[Countryhuman] In the rubble of love

[L'Indochine] L'Indochine is a troublequeen

Marena was conscious of her immature as well as unreasonable behaviour. But at this point, since she was strictly forbidden from communicating with the country's official, she was at a loss for options. All she could do was attempt to get out of there before France came back.

"The human girl has escaped!"

Marena realized that practically the whole number of men working around the estate had been called in to look for her when a French general yelled out. Everyone enthusiastically searched the area as it appeared they would be in serious trouble if they couldn't accomplish their task.

In fact, Marena was still hiding on the roof instead of going down to the ground and hiding in the plantation as they thought. The French commander hadn't even finished looking at the rope she had braided with blankets and pillowcases to put outside the door. In the chimney, she hid. She wasn't in the room, so he figured she had gotten out.

Marena had little faith in her ability to escape the relentless pursuers by descending the roof. Nonetheless, she was determined to go while she still could and took use of the fact that she had not yet been discovered. She intended to wait in the chimney till the pursuit died down since they believed she had gone elsewhere.

The searchers were able to effectively leave the region around the house after barely half an hour, proving the viability of the method. Marena lost a shoe while perched on the chimney, but that was all she had to pay for the time she had to wait. Marena, sensing that everything had settled down, crawled out of the chimney and, after she saw there was no longer an oil light nearby, butterflies began to fill her stomach.

In a moment of childhood unhappiness with her mother, Marena once sought to hide in her own home like this and successfully convinced her mother that she had left overnight. To get out of there, she would use the same strategy. She had earlier consumed the whole of the meal that the Annamite housekeeper had made in order to aid in this "long-term battle". She only had a short amount of time to stand on the roof looking for the best escape path before she was forced to retreat down the chimney once again as the servants rioted all around the house after discovering that France had returned. Nevertheless, she was still confident in her strategy. France's voice telling the staff to continue the search could be heard as he entered the residence. His secretary reported to him about the tense situation between Serbia and Austria-Hungary, which was seen as a threat for putting Germany to take on France....he spoke a lot about the bothersome aftereffects of that act of disobedience, which if he chose to ignore would lead others to believe he was still troubled by his inability to save Prussia...The French commander replied with more detail about the UK's attitude towards Germany as well as the possibility of forming an alliance with UK....

They discussed a lot, a lot of worthwhile things about Europe.

And their whole conversation was torture with Marena's heavy eyelids.

.

.

Though not intentionally or gently, Marena managed to recover awareness. She took a long breath of her heavy chest with oxygen as she opened her eyes, and as her heart was once again racing. The servants who had been searching for her earlier discovered her laying on the mansion's floor and surrounded her. They were all showing fear on their faces.

However, the face that drew her the most was also the one that was closest to her—the face of France. When he watched her recover consciousness, his jaw muscles relaxed into a relief-filled smile of delight. Chrysanthemum tea's faint perfume, coming from France and the teapot next to her, was all she could detect in her mouth.

She blinked and turned her head to look at the fireplace, which led to the chimney she recalled hiding in. She could only make out her flaming shoe and some burned-out logs.