The West Tower

After the dinner, Ayana told Irene that she was going up first since she needed to continue tidying up her new addition of belongings that just arrived this afternoon.

Irene looked at Ayana for a moment. There were some hints of worry about the girl in her eyes. She tried to find something like curiosity or even challenge in the girl's eyes, but she found none. In the end, she gave up. There was nothing she could do since Ayana had said she would listen to her and avoid the places she told her.

After Ayana stepped out of the dining hall, Irene gestured her hand to Nico who was standing near the door to approach her.

Nico approached Irene and bowed his head when he was close enough. 

"Call the head security and tell one of the maids to take a document in my room. It was on the table," Irene ordered. 

Nico nodded his head and got back to the place where he stood before. 

In around ten minutes, a maid appears with a stack of documents in her hands. She bowed down to Irene and then put the documents in front of her. 

A minute later, a man wearing the uniform of the district 2 army appeared. He took a look at Irene and then calmly stood beside Nico. 

"Are you the head security of this castle?" Irene asked without raising her head from the document. 

"Jason Walsh, the former army of district 2, Madam," a man with a good build approached Irene before greeting the woman respectfully.

"Have you seen your general's wife?" Irene asked. 

"I do, madam," the man answered briefly. 

"Keep your eyes on the girl. It seems like she was interested in the maze. Put some guards to patrol around that place for a week." Irene said as she sipped her tea then scrutinized the man for a minute.

She used to take care of all the workers in the castle, but now, she only took care of the maids while most of the guards were employed by Luca. She was not happy with this. She felt like the castle was out of her control. 

"Yes, Madam."

"You can go now," Irene waved her hand as she looked down at the document again. 

The guard bowed down and then left the room.

Irene said as she read the document again. It was the data of several soldiers from District 2. She got the data from Luca before the man was gone for his mission. 

After a while, a smile bloomed on her lips. She had found a suitable guard for Ayana.

***

Ayana observed the castle from her window casually. She was thinking of leaving her room through the window because she saw several guards patrolling around the tower. She had predicted that Irene must have told the guard to tighten the guard around the main building. She was sure now that the guard would also keep tabs on the camera on the lift in the tower. The worst part is there are no stairs to the fourth floor of the tower. 

Yes, Ayana also could not believe it when she heard from Irene earlier. Irene explained that after they finished the lift and were ready to fix the stairs, Quinzel Winter, Luca's younger sister, moved into the room for some time. She hated the noise that came from the stairs and told the workers to continue their work after she got back. 

After some time, everyone just forgets about it and thinks that they would leave it like that since no one really wants to use the stairs when they go to the fourth floor. 

Ayana was speechless when she heard Irene's explanation. She was a bit annoyed because she was the one living on the fourth floor, but there was nothing she would do about this. 

Irene seemed to notice what troubled Ayana and told her that she would quickly tell someone to finish the stairs. 

She had checked the door that led to the stairs, but it was locked so she really had to use the lift if she needed to go up or down. 

Ayana lowered her body to hide when she saw that the guards who were patrol down there looked up. Yeah, she was right. Irene clearly told them to keep their eyes on her. 

After feeling like the people down there were gone, Ayana looked out from the window again. 

Although the castle was modified to ease the people living inside, there was almost no change outside. Maybe it was for the beauty and the authenticity of the castle, but the rough surface would definitely make Ayana's plan to sneak out from the window easier. 

The big windows without trellis made Ayana able to get out of her room with no trouble.

Actually, when she walked around with Irene today, Ayana also observed the position of the security camera around the castle. Although this castle used several new technologies, the security system was quite ordinary.

The camera outside the castle was installed only on some risky points, while inside of the castle, the camera was evenly distributed, but Ayana realized that some cameras were not working anymore.

Ayana also frowned when she noticed that the security camera was the same one as the one installed in her father's old house in District 3 around 10 years ago.

She had a hunch about the reason this big castle thinks that they don't need to upgrade or fix their security cameras. The main reason Ayana could think of was they believe no one can break in and rob something valuable. It was understandable since this is the place where the captain of the strongest soldier stays. 'But aren't they underestimating their enemies too much? Accidents happened because of this arrogant attitude;' Ayana shook her head.

'Or does it because the general was actually poor?' The thought passes Ayana's mind but gone the moment she remembered how everything around her was extravagant.

'Let's focus on getting out of this room.'

Now that she was sure that no one was around she quickly got out of the window and climbed down to the third floor. 

Ayana patted her hand when she successfully got inside the tower again. From here, everything would be easier. The not-so-good part would be when she had to climb back to her room. 

Ayana frowned a little but decided to think about that later. 

Ayana looked around as her eyes observed everything. Remembering every detail about this place. 

Ayana walked in a relaxed manner while smoothly evading the security camera. Since she left her room, she had avoided several security cameras in the castle. This security camera was so outdated that Ayana did not need to put extra effort to hide.

She avoided several security guards as she was walking closer to the west tower. Irene must have thought that she really wanted to see the maze since the security around several places in the castle was quite loose. The lack of security enables Ayana to walk casually. Ayana arrived at the connecting corridor. One of the places Irene forbade her to step into. Irene forbade Ayana several times to not take a step closer to the west tower, but Ayana couldn't fight the growing curiosity when her eyes looked at the tower.

The big tower looked even more intimidating and scary in the dim light. 

Ayana remembered Irene's words that Luca was the one living inside the west tower and what make this interesting was the fact that this west tower is the only place that has never been touched by things called renovation. 

Irene did not know that those statements were actually making Ayana's wild mind think that Luca was hiding something inside. 

Ayana looked at the tower with curiosity in her eyes. She really wanted to know what was inside the tower. Irene's strict warning sounded like a sweet challenge in her ear. She will just take a look for a second before leaving and mind her own business. Ayana looked forward to finding something interesting inside.

Ayana touched the doorknob after covering her hand with her sweater's sleeve to open the door. Yes, she was being extra careful. She would not act carelessly because the security was lax here. 

'Of course, it is locked. This is where the general of the military district 2 resides, there must be important documents in his room,' Ayana thought inwardly when she could not open the door.

Ayana was anxious as she looked at the lock. Instead of using the up-to-date door lock system, this door still uses the key to open the old door.

'He did not even change the old lock!'

"Is this a trap? Irene may have said that just to test me," Ayana murmured as she observed the lock for a minute before deciding to use the window.

Ayana walked around the tower and realized that this tower only has windows on the third and fourth floors.

'This might really be a prison to lock someone inside.'

Ayana went back to the door and decided to open it using her hairpin. She was not that great with this trick. What she meant by not that great as she was the worst at doing this among all her friends in Zone B. For her it's easier to break the door rather than open it without the key since she was so slow, and her work was a bit rough.

Ayana took the pin from her hair, 'I have to do this.' 

Ayana felt like sweat was starting to form on her forehead. Two minutes just passed but she felt like the time was moving so slowly. She paused every time she heard something. 

'For fuck's sake, why did this door so hard to open,' Ayana started to curse inwardly as her hand kept moving. Another minute passed and Ayana started to get irritated. Maybe because she was a bit annoyed, she became careless and accidentally touched the doorknob with her bare hand. A strange thing happened then. The door was open with a click.

Ayana was startled as she quickly took a step back and looked at the door. She did not hear anything that indicated that she opened the door successfully. 

'Did someone open it from inside?' the thought passed Ayana's mind. Although she then realized that she did not feel anyone's presence around. 

`Then did I get lucky?' As Ayana was still dumbfounded by what happened, the sound of something or someone moving closer was heard. Ayana didn't waste any time as she moved inside the tower and closed the door quietly.

She pressed her ear to the door as the voice of people talking was getting closer and stopped right outside the door.

"Are you sure you saw someone standing here?" A man's voice was heard.

"I am positive. The person was standing right in this spot."

"But, where is that person now?"

"Maybe the person ran inside this tower." The man said.

Ayana kept her composure as she listened quietly.

"That is kind of impossible. The door is always locked even when the general is around," The other man started to sound irritated.

Click…Click…

Ayana held her breath.

The doorknob moved as one of the men outside tried to open the door.

"See? I told you the door is always locked,"

"Let's look around," the man who might be looking at Ayana sounds unsure.

"We better not waste our time here and patrol around the red maze," the voice insisted. 

"Okay then."

After that, the voice moved away until Ayana could not hear anything anymore. 

Ayana sighed in relief as she sat for a while as tried to remember what happened before.

She stood and observed the door. She was sure that it was open before but was confused since the men could not open them earlier. 

She was sure that the man outside tried to open the door, but it was locked.

Ayana tried to open the door and realized that the door was locked.

Ayana frowned. She tried to open the door one more time, but the door didn't budge at all. She was sure she used this door to come inside the tower.

She was locked inside now, but she was not that panicked since this was her intention.

Ayana looked around, observing the tower structure. Unlike the three other towers in this castle, the design of this tower is totally different. 

The tower she lives in now has a door on each floor that can connect to the main building and the tower, but this tower only had a door and was not accessible to everyone.

Ayana looked around as her eyes caught something. There are some small windows for air circulation even though she cannot even find a small hole from the outside before.