"...Saten, got it. I just need to send the letter to the Cecilia family, right?"
"Yes, please make sure they don't find out I'm here."
Nod.
A letter to blackmail her own father, Cecilia Lennon.
After telling Saten I understood, I sent her back to her room.
Then, tucking the letter into my pocket, I immediately prepared to leave and rushed out the front door.
Tap-tap-tap—
*Saten, what exactly are you...?*
A human, but without emotions.
Her soul seems alive, but inside it's actually empty.
Even the common sense she has isn't really common sense.
Everything about her seemed like the screws were loose somewhere.
"Minerva—!!"
"Hoot—! Hoot—!!"
Crash—!
I threw open the library door forcefully.
Minerva's owl screeched as if angry, but I ignored it lightly.
The owl wasn't who I had business with.
"Kuuul... hmmnya..."
"Minerva—!! Wake up—!!"
"Uh, uwaaa...! I'm falling... oh wait, I'm not. What is it, Jun-woo... this early in the morning. Even goddesses have privacy, you know."
Minerva had been sleeping wearing a nightcap.
She rubbed her eyes and stretched.
Then, in a half-asleep state, she said:
"Jun-woo... why are you bothering a goddess so early in the morning, do you want to die?"
"No, sorry about that. But first, just listen to what I have to say."
"...I'll listen and then decide."
I told her everything about Saten without hiding anything.
The somehow strange mage from the Hero Party.
How I'd succeeded in kidnapping her, but couldn't understand her at all.
"Hmm, I see..."
Minerva thought for a moment, then answered as if she understood.
"So, Jun-woo! You want to see that girl Saten's past, right?"
"Yeah, I think that's the only way I can understand Saten."
And.
It's the only way to save her from hanging herself.
I felt that only by fully understanding her could I decorate Saten's story with happiness.
I couldn't watch the lonely death of a mage again.
"To live with that girl you kidnapped, I think I need to see her past to understand her."
"Haah... Jun-woo, are you a pushover? Why do you care so much about other people's business? She's someone you just met anyway. Nothing good comes from seeing someone else's past. Just leave it alone."
"...Still, she's pitiful."
"Pitiful? Jun-woo, are you pitying her now? Do you know how terrible that is for the other person?"
"I know."
Pity.
Compassion.
That's right, I was pitying Saten.
Born with a fate where she lost her emotions and couldn't even enjoy small happiness.
She was pitiful.
"Minerva, show me. That girl Saten's past."
"...Fine, but don't regret it, Jun-woo. This one's going to be pretty painful."
I was prepared for that much.
I was used to pain.
Minerva looked at me and let out deep sighs.
Then she brought over a black book from far away.
It looked like a grimoire, but on the book's cover was written 'Cecilia Saten's Past.'
"Born and created, written as you live, recorded as you die. You're probably the only one, Jun-woo, who would use Minerva's Library—which has such profound meaning—to peek into someone else's past."
Minerva's Library records everyone's 'life.'
The episodes that occur as you live are written in books.
For heroes who made their mark on the world, the volume is so great it sometimes takes up two bookshelves.
The completion of a book means death, and deeper in this library, mountains of such completed series are piled up.
"Now, read it or don't, do whatever you want. Hmph, I'm going back to sleep. You handle it yourself!"
"...Thanks, Minerva."
"Don't thank me! I hate it, you idiot!"
Minerva huffed and returned to her bed.
Even though she said that, she was worried about me.
Just reading someone else's past brings side effects.
She didn't want to see me in pain.
"Well then, shall I read it now..."
Cecilia Saten's past.
I stroked the cover with that title once, steeled my heart, and opened the book.
It was a world of endless darkness.
The genius mage Cecilia Saten.
For most people, their lives start going wrong after they become adults.
But her life started going wrong from the moment she was born.
"The child's mana is abnormal...!! Th-the mistress's mana is all flowing toward the child...!!"
"What...?"
Lennon, Head of Family of the Cecilia family.
People said he had no emotions, but when he was with his wife, he was more emotionally rich than at any other time.
He was happy living with his wife and wanted this happiness to never break.
However, the happiness he hoped wouldn't break
was mercilessly torn apart with Saten's birth.
"The child is born but... the mistress has passed away. Head of Family..."
"..."
As the crying of the child from his wife's belly rang out, Lennon held his deceased wife in his arms.
Squeeze—
Holding her cold body, he glared at the child with hateful eyes.
That child.
That demon-like child stole my wife's life.
The hatred with nowhere to go after losing his wife naturally turned toward Saten.
"Quiet. I want to shove a sword in its mouth. Make it shut up right now."
"H-Head of Family... the child's name..."
"Make it Saten. And never let me see this child."
"Saten is like Satan! Isn't that similar to the Demon King's name...!!"
"...To me, she's no different from a Demon King. Born with a demon's fate. It's a fitting name."
Satan.
And Saten.
Born with a cursed name, Saten received no proper treatment in the family.
For three years she stayed in the family's main house, but her crying reached Lennon's ears, and eventually she was confined to a small cabin in the family's forest.
No food was provided, and Saten survived by plucking and eating the grass growing around her.
Happiness makes you dream, but pain makes you face reality.
At the age of seven, living a hellish life.
In desperate circumstances, Saten realized:
"...Why am I alive?"
People in books live with various meanings.
Some for adventure.
Some for love.
Some for knowledge.
But Saten couldn't relate to such meanings.
Her world was a terrible void without a single color.
From birth, pain was all there was to her life.
*Still, like the people in books, someday light will come to me too. Not black light, but light as bright as radiance...*
Even so, Saten lived with hope.
She got soaked in the rain leaking through the cabin, shivering in the cold.
She ate poisonous mushrooms and went to death's door.
Holding onto the meaning of hope.
However, three years passed.
The year she turned ten.
Saten let go even of hope.
"I just... want to let it all go... I want to die..."
The hope that kept her alive was actually torture.
The pain deepened, and the light called hope wasn't visible even a little, so it was always dark around her.
Saten finally stuffed a handful of poisonous mushrooms—which she'd experienced near death from before—into her mouth.
Chew— chew—
The poison churned her insides, and hallucinations dominated her vision.
A strange experience.
The faces of parents she couldn't even remember floated in the air.
"Mother... Father..."
Saten reached out her hand.
Her mother turned away from her, but her father tried to grasp her hand.
"Mother ignores even my death..."
The poison spread through her body, and Saten felt herself gradually becoming paralyzed.
Soon her airway would be blocked and she wouldn't be able to breathe either.
However, just as she was about to cross death's threshold, suddenly 'mana awakening' began.
Normally this process happens around age fifteen.
But since Saten had possessed her mother's mana from birth, her awakening started earlier than others.
The mana pushed out the poison and began detoxifying Saten's body.
"...Wh-why. Do I have to live...?"
I tried to die...?
Why...?
However, Saten hadn't anticipated it.
That mana awakening would be more painful than the poison.
After the mana finished detoxifying, the mana scattered throughout her body burrowed toward her heart.
"Ah, aaaah..!! It hurts... k-kill me...!"
If the amount of mana is too great, you experience pain that can shatter your mind.
That's why normally, awakening takes place beside a master versed in magic.
The master gently guides the mana, minimizing the pain as much as possible.
However, since Saten was always alone, she didn't even have such a master, and had to endure that pain alone.
By herself.
"K-kill... me..."
It hurts so much...
Just kill me instead...
All her nerves focused on the pain.
How could she escape this pain?
Unable to endure any longer, Saten's body automatically made a judgment.
The cause of pain is having emotions.
She's sad because she feels pain.
She's afraid because she feels pain.
She's angry because she feels pain.
*Emotions are the cause of all pain.*
Saten's body judged on its own and turned off all her emotional switches.
So she wouldn't feel any more pain.
It was a kind of self-defense mechanism.
Saten blocked all pain that way and lost all her emotions.
The whole world turned black.
It was the best way to overcome the pain.
"...So you were the source of that mana."
"..."
Afterward, Lennon, who sensed the mana wave, approached the cabin and shouted to his servants.
"Move this child to the main building. And call a teacher to teach her magic. Since she has talent, she'll have 'use.'"
Eyes that thoroughly saw her as a 'tool.'
Those eyes were absolutely not a father's eyes.
From that day on, Saten digested a study load similar to abuse.
When there were mistakes, she would slap her own cheeks, and always studied magic alone in a dark attic.
She tried to die, but couldn't die as she pleased.
Like that, dark days continued on and on...
The dark days seemed to continue, but
currently I was looking at the library ceiling.
Above it, Minerva's voice reached me.
"Jun-woo!! Snap out of it!!"
"...What, Minerva?"
I was definitely watching Saten's past...?
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on the floor.
A faint pain tingled in my heart.
And above me, Minerva grabbed my collar and shook me.
I felt like I might throw up.
"Mi, Minerva stop..."
"Stop what...! Jun-woo, you don't know what just happened, do you..?! Your heart just stopped..!!"
Sniffle—
Minerva wiped away tears as she explained.
More than that, my heart had stopped for a moment...?
While my consciousness was inside the book, had my heart stopped as a rebound?
Since no pain remained, I didn't really feel it and was bewildered.
"The rebound was that severe... probably because of the rebound from when Saten was having her mana awakening."
My mind was also a bit depressed now.
A lethargy where I didn't want to do anything enveloped my body, and an impulse to end my life if given the chance remained.
This was the rebound from reading someone else's unhappy past.
The remnants of the past were affecting my mind and body.
Minerva tapped my chest and shouted.
"Th-this is why I didn't want to show you...!! Almost dying like that time...!! What am I supposed to do without you, Jun-woo..!!"
"...Well, you could live with Meowng."
"I told you not to shorten it! Even with the owl, it's boring without you..!! Next time, I'm absolutely not lending you any books!"
Minerva said that and buried herself in my arms, wiping her tears.
To think this was a goddess's behavior.
Really, her followers would be disappointed.
I stroked Minerva's head and said:
"It's okay. I won't die. Unless it's dying from old age. If you're watching my future, there's absolutely no way I'll die."
"...No. There's no such thing as absolute, Jun-woo."
I hugged and comforted the tearful Minerva.
And I agreed in my heart with Minerva's words that there's no such thing as absolute.
*...There really is no such thing as absolute.*
A future that absolutely won't change.
However, having seen Saten's past, I discovered a light called hope.
Rehabilitation.
If I restore her emotions and teach her happiness, Saten won't choose death herself.
That fact was certain.
*I'll change Saten's future.*
So she won't hang herself alone in loneliness.
Recalling the emotions and memories of Saten remaining within me,
I made a firm resolution.