From somewhere, an urgent shout echoed. Stella, who was about to grab the stone, quickly turned her head toward the sound.

There stood an earth fairy with a pale face, different from the ones she had seen the day before. Judging by the graying hair and wrinkles, this one seemed much older than the fairies from yesterday.

Despite his appearance, the grandfather fairy approached Stella with surprising agility.

“You must be Stella.”

“Yes.”

Stella found herself answering politely without thinking. The grandfather fairy sighed deeply and gestured for her to sit.

Assuming he wanted her to take a seat, Stella lowered herself, trying her best to match his eye level.

“I’m called Uhu. I heard those rascals made an unreasonable request of you yesterday. I apologize on their behalf.”

Stella felt it was strange to hear such dignified words from a being barely a span tall. She wanted to pat his head because he was so cute, but she feared that might earn her a scolding.

“Was it really an unreasonable request?”

“Do you know what you were about to dig up?”

“They said it was something like a jar.”

“I thought as much. Those fools didn’t explain properly. That’s why you approached so fearlessly.”

Only then did Stella realize this wasn’t an easy task, prompting her to quietly move away from the stone tower.

She couldn’t tell if it was her imagination, but it seemed as though an evil aura was seeping from the stone tower. Glancing at it, Stella took another step back.

“What’s inside that?”

“It’s an object inscribed with a curse that seals the earth’s energy. Because of it, the land around here is slowly dying. If this continues, we’ll all vanish before long.”

“Can’t you move it somewhere else?”

Uhu shook his head with a weak smile at Stella’s question. Somehow, she felt like she had become a naive child.

“We were born from this land. We can’t leave it.”

“Then…”

“We’ll probably vanish soon. But that’s our problem. You rascals, come out and apologize right now!”

At Uhu’s shout, two earth fairies who had been hiding nearby approached Stella with their heads bowed.

Looking utterly dejected as they came closer, they kept wiping tears with their forearms. The bumps on their foreheads suggested they had been thoroughly scolded by the grandfather fairy before arriving.

“We’re really sorry. We only thought about ourselves. We shouldn’t have made such a request.”

The little fairy with the pretty sparkling eyes apologized first. Was his name Esta? Stella tried to recall the conversation between the two from yesterday.

“We’re truly sorry. This is a token of our apology.”

What the chubby one offered was a large basket filled with orange carrots. While it was quite big for the earth fairies, it fit snugly in Stella’s hands.

Stella accepted the basket Ark was offering, feeling slightly touched.

“You didn’t have to do this. Now I feel bad.”

While Stella was inwardly relieved that she hadn’t touched that scary thing, she outwardly put on an expression of regret for not being able to help.

Honestly, while it was sad to think of these cute creatures vanishing, she couldn’t risk her life to assist them.

Just as she was about to turn around, pretending to be disappointed…

“Princess, what are you doing there?”

Startled by Milla’s sudden voice, Stella slipped and fell right where she stood. At the same time, she heard something crumbling behind her.

With a sense of dread, Stella slowly turned her head. The stone tower that had been pushed by her back had collapsed.

The old stone tower fell apart with disappointing ease.

“Princess!”

Milla, who had been watching Stella from a distance, ran over in alarm. Stella, awkwardly seated on the ground, slowly stood up in a daze.

“Are you alright? Do you have a headache, or feel like throwing up, or see anything strange?”

Uhu, who had turned pale as a ghost at the sight of the collapsed stone tower, was even stuttering. Ark and Esta, who had been sobbing and begging for forgiveness earlier, were already nowhere to be seen.

“…I’m fine.”

Stella examined the palm that touched the stone tower before finally answering. Her palm had been slightly scraped and injured from hastily bracing herself against the ground as she fell. But at that moment, worrying about the wound wasn’t a priority.

The instant she realized her hand had touched the cursed stone tower, she felt as if all the blood had drained from her body at once.

She feared that an evil aura might still be seeping out of the collapsed tower. However, apart from her racing heart, nothing unusual occurred.

“Princess, are you hurt?”

Milla, who had approached unnoticed, asked as she took Stella’s hand to examine it.

Although Stella had fallen because Milla’s sudden call startled her, she couldn’t blame her. Milla frowned upon discovering the wound on Stella’s palm.

“I’m fine. I just slipped for a moment.”

“What were you doing here?”

Milla asked while taking out a handkerchief and wrapping it around Stella’s injured palm. She couldn’t fathom what Stella had been doing in this unremarkable place.

There were no beautiful flowers blooming, nor was it spring with new sprouts. The poorly maintained garden, overgrown with wildflowers, held nothing that should have caught Stella’s attention.

“There was just something like this here.”

Stella pointed to the collapsed stone tower. She was curious if Milla could see this stone tower too, and if so, how it appeared to her.

“A pile of stones? Why is something like this here?”

Milla said with a puzzled expression after looking around once more.

‘So Milla can see it too.’

“I was looking at it because I thought it should be cleared away to tend to the garden.”

“You could get injured like this if you touch stones carelessly. I’ll call for a gardener. If we call today, they should come and clear it within a week.”

“A week?”

That seemed too long. Besides, seeing that nothing unusual had happened when she touched it, Stella thought she might be able to clear it herself.

“I’ll just clear it slowly myself.”

“You, Princess?”

“Yes. It’s not like I have anything else to do.”

Stella said with a bright smile, but Milla shook her head firmly.

“Princess, your history lessons start today. There are books you must read before that. The lessons start late in the afternoon, so you should read those books in the morning first.”

Being held as a hostage, Stella had no power to refuse the schedule given to her.

“How long are the lessons?”

“They run from 3 PM to 5 PM. You’ll need to prepare as you’ll be taking lessons with the other princesses as well.”

Honestly, Stella had no desire to learn about the history of the Credion Empire. The idea that she had to learn it because she was a candidate for empress also seemed nonsensical to her.

Although she had only seen the Emperor of the Credion Empire briefly from afar the day before, even a three-year-old child could tell that he had no interest in the princesses held as hostages.

“I’ll go in after another hour of walking. Please take out the books I need to read. I’ll make sure to read them all before the lesson starts.”

When there was a book she wanted to read, she would finish it even if it meant giving up sleep. Moreover, studying was one of the things she quite enjoyed.

“Please leave that pile of stones alone. I’ll have the servants take care of it.”

“Okay. I understand.”

Even as she listened to Stella’s words, Milla couldn’t hide her uneasiness. Only when Stella agreed to cut her walking time to thirty minutes did Milla finally feel relieved and go back inside.

As she left, she repeatedly mentioned that there were two books that needed to be read.

As soon as Milla disappeared from sight, Stella began to dig through the collapsed stone tower. Even Uhu’s startled attempts to stop her were in vain.

“What if something terrible happens from handling it so carelessly?”

“It doesn’t seem to have any effect on me.”

It was true. The more Stella dug through the pile of stones, the more certain she became that it would have no impact on her.

If asked to explain why, she wouldn’t have been able to, but as time passed, she only felt an inexplicable certainty.

As she threw the stones out one by one, the earth beneath became visible, and she hastily used a flat stone as a makeshift shovel.

She didn’t know where this blind determination came from, but Stella was as fixated on digging the ground now as she had been when she first encountered the carrots.

After about ten minutes, when Stella had dug down about a hand’s width, there was a clang as the stone hit something solid.

“Aaaaah!”

“Run away!”

The two little ones who had quietly approached again, along with Uhu, scattered in all directions, startled by the sound.

Stella, after watching the three flee, fixed her gaze on the solid object that had revealed itself. Buried in the ground was a brown jar with a lid.

Stella tapped the lid of the jar lightly with the stone she was holding. She had expected black smoke to billow out, but nothing unusual happened.

After tapping it a few more times with the stone and seeing no reaction, Stella gently touched it with her fingertips.

All remained calm.

The earth fairies, standing far away, were watching with pale faces. Uhu was on his knees, fervently praying to someone.

Stella carefully placed her palm on the lid. She felt the characteristic dampness and coolness of an object that had been in the ground for a long time.

Stella began to dig again silently, and soon the object revealed itself completely.

“Huh? It’s just a jar?”

What Stella pulled out of the ground was a rather heavy brown jar. It seemed so ordinary that she wondered if the earth fairies might have been mistaken.

If there was anything strange, it was that despite being pulled from the soil, it was shiny and glossy as if brand new.

Stella placed the jar on the ground and then grasped it with both hands, shaking it back and forth.

Thud, thud.

There was something heavy inside the jar.