Wohard: “Central position?”
Linalia said, “Yes, I’m very sure…”
She looked at Sovinia.
Sovinia’s heart sank.
Did she know the layout of the Demon Castle?
Or was she testing her?
She might not know the exact route…
‘I can’t let her take the initiative.’
Sovinia almost instinctively retorted:
“You don’t even know where we started from, so how can you accuse me of leading us the wrong way?”
“My dear, self-proclaimed princess of our race,” Linalia’s tone remained gentle, but carried the pride befitting a princess, “I am not accusing you of intentionally leading us astray. I just find it strange.”
‘Cunning! I want to cut off her head with one swing.’
‘Not a single word of hers is an accusation, but together, every sentence is pushing me toward the abyss of decapitation.’
“I think…”
Linalia lifted her face—a face heartbreakingly beautiful—and looked straight into Sovinia’s eyes, “you are a demon in disguise.”
“That’s… impossible.”
Wohard hesitated.
“Sovinia can read my comrade’s last letter.”
Although Sovinia’s heart was tense, her face remained cold and expressionless out of habit.
“Evidence?”
Linalia did not answer.
Instead, she suddenly opened her mouth and spoke a string of syllables that Sovinia could not understand at all—a melodious and fluent language.
The language seemed to carry the wind of the forest and the light of the moon.
After finishing, she smiled at Sovinia and asked:
“Do you know what I said in Elvish?”
‘It’s over.’
Sovinia’s mind went blank.
‘The princess has cornered me. I don’t understand Elvish at all. There’s no way I can answer this question.’
‘If I admit I don’t understand, that’s tantamount to admitting I’m a fake. If I guess randomly, that’s even more suicidal.’
‘Damn it, when I was fighting elves back then, I should have learned a foreign language while interrogating prisoners and developed some hobbies.’
‘Knowledge is power. The ancients were not wrong. Who would have thought that after cutting off heads my whole life, today my own head would be on the line because I don’t know a foreign language.’
At this critical moment, a thought flashed through her mind like lightning.
She could hear Wohard’s heart.
‘When in doubt, listen to his heart.’
She abruptly reached out and grabbed Wohard’s hand.
The moment their skin touched, familiar chaotic thoughts flooded into her mind:
“…Princess Linalia is really pitiful… she’s so beautiful… and weak, so rude! You must maintain the demeanor of a knight…”
Sovinia’s face remained cold, but she barely suppressed the urge to roll her deer-like eyes.
‘Why does this vicious dog have such a protective instinct toward every princess? Can’t that protective instinct be exclusive to me?’
‘But then again, this is a hundred times better than him being full of suspicion toward me. That’s good news.’
She continued to listen to Wohard’s heart:
“…What did her Elvish words mean? They sounded so nice… Why isn’t Miss Sovinia answering? Could it be… could she really be a demon in disguise? No, impossible! She’s so kind, she cooked for me, sewed my wounds, kind-hearted, independent and strong… she can’t be a demon…”
From the chaotic thoughts, Sovinia caught the key point.
‘He can’t understand it. I’m sure he didn’t understand the Elvish just now.’
Hope surged in Sovinia’s heart.
Now her head had a chance to stay on her neck.
Since this vicious dog doesn’t understand either, that means there’s room to maneuver!
“I have amnesia,” she said calmly, her voice not loud but enough for the other two to hear.
“Amnesia?”
Linalia immediately retorted, stepping forward aggressively.
“Even if a person forgets everything, they would never forget their mother tongue!”
Wohard said, “She really does have amnesia.”
Linalia’s tone softened.
She was close to Wohard, and when she lifted her face to him, she looked as if she admired him, feeding his masculine pride.
She said:
“I’m sorry. I’ve only just gained my freedom, and I’m afraid of losing it. If she is a demon, I shouldn’t be like this, but from the first moment I saw her, she didn’t seem like an elf. Lord Hero, have you heard of False Humans?”
“I have,” Wohard said.
“A type of man-eating demon race that frightens many people.”
‘Don’t categorize everything as demon race, you vicious dog.’
Linalia said, “Though it’s rude to say this, she looks like a false elf.”
Sovinia still looked at Linalia expressionlessly.
It wasn’t that she was confident, but that she was used to being expressionless.
Meanwhile, her eyes were estimating the distance between herself and Linalia, contemplating the possibility of killing her with one sword strike.
Linalia shivered, feeling the sharpness of the other’s gaze.
Like a small animal, she nestled beside Wohard, looked up, blinked, and said:
“Let me borrow your body, Lord Hero. I’m scared.”
Sovinia saw Wohard’s body stiffen visibly.
‘Just imagine, he must be torn now.’
On one side was “Sovinia,” who had traveled with him and built trust; on the other was the pitiful, noble “True Princess.”
The vicious dog was sandwiched between them.
Two silver-haired, golden-eyed, impossibly beautiful elves.
One in torn black stockings, the other in knee-high boots.
Seeing his rigidity, she knew he was in a dilemma.
As Sovinia watched Linalia’s act, her disgust reached its peak.
But at the same time, her mind finally churned out a bold plan.
“Yes, I remember my mother tongue,” Sovinia said slowly.
“Because what you just said was not Elvish at all.”
Linalia: “What? You… you’re lying! That’s impossible.”
“Whether I’m lying or not, we’ll find out by testing,” Sovinia met her eyes without flinching.
“Now, let me say a sentence in Elvish, and you answer. How about that?”
“Fine!” Linalia lifted her chin slightly.
Sovinia prepared to say a line in Chinese.
As long as her tone was fluent, Wohard wouldn’t know if it was Elvish or not.
Just as she was about to speak, she suddenly thought of a loophole.
Yes, Wohard didn’t understand Elvish, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t distinguish Elvish syllables.
His former expedition squad had an elf comrade.
What if the language she spoke sounded completely different from the Elvish he had heard?
Then she would be completely exposed!
But it was too late.
There was no turning back.
She had to say something.
Her mind raced, searching deep in her memory for buried fragments.
‘What should I do? What should I do?’
Under pressure, her mind was a mess.
The memories of the transmigrator Kimi from his past life—memories from that blue planet called Earth—memories so distant she thought she had forgotten them.
They surged up uncontrollably.
Sovinia stood there dumbfounded for a while.
Linalia grew impatient:
“Don’t you know Elvish?”
Sovinia’s heart was tense, but her surface remained icy cold.
At the urging, she subconsciously blurted out:
“Hakimi yo nanbei lvdou…”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Sovinia herself was stunned.
The sentence was fluent, but even she didn’t know what it meant.
The entire luxurious prison cell fell into dead silence.
Sovinia’s scalp tingled.
A chill shot from her tailbone to the back of her head.
‘I … What the hell did I just say?’