As Adrian came out of his sister's room, his mind was slightly jumbled as several thoughts clashed inside. He was so distracted that he didn't even glance at the servant who stood by the door, giving him a polite bow.
He had learned a lot of things, and he did not know how to process all of that. Perhaps that is the reason why he spoke so much by the end of their game. It may have been his way of masking his own internal disarray.
'I just… don't know what to do now.'
He now understood the circumstances that led to the engagement, but that still changed nothing. All he knew was that he had no way to escape the engagement.
'Not that I care much anymore.'
By this point, the engagement itself didn't matter to Adrian. It was going to happen regardless of what he did, so there was no point in stressing over the engagement.
He just didn't want to be once again forced into a situation without having any say in the matter.
As he continued walking through the hallway, lost in thought, he spotted his mother and the butler a bit farther ahead, talking with a servant.
She wore a stern expression and carried an oppressive air.
Noticing him, she tilted her head, then turned to look behind him, as if observing where Adrian was coming from.
Her lips slowly stretched into a thin smile.
"Did you get the answers you were looking for?"
Her tone was soft, gentle. There was not even a hint of firmness from the interaction they had not too long ago.
More than that, he had expected her to be angry or at least annoyed, after all, she didn't want Adrian to know more about the situation, yet he had dug deeper into it anyway. Her unbothered attitude threw him off.
'Is this… another test from her?'
He looked at her cautiously, and she only smiled back.
After a brief silence, Adrian sighed and simply nodded in reply.
She walked up to him.
"I assume you will spend the rest of your time in the library? I, too, am heading there, so accompany me."
This time, too, he only nodded in reply instead of speaking.
After giving the butler a silent command with her eyes, she started walking. Adrian simply followed a few steps behind, still half lost in thought.
Neither of them spoke as they walked. The only sound heard was the dull noise produced by his mother's shoes as she walked on the ornate red carpet.
But as they descended the stairs, a commotion below drew Adrian's attention.
A few servants and maids stood below, surrounding a little girl sitting on the ground, crying. One of the maids held a wooden stick in her hands, striking the girl more as her cries grew louder.
Adrian paused as he looked at the scene. Seeing him stop, his mother did the same. They both stood in the middle of the stairs, watching the commotion below.
Two things about the little girl instantly stood out to him. First were her ears, long and pointy, clearly revealing that the girl wasn't human but an elf. The second was the metal collar around her neck as well as iron cuffs on her wrists, proof of her status as a slave.
The girl appeared to be about twelve, around the same age as his sister. The tears running down her cheek, as well as the swollen, red marks left on her skin due to being struck by the wooden stick, all of it made the girl look extremely pitiful.
Pitiful enough that almost anyone who saw her would have the urge to help her. Did Adrian feel pity for the girl? He did not know.
But that was not the reason Adrian had stopped to observe the scene. He had paused because something about the scene felt familiar to him.
It did not take him long to understand the reason for that familiarity.
'It looks… like a scene from a story.'
In many of the stories he'd read, there were scenes where an innocent, pitiful girl was being abused by some people. And almost every time, the protagonist comes in and saves the girl from her tormentors.
Those scenes tend to develop similarly; that pitiful girl ends up falling in love with the protagonist, either becoming his lover or one of his lovers.
'If my theory is correct, and this is really the world of a story, then this situation will develop similarly.'
His heartbeat quickened, and an emotion similar to hope slowly welled up inside him.
This was a great opportunity for him to find out if this world followed a story's logic. He probably didn't need to do too much either; he simply needed to somehow intervene.
Five years—that was how long he had been searching to find even a single hint about his situation. Until now, he had found nothing conclusive enough. The more he tried to find the answer, the more questions he ended up with.
After searching in the dark for so long, he could finally see an opportunity shining brilliantly before him.
Adrian turned to his mother. Trying his best to appear childlike, he spoke in a soft, innocent tone as he pointed at the commotion below.
"Mother, they are hurting that little girl; she is even crying. Why are they doing that?"
She frowned as she heard him, possibly due to the sudden shift in his behavior. Altering her gaze between him and the commotion below, she answered.
"That one must have made a mistake or done something wrong, so they are punishing her. There's no need for you to concern yourself with it."
'No, that's not the reaction I need.'
He tried to change his tone more, trying to add a hint of pity and worry, but he did not know if he was able to accomplish that.
"But… aren't they being too cruel?"
His mother's frown deepened, and she looked at him with a perplexed gaze. It was as if she had heard him say something very strange.
She asked while tilting her head.
"Adi, you must know how important horses are, correct? We use them to draw carriages, travel to places, and ride them as mounts. We even ride them into battle. But do you perhaps know how we ride horses?"
This time, it was Adrian who became confused as he heard her.
'Why is she talking about horses all of a sudden? What's her point?'
Seeing him confused, she answered herself.
"When we want the horse to run, we slash its neck with the reins; we don't pat its head and kindly ask it to move. Tell me, Adi, is that cruel? No, it has nothing to do with kindness or cruelty; this is simply how horse riding works."
Adrian froze on the spot as soon as her words reached him.
Those words… they struck him, struck something deep within him, bringing back a memory from his past life—the one he had buried the deepest.
He remembered the vague outline of a large hall, a courtroom. He remembered standing in the dock of that courtroom, quietly waiting for the sound of the judge's hammer.
An old sensation, something he had almost forgotten after his rebirth, began coming back to him. It was the same sensation he had felt back then.
A quiet numbness that drowned all his senses. An emptiness that was all too familiar to him.
'The world of a story? Hah… I've been delusional. This world, it's not much different from Earth.'