It is my Destiny to be the Savior of the Protagonist

“Assuming this is a very peculiar passage, I am here in a, um, kind of out-of-body state, right?”

“Pi doesn’t understand. Soul, out of touch. Aria, contactable.”

“Well, wouldn’t contact between souls be possible? Anyway, the channel is a passage through the soul, so a part of the soul or consciousness may leak through that passage.”

“Impossible, error, mistake. Elementalists’ channels don’t work that way. Besides, Aria goes in and out of the fantasy library with materials.”

“Imagine that as an exception. If my body here is connected to the real body, whether it has a soul or not.”

She aimed her hand at her neck with the knife, then shifted it to her stomach.

‘Because I don’t want to stab myself in the neck and really die of shock.’

“Aria…?”

Pi wiggled his fingers nervously. Ariadne said calmly.

“If I give this body a strong impact, it will have some effect on my real body, right?”

“Aria!”

Realizing what she was up to, Pi turned blue. She took a deep breath and stabbed herself in the stomach. She felt a dull pain radiating from the point where the knife had been stabbed through her body. Her hands were stained red.

“No! Aria, don’t die!”

Pi ran to her, bursting into cries.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, Pi. I didn’t die.”

‘It is fortunate that my sense of pain has been dulled. That’s how dull it is.’

Ariadne explained, pushing away Pi, that was trying to close her wound.

“Even the kidnappers, before extracting my soul, will have to keep me alive at all costs…”

Before she could finish her words, her vision changed. She opened her eyes on the cold stone floor. As soon as she opened her eyes, she grabbed her stomach and shivered. Her dull sense of pain made it feel more like a blow than a stab, but the pain was painful. She groaned and groped her stomach. There were no wounds. However, the knife was still in her hand. It seemed that it came out together because she was holding it.

‘The wounds sustained in the fantasy library don’t appear in reality. It’s shocking.’

It was a strange phenomenon in many ways. Of course, it didn’t matter if it was a strange phenomenon or something, since I had woken up well in reality.

‘It was almost a gamble, but it worked. I’m lucky.’

The pain subsided quickly, probably because it was not a real injury. She took a quick look around her. In a dark, damp cave. The light of a lamp placed in the corner illuminated the grown-up people around. A complicated magic circle was drawn on the floor. It was an unfinished magic circle even to her, who was not familiar with magic. Part of it was empty, like a piece of pie that had been cut off. It seemed like they were in the middle of making it.

She was lying in the center of the magic circle. The surroundings were quiet.

‘Is anyone there?’

Her captor seemed relieved that he had put her to sleep with the drug. Ariadne carefully raised her body.

‘I still have some energy left.’

She felt dizzy. Her eyes flickered and her body limp. It looked like she would fall asleep if she was off guard. She shook her head and barely got up. It was her bare feet because she was in her nightgown. As she stepped barefoot on the cave floor, she felt a tingling sensation and a chill. Thanks to that, she calmed down a bit. She escaped from the magic circle, avoiding the spirit stones lying here and there. The road diverged in two ways. One was the entrance, and the other was like a path going deeper into the cave. She leaned against the cave wall and looked in both directions.

‘Which one is outside?’

All the worries came to an end quickly. A mighty blizzard could be heard from one side. She walked aimlessly toward the howling wind. The more she walked, the colder it became. Her limbs freeze. The thin, airy lace pajamas didn’t help at all to keep warm. Fortunately, the cave wasn’t too long so she came out quickly.

Ariadne clenched her teeth and looked out into her blizzard. It seemed to be halfway up the mountain, but she couldn’t see anything because of the snow.

‘This, no way…’

It wasn’t just because of the drugs that there was no monitoring and no tying up. There was no way her helpless child could get away dressed like this in this weather, so she was left alone. She shuddered as she crouched at the entrance of the cave, clutching her knife.

‘What do we do?’

Running away was tantamount to suicide. She looked at the knife she was holding. Even if it’s difficult for her to fight, wouldn’t it be possible for her to sneak up on her while hiding?

‘No, it’s reckless.’

She’s not an assassin, she’s a 12-year-old kid who’s never learned to wield a dagger. She wasn’t even prepared to stab a person with the intent to kill.

‘I’ll have to learn swordsmanship when I go back.’

Would she be able to return alive? Maybe she will die here. Her suppressed fear crawled up her ankles and creeped up on her.

Ariadne bit her lip.

‘What if I get scared in this situation?’

At a younger age than he was now, the main character wandered around the polluted area alone. When he was the same age as her, she sent a child directly to the inferno. She set the goal of changing the ending arbitrarily, and used that as an excuse to give the protagonist a trial. Still, it was shameless for her to get scared and give up on her.

‘A crisis like this is nothing compared to what Axel must have been through.’

She chewed over the contents of the novel that she was memorizing. Where was the clue to get out of this crisis?

“How did it happen?”

A strange voice clung to the nape of her back. Ariadne turned white and looked behind her. Leda Picaro, who seemed to have emerged from inside the cave, was looking down at her with her arms crossed.

“It’s normal if you don’t wake up for two or three days.”

Leda muttered to herself. In her crooked stance, she didn’t feel any of her weak aura when they first met. Her eyes, which were filled with tears, dried up and dryly glanced at Ariadne.

Ariadne suppressed her tremors and spoke sarcastically.

“You have a very different impression, ma’am. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“Aren’t you surprised by that?”

Leda smiled and approached. She snapped and twisted Ariadne’s wrist as she reflexively pulled back from her. The knife she was holding fell with a ‘Chang’ sound.

“Ah.”

“Where did you get the knife? I didn’t bring this. Anyway, you’re a strange girl.”

Leda kicked the knife away with her foot and pulled her inside.

“Let’s go in. It’s cold.”

Ariadne held out for a moment and then obediently followed her. Her resistance here was just a meaningless waste of stamina. She asked quietly as she walked, held onto by Leda.

“It was the spirit light, right? If you mix the spirit stone powder with the medicine powder, you can hide it. Did that make me fall asleep? It wouldn’t have been possible to sneak into the room, so it would have caused some kind of sleepwalking and forced me to walk out on my own.”

“You’re as smart as I’ve heard.”

“Why did you kidnap me?”

She already knew, but she pretended not to know. Leda answered without even looking back.

“Because of money?”

“Lie.”

“Yeah, that’s a lie. I have another purpose.”

“Did the Duke order it? Using Picaro’s refugees as hostages?”

Leda glanced back at her.

“Franz didn’t make me do it, I made Franz do it.”

What? Ariadne raised her head in surprise. A deep smile appeared on Leda’s lips.

“You don’t know who your father is. Did you think that smooth-faced man could develop an elixir?”

He’s actually been questionable. Franz Eldeer was incompetent. To the point where he didn’t even know how to wield it properly even if he holds the best family in the kingdom. But how could such a man create an outstanding potion called Elixir? No matter how perfect Ariadne was, he did everything from one to ten to make the medicine. He was not knowledgeable about herbal medicine or alchemy, nor was he a genius who was only good at certain fields, and he was unfamiliar with magic. So she honestly had doubts about whether it was a setting error in the original work.

‘There was someone else behind it?’

She looked up at Leda with her wide eyes. Leda smiled proudly.

“It’s all my work. How would you make something like that with Franz’s stupid brain? I was the one who first conceived the Elixir, I was the one who made the development plan, and I was the one who adjusted the ingredients while receiving reports on your experiment results. I figured out that a specific test subject was needed to complete the elixir, and I also planned how to make that subject. Franz did the execution.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I need a child with spirit magic talent, so I ordered the elemental spirits to make one for me.”

Now, what did that mean? Ariadne stood tall. Leda spoke calmly.

“Fortunately, Franz did a good job on that one. His face, his status are awesome, and he has a lot of money, right? Thanks to that, you have a lot of half siblings. Seven or eight?”

Leda laughed and added,

“But all but you failed and died. You are the only success. I guessed that the possibility would be high since you were born to a spirit mage who inherited the blood of an archmage. I didn’t expect it to be this perfect.”

When she understood what she meant, her breath caught. Her body trembled. It was an unimaginable truth. No, was it true? Could it be that the kidnapper was just talking about something?

“You look like you can’t believe it.”