Previously…

Minjoo never thought that the day she got to meet with her cousin would end in such an unexpected way when she woke up and found herself in the middle of a sewer. She is lucky to meet a reliable, cheeky savior named Chaewon…

***

The girl stumbles back upon arriving at her home. She clenched her teeth as grumbles escaped her own empty stomach. She carved a smirk, criticizing her own decisions to appear cool in front of a certain cute, crybaby princess named Minjoo.

"Tch, so much to pay for a single warm meal, huh?"

Chaewon chuckles as she tries suppressing her hunger. To be honest, she didn't even think that she'd meet a crying girl in the middle of her food hunt. It's been days for Chaewon since she had a decent meal. By the meaning of a decent meal, she meant hard rock bread and some plain water which was hard to come by for a slum dweller like her.

Earlier, she planned catching some monsters and sold it to the butcher in exchange for some coins but her plan was disrupted upon stumbling into crying Minjoo. Chaewon recognizes the girl immediately as the princess because she once sees those mesmerizing platinum blonde hair in a parade not too long ago.

"Not good, maybe I need to go and hunt for some food."

The girl with red hair fixed her hat before dusting off her single coat. She aims to at least get something to fill her stomach before the end of the day or it will be difficult for her to survive the upcoming day.

"Alright, time to find a good prey."

The girl cracked her knuckles before dashing off towards the bustling town, trying her best to pick up some shiny, good coins from the careless crowds.

***

-A few hours earlier-

"Minjoo! Are you hurt anywhere?"

"How did you get back here?"

"Are you doing okay?"

Minjoo couldn't help but feel guilty upon seeing the panicked reaction from her parents as well as her uncle's family. Not only that, she can see her nanny eyes were puffed, indicating that she might spend some good time crying while Minjoo is missing from her room.

"I'm sorry-"

"No need to be sorry, sweetheart."

The princess is caught off guard when she is pulled into a tight embrace by her parents. She can feel her eyes getting teary for the nth time for the day but she couldn't suppress her feelings.

"It's so scary!!! The sewer is scary!"

While the others are coaxing trembling Minjoo, another pair of eyes are looking from afar, seething with anger.

“Kkura unnie, you’re scawy!”

The girl with brownish hair snapped out of her emotion as Yujin was clenching onto her collar tightly. She offered the girl a comforting smile while patting the young knight’s head, offering an apology for scaring her.

“Ding, you need to sleep with Wonnie and Eunbi unnie tonight. Unnie has some urgent tasks.”

Yujin stares innocently at Sakura, analyzing the young heiress' words before nodding her head.

“Eung, Ding will sleep with Wonnie! Sing lullaby to her so she won’t cry!”

“Great, I’ll be counting on you to take care of Wonyoung okay?”

A vigorous nod by Yujin makes Sakura smile as she carries the young girl to a room designated for Wonyoung. She put Yujin down, letting the energetic girl approach sleepy Wonyoung while snuggling against the young princess. Sakura turned away from the room, wearing a serious expression on her face as she headed towards Minjoo room with her heart burning furiously.

***

Minjoo lifted her head from the bed as she heard a soft knock on her door. She rubbed her eyes while granting permission for the person knocking to enter her room. To her surprise, she sees Sakura entering while wearing a grave expression, an act that her cousin will do whenever something is upsetting the capable heiress. She instantly ran towards her dear cousin while cupping Sakura’s face worriedly.

“Unnie, what’s wrong? Are you sick somewhere?”

Sigh escapes from Sakura’s mouth as she caresses Minjoo’s cheek before pulling the girl into her embrace. Minjoo couldn’t help but cry in Sakura’s hugs as she is actually terrified at the thought of never being able to meet with Sakura again.

“I-I call your name to help me but you aren’t there. It’s so dark and smelly and I-I’m so scared, unnie!”

“I’m sorry, Minjoo. I’ll do better from now on so that you won’t face these things again.”

“It’s okay, unnie. It’s not your fault that I ended up at the sewer.”

The princess wipes her tears away as she takes a step back from Sakura. She just felt that it’s unfair to whine at her cousin who is already bearing an immeasurable amount of pressure and expectation from a lot of people.

“Regarding that, I need to ask you something. Did you remember the last thing you did before it ended there?”

Sakura kneeled beside Minjoo, trying to extract any smallest detail from her cousin. She knows that this abduction isn’t a small matter if something befall upon Minjoo in the midst of Wiz Empire delegation stays there. This might be a complot to cause some kind of disturbance to incite war between these two nations. Sakura knew how much pain that a war will bring to people around her as well as the citizens. The last war from six years ago is still fresh in her mind. She didn’t want to see that certain dear person cried and locked herself away again. She can’t afford that and thus, here she is, inquiring any details from Minjoo in o