CH 5

Ariadne wiped the corners of her eyes, which were blurred with tears.

‘I have to run away from the Duke first.’

It was unreasonable to run away on her own. She was only 7 years old. She was too young and helpless to escape the Duke’s clutches alone. Ariadne turned her eyes to the books spread here and there.

‘I wonder if there’s a clue in this.’

‘Ariadne Eldeer’ in the original work was a character who died before the start of her novel, but ‘Glamus’, an item created using her, continued to appear in her novel. Because it was an important tool that allowed the main character to use spiritism. Thanks to this, descriptions related to Ariadne Eldeer often appeared, even if it was at the level of a brief mention.

‘I need a protector. Someone who will protect me until I grow up.’

After searching for a while, she found useful information.

‘The Archmage, Solan Garcia.’

A man who was not influenced by the power of the Duke of Eldeer, and who, if you look at blood, was her maternal grandfather.

‘Only once in the original work, the Archmage met me.’

He belatedly hears of Gloria’s death and comes to Eldeer. And he saw his granddaughter’s face for the first time. A granddaughter who bears no resemblance to his deceased daughter. As soon as the archmage saw Ariadne, he was displeased, and went back and never sought her again.

‘I must seize this opportunity.’

Even if he was her maternal grandfather, who didn’t even consider her his granddaughter and hated her appearance, he was at least better than Duke Franz Eldeer.

‘Besides, I have many things to trade with the Archmage.’

There was a lot of useful information, but the most useful was the Elixir. If you are a great wizard, no, if you are a person in this world, it was something that couldn’t help but be interesting. This world was in the process of being slowly destroyed due to pollution from the Demon Realm. In this situation, Elixir, a potion that heals pollution, was irreplaceably important.

When the development of the elixir was over, the Duke of Eldeer became an out of control tycoon. However, without Arya, a special experiment, the Duke couldn’t complete the elixir. 

‘The recipe is all in the novel, so if I have the ingredients, I can make the elixir. The Duke can’t make it without me.’

The ingredients for the elixir were things that a great wizard could get enough of.

‘I can make a deal with the archmage as a condition of making an elixir.’

To do so, she had to set up a place to have a conversation with the archmage first. That would be difficult, but convincing the archmage would be even more difficult. Whatever she said would sound like childish nonsense.

‘There’s no way the Archmage can save me right away anyway. For now, let’s aim to attract attention somehow.’

It was close to gambling. Yes, she saw a way to live. First, she would draw attention by revealing that she didn’t like the Duke… When the two of them were alone, she would contaminate herself and use an elixir stolen from the study room. She would show the healing process and…

Ariadna began to devise a detailed plan while reading the novel. She was so preoccupied with it that she didn’t even notice that someone else had appeared in the study.

“Ah!”

Until there was the sound of a thick book falling and rolling, and a small scream. Startled, Ariadne lifted her head and met her golden eyes.

“Ah”

It was a child, probably five or six years old at most. Her downy white hair and skin as white as her hair. She wrapped up a loose piece of cloth and dressed like she was walking in public. The child was holding books in his arms and placing them on the bookshelf with his other hand. Then she seemed to have accidentally dropped a book.

Ariadne picked and piled them up at random to make her own stairs. As she put it down, she realized that most of her books were missing.

“Hehe.”

She was far away and as she watched, she said the child had hiccups. Dozens of question marks filled her mouth.

‘Wasn’t this the study in my previous life? Was it my dream? How could there be anyone else? What was that girl? But could she be arranging the books she brought out?

“Who are you? How did you get in here?”

She asked sharply, and she said the child turned white and she cried while holding the book.

“Hey ying…”

Her tears were welling up, and she was terrified and trembling like a little rabbit. Ariadna waved her hand in embarrassment.

“Hey, I’m not angry. Don’t cry, I just want to know who you are.”

She said as softly as possible. The child sniffed and looked at her. She smiled deliberately.

“I am Ariadna. What is your name?”

The child tilted her head with her teary eyes and followed her pronunciation.

“I want to know, I just want to. Ariadna. The ‘M’”

“Huh?”

“Name. Name?”

As she was about to reply, her vision went black as if she had turned off the lights.

In a moment her eyes flashed open. Ariadne was lying on the bed in the corner of the study room. The Duchess used to put her on this bed if she passed out during her special class.

“Ugh!”

As soon as she came to her senses, pain and heat covered her whole body. It was an aftereffect of the experiment. She never got used to the pain she went through every time.

“Huh…”

She groaned, mingled with her sobs, and clutched at her covers.

‘I wasn’t sick in my dream.’

A dream of a library with a golden bookshelf. It was a dream, but at the same time it was a reality. The fact that she still remembered her previous life was the most convincing proof.

‘It hurts. I’m in pain…’

She unconsciously looked to her side. There was no one around. Franz Eldeer had never stood by or nursed his daughter. Ariadne would always wake up alone in her pain.

“Ugh, ah, mom, mom…”

It hurted so much that she cried spontaneously. Unbeknownst to her, she found her mother. Even knowing that her mother was no more. The morning glory that withered and fell beyond the closed window. The vines crawled towards her but there was no sign of her mother trying to save her somehow. She would never see her again. She realized too late and already lost her.

“Mom, Mom, Mom…”

Ariadne wept silently, burying her feverish brow in the pillow damp with her tears and sweat.

* * *

A few months after realizing everything, the Archmage visited Eldeer. Ariadne waited outside the drawing room, lavishly dressed. Soon the Duke would call her in front of the Archmage.

‘All you have to do is follow the plan. It’s not difficult.’

She had several plans. Any of them were easier than the special classes. She remembered the fear that climbed her toes like ants whenever she stood in front of the huge iron door of the study room.

Ironically, that fear became her strength. Nothing was better than that. It was harder for her to bear after realizing the truth than when she knew nothing and trusted her dad.

‘I would be done if it wasn’t for the fantasy library’

At least she figured out how to escape to the library of dreams, so she somehow got by. In the study of her previous life, she was not sick. Whenever the pain of the experiments became unbearable, she closed her eyes and hid in them. Even if her body couldn’t help it, her consciousness could run away in front of the golden bookshelf at any time.

She decided to call it the Illusion Library with ‘Pi’. Pi was the name of a white-haired child she encountered. Like her fantasy library, the name was chosen by her and the child. The child existed in her study, not knowing who he was or what his name was. At first she couldn’t speak. Although the speed of learning was inhumanely fast, it was possible to communicate to some extent immediately. She didn’t know his true identity, but she was sure he wasn’t human.

‘Because he doesn’t eat anything and just stays inside. I don’t think I even need to sleep.’

Ariadne was guessing that the child was something like a spirit from her fantasy library. She’s just born, so she’s a spirit horse that didn’t even know what she was. In terms of the world view of this novel, that was the most appropriate explanation.

After she had a rough guess of his or her identity, she asked to decide on a name, and she did. Humanoid emotion dwelling in a specific place It was common for the name of a spirit to be derived from the name or nickname of the place. So she said all kinds of library-related names, but the child just shook her head.

<You don’t like the name Jung Ryeong-sik? Then which name do you like?>

<Ariadne. Same name.>

She liked a name like a person, but hers… After that, she recited several names and words one by one. The child, who looked like he didn’t like anyone in particular, pointed to the illustration of a children’s book he was looking at just in time.

<This. Name?>

<It’s a picture of a rabbit baking a pie.>

<Pie. Pie.>

The child nodded his head loudly to see if she liked the pronunciation. That’s how his name became Pi.

Remembering the absurdity at that time, Ariadne smiled softly. There was nothing for her to laugh about these days except her time with Pi.

“Princess.”

The servant from the parlor called her curtly.

“The Duke is calling. You are in front of guests, so be careful how you behave.”

It seemed the time had come. Ariadne took a deep breath and took her steps.

‘Let’s go. It’s just the beginning.’

The door opened, and she saw an old man in a dark blue robe sitting across from the Duke. She grabbed the hem of her skirt and said hello to her grandfather. The Archmage gestured at her to let her go, and the Duke grabbed her.

Ariadne shook him off and knelt before the Archmage.

“Take me with you, Grandpa!”

From that moment on, the development that had flowed toward the preordained destruction began to change.