Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Impossible! Dahlia screamed in her mind. She quickly ran through the plot of the original story.

Adrisha was born in a countryside fief called Canun. While Canun attracted a lot of tourists with its seaside views, it also attracted criminals to its ports.

Adrisha was raised as an assassin by the city’s cruelest ruler, Berix, but she was rescued by the emperor during his relief work before she could be sent on her first mission. From that point on, she followed the emperor like he was her father.

She became the emperor’s shadow and entered noble society as the noble lady “Adrisha Beniterre” to take care of many tasks for him. In the process, she met a lot of the male leads and they soon began obsessing over her... Or so the background went.

But in the original story she appeared in social events around three years from now. Has she appeared three years earlier… because of me?

It was a realistic hypothesis. The emperor was someone who drew a clear line between politics and personal relationships. Now that Hikan was the new duke, the emperor was probably seeking to plant one of his own people in the Pesteroz mansion. Dahlia needed a personal maid at the opportune moment.

He probably didn’t have an excuse to get Adrisha into the Pesteroz mansion in the original story because I didn’t exist.

But now Dahlia did exist, and the emperor was sending Adrisha to her.

I know about the butterfly effect, but this is...

Her head ached.

Since the main character of the original story was going to be Dahlia’s maid, Adrisha was bound to run into Hikan sooner or later. But how would the future change if Hikan and Adrisha meet three years earlier than the original timeline?

Dahlia tried to remember Hikan’s fate in the original story. Hikan manifested his magic at the age of eighteen, which was two years from now. The year after his magic flourishment, he overused his magic while trying to raise his prestige as the master of the Pesteroz family.

Looking back, Dahlia thought the effort Hikan made was his way of proving himself to the family that abandoned him in the past. However, the overuse instead pushed him to the brink of insanity. That was when he met Adrisha and felt both love and hatred for her sympathy towards him.

Right now, Hikan hadn’t manifested his magic yet, which also meant he couldn’t overuse it and turn mad. But Dahlia didn’t know how things were going to change once the two met.

Despite her worries, Dahlia was also excited. After all, this was a rare chance to meet the main character, Adrisha, in person!

Adrisha was Dahlia’s favorite character in Ouroboros’ Labyrinth. She was living in the game’s world anyway. She might as well satisfy her personal desire too. The future was always going to be a mystery.

Amidst her chaotic thoughts, Dahlia began to look forward to the upcoming ball.

Duchess Mary Blueport

The day of the ball drew closer. The day of meeting the main character also drew closer. Dahlia started to feel threatened.

She hadn’t been thinking about the original plotline. It had felt like a distant future. Now that the main character was here, she felt the need to remember all the details of the game she’d played.

The threat was real, because there was foreshadowing of several deaths in the dark reverse-harem game Ouroboros’ Labyrinth. While she had three years before the original events of the story, she wasn’t sure when something else might happen earlier than its appointed time like Adrisha’s appearance.

She sat on her desk and wrote the names of the important male leads on a paper. There were three male leads in the game. Four, including Hikan.

[Male lead 1: Aseras.]

He’s the mysterious one.

Dahlia was willing to admit Aseras was the main cause of her panic. Just like Hikan, Aseras was currently residing in the capital and was the second male lead to go insane after Hikan in Ouroboros’ Labyrinth.

The most dangerous. I should star his name.

Though he currently worked as the emperor’s servant, which raised the question as to how he was one of the male leads, it was later revealed that he’d hidden his identity as a Transcendent. For some reason, he gained a power through his magic flourishment with an opposing attribute to magic: divine power. Transcendents were often born with innate magic that opposed divine power, but Aseras was the only exception.

Aseras’ divine power was so strong that he could bring a person on the brink of death back to perfect health. That was also the reason he left the Frederick Empire to become the pontiff of the Holy Empire.

But he failed to heal his own deteriorating mind.

In the process of becoming the pontiff, Aseras used so much divine power that he descended into madness faster than all the other male leads except Hikan.

I’ll probably meet him the soonest out of all the characters.

He was bound to appear in all the royal balls since he was the emperor’s servant.

Ugh, I don’t want to meet him.

Aseras always appeared as the minor villain in all the other male leads’ romance quests, raising havoc by kidnapping Adrisha or raising war to get her. He appeared almost as frequently as Hikan to serve as the antagonist. Thinking about meeting him made Dahlia feel conflicted.

She stared at the name for a long time before moving onto the next one.

[Male lead 2: Meldon.]

Meldon was the successor to the organization Adrisha was raised in (the hardest romance quest).

[Male lead 3: Lewain Blueport.]

The son of Duchess Blueport also had a hard romance quest.

Dahlia didn’t linger too long on numbers two and three since they weren’t in the capital. According to the original story, the quests for each male lead would begin three years later. Lewain’s appeared even later. But Dahlia wasn’t sure whether their romance quests would also appear earlier alongside Adrisha.

Eh, I don’t care anymore. Dahlia dripped ink all over the paper so that no one could read what she wrote and crumpled it. She threw it away.

She wasn’t sure about Hikan’s future and he was the final villain of the story. So what was the point of worrying about the other male leads? Dahlia decided to focus on meeting Adrisha at the ball for now and watch how events played out.

From then on, she erased all of her concerns from her mind and spent her days lazing about. She didn’t miss the chance to secretly save some money using the ball as an excuse, however. She used all of the money Hikan allocated to her and bought high-end gold jewelry that could be exchanged for money.

Dahlia had given up on selling her belongings little by little. Instead, she was going to increase her treasure stash as much as she could and take all of it with her when she fled.

I’m a step closer to running away! Dahlia smiled wickedly as she thought about her box full of gold jewelry.

“Why are you laughing?” Hikan asked in a dumbfounded voice across the table.

Oh, right, I was eating.

Dahlia wiped the expression off her face as quickly as she could and formed a bright smile as she looked up at Hikan.

“I’m excited for the ball! It’s going to be my first ball ever, so...”

Hikan looked down at his plate instead of voicing his thoughts. He wasn’t acting like his usual self, who took the chance to chide her whenever he could. Dahlia thought carefully over his actions.

Hikan... he definitely has changed.

His attitude seemed weaker towards her. Just a little.

Maybe showering him with all of my cute affection has paid off.

No, that was never going to be the case. But he had changed. He looked into getting her a personal maid, stopped looking down at Dahlia with cold eyes, and refrained from making sharp comments about her. Dahlia pitied herself for feeling satisfied over such a minor change.

But maybe she’d grown attached to him, because she liked Hikan. Imagining how he’d hurt many people in the future as the final villain stung her heart sometimes.

I’ll have to leave my brother one day.

A Transcendent’s soul was bound to deteriorate according to the amount of magic they used, despite their absolute power. As long as that problem hung over her head, Dahlia had no choice but to run away from Hikan.

In fact, considering the events that were to occur in a few years’ time, she had to flee from the capital no matter what. She knew a Transcendent was going to go on a rampage at someone’s ball soon. There was no guarantee it wasn’t going to be the ball held for the Pesteroz family. Hikan wasn’t likely to go on a rampage since he didn’t have his magic flourishment and had some ways to go before becoming the final villain. But there were going to be attendees there from other duke families.

But what are the chances that someone’s going to rampage at our ball? Dahlia thought carelessly, smiling wider at Hikan. Hikan looked away as though he hadn’t seen her smile in the first place.