especially since he had also learned magic on his own.
Noel detached a gem from a doll and cast a spell on it. Diana grasped his small hand and said,
"I don't have the strength to reach there right now. Can you throw it for me?"
"Yes!"
At Diana's request, Noel nodded solemnly and threw the gem with all his might.
"Hey!"
No! Throwing with your eyes closed? She internally screamed.
The gem arched hopelessly through the window and plummeted down. Our lifeline!
Caw!
As if mocking her despair, the crow skillfully caught the falling gem in its beak.
Phew. I thought my life span was shortening.
The crow flew back up to her eye level, snorted, and disappeared.
"Did it get through?"
Diana collapsed as she watched the crow fade away. She felt drained, her cheap body losing strength rapidly.
"Caw!"
In the heart of the Black Forest, a source of monsters. In an instant, the monsters fell one by one before a predator far more formidable than them.
His movements and agility were truly astonishing. The wide space, now flattened, was littered with monster corpses.
Amidst the one-sided slaughter, the man standing alone finally stopped moving, and silence enveloped the area.
Underneath his black hair, his blue eyes lazily relaxed.
A man resembling a sleek predator.
The overwhelming presence he emitted prevented any of his subordinates from speaking or approaching him; they simply watched the familiar scene.
"Sigh."
The man tilted his head, closed his eyes, and suppressed the boiling curse of blood.
Caw!
In the space where not even the sound of an insect could be heard, the crow's caw echoed loudly.
The crow spat out something, and a subordinate caught it.
The gem flickered red in his hand before going out. It was a standard distress signal.
"Captain!"
The man, with an expressionless face, threw off his soaked black leather gloves.
Pulling out clean gloves from his pocket, he casually shifted his gaze.
"It's a rescue request."