The reason I, who had staggered and collapsed, was able to regain my senses and stand up.

It was because I heard a voice in my ear at the moment when I was about to close my eyes tightly and give up.

‘Calm down, Sien. That horse is fake.’

At that moment, the small necklace that Leonhart had given me as a gift flashed with light.

The bluish light shimmered faintly as if to protect me.

However, the weak fairy energy couldn’t completely eliminate the strong illusion. Of course, I’m not of fairy lineage.

‘Still, thanks to this light, I feel a little stronger.’

The voice in my ear grew louder, and something began to shimmer before my eyes.

The bluish light that had enveloped me lost its vitality and went out. I thought I heard the words ‘hang in there’ in my ear.

I slowly opened my eyes.

This is a place where an ordinary five-year-old child would be unable to handle and might collapse mentally or even die, but it’s okay.

‘Because I have my dad.’

I’ll protect my foolish dad, whose hands and feet have become calloused from farming, with these small hands.

I barely raised my trembling legs, tightly gripping my white hands.

And I muttered under my breath.

“No.”

I thought of my rabbit-shaped bag.

I remembered my dad who used to carefully pack lunch boxes for me every day when we lived in the countryside.

‘Our Sien, your rabbit-shaped bag is pretty.’

‘I’m not a rabbit.’

‘Our daughter is the prettiest baby rabbit in the world, then.’

The dad who said that to me is my real dad…

“Those people are not my family.”

I knew.

One way to pass through the ‘Illusion Maze’ is to face a terrible trauma and escape from that memory.

Those who don’t know this wander around the maze avoiding hallucinations and auditory hallucinations, dying lonely, or even if they escape, they live miserably with huge mental problems.

But I knew both the method of the ‘Illusion Maze’ and how to escape.

So I took the gamble of throwing myself directly into the trap.

If you can’t avoid it, you have to face it and overcome it.

I spoke softly, as if kindling a small spark.

“I… have a precious daddy.”

There was no hope for the children who had fallen victim to the headmaster’s illusion.

But now I had a great hope and a dad to protect.

If I crumble, there will be no one in this Mirmode family to side with dad.

I clenched my fist and spoke a little louder.

Just as light defeats darkness, positive hope overcomes negative despair.

“My dad said he loves me.”

I closed my eyes tightly and endlessly recalled one by one the words that dad had said to me so far.

A warm feeling flooded my heart, like light bulbs turning on one by one.

‘Dad said he loves me. He said I’m pretty even when I do nothing, that I’m lovable no matter what I do.’

As my legs weakened, I leaned against the wall of the maze.

‘My dream is to live happily with dad for the rest of my life.’

I began to softly recite my wish inside my mouth.

Like lighting a small candle in the pitch-dark darkness.

The noise buzzing in my ears gradually subsided.

And instead of that noise, I began to see visions of my dad.

Dad who baked delicious bread every day in the countryside village.

Dad who would bring mountains of health food every time I coughed and sneezed.

Dad who taught me letters one by one and showed me how to pronounce them.

Dad who would say I wasn’t slow but learning step by step whenever others said I was backward…

Dad who prepared rabbit-shaped lunch boxes for me.

Even the image of him always patting my head and hugging me tightly as we slept.

‘Daughter, our daughter is the prettiest in the world.’

Sometimes when I had nightmares because of fragments of the past, dad would sing lullabies all night long.

With his voice hoarse from singing lullabies all night.

‘You know dad loves our Sien, right?’

Our dad who kept whispering kind words in my ear.

‘Dad will do everything for you. Our daughter just needs to be happy.’

A kind and warm voice that seemed to wrap around me softly.

The unconditional affection that I, who was abandoned by my parents in my past life, experienced for the first time.

I had to protect it no matter what.

‘I’m going to save our dad. I’ll survive and live happily no matter what.’

I was reborn with only one wish: to create a ‘happy family’.

Everything was thanks to God responding to my wish.

Even God protected my dream, so there’s no way I’d lose to someone like the headmaster.

‘I won’t be defeated by mere illusions, never.’

The only thing that can shatter evil fantasies is the strongest hope.

The stronger the hope for the future, the less one is swayed by past traumas.

I was the one who summoned a god with the belief of becoming happy and started a new life.

That’s why I could boldly enter this place.

Because I will survive.

‘Because I’m going to live happily with dad.’

I opened my eyes that I had tightly closed.

Then, like a mirror shattering, the illusion began to break.

As the illusion maze collapsed, I saw the headmaster with a shocked expression in front of me.

“You…”

“Now it’s grandpa’s turn.”

There was a fatal limitation to the illusions of an illusionist.

It was the weakness called reflection.

Reflection.

The illusionist had no choice but to receive the debris of the broken illusion intact.

Unlike me, although his body wouldn’t completely move into the maze due to the illusionist’s ‘privilege’, his physical and mental bodies would be partially separated.

In other words, part of his mental body would be trapped inside the maze, seeing torturous illusions.

I shook the now shattered magic stone in my hand.

“The magic stone is turning red.”

“You, you… Do you think you’ll be safe after this?”

“Yup. Grandpa is going to be in a lot of pain now!”

Was my words a signal?

As the magic stone vibrated strongly in my hand, the headmaster urgently clutched his heart.

“Keuugh…!”

Finally, a new nightmarish illusion had begun for him as well.

‘I wonder how it feels to be reversely attacked by the illusion you created yourself.’

I walked step by step towards him who was experiencing a terrible illusion.

And I whispered softly in his ear.

“If you’re strong, escape from it.”

“…S-shut up.”

Would he hear my voice?

I couldn’t know.

But I intended to return exactly the words I had heard.

“If you’re weak…”

I’m just a little kid who doesn’t know much about the Mirmode family tradition, but as of today, I’ve clearly learned one thing.

“You’ll be eaten, right? Because the weak get eaten.”

The headmaster who had sent many children into terrible traumas until now.

He would be having a terrible nightmare in the dreadful illusion he had created.

Just like those children he had tormented, he might be dreaming that nightmare forever.

It depended on the heart he had.

I smiled coldly and looked at Teacher Lilmy, the headmaster’s henchman.

He seemed to have lost strength in his legs due to the strange situation and couldn’t open his mouth.

“Hello, teacher?”

“…You, do you know what you’ve done to the headmaster? You, the daughter of an outcast!”

“What did I do?”

“You threatened the headmaster’s life! You didn’t even take the test properly. Do you think you’ll be safe after this?”

However, although he was fuming, he couldn’t approach me out of fear.

‘Can’t he grasp the current situation?’

I sighed heavily and took out a small mirror from my rabbit-shaped bag.

“Are you stupid?”

“…What are you saying! You need to properly—”

“Teacher needs to go too, you know.”

At my words, he raised a question mark on his face curiously.

I showed him the front of the mirror.

This mirror is a low-grade artifact that can be easily borrowed even from the library, but in the current situation…

“Reflection.”

This mirror could reflect and return the magic I had just experienced.

It can only be used once, and its influence is small, but.

“You, you…!”

“Tell me you’re sorry.”

He was like a bat.

His snake-like gaze flicked towards the kneeling headmaster and then urgently said to me.

“I-I’m sorry!”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, spare me! I-I’m sorry!”

I tapped the front of the mirror artifact and grinned.

“Hmm… I don’t want to.”

It was a clear rejection.

Soon after grasping the situation, he opened his eyes wide and raised his hands.

Was he trying to hit me? If so, I was willing to take one hit, but…

The effect of the mirror artifact was faster, of course.

“Kuhup!”

Leaving a strange yelp, he crumbled to the floor like the headmaster.

“Fool.”

I clicked my tongue inwardly and shook my head.

The nightmares of inherently evil people are even more terrible.

They won’t be able to leave this room for a while.

Even if they come out, they won’t have a sound mind.

‘Your life standards are only corruption and your own prosperity.’

I looked down at them coldly and turned around.

‘I thought about making them my allies, but such guys would only stab me in the back even if I made them my allies!’

And, what can they do if I say I don’t like it?

I tightly gripped the strap of my bag.

A blue light flickered around me and disappeared.

‘Thank you for continuing to protect me, fairy!’

I remember the blue light that occasionally hovered around me while I was in the illusion maze.

I’m just an ordinary person, but if I study well, maybe someday I’ll be able to summon the fairy, I thought such silly thoughts as I turned around.

That’s when it happened.

Bang!

The door opened as if it was about to break.

And outside, dad was standing with a terrifying expression.

“Sien!”

“Daddy!”

I quickly approached dad and hugged him tightly.

I didn’t know because I was busy rubbing my face against dad’s clothes like a cat.

The fact that he was dryly glaring at the two men staring blankly into space.

That with just one glance from Matthias, they crumbled, feeling extreme fear that squeezed their hearts.

Those two would never come back to life again.

***

Holding dad’s hand tightly, I entered the northern tower and began to be interrogated.

“Sien, dad told you never to do dangerous things.”

“But the test! They said to do it… so…”

“I told you not to follow bad people. What if something had gone wrong, how would dad live alone?”

I pushed my lips forward.

“I thought of you and got strength. So it was okay?”

“Exactly what happened, Sien? Huh? A small and weak child like you…”

“Um. Um… Nothing much! When I thought of you, the illusion just broke, that’s all!”

I explained, leaving out the story of how I deliberately took revenge on them. Our kind dad might cry if he heard such bad words.

I decided to keep the 100% truth secret forever.

“You… Sigh, okay. Let’s eat cake first.”

I said ah, and dad put a cream cake into my mouth.

As I was munching on the cake, I suddenly recalled the fragments of nightmares I had seen in the illusion maze.

The pieces of the past that I encountered after a long time troubled my heart.

I called dad, shaking slightly.

“…By the way, dad.”

“Yes.”

“Did you say it every day?”

“What?”

For some reason, my heart was pounding nervously.

“That it’s okay even if I’m useless…”

“Yes. It’s okay even if you don’t do anything.”

“Is it okay if I’m not good? Even if I break all the cups?”

Feeling anxious, I wiggled my fingers slightly. Just a little, not enough for dad to see.

“If you break cups?”

It was a slightly puzzled voice.

“Umm…”

As I rolled my eyes anxiously, dad’s warm voice rang in my ear.

“If you break a hundred cups, I’ll buy you a thousand.”

Originally, dad wasn’t like this. He used to insult me for being useless and criticize me for not being able to do even this.

But now our dad, the foolish country farmer Matthias dad…

“I don’t mind at all, because you’re our daughter.”

…He calls me our daughter.

He says in a warm voice, kindly, that he doesn’t mind at all.

My eyes trembled faintly, so I brought my small steamed bun-like hands to my eyes. It was covered as if a blackout curtain had been drawn in front of my eyes. Even peeking at dad through the gaps in my fingers required courage now.

Did he recognize my covering my eyes as some kind of signal? Dad’s voice became a little more urgent and impatient.

I pressed the bone of my eyebrows with my fingertips, trying hard not to cry.

But…

“It’s okay if you’re not good. It’s okay even if you’re very bad. But dad just wants our daughter to only think happy thoughts. I’d be even happier if you only have good experiences.”