In a Female-Dominant World with a 5:1 Gender Ratio, I Saved a Girl as a Kid, and She Said She Wanted to Be My Bride—Who Would’ve Thought She Was a Princess… - 20

Chapter 20: Cold Silence, and an Overreaching Dream

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(Alto’s POV)

The air in the underground archive felt more stagnant than usual today. The shadows cast by the countless rows of bookshelves lay silent, like grave markers. This was the first time I had ever felt this way upon coming to the underground archive. By the fourth day, meeting with Princess Lilianna had begun to feel like part of my daily routine.

Her bottomless intellectual curiosity carried a deep thirst much like my own. As if soothing that thirst together, the two of us had spent the past three days talking endlessly here, forgetting both the difference in our status and even the passage of time.

But today was different. I sat in my usual seat, a half-read grimoire still open before me, doing nothing but staring at the entrance door. The heavy ticking of the grandfather clock echoed loudly—tick, tick—far too loudly. The hands had long since passed the promised time.

…She’s not coming.

The chair beside me remained cold. Until yesterday, that door had always opened by this time. Even the creaking of the rusted hinges had come to feel dear to me, a sign of her arrival. She would appear from beyond the door, accompanied by that refined scent of white lilies.

“Good day, Alto-sensei.”

She would say that, smiling brightly as if a flower were blooming, and take the seat beside me. The soft rustle of silk. A gentle breath. Slender white fingers turning pages. The warmth those things brought transformed this dim underground chamber into the brightest place in the world.

But today, only the dry scent of mold and old paper filled my nostrils.

Each time I heard footsteps in the corridor, my heart leapt. Yet the footsteps never drew closer, fading away… Or I realized they had merely been the wind at play. Each time, the heat called expectation rapidly cooled, replaced by a leaden weight settling in my gut.

A torturous silence where one minute felt like an hour. My eyes slid emptily across the open pages. Not a single word sank in.

…I see. So that’s how it is.

About an hour after the promised time had passed, I forcibly pressed down the nameless pain swelling in my chest beneath a thick lid labeled “acceptance.”

She got bored. In the end, I had been nothing more than a royal’s whimsical way of passing time. She had found an unusual place—the underground archive—and an unusual “toy”: a fallen noble like me. She touched it a little, talked a little, drew out some rare knowledge for amusement, but after three days, the bottom showed. And she lost interest. That was all.

Perhaps yesterday’s discussion had completely satisfied her intellectual curiosity. Or perhaps, she had grown tired of my stubborn lie that I “had no magic.” She was sharp. From my unnatural words and behavior, she must have sensed that I was hiding something. It wouldn’t be strange if she had decided that a pseudo-commoner lacking sincerity like me wasn’t worth any more of her time.

“…Haha. Good for you, then.”

A dry laugh slipped from my lips. The sound was swallowed awkwardly by the darkness of the empty archive and vanished. Now, my peaceful daily life would return. Those terrifying hours of constraint were over. I would no longer have to choose my words carefully to avoid disrespect, sweating cold bullets. I wouldn’t need to read her beautiful complexion or act like a clown to avoid displeasing her.

I was even freed from the pressure that, if anything happened to the princess, I might be held responsible and executed. I could once again immerse myself alone in the sea of knowledge here, undisturbed by anyone. This was the form I had originally wanted. A life as a “mob”—living quietly, without involvement with anyone, without anyone expecting anything of me.

…And yet.

Why did the empty seat beside me feel so bitterly cold? Why did the hard wooden chair she always sat on look like an icy throne? Why did the grimoire I had loved so much now look like nothing more than a stack of paper stained with ink?

…Am I an idiot…?!

I clenched my back teeth. Had I been expecting something? Had I really deluded myself into thinking I had formed an equal relationship with that noble princess? Did I seriously believe I had become something like a “friend,” crossing the wall of status and sharing hearts?

Look in the mirror! You are the last survivor of the fallen House Kirschwasser! A “gray rat,” scorned for lacking magic, barely breathing in the corners of society. And she is Princess Lilianna, a princess of the royal family that symbolizes the nation. It’s not just that we live in different worlds. In truth, I shouldn’t even be permitted to meet her gaze.

A dream that lasted three days. It had simply been too long. Sweet and cruel dream and definitely more than enough time to make me mistake my own worth.

“…!”

My chest hurt. As if something had been physically gouged out, an ache throbbed around my heart. I hadn’t been rejected. I hadn’t been cursed with words. I had simply been “forgotten.” Within her dazzling daily life, our promise in the underground archive had been cast aside like a pebble by the roadside. I was nothing but an insignificant fragment of memory.

That was what made it most miserable, most pathetic. I slammed the open book shut.

Bang. 

The heavy sound tore through the silence and severed something inside me as well.

Scrape.

As I stood, the chair legs scraped the floor with a scream-like noise. Even that sound seemed to mock me, whispering, “You’re alone.”

“…Let’s go home.”

I murmured it to myself like a soliloquy, bracing my stomach so my voice wouldn’t tremble…

Today, I learned or rather, remembered. That relationships across differences in status are, in the end, nothing more than illusions.

What happens when a dweller of the lightless underground reaches for the sun? You yearn for it, get burned, and your shadow only grows darker. A sweet dream once seen becomes a potent poison, making reality all the more cruel upon waking.

Grabbing my bag, I walked toward the exit of the underground archive as if fleeing. I didn’t look back. If I turned around and saw that empty seat one more time, I might break down and cry from sheer misery. I would never again wait for someone in this seat. Loneliness suited me best.

As I closed the heavy door, the darkness of the archive completely sealed off my world.

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