I Picked Up an Imperial Princess 3
Caric pried up the floorboards.
Beneath them, a cellar door revealed itself.
And its magic lock along with it.
The space below was his storage room. Every scrap of his past-life knowledge, written out in Korean, was kept down here.
Caric, as was his habit, raised his hand to unlock it — then stopped. He turned his head to check on Annette.
"Asleep?"
She was still snoring away softly, curled into a ball like a small animal hibernating through the winter. He was fairly sure he'd laid her flat on her back. Poor little thing, for an imperial princess. Probably grew up getting pushed around, this one. Either way, he'd have to be careful not to wake her.
With that thought, Caric turned his gaze back to the lock. Its appearance was unusual — no dial, no keyhole, nothing of the sort. Just a thick, flat slab of metal.
The unlocking method, however, was simple.
Caric raised his arm.
And then—
BOOOOM!
He drove his fist down. A thunderous crack split the air, the lock shattered, and the cellar door swung open.
Caric nodded in satisfaction. Locks aren't for me. Even at my own house.
Unlocking through brute force! Identity verification through a strength check! What a simple, flawless system it was. In truth, the lock had exactly two features: it was so absurdly durable that nobody short of Caric could break it, and it would self-repair once broken. That was it.
"Good, she didn't wake up."
Caric confirmed that Annette was still asleep. Her breathing was even and steady — definitely still out. His delicate ego, which had been tensed up out of worry about being a nuisance, finally relaxed.
Relieved, Caric descended into the cellar storage. It was tidily divided into sections: magical implements. Equipment. Hides and metals. Skulls. Acquired documents. Notes. And so on.
He stashed the looted staff and scrolls in the magical implements section, then headed for the notes. There, several volumes' worth of memos were stacked in neat rows — his past-life knowledge, meticulously maintained so that not even a speck of dust could settle on it.
So the day I'd actually need these really did come.
Caric flipped through the notes at speed.
"Hmm, this looks like the one."
He found the memo titled Rofan Princess Growth Story, Title Unknown. The plot summary was straightforward. An imperial princess, wounded and scorned, living like a mouse in hiding. After nearly dying in an "accident" that was really a staged assassination, she awakens.
"I won't live cowering anymore. I don't need my family's love either. I'll live for myself!"
And with that, she gains the healing, purification, and amplification abilities befitting a proper rofan heroine. From there: achieving spiritual independence, meeting the male leads, crushing the socialites, playing politics — and after repelling the descent of an evil god, she ultimately seizes the throne, claiming both love and power.
Reading the setting cleared up one mystery: why Annette had been "perceived" as plain-looking. It was all for the sake of her awakening's catharsis — engineered to draw reactions like, "Wait, that's the plain little princess?" The gloomy aura vanishes, she dresses up properly, and lo — a peerless beauty! The bullied heroine was secretly a genius with god-tier talent all along! That seemed to be the setup.
Not that Caric could buy it.
Aura this, styling that. A genuinely pretty girl is pretty with nothing but lip balm. What nonsense.
Some perception-dampening curse was probably at work, he figured. But that was neither here nor there.
"Well, this is a bit of a mess, isn't it?"
He'd retrieved her too early — her awakening seemed to have been cut off halfway. The knight-captain male lead, who was supposed to arrive in the aftermath of her awakening and come rescue her, never showed. The knights themselves didn't exist around her. Butterfly effect from Caric rampaging all over the north? The original story had already been badly mangled.
But so what. Who cared? He'd never planned to follow the original in the first place. That would have meant imitating dozens of chapters of public opinion warfare, faction building, manufacturing justifications, evidence gathering, and all the rest of it.
Caric was a proud, upstanding professional barbarian. He had his own rules and his own methods.
Never put off today's skulls until tomorrow.
Take this: sure proof of human trafficking sitting in some mansion's basement? Why bother stacking up justifications to get a warrant? One "barbarian-style infiltration" settled everything.
"Mm-hmm, right. Somebody's gotta do what somebody's gotta do."
Caric's eyes had landed on one part of the notes: the evil god's descent. If he abandoned the twisted original story as it stood, the world would end up half-destroyed. He was the only one with both the ability and — however warped — knowledge of the original, so it had to be him. He absolutely refused to stand by and let the land of air conditioning and macarons vanish!
"Alright, then."
Only one thing nagged at him. Annette. Her ability awakening — the notes gave him a decent idea what that was about. But more than that... what did she actually think of him?
His strategy was to buy Annette at her lowest point and become a founding hero of her reign. If she turned out to be terrified of him, that would be a serious problem.
"Hmmm."
Just then, a rustling sound came from upstairs. The VIP had apparently woken up.
Tidy up and go do some charm-building, then. Here's hoping it worked.
Mmm... just a little more sleep...
Half-awake, Annette drifted through a haze of drowsy thoughts. Sleep had felt strangely, impossibly sweet. Some kind of fragrance, maybe. Lately there'd been so much to worry about, one thing after another, that she hadn't managed a proper night's rest in ages.
Did Lily... bring in a scented candle? A scent chosen by Lily, a maid who was almost too good for her. Soft and... somehow warm, a fragrance that steadied the heart. And there was something else mixed in, something like leather...
"Huh?"
Annette snapped awake. She bolted upright, and the fur blanket draped over her slid to the floor. The memories came flooding back.
Right. I had an accident.
A spatial-teleport magic tool had malfunctioned, dumping her in the middle of the northern snowfields. Then the human hunters had come after her. Even now, just remembering it made her want to cry — it had been that unfair, that terrifying. And then, out of nowhere, a barbarian had appeared. And slaughtered them all.
"W-was that a dream?"
Too brutal to have been one. Which meant... this was his home? She looked around and found herself surprised. The place was remarkably cozy — quietly, unexpectedly charming. Through the window she could even see a snowman.
Maybe— no, wait— actually, he might really be a good person.
As she nodded to herself, her gaze caught on something at the side of the room. A pretty dreamcatcher of sorts hung on the wall. Had he made it himself? She wondered what those glittering beads were—
"Uh... huh?"
Annette's eyes went wide with disbelief. She'd seen it before. In the imperial palace's vaults. That was unmistakably the core of an ice spirit — the heart of a monster that even seasoned knights had to fight tooth and nail to bring down.
And there were dozens of them, strung together. Come to think of it, the feathers and thread were no ordinary materials either. Definitely monster byproducts.
Was that all? No. The whole hides spread across the floor and the bed. Anyone could see they came from an enormous snowfield saber-tiger. An enormous one.
He's... incredibly... strong. And someone strong in the demon realm means...
Annette began to tremble. With a sinking feeling of no, it can't be, she swept her eyes over the house one more time.
And she found it.
[Used-Up Skulls (DISPOSED)]
A box, labeled exactly that. Annette remembered what she'd once been told. The mana beyond the Great Wall was savage beyond measure, and the people who lived there were hardly better than monsters. To grow stronger — to build up their mana — they had no choice, just as the monsters did, but to eat.
Creeeeak.
The floorboards groaned with an ominous sound. Annette turned around, shaking like a broken doll. And there, standing behind her without her noticing, was a two-meter wall of barbarian muscle.
"You feeling all right...?"
"KYAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Annette screamed and fell flat on her rear.
"I-I'm! I taste bad, I promise!!"
Her eyes swam in wild panic.
"I barely have any mana! Everyone calls me trash! Hic— huuuueeeeh!"
"Mm."
"I can cook and do laundry! Please spare me!"
"Really?"
"Yes! Yes! I'll do anything you ask!"
"You don't know how to do housework."
"...What?"
"You're the imperial princess. Of the Belgarde Empire."
"Y-you knew?"
Annette froze solid. If he'd known all along and brought her here anyway... then not a cannibal — an assassin?
"Am I... am I going to die?"
"Probably. In about eighty years."
Caric answered without a care in the world, then turned his back and headed for the kitchen.
"I'll make you some tea, so drink it and calm down."
"T-tea?"
"Yeah. Sit and wait."
"You're... sparing me?"
"We'll see."
At that, Annette fidgeted in place for a while before finally sinking into a chair. She stole a glance at the door. The door handle was... a salamander's skull.
If I try to run, it'll bite me!
While her eyes rolled frantically in their sockets, a cup of tea was set before her.
"Drink."
It smelled of sweet honey and some herb she couldn't name. Only then did Annette realize how parched her throat was. But should she really drink it? What if it was some magic potion for tenderizing meat?
"Gulp it down, it's fine. I put ice in it."
"Wh-why would you put ice in tea?"
"Because that's how my people do it."
"I, um, actually have a rather weak stomach. And I have, ah, small portions. I'm absolutely not refusing, of course."
"Drink."
"Yes, sir."
Annette squeezed her eyes shut and took a sip. Then her eyes flew wide open.
It's delicious!
Danger was danger, but delicious was delicious.
"We've got lots of good stuff like this here, you know," Caric remarked, tossing the words out casually. "And I don't eat people."
"Y-you really don't?"
"Skulls are vessels for shamanic magic. My grandmother was a shaman." Caric tapped the shamanic tattoo on his arm. "Besides, all of those were monster bones to begin with."
"Oh, I seeee..."
"It's a barbaric craft, sure. But surely you're not about to insult my own dear grandmother?"
"What? No! Of course not! I mean, I—that is, I think it's nice!"
"Nice? Peeling skulls to cast spells?"
"Ah, no, that is—no, I mean, um—"
Annette half short-circuited, unable to string a sentence together. Caric figured he'd teased her enough and decided to get things sorted out.
"So, the whole cannibal-and-assassin misunderstanding — cleared up?"
"Oh."
Only now did Annette remember why the conversation had gone this way in the first place. Her face flushed bright red.
"Yes. I-I'm sorry. I was just so startled, I—"
Had Caric truly been an assassin, none of this elaborate process would have been necessary.
"It's fine. You seemed to be in a pretty rough spot anyway," Caric said, then continued. "So — why exactly were you being chased across a snowfield in a dress?"
"Th-that's..."
Annette bit her lip hard.
"The teleport magic tool malfunctioned."
"Hm."
"I believe it was an accident."
"Really?"
"...Well."
Annette hesitated. She'd already reached a tentative conclusion. But saying it out loud was hard for her. To have lived her whole life like a mouse in hiding — only for it all to end with her own family having her assassinated.
"It might... have been an assassination."
In the end, that was what she said. Caric nodded inwardly.
"So what will you do now?"
"What do you mean, what will I do?"
"If you'd like to stay here a while, you can. Just don't go back."
A blank look crossed Annette's face. Apparently she'd never even considered that option.
"Um..."
But then it struck her — why was she having this conversation with a barbarian she'd met only hours ago? She looked down and found the answer. For all her terror of him, she was still wearing the fur garment he'd draped over her. She knew it instinctively: right now, the only person she could trust was this man. This man might really hide her away.
But was that the life she wanted?
Chased by the human hunters, inches from death, Annette had thought: if I'm given one more chance, I don't want to live cowering and pushed around anymore. And the moment she'd thought it, one man had appeared as if by miracle — and gifted her that second chance.
So to this man, of all people, she had to speak honestly.
The air around Annette changed completely, her resolve hardening into something else.
"First, I believe I owe you a proper introduction."
Her voice was calm and low. She rose from her seat and bowed at the waist to Caric — a movement imbued with dignity, the very image of imperial etiquette.
"Thank you for saving my life."
She went on.
"You are the savior of my life, and I will never forget this debt. I am also grateful for your offer to shelter me. However, I—"
Annette slowly raised her head. In her eyes, there was no fear — instead, a strange, quiet stubbornness was kindling.
"I don't want to run away. Not like this."
Oh.
Caric was a little surprised. Where had the trembling little animal of moments ago gone? A bit clumsy, perhaps, but a genuinely royal dignity now emanated from her.
So I've somehow walked straight into the original heroine's awakening scene, huh.
Annette clenched her fists and spoke.
"If I run away now, then the ones who tried to kill me will have gotten exactly what they wanted. I want to go back to the empire alive. And when I get there, I will claim my place."
She looked Caric straight in the eye. Her face carried an air of grim determination.
"And so, if you will forgive my presumption, I have a request to make."
"Name it."
"Please escort me back to the empire."
Annette drew a deep breath.
"I have nothing to my name right now, I know. But I will stake everything I have, and I will repay you. Without fail."
Even as she spoke, Annette felt how threadbare the offer was. Her savior was a man who seemed to already have everything a man could want, right here. Would he really accept a proposal from a penniless princess?
"Deal."
But Caric's answer came without a moment's hesitation. It was exactly the situation he'd been hoping for.
Founding-hero fast-pass ticket, acquired!
"Never taken a cold case like this before, but hey — I'll trust you."
"Y-you mean it?"
This time it was Annette who was flustered — so much so that she nearly broke her practiced princess diction.
"We might run into trouble on the way. Or even once we're there!"
"I'm not the kind of man who runs into trouble."
A skull to crack, with every justification on my side? Enemies on all sides? Even better!
"Ah, but one thing. There's something I've been curious about — call it a fuzzy memory I can't quite place."
Caric spoke with an uncharacteristically solemn expression.
"Wh-what is it?"
"The Eastern Continent. Does this world have a place called the Eastern Continent?"
"Yes, of course?"
"And food and spices come in from there?"
"Now and then, yes?"
"Then I have no choice but to ask."
Caric lowered his voice, heavy with a longing more than a decade in the making, and asked:
"Do-you-know... kimchi?"