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There was a boy.

He was born the third son of a well-to-do merchant family and was raised relatively freely.

His grandparents were still alive and well, and it can be said that it was not his parents but his grandparents who mainly raised him.

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The boy loved old stories. His grandparents used to tell him stories.

The War of Magic. The great battle against the demons.

The boy's heart leapt when he heard them.

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When he turned 15, he set out on a journey.

He didn't go very far. He could have been there and back in ten days.

There were ruins there that could be reached in four or five days one way.

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The ruins of the magic war that I had heard so much about.

It was located on a hill overlooking a large lake.

It was developed as a sightseeing spot, and most of the people visited there along with sightseeing at the lake.

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The boy, however, was not interested in the lake and just looked around the ruins.

"So this is the ruins. ......"

The ruins were like the ruins of a half-collapsed castle. The parts of the ruins that are not in danger of collapse are open to tourists.

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The rest of the site is off-limits, with only occasional visits by authorized archaeologists.

There must be something more interesting there.

The boy thought so. He waited for the night when the tourists were gone and entered the restricted area. With one small magic lamp.

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It changed his life.

Suddenly, his footing collapsed and a hole opened up.

Dozens of people had never had a hole in the place where he had walked.

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Was it fate?

"Oh, no, no, no, no. ......"

A hole in the floor made of stone more than a meter thick. The boy fell through it.

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He was lucky not to be crushed by the stones that fell with him. The largest of the stones was 2 meters square, and the boy would have been a mere lump of meat if he had been trapped under it.

"This is ......"

Whipping his aching body, the boy stood up.

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The place he was in looked like a hall. The hole into which he had fallen seemed to be slanted from the middle, not vertical. Otherwise, the boy would have been killed by the impact of the fall.

However, the hole he was supposed to have fallen into was blocked by the stones that collapsed later, and there was no way for him to escape from the hole.

"Oh, no."

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The boy muttered, but his face did not look as troubled as his words.

Because he was standing in a place that no tourist would know, a place that even archaeologists had never set foot in before.

The thought that this must be the inside of the castle where the generals and knights used to roam during the magic wars made the boy's heart beat involuntarily.

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Now, which way shall we go?

There were two entrances to what appeared to be a hall, one large and one small.

The smaller one was about the size of the front door of an ordinary house. The larger one was five meters high and wide.

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After much deliberation, the boy went to the smaller one.

As he started walking, he noticed that he could see around him for some reason. It was nighttime, and the magic lamp he had brought with him was under the stone. And yet he can see his surroundings.

It was because the walls were luminous.

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He thought he had seen many things in his life, but he had never seen such a light.

"I wonder if this is old technology.

Guided by the lights, the boy passed through the smaller doorway.

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Beyond the smaller doorway was a passageway that curved gently and continued for a long time. It curved slightly downwards, and the boy continued to go deeper underground.

After about 10 minutes, there was a door. It was made of iron and rusted red.

"I wonder if it will open..."

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He pushed the door with all his might, and the door moved little by little, creaking noisily. The door managed to open just enough for one person to pass through, and the boy stepped through the door.

Thinking back, this was his last chance to turn back.

But fear and hesitation were gone from the boy's mind. He was simply drawn to the unknown and kept going.

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What was on the other side of the door was a great number of magic tools.

Many of them were broken, but still a third of them appeared to be safe, at least from the outside.

Among them, there was one that caught the boy's attention.

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"Is that a ...... doll?"

It was a doll. She looked like a girl. But she was lifeless, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall.

There is another reason why I identified it as a doll.

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Her left hand was broken. It was missing from the elbow joint, and there was some kind of string hanging from the remaining part.

It was not a human body in the least.

"...... beautiful."

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But the doll was beautiful.

The hair had a golden sheen and felt like the finest silk threads. Her skin was porcelain white, and her face was that of an angel.

"I wonder if it works anymore."

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The boy gently touches the doll.

I am cold. I can't feel the body heat.

"...... a doll, after all."

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I run my hand over his cheek.

"It's soft ......."

It feels like a human touch, but cold, so strange.

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I wonder if its eyes are closed.

The boy can't help but wonder what color the eyes are. The doll is so beautiful, the eyes must be beautiful too.

"Why doesn't it move?"

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He grabs her shoulders and shakes her lightly. The golden hair sways softly, but the doll never wakes up.

At a loss, the boy remembered an old story his grandmother had told him.

It was about a princess who was imprisoned in a tower and kept sleeping.

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The princess, the only child of an ancient kingdom, sleeps on and on. Until the day the kingdom is restored.

When she awakens from her sleep, that's when the old kingdom will be restored.

Such is the story.

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The princess was awakened by a hero. The princess wakes with a kiss from the hero.

And the princess wakes and marries the hero. That is how the kingdom is restored. That is, the hero becomes king and the princess becomes queen.

"A kiss ......?"

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The boy had never been in love. Of course, he had never been with a girl.

If you can call it love, this doll was the boy's first love.

The boy looked around even though no one was watching him, and then he gently put his face close to the doll's. After hesitating for several times, the boy looked at the doll and said, "I'm in love.

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After many hesitations, he kissed the doll on her peach-colored lips.

The boy turns bright red and pulls away from the doll.

The boy turns his head down as if embarrassed, then looks up and sees the doll's face once again, and is astonished.

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What?

The doll's eyes were open.

They were bright red, the color of blood. But the boy thought it was beautiful.

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"Did you ...... wake me up?"

Her voice was like rolling bells, and it fascinated the boy.

The girl gets up slowly.

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"You've been asleep for a long time. Oh, your left arm is still broken.

The girl walks away.

"It's a little rickety. But I guess it won't hurt to move.

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Step by step the doll walks and stands in front of the boy.

"Thank you. If you don't mind, can you give me a name?"

The boy, whose head is so surprised that it is barely working, still says his name.

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It is the name that comes to his mind at the moment he sees the doll.

"Elena."

The doll smiles when the boy says this,

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Yes, my name is Elena. I am very happy to meet you, my lord.