“Yes?” the margrave responded.

“Why aren’t you asking me anything?” Ariadne asked.

It was strange. He must have been curious as to why Ariadne had clung to the grandfather she had just met and followed him home. Considering that her clothes had been changed, he had probably seen her scars, or at least been made aware of them.

Plus, while the truth was that Ariadne had begged to go with the archmage, it must have looked like the archmage had kidnapped an innocent child. And not just any child, but the only heir to the Eldier Duchy at that. A clash with Duke Eldier was to be expected, and if things took a turn for the worse, war might even break out between their territories. There had to be things the margrave wanted to know to prepare adequately, so Ariadne had expected him to interrogate her as soon as she woke up. Not asking me anything, and telling me to stay as long as I want? This is so... suspicious.

The margrave looked back at her. He stared at the tiny hands gripping the blanket tightly and said very gently, “Child, you are worn out and need to rest. You don’t have to recall those painful memories already.”

Ariadne simply watched him.

“Tell me when you’re ready. I can wait as long as you need,” the margrave told her, then left the room.

But Ariadne couldn’t say a word. Her mental calculations had been ruined. This can’t be. Why is it so easy? In the novel, neither the archmage nor Margrave Weaver cared about me. The only thing that had changed so far was Ariadne begging the archmage to take her with him. She hadn’t done anything else. Can that small action change things so easily? Because we’re family? Just because we’re blood relations? They’re being so kind to me, when they’ve never even met me before, just because of that?

In her past life, she hadn’t had parents. Instead, she had been raised by her grandmother. But her grandmother hadn’t liked her very much and had even attempted to abandon her young self several times in markets or on crowded streets. Each time, she would cling desperately to the hem of her grandmother’s skirt so as not to be left behind. There were even times the police had taken her home, thanks to her having drilled the address of her grandmother’s home into her memory beforehand.

She would do chores around the house, believing she had to be helpful to not be abandoned, but her grandmother would tell her she was unsettling and off-putting for being so cunning and unchildlike. Because her grandmother would rage at her about how it was useless for girls to get an education, Ariadne had to beg, plead, and earn a full scholarship just to receive her grandmother’s reluctant permission for her to attend university.

Her grandmother collapsed not long after that. Ariadne had to tutor, work part-time jobs, and reduce her meal budget to pay her grandmother’s hospital bills. She took a year off from school and stayed by her grandmother’s bedside every moment she wasn’t working. But no matter how hard she tried, her grandmother never said a single kind word to her down to the day she passed away.

“I raised you, a girl who was thrown away by her own parents, and this is all you can do for me?”

“You need to repay me for feeding and clothing you, you ungrateful wretch.”

“No wonder your own parents abandoned you.”

“If I hadn’t taken you in, I would’ve been healthy, but just look what my suffering has done to me! Oh, poor me, poor me!”

That was all her grandmother had ever said until the day she died. She’d never once told Ariadne she loved her, not even as empty words. Barely anyone had attended her grandmother’s funeral, and not a single blood relative. The few visitors hadn’t even been related to her. The people who cried with Ariadne were those who didn’t share a single drop of blood with her.

Ariadne didn’t believe in blood ties. In her current life, even her biological father didn’t truly love her, despite all his talk. Familial love was just a fantasy. It was delusional to believe that family would love you unconditionally.

That was why Ariadne couldn’t understand the margrave’s behavior. If people could even treat their own child or grandchild that way, how could anyone feel anything for a niece they’d met for the first time?

He’s probably only nice to me because he feels sorry for me. Ariadne was a pitiful abused child. If the margrave was taking pity on her after seeing her scars, Ariadne could understand that. If it’s just compassion, that’s fine. If anything, I’m grateful. She was relieved that she was being pitied. That meant that she was safe for the time being.

But I can’t survive on pity alone. The duke won’t let me go so easily. Pity was a cheap emotion, quick to come and quick to go. When a person faced hardship, the first things to be abandoned were their conscience and compassion. Conscience was a heavy burden, and compassion was easy to surrender.

If the conflict with Eldier worsens, the margrave will probably give me up. The duke couldn’t finish the Elixir without Ariadne. Therefore, he wasn’t going to give her up so easily. “Ariadne Eldier” was a prodigy of elementalism in the novel, receiving titles such as “never before seen,” “greatest in history,” and “god-given talent.”

Though I died before I could ever even become an elementalist. Normally, people started using elementalism between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. It was theoretically impossible for children to use elementalism, and attempting it at any younger an age was practically an act of suicide. Ariadne had died when she was sixteen in the novel and so hadn’t had the opportunity, but the “Glamus” made from her remains had been proof of her innate talent. All the praise for Ariadne’s abilities had been directed toward that item—explaining how useful and rare and incredible this item belonging to the hero was, and emphasizing Axel’s own capability in using it.

Anyway, it means that my talent is real. She was the only one able to absorb the unfinished Elixir and use it to clear away the contamination. Other test subjects wouldn’t even be able to withstand the incomplete Elixir, let alone the contamination. He’ll probably look for someone to replace me as a test subject at first. And when he realizes that it’s impossible, he’ll try to get me back by any means possible.

A duke who would risk a territorial war just to recover his irreplaceable test subject, and a margrave who only pitied her. Since what the archmage felt was likely no more than cheap compassion as well, it would be a fight the duke would surely win. I have to seal the deal before their pity runs out. They wouldn’t get rid of Ariadne if she could prove to be useful. That was what she believed.

Don’t worry about anything anymore? “Uncle” will protect you from now on? Talk is cheap.

The duke had spoken to her kindly as well.

“You know I would never put you in danger. Dad loves you so much,” he’d said, caressing her cheek as he injected her with the contaminated water.

Don’t believe it. Never believe what they say. Ariadne forcefully shook off the memory of the warmth of the margrave’s hand on her shoulder. This is a novel where even the protagonist was betrayed at the drop of a hat. Even his ability to go back in time betrayed him in the end. I have to be coldhearted to survive in this world.

You couldn’t be hurt if you never had any expectations to begin with. Ariadne strengthened her resolve. She suddenly felt cold, even though she was covered by a blanket inside a warm room. She pulled the covers over her head, closed her eyes, and called out to Pi as if in escape.

The darkness soon became light, and she opened her eyes to familiar surroundings: a room made of glass, golden bookshelves, and a small child with white hair sitting in front of a shelf reading a book as big as she herself was.

“Aria!” The child looked at Ariadne with a wide smile, then set the book she was reading aside and ran to hug her. “Welcome!”

In the beginning, this child had only repeated Ariadne’s words and didn’t even know what a name was, but she still somehow knew how to read. It seemed that Pi had been able to learn to communicate what she wanted to say so quickly by reading the books in the library.

“To be kept apart, waiting, look forward to, missing..."

But as a side-effect of this learning method, or perhaps because she was an elemental of the library and not a person, Pi had a strange habit of just listing words rather than speaking properly.

"...greeting, joy, great to see, come to meet...”

And it worsened when she got excited. Pi poured out words in a stream of excitement.

Ariadne returned the child’s hug, the tension melting from her face. Inside this dream, there was no need to be on edge or suspicious. “You waited for a long time? You’re happy to see me again?”

“Yes!” Pi nodded vigorously and looked at Ariadne’s face closely, still clinging to her. “Pain? To be tired? Today, experiment?”

“No, I didn’t come because I was in pain today.”

Since she would arrive at the library every time she was in pain, Pi had thought that was one of those times. When Ariadne reassured her, Pi’s expression brightened. “Aria, not in pain. Relief, happy, at ease. Feel good.”

Ariadne smiled at that loving, innocent kindness. “Thanks.” Pi beamed in return. Ariadne stroked the child’s hair gently and then asked, “You have the things I gave you to keep safe, right?”

“Sparkle yellow, dark red, in storage. Safe. To need?” Pi asked.

“Yes, please bring them.”

Pi ran to one of the bookshelves and returned with the small glass bottles that had been hidden between the books. One bottle contained the incomplete Elixir, and the other the contaminated water, sealed with a magic circle. She’d smuggled these from the study room.

It had been by pure accident that Ariadne had discovered she could carry things over to the Phantom Library. Ariadne had begun seizing with pain from the aftereffects of the experiment during dinner one day when she called out for Pi and was transported into the Phantom Library, along with the spoon in her hand. Ariadne had then set the utensil down in a bookcase in the library and found that it had stayed behind upon returning to reality.

She’d run a few more experiments after that and concluded that the Phantom Library was more useful than she had initially expected. She could enter the Phantom Library of her own will, but it was easier when she called for Pi, as if Pi were responding to Ariadne calling her name. When Pi helped her this way, Ariadne could carry whatever she had in her hands over from the real world. And just as when she took them in, all she had to do was hold onto them when leaving to take them back to reality.

Seeing as Pi can do things like this, she probably is an elemental born from the Phantom Library.