"Good night, Miss."
"Ah, y-yes. Good night to you too."
My fourth day in this world is about to end, and tomorrow will mark the fifth. The clock on the desk already shows nine o'clock. The day officially ended when Lyra left my room and gently closed the door behind her.
I immediately jumped onto the bed, already dressed in my pajamas.
But...
To be honest, there was nothing special about today. Just like the previous days, I didn't step outside the manor at all. Maybe tomorrow I'll try to go out for some fresh air.
Most of my activity today was spent listening to the lessons taught by my mother. They were incredibly useful because I learned much more about this world, especially about this country.
Mother didn't hold back at all. She even explained how the kingdom is currently in a dire situation, buried in debt caused by the War of the Eight Monarchs. In the end, there were no real winners in that war. Both sides were forced into signing a peace treaty, though apparently no one was satisfied with the outcome.
Honestly, Mother is... well, isn't she a little too vocal about all this? She sounds more like an opposition activist than a noblewoman, boldly shouting against the state of things.
What truly amazed me was how similar this world is to Earth, the place I lived in during my previous life. Technologically, it feels like somewhere between the 18th and 19th centuries. But my thoughts on that began to shift once Mother started teaching me about Eldirith, a topic that had remained a mystery to me until now.
She explained that the Eldirith are a race from the far North, a place still untouched by humans to this day. Back when humans were still living in a barbaric era, the Eldirith arrived with massive fleets and conquered them. For mankind, that era is remembered as the Age of Darkness, when the Eldirith used humans as slaves—and worse, as livestock.
"The idea that there were creatures who served humans as dishes on their dining table… it still sends chills down my spine," I muttered in fear. "And now they're isolating themselves across the sea..."
According to her, the Eldirith were fanatically devoted to nature. So much so that they considered consuming plants a sin, and instead made human flesh their main source of food back then.
The suffering humanity endured reached its breaking point when a slave named Maerelian suddenly received a Revelation from an unknown source. Along with it came the gift of magic. In fact, it wasn't just him—humans everywhere suddenly awakened to magic, and to this day, no one knows where that power came from.
With magic in their hands, humanity rose in rebellion. Eventually, they succeeded in driving the Eldirith off the mainland and forced them to retreat to an island, which now serves as their final stronghold.
Maerelian himself became the leader of all humanity and is now revered like a prophet. The religion built around him remains one of the most powerful in Gravania to this day. That faith is known as Lumen Mae, and for the majority of Gravania's population, Maerelian is now worshipped as a god.
I was genuinely excited when I heard there was magic in this world, but Mother only gave a bitter smile and told me that human magic had faded centuries ago. It all started after the Eldirith were defeated. Humans who still possessed magical power grew greedy and ended up killing each other with it.
Eventually, several centuries ago, human magic mysteriously vanished without explanation. Though, according to Mother, a handful of people still retained the power. Most of them ended up being recruited by the Clergy of Lumen Mae to serve in their holy Order. Even then, their numbers are extremely limited.
Because of that, humanity began developing new kinds of weaponry out of fear that the Eldirith might one day invade again. This led to the invention of something called gunpowder. And ironically, humans used this new technology to kill each other all over again, never really learning from the mistakes of the past.
Well... I guess that's just how humans are, huh...
"I-I can't sleep!"
Right now, I was wide awake, wrapping myself tightly in the blanket on the bed. No matter how hard I tried to fall asleep peacefully, it was all pointless in the end.
And all because of what Mother said to me earlier: "If you're a naughty child, the Eldirith will come to you at night."
No, no, no. It's not about being scared that the Eldirith would actually come visit me while I'm sleeping. This isn't some Victorian mother scaring her child with stories of Boney coming to get them. That's not the point.
Sure, Mother did say that to me. But what really scared me was the way she described what the Eldirith actually looked like. She said they weren't as monstrous as the fictional stories and novels in Gravania often portrayed them.
In fact, physically, they're not all that different from humans. Most of them were said to be quite beautiful or handsome, with one distinct trait: their pointed ears. That was all based on ruins discovered by humans, where statues of the Eldirith were found.
Honestly, I had a weird sense of déjà vu hearing that, because didn't that sound just like Elves from fantasy stories back on Earth? But when I asked Mother about "Elves," she looked confused and said she had never heard of such a word.
So then, why was I scared out of my mind like this? It was because Mother told me that when the Eldirith were overwhelmed by the craving for human flesh, they would reveal their true side—with blood-red eyes and blood-red teeth.
Yep. Blood-red eyes and teeth. Just like the thing that killed me in front of the movie theater. I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but the image of that thing still haunts me, and it clearly left a bit of trauma behind.
"W-what was that?!"
I flinched hard when I suddenly heard a loud noise right beside my bed. When I peeked out from under the blanket, I sighed in relief. It was just the window swinging open from the storm outside.
"Phew, just the window..." I muttered, feeling slightly embarrassed by my own paranoia.
Since the rain was starting to splash into the room, I got up and went to close the window before the water soaked the floor. But just as I stepped forward, a terrifying thought crossed my mind...
Wait. Isn't this exactly like those cliché horror movie scenes? Stormy night, thunder, and just when the protagonist reaches out to close the window... something grabs their hand from the darkness?
I shook my head hard, trying to erase all those thoughts. One way or another, I had to close that window, especially since water had already splashed all over the place.
After taking what felt like forever just to gather a bit of courage, I finally stepped forward quickly.
When I reached out with both hands… nothing happened.
Seriously, why was I acting like such a scared little kid right now? I closed the window again, and with that, I rushed back to the bed.
"W-what now?!"
Just as I was about to shut my eyes again, a sudden sound startled me enough to make me jolt upright from where I was lying.
"Stupid branch!" I grumbled.
Outside the window, a tree branch had been tapping or brushing against the glass, making it sound like someone was knocking. Luckily, the strong wind soon caught the branch again, and the knocking finally stopped.
People say that drinking milk can help you sleep faster, right? M-maybe I can fix this with milk?
Without thinking any further, I got up from my bed and went straight to the table in the room, where my milk jug had already been prepared earlier by Lyra.
"Ahhh... this is better."
After drinking a few glasses of milk from the jug, I finally started to feel calmer. The warmth spreading through my chest was oddly comforting, as if it were slowly pushing away the fear that had been clinging to me since the lights went out.
I returned to my bed, pulled the blanket over me, and sank into the mattress. The softness embraced me, and for the first time that night, I felt like maybe I could actually sleep.
Eventually, I did.
But instead of peace, I found something else.
In the dream, I stood alone at the edge of a vast shoreline. The sky was dark and colorless, and a quiet wind swept across the sea. Far across the water, just barely visible through the mist, stood a figure.
It was a girl.
She didn't move or speak. She just stood there, her long hair drifting in the air behind her like smoke. At first, I couldn't see her face clearly, but then the fog began to lift.
Her eyes were red. Not the soft kind of red found in candlelight or sunsets, but sharp and unnatural. And then she smiled.
Her teeth were the color of fresh blood.
That was all she did. She looked at me from across the sea and smiled. It wasn't wide, or cruel, or friendly. It was just... quiet.
And it terrified me.
I woke up with a gasp, sitting up so fast that the blanket slipped off my shoulders. My heart was racing. My skin was clammy with sweat. The room was quiet, lit only by the moonlight sneaking through the curtains.
It had just been a dream.
But her face stayed with me. Her eyes. That smile.
I didn't sleep again for the rest of that night.