The First Blood (Part 1)
Steadying his nerves, Smith cautiously peeked out with one eye, using the potted plant as cover to survey the surroundings.
From his vantage point, Smith noticed that the previously drowsy guard now seemed fully alert. Fortunately, the guard hadn't noticed Smith's single exposed eye peering from the shadows. However, this only served as a reminder that Smith needed to be even more careful with his next move.
Just as he had done with his bedroom door earlier, Smith gripped the small dining room's door handle with both hands, gently twisting it open. He slipped inside with utmost care and softly closed the door behind him. Throughout the entire process, Smith didn't dare breathe too loudly, fearing even the slightest noise might ruin his plans.
When the door was finally shut without a sound, Smith collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air. Although the Berlin weather had cooled, not yet requiring a fire, the crisp air and chilly floor contrasted sharply with the sweat soaking his forehead and clothes. That short journey felt as though it had drained all his energy.
"Phew… phew…" Smith exhaled softly, trying to catch his breath as he pushed himself off the cold floor. It was time to press on.
The small dining room was a quintessential product of its era. It wasn't very spacious—roughly three to four meters wide and four to five meters long. The narrower ends featured a main door on one side and a window on the other. On the longer wall to the right of the door, there was a set of double doors in the middle.
These doors connected the dining room to the service area, which was Smith's next destination.
Reaching those doors was no challenge for Smith. He was intimately familiar with this dining room, to the point where even in total darkness, he could easily navigate his way. Without much effort, he reached the doors and opened them.
The real challenge, however, lay ahead.
As a member of the Hohenzollern family, Smith had never set foot in the service area. This wasn't just because he was too young but also due to the rigid class distinctions of the time. Nobles like him were considered unfit to enter places such as the service quarters. Smith was confident that not only had he never been here, but even his stepmother, since her marriage, had likely never ventured in. His stepfather didn't seem the type to have been here either.
This unfamiliarity made the next steps much harder.
True, Smith had studied the layout of the Crown Prince's Palace from the blueprints left by "Smiling Willi." Without that knowledge, he wouldn't have known about the elevator hidden in this room. But there was a vast difference between studying blueprints and knowing the actual room. The blueprints didn't detail the furniture placement—where tables or chairs might be. Smith had no way of knowing such details. He also had no idea what the elevator looked like or how it operated.
To make matters worse, it was pitch black in the dead of night. The unlit service area only added to the difficulty of his mission.
Unsurprisingly, Smith had barely taken a few steps into the room when he bumped squarely into something. Though the impact wasn't hard, it hurt enough to make him nearly cry out in pain.
After a moment of recovery, he used the faint light seeping through the velvet curtains to see what had blocked his path.
It was a serving cart!
Smith had seen such carts many times before. This one was made entirely of polished brass, its metallic surface gleaming enough to reflect an image. The cart had four tiers and could hold enough dishes to serve all the diners in the small dining room in one go.
For Smith, the cart was the perfect makeshift scaffold. Carefully, he climbed onto the tiers, hoping to get a better view from a higher vantage point.
From his elevated position, Smith wasn't surprised to discover a small door in the wall where the cart was parked.
"That must be the elevator door!"
Smith's heart began pounding with excitement. The instant he found the door, an uncontrollable surge of joy and exhilaration coursed through him. It was a primal reaction, one even a time traveler like Smith couldn't escape.
"Stay calm… stay calm… there's still so much to do," Smith reminded himself.
Despite his logical reasoning, the adrenaline coursing through his veins made his hands tremble. Struggling to control his shaking fingers, he managed to open the small door. Instinctively, he began to step into the dark void beyond.
At that moment, a sudden rush of cold air surged up, stopping Smith in his tracks.
The chill brought him back to his senses. Alarmed, Smith cautiously probed the space ahead with his foot, searching for solid ground.
Unsurprisingly, he found nothing. The pitch-black void was a deep, bottomless shaft.
"Good heavens!"
Smith gasped and quickly retracted his foot. There was no doubt that the icy draft had just saved his life.
"It seems the elevator is downstairs…"
Panting heavily, Smith wiped the sweat from his forehead and collar. Finally, he understood the situation. Groping around the edges of the small door, he eventually found several ropes.
These ropes, he deduced, must be the mechanism for operating the elevator.
After his near-miss, Smith's mind was fully alert. It didn't take him long to locate the rope that controlled the elevator's ascent.
The real challenge, however, was pulling the elevator up.
Clearly, this elevator wasn't designed for a two-year-old child. Each pull felt like it required every ounce of strength in Smith's small body, yet the elevator remained stubbornly out of sight. Smith began to doubt whether it would ever appear.
What felt like an eternity later—just as he was about to collapse from exhaustion—Smith finally glimpsed a faint outline emerging from the darkness of the shaft. Disbelieving, he reached out and was relieved to feel something solid.
"At last…" Smith sighed, collapsing onto the top tier of the cart. For the first time in his young life, he let out a silent cry of frustration:
"This world is just too unfriendly to children!"
After a brief rest, Smith prepared to continue his "agent mission." Learning from his earlier mistakes, he was much more cautious this time. Only after confirming that the lift had come to a complete and stable stop at this floor did he shift his weight onto it and climb inside.
"Now… downwards…"
Smith fumbled around until he found the rope to control the lift's descent and began operating it again—this time from within the lift itself.
Descending was far easier than ascending, thanks to the help of his own body weight. However, this convenience came with a price: the effort required to climb back up later would be significantly greater. But Smith couldn't afford to worry about that right now.
The lift was far from a pleasant place to be. It was cramped, suffocating, and pitch dark. Anyone prone to claustrophobia would likely succumb to panic in such a space. Fortunately, Smith wasn't one to be shaken by such conditions. After enduring the discomfort, he finally sensed that he had reached the bottom. He reached out and slid open the panel in front of him, revealing—just as he had anticipated—the lift's sliding door into the kitchen.
Cautiously, Smith peeked out, his eyes scanning the area.
The kitchen was unfamiliar territory for Smith. Common sense told him it was filled with sharp and bladed objects that could be dangerous, while the seemingly harmless pots and pans could easily clatter and betray his presence, dooming his "agent mission" to failure.
Smith couldn't afford to be anything but careful.
Thankfully, the kitchen had much better lighting than the small dining room and service area upstairs. This was due to the light, translucent curtains on the windows, unlike the heavy, opaque velvet upstairs. The thin fabric allowed more of the night's faint light to seep in. For someone emerging from near-total darkness, even this faint glow was enough for Smith to see his surroundings clearly.
This was, without exaggeration, the tidiest kitchen Smith had ever seen. Everything—utensils, cookware, and ingredients—was meticulously organized. The floors were spotless, and the air was fragrant with the scent of fresh ingredients, free from any unpleasant oily odors. The Prussian obsession with precision and order was on full display here, and it worked to Smith's advantage, allowing him to navigate without fear of unexpected obstacles.
…Of course, if those meticulous Prussian chefs had been kind enough to leave a small cart by the lift door, it would have been even better.
"At least a meter high," Smith muttered, estimating the distance from the lift floor to the ground below.
For an adult, such a height would be no issue. A simple step down or small leap would suffice, and even jumping down wouldn't pose any real danger. But Smith's current body was far too small. His balance and physical resilience were inadequate, and a careless jump could easily result in injury.
So, Smith awkwardly turned around in the confined lift, extending his lower body outward before slowly shifting his weight. His intention was to reduce the distance between his feet and the ground. However, he hadn't anticipated how much upper body and core strength this maneuver would require. As soon as he got his lower body out, he lost control and tumbled down, landing flat on his back on the cold, hard floor.
The fall left Smith in pain, nearly knocking the wind out of him. He gritted his teeth to suppress any sound. Fortunately, despite the pain, he hadn't broken any bones. Testing his limbs, he was relieved to find his mobility intact.
"Seems like my body's pretty sturdy after all," Smith thought, stretching his arms and legs.
From the start of his mission until now, Smith's luck had been remarkably good. Now, only a short distance remained between him and his goal.
Yet the issue of lighting remained a problem. Navigating in pitch darkness to dismantle a machine he'd never seen up close was an impossible task.
Smith's mind raced. The pain in his body sharpened his focus, driving away the drowsiness brought on by physical exhaustion.
"Wait a second… kitchen… lighting… huh?!" A flash of inspiration struck him.
"Haha, I really came to the right place!"
Indeed, how could a 19th-century palace kitchen lack candles and matches?
The only question was, where were they stored?
In this unfamiliar space, answering that question wasn't easy. Smith didn't have the time or energy for a thorough search. The kitchen was over 100 square meters, with hundreds of cabinets and drawers, many beyond his reach.
This was a time for brainpower.
Using the faint light, Smith scanned the expansive kitchen. Suddenly, he spotted a few empty candlesticks on a countertop.
Smith knew he was close. He hurried to the counter and opened the cabinet beneath it.
There they were—candles, as white as ivory. On the inside of the cabinet door, small boxes were neatly arranged. What else could they be but matches?
Looking at his discovery, a thought flashed through Smith's mind:
"If I hadn't gone into high-energy nuclear physics and had become a spy instead, would I have been just as good at it?"