DTBTHS Chapter 20

Veronica left for the castle without looking back.

The boy glared at Ariadne with an expression even fiercer than before.

"Hey, skeleton. What are you?"

"I'm..."

"Who are you to look down on Weaver's heir? And how dare you—riding Snowstorm!"

The boy who'd strode closer grabbed Ariadne's arm hard. Her right arm, specifically.

"Get down."

"Urk."

"I said get down."

Her right arm still had wounds that hadn't fully healed. When the wounds were pressed, her vision spun for an instant.

The boy, unaware of her condition, pulled and shook her arm mercilessly. Her small body swayed back and forth.

"Get down right now!"

"Erich! What do you think you're doing!"

The Margrave's angry voice rang out. Just as the boy turned to look, rough hands gripped his wrist and separated it from Ariadne.

"Father, what on earth..."

"Ariadne!"

When the Margrave ignored his words and called for Ariadne, the boy's face flushed.

"Are you all right? Your arm?"

The Margrave hurriedly examined Ariadne's arm. She quickly shook her head.

"I'm fine."

"You're not hurt?"

"No, I was just startled a bit—it doesn't hurt."

"Let me see first."

The Margrave, who'd removed her coat and checked her arm, was alarmed. Blood had seeped faintly through her blouse.

"And you say it doesn't hurt!"

"It really doesn't hurt..."

The Margrave wrapped Ariadne in the coat and blanket again and lifted her.

"I'll take Ariadne ahead, my lady."

"All right. We'll have to do introductions later."

The Countess, who'd approached at some point, nodded and turned toward the boy.

"Erich Weaver. Intimidating a young child like that—is that how I taught you?"

The sight of her coldly scolding her son grew distant.

The Margrave, who'd returned to the castle in an instant, brought Ariadne to the attending physician.

"Oh my, you were unlucky. Of all things, it had to be the last remaining wound area..."

Zailyn clicked her tongue while changing the bandage.

"It must have hurt."

"Not really."

It truly hadn't hurt much. She'd just been startled when she got dizzy.

Zailyn, who'd been moving her hands busily, paused and looked at her.

"I've been thinking this for a while, but by any chance, young miss, are you..."

"Yes?"

"...No, it's nothing."

The doctor swallowed what she'd been about to say and only treated the wound.

When Ariadne emerged from the physician's room, Lucy was waiting instead of the Margrave.

"Lord Margrave went to the young master. It seems he intends to punish him severely."

"But Brother Erich didn't know there were wounds on my arm. He didn't even seem to know who I was. And he still gets punished?"

"Whether he knew or not, he shouldn't have treated you that way. They say he was tremendously rude. The young master needs to be scolded."

Lucy spoke firmly. Ariadne sighed inwardly.

'We'll need to become comrades who trust each other with our backs in the future, but the first meeting was the worst.'

She'd anticipated Erich Weaver's personality wouldn't be easy, so she wasn't greatly flustered. He was probably more willful than in the original because of his youth.

'He was sixteen this year, right?'

This world's standard for adulthood was eighteen. Inheriting titles and marriage both became possible from age eighteen.

However, participating in subjugation required no age restrictions if one had the ability. It was a custom developed through long years of holy war.

'Sixteen is young even by this world's standards. The turbulent adolescence too. To become close, I'll have to accommodate him well.'

Ariadne made this resolution, forgetting her own age of eight.

"What punishment will Brother receive?"

"He'll probably be confined. At this level, he might be forbidden to go out until summer."

"That long?"

"It's not particularly long. The young master was once confined in the western tower for half a year."

Half a year of confinement. The Margrave and Countess clearly weren't indulgent parents.

"By the way, do you know a knight named Veronica? She looked young—is she a spirit knight too?"

"Ah, that person. Dame Veronica Brante."

Lucy's expression became slightly fearful.

"She's young, yes—the same age as the young master. The lady rescued her from a Blighted Region two years ago, and she was already a spirit knight then."

"She was a spirit knight from such a young age?"

"Yes, she joined the subjugation force immediately when she first arrived. She was fourteen then... The knights who went on subjugation with her said Dame Veronica was monstrously strong despite her young age."

Ariadne's eyes widened.

The protagonist Axel Valentine had become a spirit knight around age twelve. If Veronica had been handling real combat from age fourteen, it meant she was an extraordinary genius even if not at the protagonist's level.

'Why wasn't talent of that caliber even mentioned in the novel?'

In the novel, what the protagonist attempted through repeated regressions was the conquest of the 'Great Labyrinth.'

Decades after the holy war began, when everyone had grown accustomed to the changed world, the Great Labyrinth that would destroy this world appeared.

Originally, the continent had a prosperous nation called the Creta Empire. A great power leading the war against the demon realm.

Over ten years ago, a massive labyrinth suddenly appeared in the Creta Empire's capital, shattering the barrier.

That was the Great Labyrinth. The largest, most horrific labyrinth.

That day, the empire's capital evaporated entirely. Most people died overnight without knowing why.

Following that, contamination spread rapidly outward from the Great Labyrinth as its center.

In an instant, Creta's entire territory became a Blighted Region. Survivors were extremely few.

It took less than a week for Creta, once the strongest empire, to vanish from the map.

Afterward, many subjugation forces departed for Creta to seal the Great Labyrinth, but none returned alive.

The Great Labyrinth's Blighted Region came to be called the 'Cursed Land.'

Because the Great Labyrinth couldn't be closed, contamination continued spreading.

At least the contamination spread more slowly the farther from the Great Labyrinth, so the Cursed Land didn't expand quickly.

But someday, contamination would color the entire continent. The whole world would become cursed land. Everyone knew this.

If the Great Labyrinth couldn't be destroyed, Elysium would inevitably perish.

The protagonist, Axel Valentine, emerged within that sense of crisis.

'The first human to return alive after challenging the Great Labyrinth.'

He was literally humanity's hope.

Having returned from the Great Labyrinth, the protagonist instantly became a powerful authority receiving every nation's full support, able to browbeat even kings.

Based on that support, the protagonist gathered every talented person he could find and organized a subjugation force to re-challenge the Great Labyrinth.

'Every time he failed, he regressed and assembled the subjugation force again, challenged again...'

Repeating failure, death, and re-challenge as the protagonist headed toward the Great Labyrinth's center—that was the original work's main story.

'Though the ending was garbage.'

To avoid the world destruction ending, the protagonist absolutely must not regress. The moment he regressed, the bad ending became fixed.

Therefore, she had to conquer the Great Labyrinth in one attempt without failure.

The place that the overpowered protagonist with the entire continent's support had conquered through countless failures.

'It's not impossible since I have information from the original novel. The protagonist's entire trial-and-error process is all in the Phantom Library.'

Departing for the Great Labyrinth was at least ten years away, but she had to plan from now. With only one chance, she couldn't make mistakes.

Based on the novel's content, she was already envisioning how to organize the subjugation force.

The optimal composition for the Great Labyrinth subjugation force that the protagonist discovered after many attempts was five people. A spirit mage, a mage, a priest, and two spirit knights.

Increasing personnel beyond that was impossible due to various problems including supplies.

Therefore, each member of the subjugation force had to be filled with the finest talent.

'The protagonist is fixed, I'll be the spirit mage. Erich Weaver as the mage.'

She'd already decided when to meet the protagonist. Erich was her cousin, so there was no need to search separately.

For the remaining positions—priest and spirit knight—she hadn't decided who yet.

At least she'd narrowed the priest candidates to two or three, but the problem was the spirit knight besides the protagonist.

'The core companion who went to the final floor with him in the original betrayed him at the end... That bastard won't do, so I need to find talent similar to him.'

Without suitable candidates, she was in the process of organizing all the strengths and weaknesses of spirit knights who appeared in the original.

'The protagonist brought every high-level talent to the Great Labyrinth. If Veronica is such an exceptional spirit knight, there's no way she wouldn't appear in the novel. It's not like she's a different age group like Aunt or Uncle—she's exactly the right age.'

Veronica Brante didn't appear in the original. There were two possibilities.

One was that Veronica wasn't a strong enough fighter for Axel to acknowledge, so she didn't appear.

The other was that Veronica had already died by the future point when Axel conceived the Great Labyrinth subjugation force.

'Like the original Ariadne... she might be someone already dead by the novel's starting point.'

When her thoughts reached that point, something suddenly came to mind.

Something she'd seen while intensively searching parts featuring Erich.

'Erich's dead first love!'

It was a lightning bolt of realization.

In the novel, whenever the silver-haired mage got blackout drunk, he repeated stories about his dead first love to the point of exhaustion.

Even in the episode where he was caught in an illusion trap recreating trauma, he said he'd seen his dead first love.

'He said it was a black-haired friend, same age.'

The image of Erich and Veronica bickering in front of her surfaced.

'I'm certain.'

Ariadne unknowingly stopped walking.

"Miss?"

Lucy called her with a questioning tone.

"It's nothing. Let's go."

'First, I need to learn more about Veronica.'

Ariadne resumed walking as if nothing had happened.

Lucy guided her to the reception room. The Countess was waiting in the reception room.