15 City of the dead

Marguerite is quietly seated in front of the old-fashioned vanity mirror. It is a beautiful wooden colour with a wavy shape on the wing mirrors and beautiful purple flower embroidery on the cushioned seat. The extremities of the legs are decorated with graceful carvings of a slightly paler hue spreading in all directions. The centre has a circle enclosing what seems like a painting of the king, but a lot uglier. The painting that does not give proper merit to its origin makes Marguerite chuckle as she remembers the brief moments she had with the man.

Deep hazel eyes staring into her soul, raven hair flowing down his shoulders, chiselled jaw and fierce brows. She daydreams about his beauty and feels that he truly is worthy to be called "otherworldly". His handsome visage hunts her mind until she is abruptly reminded of a certain unwanted face.

Her heart fills with grief and annoyance as she scrunches her small nose in front of the reflection. The little 16-year-old girl opposite her imitates her perfectly, which disorients the mature 23-year-old Marguerite staring at her. The surrounding maids brushing and tying her hair while preparing the hot bath look at each other askance at the sight of their master's behaviour, but wisely choose to stay silent.

The young maiden is quickly led to her bathing area and has to strip as to let the maids wash her clean. Marguerite quickly panics when the young girls try to pry off her clothing and start to resist adversely. The maids don't know what to do besides becoming slightly more aggressive, as they have never encountered such a situation in the past.

This only leads to an all-out brawl with Marguerite pushing them and hitting them to get them to leave her alone. She doesn't want to be stripped and washed by strangers like some sort of doll.

They finally leave, albeit huffing and puffing, and Marguerite lets out a breath of relief. She gets into the bath herself and tries to wash with the weird soap provided.

Scrubbing and rubbing dully with dead eyes, she ponders over her situation now.

According to that dimwit, she is now a concubine in an unknown world. The palace she is in belongs to the king of DaLang or something.

"What was his name again?"

Marguerite whispers to herself. No answer follows her question.

"Affa... Affo..."

"Alphonse."

The sudden interruption startles her and she responsively turns her head in the direction of the voice. There, she sees a beautiful blue cat simply laying near her while its gaze is fixed unto her surprised face.

"Edward?"

"That is my name."

She stays frozen in position as he continues to look at her. After a few seconds pass, her face suddenly turns beet-red and she tries to cover her body under the water. The cat only cocks his head curiously wondering what warranted such a strange reaction.

"Why are you here? I'm naked!"

"I know. I can see you."

Marguerite stays speechless at the rebuttal. However, she quickly finds herself ridiculous for caring about what a cat thinks. Even though she once imagined a willy old man hiding behind that appearance, according to his reaction now, she must certainly have been mistaken.

"I came here to hint you your task."

"t-task you say?"

Confused on what the small creature staring at her with narrowed eyes is saying, she grows nervous and slightly scared. She is in a completely different world and cannot even communicate with anyone else but this animal, what task could she possibly perform?

"Alphonse is an annoying brat. He put a lockdown on the whole country and no one is allowed to leave. Until then, you need to do your best to survive. When the lockdown is lifted, you have to leave immediately to the city of the dead."

The cat adopts a serious expression as he speaks, which makes Marguerite inadvertently listen to his every word with apt attention, until the last 4 words.

"City of the dead!? You want me to go to such a terrifying sounding place alone?"

"Do not worry. I may not be in my best of shape at the moment, but I am still a magician. I can protect you somewhat."

"What does somewhat mean?"

The cat doesn't answer the question for a long time, which leaves Marguerite at a lost. Why did she agree to such a ridiculous deal? She doesn't wish to die in a weird place where no one will bury her or visit her grave. She misses her family already.

"Edward, why did you bring me? There are so many other strong and independent women out there who are quick to adapt and can easily fulfil your wishes."

The feline, that has stayed silent for a long time now, finally answers her truthfully but bitingly.

"I won't lie to you, if I had a real choice, I would never have chosen you. You are less than capable of finding me. But I didn't have that choice. In the first place, people that can pierce the layers of the universes and survive make up less than 1% of the population of your world. If my magic hadn't been weakened, I would have searched for higher realms where there are more options. But I couldn't."

Marguerite doesn't answer and stays frozen in place. Processing the implications of these words.

"Additionally, the person I made a deal with specifically told me that she can only accept a female to enter her body, and will automatically set to destroy any male soul that attempt to tarnish her. I couldn't understand why, but I didn't have a choice. The already small numbers of candidates were dwindled by half. In the end, I chose you because I was running out of time. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't hesitate to find someone better suited. But now is no time for regrets and we must haste!"

Marguerite cannot bring herself to look up at the cat nor speak a word. She finally understands that she has been brought to her death. She wasn't brought here because Edward believed she could help him, no. She apparently has no chance of success. She might as well jump off a bridge and hope for the best at this point!

After the initial hopelessness, she became extremely angry at Edward's selfishness. What does he take her for? He doesn't care about her life at all! Then she realized that she can only count on herself in this place.

Suppressing her rage, she speaks:

"Edward. since you are planning on using me until I become a piece of rag, then it is only right that you allow me to do the same. I want our relationship to be as equal as possible."

The feline is surprised by the sudden change in ambience around the seemingly tiny girl. Thinking to himself that she isn't as easy to manipulate as he initially thought, he gestures a small nod to acknowledge her idea.

Satisfied, Marguerite quickly lists out her demands one by one for now:

"First of all, I need to understand the language. So You will have to provide help in that aspect as quickly as possible. Second, I want to leave this palace. Therefore you will have to help me escape. Lastly, I want money. Pay up."

A little bewildered by her commanding tone and slightly hostile behaviour, he takes a while to consider her requests. It is naturally advantageous for him if she leaves the palace, and money shouldn't be too hard to find as long as they can leave. However...

"The other conditions are doable, but the issue of the language is slightly problematic. The most I can do is insert a dictionary of Kaæhl in your brain. With this, you would understand most of what is being said as long as it isn't some weird slang or rarely used idiom. But when it comes to speaking, you can regrettably only rely on your learning ability."

Marguerite stares at the creature suspiciously for a long time. Why is it that this so-called is so powerless and weak? However, she figures there is no reason for him to limit her abilities and would limit him the same way instead. So she quickly drops her gaze helplessly.

With closed eyes and a nonchalant expression as if to say 'there isn't anything I can do about it', the cat inserts the dictionary promptly after her acquiescence.

A sharp pain as if something big is forcefully entering the side of her brain jolts her. The now lukewarm water splashes and waves as she uncomfortably clutches her head and shakes it as if to try and push out the foreign object.

The pain finally subsides as she begins to calm doing slowly. Her gnawed lips leak som droplets of blood into the water and stains it a scarlet red before deluding into the wide expanse of water. Shivering from the cold water, she emerges from the baths and wraps herself in a towel.