Chapter 3

The next morning.

One chicken… two chickens… three chickens…

Lirian was still lost in dreamland.

In her dream, she was happily counting flocks of chickens hopping over fluffy clouds. She giggled in her sleep.

Drool slid from the corner of her mouth.

Looks so tasty… yum, yum.

Smacking her lips, she kept counting the chickens.

Four chickens, five chickens… and one ugly Abyss Fiend…

Out of nowhere, an Abyss Fiend appeared in peaceful Chicken Kingdom.

It gobbled up her precious chickens in one bite!

Flap! Flap! The chickens screamed, white feathers flying as the clouds collapsed beneath them.

Nooo! My chickens!

Lirian jolted awake with a cry, eyes wide.

“…Huh?”

Sunlight spilled gently through the curtains, washing her room in soft pastels.

“Was that… a dream?”

The beauty of it all felt surreal—something she could never have seen in the ruined world. But then, she heard faint voices outside her door.

“Without the young masters around, it’s so quiet, isn’t it?”

“I can’t get used to it. Even Lady Lirian seems out of sorts.”

“They’ll be back soon.”

“Come on, we’ll be late.”

The muffled chatter outside was proof of a house alive with people.

Still blinking, Lirian slowly lifted her hands.

Not the hands of a twenty-five-year-old warrior, but of a five-year-old child.

She stared at those maple-leaf-sized hands—

Slap, slap!

—and smacked her cheeks firmly before hopping out of bed.

After just one day, she had already adjusted to her short little body.

This is real.

Marching into the washroom, she washed her face and brushed her teeth with great care.

Her face now fresh and dewy, she nimbly climbed over the child-proof fence set up to keep her from wandering.

Now… what should I do first?

It was good to finally accept this as reality—but she had no idea what came next.

“Ah!”

A brilliant thought struck her, and her eyes sparkled.

“Princess, time to wake up!”

Caesar pushed open her door with an eager smile.

Five seconds later—

Click. He quietly closed the empty room’s door again.

Dark, blue-black mana rippled around him.

Mana Manifestation.

A technique only available to ninth-circle or higher mages—the realm of true Masters.

Gone was the doting father. In his place stood the infamous Iron-Blooded Duke, face like ice.

“Find her. My treasure is missing.”

Meanwhile, Lirian had no idea the mansion was in chaos. She was far too busy.

“No, not this one. Not that one either. Definitely not that one.”

She stood inside the vast ducal library, so massive she couldn’t even see the end of it.

Reading.

A word that had always felt worlds away from her.

But now, she had no choice.

The hardest part was simply choosing the right book—something that was taking forever.

I can’t give up now!

Full of determination, she scurried across the library with her little legs.

Then—

Huh?

A golden butterfly appeared before her eyes.

Flutter, flutter.

It flapped its wings lightly, then floated up to a high shelf and slipped into a book.

The book glowed faintly in its wake.

“Whoa.”

Her eyes widened.

“That’s suspicious if I’ve ever seen it!”

Without hesitation, she dragged over a wooden ladder and set it against the shelf.

Even at five, her natural physical talent made the feat effortless.

“Up we go!”

Creak, creak.

She climbed up and reached for the book. The glow faded as soon as her fingers brushed it.

“‘The Hero Hides His Identity’?”

She tilted her head.

It looked special, but the title was odd.

“Shouldn’t heroes not hide their identities?”

Jumping off the ladder in one swift motion, she opened the book on the floor.

Having lived through the ruined world, Lirian knew one thing:

Heroes were symbols of hope.

Their very existence gave people the will to believe the darkness could someday be defeated.

Like the Morning Star itself.

Rustle.

She turned the pages, eyes serious.

For about… one minute.

Anything longer than three lines always made her drowsy.

Her head drooped.

“Nnngh.”

At five years old, holding her head up was even harder.

Just before she face-planted into the book, she jerked awake, swallowing her drool and straightening her back.

The perfect “I wasn’t sleepy at all” act.

Normally, someone would sigh helplessly at this point—

Ah. Right.

Illei wasn’t here.

Her spirits sank, even her little hair-whisps drooping.

And on the page before her, a water stain had smudged the ink.

“Uh?”

The blurred words caught her eye.

He was a hero of the past.
No—more precisely, a hero of a future that had not yet come.
He returned to the past.

Returned to the past.

To change the fate of this world.

Blinking, she checked the chapter title.

Prologue: Regression

Regression.

Lirian wasn’t clever, but she understood what this meant.

I’ve gone back twenty years!

And with that, the math was simple.

At least twenty years remained until the world’s destruction.

The Abyss erupts in twelve years.

Before that, the world would show “anomalies”—omens of the coming end.

Distortions in time and space, rifts spilling out strange creatures… something like that.

She tried to recall the details.

…But of course, she’d forgotten after three lines.

Anyway!

The world had given warnings, but greedy humans wasted their time fighting over land. They missed every chance.

“Royal Family. The Council of Elders. The Church.”

And the Mage Tower, Merchant Guild, and countless others.

“Hmph.”

For now, though, it was still a peaceful world.

She had a chance to save it from destruction.

Should I just cut off all their heads?

Like the warrior she was, her first thought was violence.

But… she quickly decided it was impossible.

In the old world, she had seen it firsthand: take down one corrupt figure, and an even worse one always crawled out.

Like cockroaches.

Unless she wiped them all out at once, they’d just keep coming back.

And in this tiny body, she couldn’t hope to fight entire factions.

So then… what do I do?

She clutched her head and groaned. Steam practically rose from her overworked brain.

“Uuugh.”

And then—

So, what do you want to do?

A man’s voice echoed in her head.

Lirian didn’t flinch. She opened her vivid violet eyes and answered.

I want to protect them.

Who?

The people I love.

Her family.

Her benefactor.

And—

This world I’ll live in with them.

A silver-haired man chuckled.

Saving the world, huh? Quite the dream.

Huh?

She blinked.

The golden butterfly perched on her head fluttered away.

She rubbed her scalp with a wince.

“Ow.”

It wasn’t a dream.

She could’ve sworn she’d just seen… Illei? Or someone like him.

Her eyes welled up with tears before she hurriedly wiped them away.

Guess I miss him too much.

Deciding simply, she clenched her fists.

All right then. I’ll save the world myself.

Of course, not alone.

Cutting off heads, I can handle. But taking down the Council, the Church, even the Royal Family—that’s too much for me alone.

She’d need influence in politics, society, trade, and more.

Accepting her limits, Lirian leapt to her feet and bolted out of the library.

Thankfully, she still had an eternal ally.

No matter what, he would always be on her side—

“Daaaaad! I think I regressed!”

Her family.

Lirian was no longer alone.