The Dialectic of Master and Slave - Chapter 158

Volumes 1-4 + Side Stories of DMS are available uncensored on ko-fi! ※ This work contains depictions of coercive relationships, explicit language, and other graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.

Taking a deep breath, Jaha stepped inside. The moment she registered the shelves upon shelves of books, an indescribable discomfort crawled up from the soles of her feet. Her heart pounded erratically, as if someone were beating a drum beside her.

“As of today… you are a library slave under the palace’s jurisdiction.”

What the hell?

The unfamiliar voice that flashed through her mind made Jaha clutch her chest irritably. Her lungs tightened, making it hard to breathe.

Her entire body rejected being here—any place that resembled a library.

She shook her head violently. This is all in my mind. There was no reason to helplessly surrender to this inexplicable emotion.

I’m not leaving.

If her body wanted to survive, it would calm itself down. Otherwise, it could just drop dead.

Cold sweat dripped down her temples. Gritting her teeth, Jaha endured. Just like how plunging into icy water was agonizing at first—heart seizing, body trembling—but eventually, the pain dulled. She waited for that numbness to come.

And eventually, it did.

Forcing herself to stay composed, she browsed the shelves for something to read. Fiction was out of the question—nonfiction would be better for learning about this world.

After some deliberation, her hovering hand settled on the final volume of the Imperial Chronicles. Her intention was simple: Let’s see what kind of man the Emperor is.

The text began with the reign of the previous Emperor, detailing even his family relations with meticulous precision.

Still struggling with unfamiliar terms, Jaha relied heavily on a dictionary as she painstakingly made her way through the text.

“What does this mean? Hmm… Ah, it’s a court term for ‘consort.’”

The late Emperor had twelve children, but the son born to his consort residing in the Langjev Palace possessed the strongest magical power—and thus became Crown Prince.

‘That Crown Prince must be the current Emperor.’

It seemed her old addiction to the written word hadn’t gone anywhere—despite it being her first time reading in so long, Jaha lost herself in the book almost instantly.

“Miss. It’s almost time for Madame Marie’s visit.”

Jaha’s head snapped up at the servant’s voice, her face pale. She hadn’t even noticed how much time had passed.

“Right. I’ll go.”

She hurriedly stood, Rikanan’s smug reply echoing in her mind.

“Young, usable, and a magician with passably decent skills.”

“What kind of—”

‘Passably decent skills?!’

She’d been completely duped.

“He’s an absolute monster.”

The reincarnation of the founding Emperor, Abrixa. A mage so rare he might appear once in a thousand years—one whose magic would outlast the oceans drying up around the continent. The pinnacle of magic, capable of anything short of raising the dead.

Even if only half of what she’d read was true, the Crown Prince in those pages—the current Emperor—was nothing short of a living weapon. Harboring hostility toward such a being was no different from suicide.

The best course of action was to avoid entanglement entirely.

She would never interact with him.

If forced into an unavoidable encounter, she wouldn’t so much as breathe—anything to avoid drawing his attention.

How bitterly she regretted it now. If she could turn back time, she wouldn’t have gone near a single book. She would have made sure to never, ever catch his eye—

‘Huh?’

Jaha paused, struck by a strange dissonance in her own thoughts. But before she could dwell on it, the sound of a carriage outside drowned it out, and the thought vanished from her mind as quickly as it had come.

Madame Marie had arrived. If she didn’t greet her with the poise of a perfect lady, there’d be hell to pay. Jaha left the study in a rush, the book still lying open behind her.

Some time later, a gloved hand—white as snow—picked up the abandoned volume.

The sound of turning pages settled over the silent study.

His gaze skimmed the pages with detached efficiency—less reading, more scanning.

“Published seven years ago.”

He flipped to the front to check the date, then set the book back down exactly as Jaha had left it—untouched, as if no one had ever been there at all.

◇ ◆ ◇

Jaha poured all her spare time into reading. On days when Madame Marie piled on assignments, she sacrificed sleep just to keep turning pages.

Thanks to that, her knowledge of this world grew steadily—if not extensively. But despite the original goal of finding a healthier hobby, her mental state showed no signs of improvement.

Lately, she’d caught herself fixating on parts of Rikanan’s body—the broad, solid plane of his chest, the sharp jut of his Adam’s apple, the muscles visible even through his clothes. Her throat burned whenever she noticed them. She’d even fantasized about them during solitary moments. Yet, each time she felt herself slipping, an inexplicable wariness yanked her back.

In short: she teetered on the edge of falling for him, yet never quite toppled.

Even Jaha was surprised. Here was a man so handsome he could make every other pretty face she’d seen fade into obscurity—and yet, she held firm.

By all rights, she should’ve been head over heels a hundred times over. So why wasn’t she? It was as if something about him—something no amount of beauty could offset—kept her guarded.