“Isidora, I really miss you, Isidora.” The words echoed with aching sincerity, yet to him, they felt like a headache.

  ‘Wow, this old man is so infuriating.’ He clicked his tongue and decided to refer to this man as an old man. Of all the moments in his life, he had never felt this much frustration, except when those superiors reprimanded him despite his competence.

  Ironically, competence wasn’t the issue. In the brutal world of private syndicates, too much proficiency would only attract resentment. A standout syndicate would become the object of envy, which would invite troubles. And troubles made it harder to secure more work. Clients preferred competence, but the syndicate ecosystem favored otherwise.

  Anyway, dwelling on the past wouldn’t help, return to the matter at hand.

  He was in a serious pickle right now. On one hand, his remaining sanity screamed at him to escape this place, on the other hand, his body still refused to obey. Or to be precise, he had no body to obey, a seemingly formless existence.

  ‘Grampa! Grampa!’ The young mind suddenly disrupted his thoughts.

  ‘Not Grampa! Lunatic, nutcase dipshit!’

  ‘Not Grampa?’

  ‘Not!’

  He let out an exhausted sigh that only existed in his mind. Right, he had already accepted his situation.

  He was a painting. Or to be more accurate, he was what the old man before him called ‘Isidora’, a girl in the painting, trapped in a golden frame canvas.

  Not exactly pleasant, is it? To be addressed as a young miss, a female. There was also something deeply unsettling about being stared at with tearful reverence by someone who was very clearly unstable, an old man, no less. This was very absurd.

  ‘Isidora is quite cute, though. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘...’

  What could he say to that?

  He couldn't argue the statement or deny it with any conviction, or even mount a proper defense. It wasn’t wrong, to be honest. That was the problem.

  If only he could remember his original name, it would be different. At the very least, it would have given him a scrap of his identity to stubbornly put up some disputes with his young mind, something like, his original name was better, still more cool and masculine than this.

  But alas, not only had he been trapped here and become something inhuman, he had also been stripped of his own name, his own identity.

  ‘Well, it is what it is.’

  It wasn't like he could revert just by complaining.

  For now, with no alternative, ‘Isidora’ had no choice but to assume her identity as ‘Isidora.’

  And to be honest, ‘Isidora’ wasn’t even a bad name but quite a lovely and appealing name. It was soft and elegant in its rhythm, like a noble’s perfume.

  In front of her, the old man still gazed silently with unwavering intensity, with devotion and madness, at the figure in the painting. His trembling fingers reached forward and gently brushed against the painted surface, dragging across the dried strokes, his action made her flinch.

  Of course, that was just a figure of speech. She didn’t have a body to flinch with. She was kind of a presence or a consciousness, suspended in a strange, in-between state in the painting.

  It was a little difficult to describe this feeling by word.

  To put it simply, the Isidora this man stared at, the oil-painted girl in the painting, was not her.

  So even if she could perceive the room, the ‘Isidora’ in the oil painting would not move, its eyes would not follow the old man’s movements. She was a spectator, forced to endure this obsessive scrutiny.

  The entire situation was too bizarre. The longer the man stared, the more she felt as though something inside her was eroding, making her nauseous.

  Whatever this man claimed to be, she decided not to trust it. There was something deeply unsettling about him, his reverence was too suffocating.

  Even if she could make the painted figure move, it would never happen in front of him. The only thing more dangerous than being watched by a madman was letting him know you were watching back.

  In short, only a fool would reveal herself to him. And Isidora was no fool; she had standards, and she was not into an old man. She had shit to do.

  ‘R…right! Only a fool would do that! Exactly! Hic!’

  ‘?’

  Why was there a sudden stutter? The mature mind’s mood darkens.

  Hold on, Had her young mind actually been considering responding to him? The sheer audacity of her young self was… astonishing; she would give her that. Not in a good way.

  ‘Hey,’ she deliberately slowed her words, ‘were you thinking of noticing that Lunatic? Did you have a death wish?’

  ‘No! Uh? Death wish? That's so cool!’

  Her young mind seemed to forget the entire premise of the conversation before it had even ended. Truly, the attention span of a firefly. Amazing.

  Fine. Whatever. The mature mind imagined herself rolling her eyes. Anyway, the only thing to do in this situation was just sit back and do nothing, patiently wait for this old lunatic to finish his dramatic monologue, and wring out a few more tears until leaving her alone.

  —

  Time moved swiftly, at least Isidora felt it that way. The world beyond the attic shifted, seasons melted into one another without fanfare.

  As always, in her waking hours, Isidora would spend her time exploring her surroundings.

  At first, there had been very little she could do. Her perception was inconsistently flickering, she would awaken by a scream ringing in her mind like an alarm. Afterward, she would be helplessly dragged back into the realm of unconsciousness.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  However, over time, with every cry and weep that echoed in the corner of her mind, her senses grew sharper. It was expanding, and the time she stayed awake grew longer.

  With time, the world beyond the canvas grew clearer. Her senses reached further with every cycle, the attic came into clearer focus. It was now held in shape and depth, no longer a vague haze.

  Isidora resided within a grand, exquisite golden frame, mounted on the center wall of the attic’s far end.

  The wall itself was lined with aged, varnished walnut color. Beneath her stretched a dark, polished, and immaculate wooden floor, its grain fine and rich with age, radiating a subtle sense of wealth.

  Around her, the room was neatly arranged. A single tall bookshelf stood beside the wall, filled with only a handful of old, dusty books, their titles faded from time. A cup holder shelf nestled near it, adorned with chipped porcelain and a strange sense of sentimental value.

  A wooden table stood to the side, accompanied by mismatched chairs positioned around the room, each different in design, like a hobby collection of the mansion’s owner.

  Some of the furniture was hidden beneath draped white cloths to ward off dust, ash, and decay. This room felt like a storage room, if not anything else.

  Scattered among the furnishings were smaller varied objects: an unmoving pendulum clock, handmade and uncanny-looking gnome figurines, skeins of old yarn, a rusted hammer, metal keys of all shapes, pieces of colored glass... It was unclear whether these objects had been intentionally stored or forgotten.

  To the far side of the attic stood a single window, veiled in a thin lace curtain that fluttered when the air stirred. Sometimes, the old man would draw it open, letting in the soft light of day. Other times, he’d close it.

  The attic was accessed by a single wooden door. Whenever opened, it would creak slightly, revealing the staircase that spiraled downward into the mansion's downstairs floor. The staircase was adorned with a row of oil lamps and exuded an inexplicable feeling.

  Isidora couldn’t see beyond that, since her perception was still limited, and the old man’s presence still demanded caution.

  And even without exploring beyond, she could tell one thing: the mansion had an ancient aura, like it belonged to a different age entirely. The walls, the floorboards, the architecture, and the details of the woodwork, as well as its furniture, all exuded the elegance that should not belong to the modern world.

  And the daily tools? Don't even get her started. Oil lamps. Candle holders. At least if Isidora were to live back for a millennium, she would feel familiar with this kind of architecture. But in this day and age? Seriously? Did they store her in some kind of museum or what?

  “Isidora, today the old herb-seller granny shared with me this interesting story…”

  As always, with the arrival of a new day, the old man would return to the attic in his usual routine. After methodically cleaning the mansion below, he would climb the staircase with deliberate steps, open the aged wooden door, and settle into the creaking chair placed directly in front of her portrait. There, he would begin to speak.

  His hoarse voice would fill the attic with idle chatter, like parts of his day, rumors drifting from the village, or strange anecdotes passed along by strangers. Listening to the man’s daily ramblings proves to be quite helpful.

  Piece by piece, Isidora began to have a sense of the world outside, where this place is, how people lived, its season, and its history. Through that, she caught glimpses of names, local traditions, the language, and the culture of this place.

  “The people in Winterin village are restless lately. Human trafficking and disappearances occur everywhere.” He adjusted the collar of his gray coat and continued.

  ‘Winterin village?’ Isidora noted carefully. That name was strange, neither were the names of regions, villages, or rivers, none of them matched anything from her memories.

  ‘And village? Do those still exist in this century?’ She wondered, her eyebrows twitched.

  As far as she knew, the concept of a “village” had become largely obsolete, most had either been fully integrated into regional cities or abandoned altogether due to the sudden rise of natural disasters.

  Villages still exist, but... well, her own knowledge was limited, and she mostly knew about the cities in the Co.Nest, since she’s not particularly an outgoing person.

  “The nearby villages seem quite busy lately. They are all preparing for the Rite of the Moon Maiden. Legend has it that our Lord personally escorted and protected her Majesty when she was attacked by the vile beast. In return, she gifted our Lord her power, within which was her will to protect children and maidens alike.”

  Isidora, or the person who now bore the name ‘Isidora’ was an introvert by nature, she had never been particularly adventurous, and she would rather spend more time buried in documents and digital briefings than exploring the world. Most of her understanding came from within the structured heart of Co.NEST's bureaucratic and investigative networks.

  She did not bother with old customs or local traditions. She was rarely concerned about such things, especially from regions too obscure to chart. It wasn’t her place to judge the superstitions of half-forgotten folklores. Besides, every place had its legends. And to be fair, this one was relatively mild compared to some of the places she had come across in classified files.

  ‘Winterin village? where the hell is that place?’

  That name was alien. If this place did exist within the same global framework she remembered, then it had to be buried somewhere remote, far beyond satellite coverage of Co.NEST.

  Then there was the language. The old man spoke fluently in a tongue she had never heard before. The phonetics felt foreign, and the rhythm felt strange. Isidora might’ve assumed it was some dialect or dead language, yet she somehow understood him perfectly. She had no idea how and why.

  Even the writing was different. The rare times he carried up books, she caught glimpses of the letters on the covers; they were composed of characters that looked nothing like any alphabet or hieroglyphs she knew.

  “The cold season is coming. I have to prepare for another winter storm… Maintaining our home in these trying times will be quite a headache.”

  And the old man’s appearance didn’t help. His long, gray cleric’s robe hung loosely from his thin frame and resembled a cassock in some respects, but it wasn’t tied to any religious dress she knew. There was no symbol of any known faith, no hint of religious affiliation she could recognize.

  Religion was not uncommon, perhaps in the Eastern Regions or maybe deep in the Northeastern, there would be traces of organized faith. However, even these obstinate old-world zealots had to learn to adapt to adjust their footwear for the passage of time, to modernize at least the outer shell of their dogma.

  Yet for this man, he looked as though he had stepped straight out of a historical reenactment that no one had bothered to record, too out of place in this modern age. Was he part of a secluded religious order?Some hidden monastery no one knew still existed? Or a cultist? Forbidden Cult?

  Places like this, with outdated tools, candlelight, cobbled roads, the ceremonial rites, and herb-selling grandmothers, seemed to belong to another era entirely.

  Too many, many unanswered questions.

  "The bushes have grown so much lately. Trimming them every month is such a hassle. My old bones aren’t what they used to be; they complain all the time. Luckily, or maybe not, with the cold season coming, at least I won’t have to tend to them as often."

  As he went on about the effort it took to maintain the garden, her thoughts trailed off, and her confusion grew.

  Why not assign automated planting and trimming units? Why not install smart irrigation? Or even basic cleaning drones? Isn’t that what Artificial Intelligence was invented for? Why walk miles into a village to buy eggs when you can have them drone-dropped to your door?

  ‘No electricity? No automated systems? Not even a computer? Or a telephone? God, just where is this place?!’ Her internal monologue practically twitched in disbelief.

  In the world Isidora once knew, there were skyscrapers, aerial drones, AI-assisted cities, and militarized syndicates; even dragons and airborne spellcasters weren’t all that surprising by the end. But this place was like a pocket of time, being stuck in the past decade.

  And this? A lonely old man who trimmed bushes by hand, boiled tea, swept gardens and the mansion, and talked about cold winters like it was still the old century. Old people tended to love these things, but it just didn’t make sense.

  Suddenly, a subtle sense of familiarity struck her. A wave of déjà vu washed over her mind; it reminded her of someone from her past who was basically her caretaker and would always nag at her and her idleness.

  Come to think of it, they did mention they love reading one kind of trope and would always go on and on about a certain plot and setting. What was it called again?

  ‘Hold on... is this what I think this is? Surely not, right?’

  ‘?’

  Recalling many novels she had been forced to read, as reality settled in, she exclaimed.

  ‘I have been transmigrated to the past, haven’t I?’