"Wow… they're connected."
'By nothing more than a single door.'
Those were Eleanor's words and thoughts as she stared at the door that linked her assigned bedroom to Helga's bedroom.
The two rooms were joined by a door that could be opened from either side, though it could only be locked from Helga's. The room Eleanor had been given was clearly built with the purpose of housing Helga's attendant, so they could reach her without delay if needed.
In case of an emergency evacuation, Eleanor's room even had a hidden exit that Helga could use to escape.
The sight of this arrangement made Eleanor's lips curl faintly as a thought crossed her mind.
'This will make a lot of things much easier…'
Quickly controlling her expression, she turned her gaze to Helga, who had just finished inspecting the damage to her equipment and was now typing something into her computer.
"What happened to your previous attendant?" Eleanor asked. "A position like this usually doesn't stay empty for long, but…"
She trailed off as she looked around the room she had been assigned.
"This place hasn't been occupied for at least a month."
Helga looked up from her desk at the question, then cast a glance at the room behind the door where Eleanor stood before replying.
"She embezzled money meant for vital infrastructure and endangered the lives of Laurent's citizens, so she was imprisoned."
"Embezzlement?" Eleanor lifted her eyebrows, trying to piece it together.
"How does your personal attendant even come into contact with such money in the first place?"
That was something she could not understand, and to that, Helga turned toward her with a look that seemed to say, 'Must I really explain this?'
Even though Eleanor could tell she was reluctant, she pretended not to notice and stepped forward, saying, "I'd like to know the fate of my predecessor."
With a tired sigh, Helga finally gave in.
"I govern a small County within the Duchy as part of my training as Heir apparent. It's a coastal territory, and they were struck by a flood.
Under special circumstances, she was entrusted with transferring funds to the magistrate who manages things in my absence, and those funds were intended to construct additional flood walls."
The Grevania Empire lay in the southern half of the continent, and to the east, the Laurent Duchy held the largest coastal lands, making floods a matter of utmost concern.
"She embezzled the extra funds I had sent in case there was a need to reinforce or build additional flood walls, and as it turned out, the need did arise, but because the money was missing, the Magistrate couldn't commission the work.
Fortunately, the construction company had been a long-time partner of ours, and the project manager agreed to proceed with the work before receiving payment, which ultimately prevented a disaster.
When the Magistrate contacted me directly through the emergency line, I discovered that what he received was not the amount I had sent and that the records had been falsified.
For that, she was sentenced to 70 years in prison."
For embezzlement, 70 years seemed excessive, but considering the culprit was a vampire with a much longer than normal lifespan, it no longer felt unreasonable.
"70 years? I suppose that takes embezzlement off my list of plans."
Eleanor spoke as though she had genuinely been considering it, though Helga already knew she was only fishing for a reaction, so she chose not to respond.
That did not, however, stop Eleanor from pressing on with the conversation.
"How good are your signal jammers? They're always running, right? I want to switch on my phone, but it's loaded with trackers, and I'd rather not have the Crafiels instantly ping my location."
"Phone? Ah, right. Unauthorised signals can't go in or out of the estate, but you'll need to get another phone," Helga replied.
"Sure. I wonder which model I should get? I didn't exactly get a say in picking the one I have now."
Eleanor pulled the phone from her magic pouch as she spoke, frowning lightly at the plain, unfashionable design.
Helga momentarily glanced at it, and Eleanor, noticing, shifted her gaze from the device to Helga's face, then to the small rectangular phone on Helga's desk.
"What model is yours? Maybe I'll just get the same one so we'll match."
She stepped closer to the desk, leaned against the edge, and picked up Helga's phone from its pouch.
Helga instantly took it back, tossed it into a drawer, and said,
"Just some random one I told a butler to buy."
She then lightly pushed Eleanor off the desk before adding, "You smell like sweat. Go take a shower. Your room should already be stocked with toiletries."
At that, Eleanor's expression contorted, and she groaned. "Ugh. Now that you've mentioned it, I'm suddenly conscious of it."
She quickly stepped back, turned, and made her way toward the connecting door.
"I'm exhausted, both physically and mentally, which is only natural considering I almost died today. I'm going to bed, so goodnight."
"It's 2 p.m.," Helga pointed out.
"I know," Eleanor replied, turning as she repeated, "Goodnight."
With that, she stepped through the connecting door and closed it behind her, leaving Helga to quietly shake her head before returning to typing her rift exploration report.
◇ ◇ ◇
'I'll try to close the distance tomorrow. For now, I need a bath…'
Eleanor resisted the temptation to dive straight into the fluffy-looking bed in front of her and instead headed toward the bathroom, slipping out of her clothes as she moved.
"Ah, right. Amith, you there?"
…
No response came, and Eleanor immediately realised that Amith was asleep.
With less than 20% of her total existence currently available, Amith's ability to remain conscious at all was only thanks to the immense strength of her soul as a Higher Existence.
Still, she couldn't stay awake endlessly, and sometimes she simply timed out like this, anywhere from several hours to a few days.
'So Amith's offline. Looks like it's just me.'
Eleanor entered the bathroom, glancing around at everything that had been prepared.
As Helga mentioned, it had been stocked with all the necessary toiletries, and a quick detour into the adjacent dressing room showed that it too had been arranged with casual wear, nightclothes, and a selection of pant suits.
'Pant suits, huh? Oh, I know this brand.'
She placed the suit back in the closet and turned, catching her reflection in the full-length mirror behind her.
Her eyes lowered to her stomach, where she had been stabbed earlier in the day, now completely healed with no scar in sight.
"Not a single scar… at least from today's injuries."
Her gaze shifted further down to her legs, where faint marks of old wounds remained, long since healed, drawing a sigh from her lips.
She raised her eyes back to the mirror and stepped closer, studying her face carefully for any change she might have overlooked besides half her hair turning white.
"Nothing I can see…"
Gathering a handful of her hair in her fingers, she recalled what Amith had told her earlier.
"So the memories of my life as 'Eleanor Keishara' were improperly cleansed, and the shock of near-death broke through that flawed cleansing, forcing them to come flooding back."
She had lived 18 years as 'Eleanor Crafiel,' but in her past life, she had been even younger.
Her experiences had been just as limited, much of her time spent confined to a hospital bed, and in this second life, virtually everything had been dictated by her father, Razel.
Because of that, her first and foremost goal in this life was to indulge herself.
"But to do that, I need to be strong… strong enough to get rid of Zoarlyn, at the very least."
Zoarlyn Crafiel, the Grand Duchess responsible for today's attempt on her life.
While not on the same level as Isla or Razel, Zoarlyn was powerful in her own right. On top of that, she was the daughter of a Grevania Empire Marquis, giving her both magical power and political influence in full.
"Haah… stop filling your head with depressing thoughts, Eleanor. You'll deal with Zoarlyn eventually. Focus on yourself first.
Being reborn with a pretty face…"
Her eyes lowered as she added softly.
"...and a nice body."
She turned, admiring her reflection in the mirror, and muttered,
"I never really gave it much thought before, but now that I remember my past self with a thinner, weaker frame, I've got to say this body of mine really is a work of art."
Eleanor let her hands trail slowly from her waist upward, her fingers gliding over her stomach and up to her face, where they lingered against her cheek, before drifting back down until they reached her chest.
"Nnn…!"
This time, however, her fingers happened to brush against a certain spot that drew out an odd sound from her lips. Her eyes widened at the sensation, and a moment later, she recalled,
"Right, I'm more sensitive."
Taking a deep breath, she pulled her hands away from her body and shook her head.
"I'd rather not raise that meter myself. Let's just go to bed."
With that, she hurried out of the dressing room and into the bathroom, taking a quick shower before diving into her bed, so she wouldn't get any weird ideas.