Chapter 10: Looking for an Escape Part 4

Now that I knew Sally hadn’t betrayed me, I was certain that my carriage plan had failed because the stable manager had ratted me out, so for the next loop, I just ran for it.

What? You don’t think a shut-in like me can run? Well, joke’s on you. Despite my preferences and anxieties, I was still the daughter of the Duke of Thorns, a man charged with training and managing the kingdom’s entire army. I had been trained, almost from birth, in basic self-defense techniques and, at Sally’s insistence, followed a daily workout routine. It wasn’t a particularly intense routine, as noble women were expected to maintain a dainty appearance. Still, my stamina was far better now than it had been in my past life, and I likely could have kicked my past self’s butt.

However, that all being said, I was not exceptionally experienced in running outside over uneven terrain, and I didn’t particularly like my chances of fending off any monsters I came across. Thankfully, I had a solution to that problem in the form of my currently blushing maid.

“Sally,” I declared with a renewed sense of confidence. “Would you mind carrying me to the capital?”

Just a few minutes ago, this would’ve seemed like an insane request, as the capital was over ten miles away. However, now that I knew Sally was a combat maid, I had absolute faith in her. Alas, that faith was absolutely misplaced as I had somehow managed to both overestimate and underestimate her at the same time. Though I had expected her to move fast, I had not anticipated her running up the side of trees or leaping between their branches. It was worse than any rollercoaster I had ever been on in my past life, and I would have certainly hurled if I’d actually eaten anything that day. Still, I did not complain as I was prepared to face far worse than that if it meant escaping, but I quickly realized that this plan had been doomed from the start.

I’d like to say it failed because the prince caught up to us, gave his usual speech, and killed me. That did happen, but at that point, despite having been on the run for twenty minutes, the academy was still clearly visible above the trees. The prince hadn’t even bothered to fetch his horse or run at superhuman speeds like last time. He just waited for us to return to the same point we had passed half a dozen times. Weirdly, he didn’t seem all that mad this time, and I think he might have even felt a bit bad for me because, as it turned out, Sally had the most awful sense of direction I had ever seen.

Rather than moving in a straight line away from the academy, she somehow circled back around numerous times without realizing it. I’m still not sure how that’s possible, but as I looked back, I realized it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Despite how competent Sally was and her years of experience serving me, there were still times that simple errands around the academy or my family’s estate took far longer than they should have because she somehow ended up lost. Once she had wound up in the basement while looking for something in the attic.

In my excitement over having a combat maid, I had forgotten about this little quirk of hers until the third time she passed by the same decapitated goblin. I’m not sure when exactly she decapitated it or how she seemingly thought it was a different goblin each time she passed by, but regardless, this plan had been an utter failure. I briefly considered trying again in hopes that I could somehow guide Sally into running in a straight line, but I quickly dismissed that plan. Regardless of her sense of direction, the prince still knew I had run away, and I wasn’t sure how.

Someone may have spotted us leaving and reported it to him, but Sally had assured me that nobody would spot us leaving, and despite everything, I felt I could trust her on that. That left me with two distinct possibilities. Either I was being tracked or every student on campus was. Both would make sense. I was supposed to be the next queen of the country, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if some sort of tracking spell had been placed on me or something I owned. Likewise, the academy housed the next generation of nobles and was surrounded by a forest filled with monsters. It’d only make sense for them to somehow alert the faculty whenever a student wandered away.

Both of those theories seemed possible with spatial magic, but as I wasn’t an expert in that field, I had no idea how to counter such a spell. Spatial magic, along with temporal and void magic, was exceptionally hard to master, to the point where each of those elements had only one or two trained masters in the entire kingdom. Even classes that focused on them usually only gave a broad overview of how each of those elements functioned. Aster might have some idea of how to nullify the tracking or know who I could ask, but he still wasn’t talking to me, so all that left me was good old trial and error.

Reflecting on everything I had on me, I drew a list of possibilities for how I was being tracked. First, and most obviously, was my clothes, though this seemed unlikely. While I had little interest in fashion, as the daughter of a duke, I owned a lot of clothing, and though I couldn’t fully discount the possibility, it did seem unlikely that a tracking spell had been placed on every outfit I owned. That seemed more than a bit excessive.

The more likely suspects were the silver necklace bearing the mark of the church of Eros, which I’d received from Roman, and the engagement ring I’d received from the prince. If a tracking spell really did exist, it wouldn’t be too surprising to learn that both men had used the jewelry they’d given me to keep track of me. Should that knowledge have upset me more? Probably, but it also seemed like that would’ve really come in handy if I had ever been kidnapped.

Still, I couldn’t say for certain that these items were being tracked at all, so I needed to test my theory first. To do so, I placed my ring, necklace, and, to be safe, a full outfit in a bag and had Sally carry it away from the academy as fast as she could, then come back an hour later. I was hoping that upon her return, she would tell me that the prince had quickly tracked her down, confirming my suspicion that I was being tracked via my possessions. Alas, that would have been too easy.

Sally returned three hours later, and while I hoped this was a sign that she had been caught and questioned by the prince, she had merely gotten lost and had never even spotted the prince. While I briefly considered the possibility that she had just missed him, I was sure that he would have shown up in my room if he discovered my attendant running circles through the woods while holding my engagement ring. Even if he didn’t suspect I was trying to trick him, that would have still raised some rather serious questions.

Based on all that, I concluded that it was more likely that I was being tracked via some sort of barrier that surrounded the entire academy and alerted the faculty whenever a student left. This obviously made escape more difficult, as I had no idea how to bypass this barrier, but I didn’t give up hope. Instead, I decided to hide.