The Runaway Maid is Loved by the Archmage - Chapter 69
Rustle—
The quiet sound of a page turning echoed softly. A gentle breeze drifted in through the library window.
Roina had realized that to make full use of her knowledge of the original story, she needed to acquire a deeper understanding of this world’s information. Lately, she had been studying the history of the world, the political landscape, relationships among the nobility, and the geography of the land.
Lutan, surprisingly, had little interest in recent affairs and primarily possessed knowledge of ancient history. Since Maili was a noble, Roina had assumed she would be well-informed and had asked her various questions. However, Maili had fumbled through her answers before suddenly exclaiming, “Oh! I’ll introduce you to a great teacher!” Then, she had disappeared, saying she would ask the Great Archmage if it was allowed.
“As expected, the information in the library is mostly old rather than recent.”
Having a teacher would certainly be convenient. Resting her chin on her hand, she pondered the thought.
Just then, Fides appeared out of nowhere, balancing the book she had finished reading on his head, before scurrying away. Lutan had warned her not to be deceived by appearances, as Fides was a spirit who had lived for nearly a thousand years. Even so, seeing someone with such a childlike form engaged in labor made her feel uneasy.
“It almost feels like I’m making a child work.”
That said, she couldn’t stop him. She had once told him to take a break, only for him to stare at her with such a look of shock—nearly on the verge of tears—that she hadn’t dared to say it again.
[“T-then… what am I supposed to do? Hic. I… I….”]
Since Fides had been created with the mission of ensuring the Magic Tower’s residents could live comfortably, forbidding him from carrying out his role had sent him into extreme anxiety and panic.
In the end, she hadn’t been able to take his work away, nor had she found a way to change his form. With no solution in sight, she had no choice but to let it be.
Turning her attention back to the book she had been reading, she continued.
“The first emperor defeated the wicked golden dragon and reclaimed the world from the demons. Moved by his great feat, the gods bestowed upon humanity the magic stolen from the golden dragon. The guardian of this power is the Great Archmage.”
It was the founding myth of the empire. Though an ancient tale, it was worth examining in detail since the original story Roina knew hadn’t delved deeply into it.
In the novel she had read, the female protagonist was Veronica, the male lead was the Imperial Crown Prince, and the secondary male lead—who later became a villain—was the Great Archmage. If she remembered correctly, the story revealed that the Great Archmage was actually the reincarnation of the wicked golden dragon, a being who had spent countless years preparing for the empire’s downfall.
Now that so much had changed from the original story, she still couldn’t be sure if that part of the tale was true. Lutan, too, only gave vague answers to her questions, saying that she would come to understand in time and that he would tell her everything when the moment was right.
“To believe it as it is… the Great Archmage from the original novel and Lutan now are completely different. And there wasn’t much mention of the primordial magic either….”
The novel < The Duke’s Daughter Just Wants to Rest > was filled with the female protagonist using her real-world knowledge to succeed and heavy romantic narration focused on her and the male lead. However, the supporting characters’ actions were portrayed in an incredibly flat and incomprehensible manner, making it a fairly mediocre story.
Moreover, when Roina had first transmigrated into this novel, she hadn’t even realized that she was inside a fictional world. She had spent a long time without actively recalling the plot, so now she could only remember the major events in broad strokes.
One particularly memorable detail was the female protagonist’s desperate plea for a break—understandable, given that she had been a graduate student and researcher, working over 69 hours a week under extreme conditions, before accidentally ingesting an experimental substance in her sleep and meeting her untimely demise.
In the novel, after she had unintentionally saved the Emperor, she became burdened with correcting and redefining numerous erroneous medicinal ingredients. She seemed to be on the path to success through her business endeavors, but then the Imperial Crown Prince ruthlessly undercut her, forcing her back to square one. In the end, she did become the Empress, but it was unclear whether that was truly a happy outcome.
“I guess I got emotional because her job was similar to mine….”
Of course, unlike the original protagonist, Roina had flipped off her professor and died with no regrets, so her personality was slightly different.
“Since I was going to die anyway, I think I did the right thing.”
“It was a good decision not to endure everything like the original female lead. Now that I think about it, wasn’t this novel’s ending so weird that it got tons of backlash?”
“Ahem, ahem.”
