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Chapter – 21
The hair that had once been twisted up and laden with jewels had long since been let down, and instead of the ballroom gown that tightly constricted my body, I wore a silk nightgown that brushed softly against my skin. After a late-night bath, my whole body felt languid and exhausted, yet my mind was perfectly clear. So clear, in fact, that sleep wouldn’t come.
“Amy.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Could you bring me some wine?”
“Of course. I’ll be right back.”
At my subdued voice, Amy didn’t add anything else and hurried out of the room. Even without explanation, Amy would know to bring the strongest liquor she could find. We had grown up together since childhood—she could read my mood perfectly.
Amy was from the slums. One winter, when I was young, I followed my father to the Riotium territory to distribute food and clothing to the poor. That was where we took in a child who hadn’t eaten or dressed properly and had lost her parents.
Some might criticize it as nothing more than hypocrisy, but I believe it was a choice that saved Amy’s life.
And that was why. After realizing this place was inside a novel, the people who would naturally come to mind were those destined to be sacrificed by its plot, and I resolved to do whatever I could. Knowing that they would die without resistance, without even understanding why, I couldn’t just stand by.
But…
“My lady, you should drink slowly.”
“…Amy.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“I’m glad you’re by my side.”
At the sudden confession, Amy blinked.
“My lady, have you already had too much to drink—”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
Amy looked at me with suspicion for a moment, then smiled as she set the cork down.
“Yes. I’m glad to be by your side too, my lady.”
“Thank you. You should go rest now.”
“…You shouldn’t drink the whole bottle, my lady.”
“Don’t worry.”
Amy left the room with a worried look lingering on her face, and I gently swirled the wineglass.
But what if that was my own selfish desire? What if it wasn’t truly for someone else, but just for me?
The slum fire, when thought about realistically, was large in scale—but in the novel, it was the deed of the weakest of the villains, and even there it wasn’t described in detail. I thought that twisting this one event wouldn’t matter.
After all, it was a novel focused only on the protagonist’s suffering and romance. Love could stay between the protagonists. I just thought I could reduce the harm done to innocent people, even a little. I wasn’t trying to save everyone—just to protect a bit, to watch over them…
That’s what I thought. But to him, wasn’t it different? Did my actions look like desperate flailing, as if I thought the stage of the novel could become my stage?
If I had ruined the stage of life that was so important to the protagonists, should I stop now?
“Lately, variables I don’t understand keep appearing, Lady Rosemary. The only thing that’s changed is you.”
“If you truly worry about me, then please understand.”
“This is my story, Lady Rosemary. I want to see a happy ending.”
Eclette Adrian does not want variables. He intends to see the original happy ending, exactly as written. Even knowing all those horrific events, he does not reject them—he follows the story as it was meant to unfold.
And the story does not change. Even when the variable of the duke’s ballroom partner—someone not in the original work—appeared on stage, the events that were meant to happen still happened.
Just as Vihan, whose unexpected kindness had seemed strange, naturally ended up at Eclette’s side…
“Then the fire, too…”
Perhaps it was strange that I’d read a novel I didn’t even like all the way to the end. I was curious about the ending. I couldn’t put the book down for one reason alone: I wanted to see Eclette Adrian’s happiness.
Novels like that usually end happily. Eclette, who had lived such a wretched life, would surely find happiness in the end. And yet… I couldn’t clearly remember the ending.
“…Eclette Adrian…”
I recalled Eclette’s appearance. Everything was exactly as described in the novel. Those deep violet eyes the duke couldn’t take his gaze from. That pale white skin the crown prince had touched so carefully. That black hair even the captain of the Delua Knights had personally brushed.
The strange thing was how similar Eclette and I were. It was too odd to dismiss as coincidence. The fact that Eclette knew me at all—everything about it was strange.
“…”
Eclette called me a “variable,” but the masquerade ball proved that my influence alone hadn’t altered the main flow of the original story.
In the end, three men would fall in love with one pitiful man, endure countless trials, and reach a happy ending together. Even the horrific events the protagonist had to suffer for that dramatic ending.
But even if everything flows exactly as it does in the novel, it’s already too late. The eastern slums have become a place I must protect.
At first, it started with simple pity—a desire to save them if I could. But now, the people of the slums mean too much to me. I can picture their future. Eric and Sandy learning to read and write, books in their hands. Grandma Lecha easily receiving medicine at a small clinic set up inside the library.
Once the library is safely built, someone will eat there in comfort, and someone else will freely pursue art and dreams. The name “library” was nothing more than a ruse to make the facility seem insignificant. There was no way they would easily allow education and culture for those they deemed “base.”
What I envision is a massive welfare facility for the poor—a place of education, a hospital, a space that becomes hope and a future. A future for the slums entirely different from the novel’s.
That was all it was supposed to be.
“You’re always like that, Lady Rosemary.”
But how exactly do you see me, Eclette? What kind of person do you think I am?
Lost in thought, I realized the wine bottle was empty.
“…”
The story is proceeding as written, Eclette. The protagonists revolve around you, and you’re enduring those events just as before. All I need is for the fire not to happen in the slums. And if that place is destroyed, the one who will suffer the most is you, Eclette. Because through this fire, you’ll soon face even greater dangers…
“…Why…”
Why do you refuse to avoid those events?
The alcohol dulled my thoughts. Unable to resist the heaviness of my eyelids, I let my eyes close.
Until now, I believed that by increasing surveillance over the eastern slums and placing people there to protect them, I could prevent the fire. Even if something happened, I thought we could stop the entire slum from being swallowed by flames.
But if Eclette Adrian, knowing everything, still chose not to avoid that misfortune, then it changes everything. What if he’s deliberately reenacting the scenes of the novel exactly as written? Then can I really stop the protagonist’s path?
The debutante ball, with not a single line of dialogue different from the novel. The three protagonists examining the foundation for Eclette Adrian. The duke, despite the variable, ultimately acting according to the original plot and taking Eclette away from the ball.
“…”
The exact timing of the fire isn’t clear, but it happens after the ball. The culprits are thugs hired by Baron Adrian—so lowly they don’t even belong to the underworld. To give Eclette a greater shock, Baron Adrian kidnaps him and ties him up in the small shack where Eclette once lived, right in the middle of the burning slums. After barely escaping that trauma-filled place, what Eclette sees is his hometown reduced to ashes—except for that single shack.
The baron had no intention of killing Eclette while he was still “useful.” That was why he went to the trouble of ensuring only that shack wouldn’t burn. He had it rebuilt in advance with fire-resistant materials, and the thugs, following his orders, dismantled the original shack beforehand—
“…and hauled it away.”
Dismantling and rebuilding a ramshackle hut was hardly difficult. Traumatized by the kidnapping, Eclette wouldn’t notice that the house was practically a fake, and he would be struck by the shock all the same. Of course, Eclette disappearing entirely wasn’t part of the baron’s plan, but…
Just as my existence is a variable for Eclette, the Earth Foundation will be an obstacle to Baron Adrian’s plans as well.
“My lady.”
“Did the documents Lennon sent arrive?”
“Yes. They’re the records you requested—lists of past residents of each house in the slums. However, as you know, since there are no official property owners, there are very few documented records. Many identities are unclear, so there are omissions and inaccuracies. He asked me to be sure to convey his apologies…”
“It’s fine. This is enough.”
No matter how well I remembered the novel, there was no way I could identify which shack among countless similar ones had belonged to Eclette based on just a few lines of text. They were all alike—poorly built houses in similar locations. That’s why I’d asked Lennon for this information earlier.
As Lennon said, it’s impossible to identify every resident. The slum shacks are illegal constructions built on land technically owned by the imperial family. There would be no official documents listing residents. Most of the usable information would have come from word of mouth among long-term residents. But that was enough.
“My lady, is there anything I can help with?”
“Ah, could you look over these documents with me?”
I handed part of the stack to Rodel. The documents listed the locations of shacks, names of residents, and brief notes on appearances or occupations. The information was extremely fragmentary—names were often missing, and sometimes there was nothing written at all.
“What should I do?”
“Look for one name. It has to be here.”
The name I was looking for would definitely appear. She was a woman who had borne the illegitimate child of a baron—and she hadn’t tried to hide it. Everyone else simply dismissed her claims as nonsense.
When she was found dead in her shack, and her young son vanished without a trace, the people of the slums finally believed her words. So that despicable noble erased his disgrace, they said. Information about Bona Selden would have spread quietly among them.
“Bona Selden. That’s the name we’re looking for.”
