A door made of walnut wood, its design exuding an antique charm, imdiately caught the eye. At a glance, it was evident that this door was anything but ordinary.
As I lightly touched it, I could feel layers upon layers of security and defensive magic imbued into it.
Not just the door, but even the surrounding walls were thoroughly reinforced with magic, almost to an excessive degree.
Still as cautious as ever, this one.
While I mused over this, the man beside knocked on the door a few tis. From within ca a clatter of noise.
No doubt they hadn’t prepared and were now scrambling to tidy up.
“The master is waiting for you,” he said, stepping aside. I walked past him and knocked twice on the door.
The hinges creaked as the door opened with ease.
“…Long ti no see, Cain” ca a voice.
In the dusty room’s center stood a leather sofa and a marble table, surrounded by furniture weathered by what seed to be centuries of use.
Perched on the sofa was a girl, holding a small wooden cube, nodding in my direction.
Her platinum-blonde hair shimred under the light, and her blue eyes resembled the depths of the ocean. The only unusual feature was her pointed ears, not sothing you’d expect to see on a human.
They were the hallmark of a race often referred to as elves in fantasy worlds.
“I didn’t expect you to disappear for years without showing your face. I was a bit hurt,” she said with a smirk.
“Spare the false sentints, Louie.”
Louie, a being who had lived for over a millennium and one of the rare elves of this world, had once appeared in the original story as a villain assisting the emperor.
Although “villain” might be a stretch—she was more of a neutral party, driven solely by the need to survive, which had led her to side with the emperor.
In fact, in the original story, she had even accepted Adele’s deal.
“You’re as cold as ever. But that’s what I like about you,” Louie said with a chuckle, tossing the wooden cube onto the table.
Leaning back on the sofa, she grabbed a long smoking pipe and lit it with a fla spell.
The pungent scent of tobacco filled the air as blue smoke curled upward. I frowned at the intense sll, but she paid no mind, continuing to puff away.
Well, I supposed a being who had lived for over a thousand years wouldn’t bother worrying about other people’s reactions.
“You hate small talk, so let’s get straight to the point,” she began.
“Fine.”
“You’re looking for the Archmage’s Legacy, right?”
The Archmage.
A monster who had singlehandedly decimated half the imperial army and stood as an equal to the emperor.
A transcendent being who surpassed the limits of humanity through the pinnacle of magic. Once the king of a kingdom that had been obliterated by the Arie Empire.
In the original story, both Abel and Adele were able to seal the emperor thanks to the Archmage’s Legacy.
The problem was that the exact location of the Legacy was never ntioned in the original.
“I can’t count how many years I’ve wasted searching for that thing. Even my kin didn’t know much, which made it even harder,” Louie muttered, clicking her tongue and slamming her pipe onto the table.
She exhaled a puff of blue smoke before continuing, her tone sharp.
“I’ve found its location.”
“Where is it?”
“The capital of the Prilecha Kingdom, Arc. You know the place, don’t you?”
I did.
It was now part of my territory. Having participated in the war against the Prilecha Kingdom, it was a place I couldn’t possibly forget.
I nodded slightly, and Louie inhaled the blue smoke again before resuming.
“The Legacy is in the mountains surrounding Arc.”
“That’s far.”
“Yes, it is,” she agreed.
Arc, a city at the edge of the Arie Empire, had been the last stronghold of the Prilecha Kingdom, even relocating their capital there during their final resistance.
Though now, even the royal palace had been reduced to ashes.
“Cain, I have sothing to tell you,” Louie said suddenly.
“…What is it?”
Unlike her usual laid-back deanor, lounging on the sofa while smoking, she now wore a surprisingly serious expression.
It was hard to believe this was the sa Louie who usually handled everything lazily and half-heartedly.
“I’m stepping out of this.”
“…Why?”
At my question, Louie let out a bitter laugh. After a long mont, she sighed and answered.
“Cain—no, Duke Hardenberg” she said.
I had suspected she knew, but hearing it out loud felt different.
Given that I had gone so far as to request information from the guild, it was naive to think I could conceal my identity.
“You’re planning to overthrow the imperial family, aren’t you?”
“You’re well-inford.”
“If I weren’t, I wouldn’t still be alive,” she replied, tapping her neck.
Her neck bore countless scars and marks, a testant to the harsh life she had lived. It was a habit of hers to scratch her neck when irritated.
“Unfortunately, my life motto is to live long and quietly,” Louie said, swirling the smoke in front of her with her pipe.
She opened a subspace and rummaged through it before tossing sothing my way.
“Here, take it.”
“What is this?”
It was a cylindrical music box with an ornate, antique design on its side handle.
I touched it, wondering if it was a special artifact, but it was just an ordinary trinket, devoid of any mana.
“It’s a one-ti-use item that lets you summon the help of a spirit.”
A spirit.
A race that had vanished from this world long ago. Even in the original story, spirits were barely ntioned, their existence treated as passing lore.
If I rember correctly, only elves could summon them, albeit with restrictions.
And there were so few elves left in this world that you could count them on your fingers.
“Let’s not et again, Cain.”
“Are you going to side with the emperor?”
“Think what you will,” Louie said, biting her pipe roughly, signaling she had no intention of continuing the conversation.
Realizing I wouldn’t get anything more from her, I gave up.
“Thanks for everything, Louie,” I said as I left.
Just before I stepped out the door, I heard her murmur faintly.
“…Don’t ntion it.”
****
The scent of aged paper and wood filled the air.
The shelves were spotless, as though a compulsive cleaner had taken charge. The books were arranged ticulously by size, their precision almost unsettling.
Even the white marble floor glead without a speck of dust.
I had heard the Imperial Library was well-kept, but I hadn’t expected it to this extent.
As soone who prided himself on cleanliness, even I found it overwhelming.
‘History, history… where’s the history section?’
The bookshelves, sorted into categories much like a modern library, made finding what I needed relatively easy.
[Imperial History, Volu 14]
[Empire at a Glance: The Unification Wars]
[How the Empire Thrived]
The titles seed oddly familiar, almost modern in their phrasing.
Even with my limited knowledge of dieval tis, I doubted people back then titled their books this way.
It was yet another reminder that this world adhered more to romance-fantasy tropes than historical accuracy.
‘Focus, focus.’
Grabbing a history book centered on the imperial family, I soon found myself surrounded by a pile of books tall enough to obscure my vision.
The weight was considerable, and I struggled a bit, but I managed to place them on the desk.
As the books landed with a thud, dust billowed up, making cough.
‘So much dust… how long have these gone unread?’
Apparently, the cleaning staff didn’t bother with the books themselves.
‘It’s a lot… really a lot.’
I didn’t expect to uncover all the imperial secrets just by reading these books, but I hoped to find so clues.
After all, this world, at its core, was still a romance-fantasy setting, so there were bound to be narrative inconsistencies to exploit.
‘Cross-referencing might work.’
Though tedious, I was no stranger to this kind of work. Never did I imagine my past as a college student would co in handy like this.
Ti passed as I buried myself in the books.
“Damn…”
Nothing.
There were no contradictions, no mismatched details, no leads at all.
After speed-reading through hundreds of pages, my motivation was rapidly draining.
Suppressing a sigh, I stretched, realizing how dark the library had grown.
‘If I return too late, Lily will worry.’
As that thought crossed my mind, the candles began to flicker. A cold breeze swept through the windows, snuffing out the flas.
My instincts as a regressor scread that sothing was wrong.
‘What is this?’
An ominous feeling crept up on , prompting to activate a shield spell.
Even if it was breached, I needed to figure out what was happening to prepare for a potential regression.
‘What’s the problem here?’
The flickering candles? The breeze from the window?
As I racked my brain, a thought suddenly struck .
Since when did this library have candles?
Squelch.
“Huh?!”
A blade pierced my chest, and all I could see was its gleaming edge.
The sharp, gut-wrenching pain left gasping, unable to even think of a question.
The ticking of a clock echoed faintly in my ears as my consciousness faded.
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