The Princess's Trial (2)
“For now, the woman is in Italy.”
“...”
“A distant, foreign land, far from this China.”
Tunan only glared at me with those fox-like eyes of hers, but she didn't cut me off.
I took one last moment to review her riddles in my mind.
'She does not move, yet she follows you. Even when you turn your head, her gaze still finds you.'
'Her valley grows hazier the farther back it goes, yet even as you draw near, it feels distant.'
'Is the woman's smile happiness? Mockery? Or sorrow?'
'Tell me the name of that woman, whose smile is as beautiful as my own visage.'
“And this woman is famous for one peculiar trait—no matter which direction you stand in, you can always meet her gaze.”
Jang Siwoon still wore a baffled expression, as if she couldn't make heads or tails of it.
“The background grows blurred the farther back you look, yet when you come close to see it, it somehow feels far away.”
“A sense of distance?”
She couldn't deduce the answer right away, but her instincts were sharp—once again, Jang Siwoon spat out the key word without missing a beat.
“Exactly. We call it perspective.”
Through a background that conveys depth, near and far are given life in the depiction.
And then—
“There's another part that has a blurred quality to it. That would be the woman's smile.”
Softening the outlines to dissolve the edges—it creates that strange, indefinable impression.
“A woman famous for her enigmatic smile.”
“Ah—”
Only then did Jang Siwoon grasp the answer, and a cry of realization burst from her.
Even someone as lacking in art knowledge as Jang Siwoon could recognize it—it was an immensely famous work.
Mention a woman famous for her smile, and there was one painting that came to mind instantly.
“The answer is—”
After taking one deep breath, I recited the correct answer with confidence.
“The Mona Lisa.”
Tunan's eyes remained as unmoved as ever... but neither was there any rebuttal.
The minister unfurled the long scroll he had been clutching in his hand.
The rolled parchment unspooled with a soft whirr, revealing the answer written upon it.
“Mona Lisa. The answer is correct!”
“Waaaah—!”
An ancient Chinese figure calling out Mona Lisa—what a surreal sight.
A colossal cheer erupted through the castle, loud enough to drown out even Jang Siwoon's jubilant cries.
It was the voices of the citizens who had been watching us.
“The princes have answered the riddle!”
“There will be no more sacrifices!”
How must it have felt, to watch prince after prince senselessly put to death? Overwhelmed, they seized one another and shouted toasts of celebration.
Only Tunan stood apart, her face twisted into a savage scowl of disdain.
“I refuse!”
Like a child throwing a tantrum, Tunan denied her own fate.
“I will not become their slave! I have something I must accomplish!”
'Just like Turandot.'
In the original, when the male lead Calaf solved the riddles, Turandot too had begged not to marry him.
The only difference was that here, there was no emperor for her to cling to in a fit of petulance.
And that line about something she must accomplish.
'Turandot avoided marriage with the foreign prince because of her memory of her grandmother being murdered by people of another land.'
Come to think of it, Tunan's parents—Turandot and Calaf—were nowhere to be seen.
For figures so central to the original story to not even make a cameo was strange, no matter how much of a reimagining this was supposed to be.
“Then I shall follow the same fate as my mother.”
Had she given up? Tunan lowered her head and let out a voice heavy with lamentation.
But when she raised her head again a moment later, her gaze was—
'That's the look of someone who's made up her mind about something.'
“Strangers! China does not yet know your names.”
Ah. Unfortunately, things were proceeding along lines strikingly similar to part of the original.
“If I learn your names before dawn breaks on the morrow, death shall follow you!”
The moment Tunan added a condition entirely of her own invention, Jang Siwoon glared at the princess with the fire of someone ready to talk back to royalty.
“What is this?! We answered your riddle fair and square, and now you want to kill us again?”
“In the original Turandot, it's the male protagonist who makes that proposal. But no visitor in their right mind would ever volunteer such a thing.”
Every one of the visitors must have wanted to push back...
But just as her riddle earlier had been inescapable, this time too we were forced to follow the current of the story against our will.
“Princes! Flee!”
“Flee, and quickly!!”
The melody swelled more feverish than before, and Jang Siwoon seized my wrist and bolted down the stairs.
Tunan barked orders at her citizens, trying to catch us.
“People of China! You must not avert your eyes! Discover their names!”
“Aaah—”
“Aaah—”
Leaving the orchestral music ringing in our ears, we hurried to escape from the princess.
With no idea where to run, we simply kept to the castle walls as we fled.
“Haah, huff...!!”
“Jisan! Can you keep running?!”
“Yeah. For now...!”
If we could get out of the castle, we could shake off the citizens and soldiers...
But at the castle gate, as if an invisible barrier had been raised, we found we couldn't step outside.
“Hey, Jisan. That Soul Rental perk of yours—any athletes in there?”
“Haven't unlocked one yet.”
“Damn it.”
Jang Siwoon clicked her tongue and shot me a look of pure frustration.
I wasn't all that far behind her, mind you, but there was a definite gap between my stamina and hers.
“Jisan. The way I see it, if we just keep running like this, they're going to catch us eventually.”
Having swept our surroundings with a quick glance, Jang Siwoon pointed at a structure far in the distance.
...Calling it a castle was generous—it looked more like a mound of collapsing stone.
“We're going into that castle.”
“Won't the palace soldiers catch us in there?”
“Look at it. It's a ruin. A completely different place from the castle the princess lives in.”
Eyes flashing, Jang Siwoon grabbed my wrist again and pulled me forward.
“There's definitely something there. I may not have any luck, but I've got a good gut, I'm telling you.”
My intuition was no slouch either, for what it was worth.
Perhaps it was one final hope, the last thing a god who'd run off with all my luck had chosen to leave behind.
“Alright. Let's go.”
As it happened, there were no citizens gathered in front of the castle.
Which only made the place feel all the more ominous.
'It's far too dark...'
To squeeze through the entrance of the ruined castle, we had to fold our bodies in half.
But once we wriggled through the gap, a space far more spacious than it had appeared from outside opened up before us.
“Thanks to you, Siwoon, we slipped past the citizens just fine.”
“Except it's so dark in here I can barely walk. Sorry to hit you with this after everything, Jisan, but what do we do?”
“Over here, young ones. Come this way.”
Just then, a completely worn-out voice cut into our conversation.
With several teeth apparently missing, the pronunciation was so muddled it was hard to make out.
Hearing a stranger's voice out of the darkness sent a shiver down my entire spine.
“Don't be afraid. Come closer. I'm nothing but an old man without the strength to move.”
Whoosh—
◈ The flame will not go out.
A burning torch materialized, hovering in midair.
As I staggered back from the flickering flame, Jang Siwoon smoothly reached out and took hold of it.
“Now then, come this way.”
We exchanged a silent look and started walking.
Advancing toward that voice left a sour feeling in my stomach.
Still, like every NPC the museum had thrown at us so far, this man's lines had a similar flavor to them.
“...?!”
The moment the light from Jang Siwoon's torch revealed the man's figure—
We froze solid, unable to make a sound.
'...He looks like a living skeleton.'
The skin clung so tightly to his frame that the outline of every bone showed through.
Had it not been for the rags draped over him, we would have seen all the way down to his ribs.
He was completely bald, gaunt to the point of grotesquerie, and a musty stench rose from his body.
And there, binding the ankles of the man as he crouched—iron shackles.
“Do not try to free me. I am a criminal.”
“A criminal...?”
Jang Siwoon couldn't bring herself to approach him; she took a step back and echoed his words.
The man managed to lift the corners of his mouth into a bitter, rueful smile.
Sure enough, so many teeth had been pulled that the inside of his mouth showed plainly.
“The criminal who brought sickness upon the Empress and the Princess.”
The Empress and the Princess—he had to mean Turandot and Tunan.
“Didn't Empress Turandot live happily with the Emperor?”
“Young man. What do you think love is?”
Love, was it.
Aside from the filial affection I'd held for my parents as a child, it was an emotion I'd never known.
I'd always figured love was a luxury my life had no room for.
“A love that burns consumes everything in the blink of an eye.”
The more I listened, the less any of it made sense.
Outside of stories, could a love like that truly exist?
When neither Jang Siwoon nor I knew how to react and simply stood there in silence, the old man struggled on with his story.
“I was once a sorcerer. Foolish with pride in my power, I granted the wishes of the Empress and the Princess.”
“...What was that wish?”
“I cannot say. The moment the words leave my mouth, my power only grows stronger.”
Though he was a prisoner confined to these ruins, it seemed the old man's power had never faded.
He'd granted the wishes of the Empress and the Princess—so why had they fallen ill?
'Still, locking him up and abandoning him like this after he granted their wish is rather shameless, isn't it?'
Then again, on reflection, those were famously merciless women, so perhaps it figured.
“Soon, people will be entering this castle. Evade the citizens and soldiers, keep your names safe—and I beg you, put an end to the Princess's wish as well.”
'How am I supposed to erase a wish you won't even tell me the nature of?'
The utter unhelpfulness of the explanation left my feelings in a knot.
We had to evade the people, protect our names, and rescue the princess on top of all that.
There was far too much to do.
“I leave it in your hands.”
“...”
Part of me ached for the old man pleading so earnestly—but separate from that, this was obviously going to be a quest, so accepting was the only path open to us.
“Yes. Understood.”
“Good. Good... Thank you. This guilt of mine has no end. I suppose I will simply be born again.”
Tears trickled down the old man's withered cheeks.
Other visitors would come climbing after us—so even if we granted his plea, he would revive and repeat this fate all over again.
'Just as every Component has.'
“But if only for a while, I could depart in peace—”
The old man's voice scattered faintly into nothing, and his body vanished with it.
The frame that had become a powder of bone swirled away on the bleak air and disappeared without a trace.
Then a new quest leaflet materialized.
Whoosh—
—Strangers. Protect your names until dawn breaks.
—Strangers. Erase the Princess's wish before dawn breaks.
—Only then shall you be set free.
'Tunan will be set free...? Or... us?'
I still couldn't fully decipher what the quest was asking of us.
I turned away and gazed at the old man's shackles with dry, hollow eyes.
'I don't even want to wonder anymore whether he was an NPC made alongside the museum, or a lump of some visitor's Component.'
...Such questions would only waste time.
“We should get moving.”
Jang Siwoon stared at me for a long moment, then finally started walking.
Had she decided that studying my changed self with unfamiliar eyes was a line she shouldn't cross?
'We trust each other to a degree, but we're not exactly close friends.'
As we pressed forward in silence, a new ordeal unfolded before us.
A three-way fork in the passage.
'One look tells you it's a winding maze.'
“There's a maze inside the castle. Ah, how wonderful.”
Jang Siwoon deadpanned her lament in that signature sarcastic tone of hers.
But as if things weren't bad enough, a heavy, thudding sound of footsteps came from behind us.
“The princes are inside this place!!”
“Find them, quickly!”
We had to go somewhere, and fast.
A rapid sweep of our surroundings turned up no markings of any kind.
Which meant this maze wasn't one to be solved with the head—we'd have to punch through it with our bodies.
“I'm trusting your gut, Siwoon!”
“Ah, no pressure.”
Jang Siwoon let out a hollow laugh and shook her head.
But despite her complaints, she immediately plunged into the second passage.