Don't Want a Draw? - 3
Back when I lived with Marie—back when I was still living as István—I had been quietly stockpiling an emergency fund.
Part of it was for fleeing the country. The rest was insurance for the day the court finally cast me out.
Not that "emergency fund" meant money scraped together by dirty means. It was just a portion of the coins I received as wages, plus the sort of luxuries and tableware you could find lying around the palace without much effort.
Then came the day I was driven from court. I slipped a portion of the cash out of the box I had buried in secret. Taking the whole thing would have been far too much to carry in the open.
Too much? Someone might ask. But in those days, you had to be careful. A fleeing noble was supposed to look pitiful. If you bolted with a fortune's worth of valuables tucked under your arm, the Free Revolution fighters would never have let it slide—no matter the reason.
"…So I figured I'd go back for the rest later, when the heat died down. Instead I died on the way home. I was already sick at the time, and everything was chaos…"
As soon as the words left my mouth, a rough, bitter aftertaste rolled through me. The conversation had flipped so completely that the tightness in my chest finally eased. Marie's timing, bringing up the emergency fund just then, could not have been better.
"Something like that happened?"
Jeannette tilted her head, curiosity plain in her eyes.
"It did. I'd completely forgotten about the stash myself. That whole stretch of time was pure madness."
"Ah… an age of upheaval. I remember reading about it in textbooks."
Joan of Arc studying the French Revolution. Watching her talk about it from the outside left me with a strangeness I couldn't quite put into words.
Marie spoke up.
"Too many years have passed to make any guarantees. But if it's still intact… the historical value would be extraordinary."
"Plenty of people go crazy for antiques. We can just sell it."
"I can't promise anything, but it should fetch a decent sum."
The lofty mission of preserving history for future generations never even entered the discussion. Not for me, not for native Frenchwoman Jeannette, not for Marie. All that mattered was how much it would bring—and whether we could smuggle it out and sell it safely.
Jeannette asked,
"So… where exactly is this emergency-fund box buried?"
"Somewhere around there, I think."
The Queen's Hamlet. I remembered burying it somewhere near Petit Trianon.
We got passports I never thought I'd need, booked the flights, and only after everything was ready did we head for France.
I'd locked the place up tight. Henri and Valerie came along as well, so our party ended up fairly large. Henri insisted to the end that he had to guard the Saint, which would have left Valerie behind on her own—something that sat wrong with me. It felt uncomfortably close to leaving her out on purpose. The extra bodies made things a little awkward, but we got through it more smoothly than I'd expected, thanks to Marie and Jeannette handling the social side of things well.
"Since you've come all the way to France, would you care to stop by your family home?"
Near Petit Trianon, in the lodging Marie had arranged, I was letting my thoughts wander when Henri asked. Only Jeannette, Henri, and I were in the room.
When I pulled myself back to the present, Jeannette's lips parted.
"I'm sorry. As you know, Henri, I think we need to keep our distance for now. If I go back at this moment, far too many people would lose their minds."
She shook her head and sighed. I remembered what she'd said about how shaken everyone had been when she left home.
"Understood."
Henri gave a short nod. From his expression, he clearly empathized more than a little.
"Then please rest."
"You too, Henri. Get some real sleep. That long flight must have worn you out."
"Thank you."
The old door creaked as Henri stepped out, the sound escorting him into the hall.
"You said we'd leave at night, right?"
Once it was just the two of us, Jeannette lowered her voice. She wanted one more look at our rather half-baked plan.
"Yeah. Too many tourists in the daytime—you can't move openly. Night is best."
Like any famous historic site, Petit Trianon took visitors. Great history made great money, after all.
"Then we can rest until then. Would you like to sleep a little? Or should I show you around?"
"Nah, I'm fine. No need for sightseeing."
"Ah… right. You lived in France, so I suppose nothing here would surprise you."
Maybe it was because so much remained the same despite the centuries. I simply felt no urge to play tourist. The thought of stopping by the Ystua main house to pay my respects had crossed my mind, but I agreed with Jeannette—it was still too soon.
"Being this close to a tourist spot, the prices are ridiculous."
Looking out the window, money was the first thing that came to mind. Seoul wasn't cheap either, but European prices… I didn't even know what to call them. A sigh slipped out for more reasons than one.
"It's difficult in a lot of ways. Things have improved somewhat since the situation stabilized, but when the specters first appeared, it was pure chaos."
Specters were a problem here just like back home in Korea. I could almost see the rattling skeletons from those early days. The only ones I'd ever faced were 5th-class specters—Skeletons—so my imagination was a little thin on the subject.
"Want to sleep for now? I'll text Marie."
"All right."
We washed up quickly, changed, and climbed into bed. The place had good reviews for a reason—the room was clean, the mattress excellent—and sleep came easily. We woke rested, ate dinner, then killed time watching television until Henri and Valerie turned in.
French spilled from the TV and slid into my ears as naturally as breathing. I was probably better at it than most professional interpreters—native Korean speaker, native French speaker. I was still half-wondering whether to set myself a new goal when the hour arrived.
"It's time. Shall we go?"
"Let's."
Around midnight, we slipped out of the hotel without Henri noticing and drove down streets lit by streetlamps, using the rental car we'd arranged on the way from the airport. Marie took the wheel. Having a queen for a chauffeur sparked an odd little thrill of superiority—especially since her looks left nothing to criticize.
Oh.
There it was. The closer we got to our destination, the more familiar roads and scenery seized my eyes. My night vision had always been good; the darkness gave me no trouble.
"I'll park here."
Marie stopped near what people commonly called the Queen's house. Since our goal was infiltration rather than tourism, there was no reason to approach from the front. She pulled onto the sidewalk beside a neatly lined avenue of trees; at this hour no one was around to complain.
"Climb on. I'll get us over."
Once we reached the high wall, I climbed onto Jeannette's back and we cleared it. Charging admission meant sealing off the back ways with walls—perfectly natural. As soon as we were over, the wind whistled past my ears.
A Saint and hero scaling a wall, with the former master of these grounds following right behind her. Anyone who knew the full story would have thought it pure comedy.
"We're in."
"Thanks."
I slid off her back; grass brushed and tickled my feet. Landing in a meadow will do that.
"It feels nostalgic."
Marie drifted quietly to my side and spoke. Standing in the place she had once lived must have stirred something deep. The bittersweet and the joyful, the painful and the vivid—perhaps all of it had simply become memory. It had for me.
"Yeah… it does bring back old times. Let's go."
I nodded and started walking. Strangely, the whole thing felt so much like a burglary that there was no room left for nostalgia. My heart was hammering from pure nerves.
Familiar.
I had thought I'd forgotten everything. But as we walked, the paths lit up in my mind one by one—and with them, the exact spot where I'd buried the emergency fund.
The house with the water mill. The box should still be under the stairs that led up to it.
"Here."
We reached the mill house. I pointed beneath a brick arch that looked almost like the mouth of a cave. Marie's and Jeannette's eyes went round at the same time.
Marie asked,
"You buried it here?"
"More obvious than you'd think, right?"
"Yes. And yet it's also the sort of place no one ever bothers with. Funny how that works."
"Exactly. Anyway—unless someone already dug it up, the box should still be right here…"
I crouched. Jeannette slipped quietly to my side; a soft yellow light gathered around her hands—holy power.
"This will be hard on you, Ji-hyuk. Let me dig. Just wait."
Before I could stop her she was already tearing into the earth. The Saint, excavating and damaging a cultural heritage site. If the papers ever caught wind of this, it would be front-page news for days.
She's good at this.
Her hands sank in with solid thuds, carving out chunks of soil that flew through the darkened air. Far cleaner and faster than any tool or machine.
"Huh?"
Jeannette paused mid-dig and tilted her head. Something had caught.
"Did you hit something?"
"Yes. A little hard, a little soft… it definitely feels like wood. And it's not a tree root."
"It's still there, then."
The word wood put steel into my gaze. No one had noticed the wooden box and dug it up. All those nights spent carefully, piece by piece, building the stash had not been wasted.
"I'll pull it out."
Jeannette's hands worked without hesitation, cutting and clearing the dirt. Moments later the wooden box emerged from the shadowed earth. Weathered and half-rotted, it still held its original shape.
Amazing.
While I was still reeling, she lifted the lid. Even after all that time it hadn't crumbled—another small miracle.
"Good heavens."
Jeannette blinked in open wonder. Heavy-looking coin pouches. Tableware and odds and ends that had no business being underground. All of it packed tight.
I remembered how hard I'd worked gathering every last piece. The memory made my already racing heart ache. Even the charcoal I'd packed to keep out moisture was still there.
"It's incredible that the whole thing kept its shape. After this long it should have rotted to nothing."
Jeannette set the lid aside, still marveling. Contents and box alike—their survival was a miracle.
"We'll have to take the contents out separately. If we try to move the box as is, everything will spill."
Marie set down the two empty crossbody bags she'd been carrying. Time to loot in earnest.
Coin pouches clinked. Palace dishes and miscellaneous goods followed. We swept every last item out of the box with careful hands and shameless hearts.
So this is why people steal?
Cleaning out my own emergency fund filled me with a strange, wordless thrill.
"That's everything. Let's tidy up."
"Right."
"Of course."
Once the contents—minus the charcoal—were safely bagged, we moved straight into clean-up. Dirt went back where it belonged. We smoothed the ground just enough that it wouldn't look suspiciously perfect. Good enough.
We gave the reasonably neat patch of earth one last look, then left. It was time to sell the emergency fund we had just stolen.