“Sigh.”
Lulumiya sat on the hay, letting out a long sigh.
She looked up at the ceiling.
It was pitch dark, with only a faint ray of light filtering through a small ventilation hole in the wall.
Outside the little black room, screams of agony mixed with the chilling crack of whips.
Anyone would know this place was a prison cell.
“What’s going on here?”
The screams gave Lulumiya goosebumps all over.
She shivered and let out a hoarse, sorrowful cry from her throat.
She had transmigrated—into the body of a little girl about to be led to the execution ground.
Just after absorbing the flood of information in her head, Lulumiya felt a splitting headache.
She was supposed to be peacefully sleeping in an air-conditioned room that was practically heaven, but instead, she woke up only to fall into hell.
Who ever had a transmigration start this miserably?
“Was the original body an idiot?”
Refusing to accept her fate, Lulumiya started looking for a way out.
According to the original’s memories, as the kingdom’s prized pearl, she would be dragged out in five minutes and dismembered.
Literally torn to pieces.
The original’s name was Lulumiya, appearing as a little girl just over ten years old.
The only difference from normal people was her extraordinary beauty, plus a pair of heavy, cumbersome dragon horns and an unmistakable dragon tail.
But Lulumiya was not a dragon girl in her childhood.
She was an Artificial Lifeform created by the Aiton Magic Workshop in the Ounheim Kingdom, hailed as a “true Artificial Lifeform,” a “near-perfect Magical Automaton.”
Despite the lofty title, she had become a prisoner because the original was a complete failure.
Thinking of how the original had no merit yet looked down on others arrogantly made Lulumiya want to punch her twice over.
As an Artificial Lifeform, the original had been created by the Magic Workshop and lived a life of indulgence and pampering.
The workshop’s Researchers treated her like a treasure, and Nobility who had dealings with the workshop showed her great respect.
An ignorant little girl living in such an environment naturally grew arrogant, believing everyone must yield to her.
It was normal for her to bark orders at the Researchers who took care of her.
Eventually, she would publicly scold and embarrass them for the slightest neglect.
Fortunately, the original was always seen as the kingdom’s future hope, so everyone indulged her.
That was until she was sent to enroll in the kingdom’s top Magic Academy—then the good days ended completely.
The original didn’t know Nobility etiquette, was slow to learn, and had only average magical talent.
Even worse, as a Magical Automaton, her physical resilience was no different from a real ten-year-old girl—so fragile she could fall with a gentle push.
Incompetence paired with arrogance, and within just one month, the original was isolated by her classmates.
Meanwhile, Lulumiya witnessed the Nobility classmates enjoying delicacies, wearing dazzling clothes, and being fawned over by many little Nobles, which made the original envious.
So she borrowed money under the guise of being a perfect automaton to decorate herself, even borrowing from the kingdom’s Fourth Princess.
Eventually, the truth came out.
The ending was obvious: the so-called perfect Magical Automaton and future hope of the kingdom became a laughingstock, a defective product disguised by falsehoods.
The workshop that created her lost its reputation and was even blamed for mismanagement, forced to repay the original’s debts.
In the end, the money-hungry Workshop Master ordered Lulumiya’s dismantling.
The original became a prisoner, awaiting disposal—every Magical Automaton required a huge investment of magical materials, so recycling was the only way to maximize profits.
There was no saving her.
Lulumiya’s legs went weak in the cell.
She was going to die.
I am a living, breathing person!
Not some Magical Automaton!
This is murder!
Yet the original’s memories told Lulumiya that appealing to the Researchers was useless.
In the Ounheim Kingdom, Magical Automata were mere commodities; no one cared if they had rights or not.
Even if Lulumiya had a beating heart and warm blood, it didn’t matter.
If she clung to the Researchers’ feet and claimed she was human or a transmigrator, they would only see it as a survival program in the automaton’s mind acting up.
If softness didn’t work, try hardness.
Lulumiya tightened the tattered burlap covering her body, then swiftly stood up.
Using the faint light from the ventilation hole, she explored the cell. It was very small, and soon she understood the layout.
A pile of hay, a wooden bucket, and a torn burlap cloth covering her body—nothing else.
Cover the Researcher’s head with a burlap sack and knock them out, then escape during the chaos?
Maybe if Lulumiya were still her Earth self, she could manage it, but now she was a fragile ten-year-old girl.
Forget knocking out a Researcher; she couldn’t even jump high enough to cover their head.
Tap, tap.
The whipping and screaming stopped, replaced by clear footsteps approaching from afar.
Cold sweat broke out on Lulumiya’s forehead.
She felt like the footsteps belonged to the black and white impermanence—hell’s grim reapers.
In a daze, she already saw figures beckoning her—whether King Yama or Satan, she wasn’t sure.
The original’s memories showed scenes of discarded automatons being dismembered—limbs chopped off according to protocol, then thrown into the furnace for recycling, all without anesthesia, while the Magical Automaton still retained consciousness.
That meant she would first experience the agony of being quartered, then be burned alive like during witch hunts.
The waiting was worse than death itself.
Lulumiya didn’t dare complain about transmigrating into such a doomed body.
Using all her willpower and survival instincts, she racked her brain desperately.
Then, “creak,” the tightly sealed cell door was pulled open from outside.
In that moment, Lulumiya felt numbness in her hands and feet, like a rusty machine refusing to move.
She forced herself to look toward the door, gathering her courage to reveal her soul as human, even planning to confess she had only recently transmigrated into this body.
But before she could speak, a young man in gray robes gave a command in a language Lulumiya had never heard but somehow understood.
“It’s time to go.”
Her dragon tail curled instinctively behind her, and Lulumiya asked timidly, “Go… where?”
She recognized the youth from the original’s memories.
This young man in gray robes was a Researcher who recorded the original’s various physical data.
Because gray robes ranked low in the workshop, the original had always treated him with disdain.
The youth blinked in surprise. Lulumiya had never spoken to him in such a meek, fearful tone before.
He glanced at her again.
It had to be said, a pitiful, adorable little girl doomed to be dismembered was enough to stir sympathy—especially since, unlike the heartless Magical Automata outside, Lulumiya looked full of spirit.
His eyes softened with pity.
“Is there anything you want to eat? Since we know each other, I can buy you something.”
“C-Can I… not die?”
The youth looked about seventeen or eighteen and seemed approachable.
Lulumiya lifted her neck like a swan’s, fluttering her eyelashes to emphasize the little girl’s innocent charm, trying to draw on her 21st-century galgame experience for sympathy.
But a suppressed giggle came from behind the youth—the Blue-robed Apprentices.
Lulumiya remembered the original used to mock these apprentices for their poor backgrounds. She caught snippets of their hushed conversations.
“Begging only when you’re about to die.”
“They say we dress like dogs. Now even dogs are better than us.”
“Not like our Miss Lulumiya at all. Why don’t you keep barking?”
The teasing went on endlessly.
Lulumiya could only suffer in silence.
This was all the original’s foolishness, nothing to do with her.
“No more noise. Are you hooligans? Go back and copy the Apprentice Code a hundred times.”
The youth’s expression turned cold as he scolded a few apprentices with furrowed brows.
Then he turned away and said sternly,
“The matter has reached the Fourth Princess. It’s too late for regrets now. Let’s go.”