As several guards chased after the assassins, more guards began to arrive at the garden.
"Your highness! Please retreat into the building until we secure the entire area!" said one of the guards.
"Be careful, everyone. Their arrows are coated in some sort of poison!" said Dunha's mother as she showed the arrow that she grabbed earlier.
"Understood!" said one of the guards. "You lots, search the entire area! There might be more of these scoundrels! The rest of you, follow the men who chased after these bastards!"
"Understood!" the guards shouted.
Dunha's mother tightly held onto Dunha as she headed back into the castle with 5 guards following them.
Dunha felt her mother's hands slightly trembling.
"Perhaps it's because I almost got hurt?" she thought. "Hm..."
Dunha started to think.
"Was there an assassination attempt around this time?" she wondered. "It's frustrating that I can't remember a lot of things that happened when I was 5..."
As Dunha was thinking, she noticed that they arrived at the study room where her mother does paperwork.
"This place..." (Dunha)
The study room was considered to be one of the safest rooms in the castle. The reason was because there was a hidden floor hatch under the desk which is connected to a tunnel that would lead anyone out of the castle.
"This hidden escape route was how I managed to escape the Eastern Union sympathizers when they stormed into the castle with the defected soldiers," Dunha remembered.
As Dunha was remembering how she managed to escape, her mother's voice brought her back into reality.
"I'm sorry, Dunha... I think breakfast will have to wait a little longer," said Dunha's mother.
Dunha smiled.
"I'm alright," said Dunha as she hugged her mother.
Her mother then patted Dunha's head and smiled too.
From outside of the room, Dunha heard the sounds of guards shouting as they ran back and forth. At one point, she even heard one of the maids screaming. After half an hour of waiting inside the room, everything went quiet.
"I wonder if everything is okay now?" Dunha wondered.
One of the 5 guards left the room and talked with someone.
"Are you sure?" a guard asked.
"Yes," another guard answered.
After a quick conversation, the guard returned.
"Your Highness, the entire garden has been secured. We are still interrogating some of the servants but we believe it is safe to come out now," said the guard.
After the guards announced that it was safe to leave the room, Dunha's mother told the guards to take her daughter to her room.
"Sweetie, can you stay in your room for a little longer while mama goes somewhere to talk with somebody?" Dunha's mother asked.
"Yes," said Dunha.
After Dunha nodded several times, her mother kissed her forehead before walking away with 2 guards.
"That was rather anticlimactic..." Dunha thought as she walked to her room. "But I'm not complaining. I'm glad it just ended like this. It's better than dying."
Dunha arrived at her room with at least a dozen guards standing outside of her door.
"..." (Dunha)
After taking off her coat, she jumped onto her bed and began to think about who was responsible for this attack.
"Who would benefit the most from killing either me or my mother right now?" she wondered.
Dunha then remembered something.
"Hold on a second... According to the night shift guards, my mother was busy working on something last night... If I remember correctly, in my previous life, she got sick and was bedridden at one point when I was 5..." Dunha remembered. "Mother also said that the arrows were poisoned, earlier. Assuming that she got sick around this time, perhaps this attack was the reason she fell ill? That would make sense."
Dunha concluded that this attack was related to her mother's work.
"Father also mentioned that my mother was investigating something before falling into a coma for a month. That means, whatever she was working on last night, resulted in someone sending people to attack her," Dunha thought. "This person obviously did not want her to find out about something."
As she continued to connect everything into one, floating words appeared in front of her once again.
[Your "Intelligence" has increased!]
After seeing more floating words again, she got very annoyed as it startled her.
"Am I really just hallucinating?! Why is this keep happening?!" Dunha shouted.
Suddenly, the guards that were outside opened the doors and rushed into Dunha's room.
"Princess, are you alright?!" a concerned guard asked after hearing Dunha's shout.
"Eek! Yesh, I am," Dunha replied in a strange tone. "It was nothing! You can go back outside!"
"..." (Guard)
The guards were unconvinced that nothing happened and looked around with their eyes and after seeing nobody in the room, they politely bowed and left.
"I see... Understood," said the guard.
As soon as they left, she proceeded to glare at the floating words.
"Shoo! Go away!" Dunha internally shouted.
She tried to swat at the floating words to make them go away but it multiplied instead.
🔸🔸🔸
Name: Dunha Star
Age: 5
Level: 2
Species: Human
{Stats}
Mana: 0/0
Strength: 2
Agility: 2
Intelligence: 2 (+1)
Stamina: 3
{Skills}
Actor: Lv. 2 (Leveled Up!)
Danger Detection: Lv. 3 (Level Up!)
Charm: Lv. 5
🔸🔸🔸
Dunha was surprised when an entire screen popped up in front of her.
"W-Wha..." Dunha mumbled.
The screen in front of her then disappeared and left Dunha confused at what she witnessed.
"Not only did I somehow returned to the past, but this started appearing in front of me as well..." she thought. "Am I going crazy?"
She then heard her stomach rumbling.
"M-Maybe I'm just seeing things because I'm hungry..."
She looked around her room and found a bowl of fruits on top of one of the tables and decided to eat them.
(To be Continued)
2020/02/25