The story had ended.
The sky was clear without a single cloud, and the wind was refreshing.
Those who wished for my death shouted with madness, and the executioner waited for me before the gruesome guillotine. Though the distance was short, the journey was arduous because I had gone without food for several days.
Beneath the blinding sunlight, a woman adorned with brilliantly shining jewelry appeared. Lilia, beautiful with her dazzling golden hair and warm green eyes.
Beside her stood people with cold eyes. All were once my precious ones, or my dearest friends, but now we had become less than strangers.
Lilia had captivated their hearts, eyes, and ears, and thus everyone turned their backs on me.
It began with a pronouncement that struck like a bolt from the blue—a terminal diagnosis. The young lady designated as Crown Princess was terminally ill!
The entire nation was upended, and meetings continued day after day. The engagement between the Imperial Family and our family was tightly intertwined with political purposes, so resolving it was no simple matter.
Lilia emerged amid that chaos and made everything I possessed her own, one by one. Truly methodically, as if it had been predetermined from the beginning.
Of course, at first it was devastating. Humiliating, infuriating, and resentful, I struggled all the more. Unlike me, sensitive from dying, I hated the kind and healthy Lilia.
I threw tantrums, not knowing that my disgraceful behavior only made Lilia shine brighter. I cried and wailed that it was all mine, that it had been stolen from me.
Not knowing that in the end, only a shameful expulsion would remain. Not anticipating that even my family would turn away, fearing my madness might touch them.
Ah, foolish Anelli Roam. Your foolishness ended your life.
Someone's mockery came to mind. Those words were true. My dullness burned my honor, sent away my people, and shattered my love.
"Bring the condemned here!"
Soldiers seized my arms and dragged me to the guillotine. Directly ahead, the man I loved came into view.
My fiancé, Crown Prince Maxel, beloved by the Imperial citizens. He stood with one arm around Lilia's shoulder, looking down at me.
Though the distance was too far to see clearly anyway, I felt as if my eyes met his. He was probably relieved.
He had grown weary of his fiancée who grew increasingly sensitive while falling freshly in love.
Maxel initially pitied his fiancée who had to steel herself greatly just to walk in the garden, and even then often collapsed midway, but in the end he came to despise her. So I wanted to become healthy. I thought if I did, I could regain everything I had lost.
If I had known from the beginning that it was all false, would something have been different?
Maxel, will you ever learn that the doctor who pronounced my terminal diagnosis was acting under Lilia's direction?
Will the family members who took Lilia as an adopted daughter and erased my name from the family register ever regret?
Will the friends I once considered close, who ultimately took Lilia's side and rebuked me—will that friendship last forever?
"I bestow God's final mercy upon a foolish creature. Do you have any last words?"
I did not answer the priest but gazed steadily at Maxel. He did not avoid my gaze. In this moment, why? I felt as if I could taste the sweetness of the pastries I had often eaten.
I must finally be going mad. As I drew a faint smile with my parched lips, I felt stinging from where the blood crust had torn.
"……Lord, have mercy."
I simply wanted to rest.
And so, on this clear and bright day, I accept this early death with grace.
* * *
This place was not heaven.
Nor was it hell.
My lungs filled with breath. Ah, this cannot be. Despair-filled lamentation clogged my throat. My stiffened tongue could not utter any words, but I knew.
I was alive. Someone had resurrected me.
It was an unwanted resurrection.
* * *
《As evil runs rampant, We grant you a resurrected one. Stand firm against it.》
With the oracle, the world turned upside down. The world turning upside down meant my life had turned upside down along with it.
When I opened my eyes, I was in a temple. To me, who had not grasped the situation, the priests all bowed at the waist, spouting nonsense about being a noble savior, a resurrected one, a saint.
The last memory in my mind was the crowd throwing stones and pouring malicious curses, and the figures of acquaintances watching my death with cold gazes.
A savior? What nonsense was that?
I shut myself in my room and faced off against the priests for a month. At first they tried to persuade me with pious devotion, but then they grew desperate and changed their approach with all manner of delicacies and treasures. Naturally, I scoffed at their efforts.
During that time, I learned about this absurd miracle that had befallen me. I also learned the content of the oracle then.
Evil running rampant? Evil had run rampant long ago. When Lilia intervened in my life with her lovely face, when Maxel turned to her and despised me, when even my family ignored me and instead joined others in criticism, trying to avoid disaster.
If God wished to choose me, why did He not save me from that suffering then? Why did He resurrect me in this monstrous state only after I had endured everything and given up?
"Resurrected One, Priest Moriko has procured precious fruits for the Saint."
"You hardly ate any breakfast, please taste at least a little."
I had become skilled at shaking off the bothersome apprentice priests. Having experience causing trouble around me even before death, it was not difficult.
The apprentice priests fell silent the moment I picked anything up after I had harmed myself a few times. This time too, as I irritably picked up a book, I saw them withdraw tactfully.
In the process of self-harm, I realized I had gained monstrous regenerative abilities. Though scars remained without proper treatment, the natural healing power itself had become remarkably enhanced.
My stamina was far better than before death, and my five senses had developed. But the decisive change was the fact that I could communicate with non-human beings.
I did not tell the priests what abilities I had. From seeing my regenerative power, they seemed to think I possessed tremendous divine power. I heard that believers flocked daily to the temple where I now stayed.
Also, recently the Imperial Family and nobles have been requesting audiences day after day. Among them were my acquaintances, they said, and offered to arrange meetings if I wished.
But all of that no longer had anything to do with me. The most important thing to me was the single fact that I had not died.
My beheaded body had surely been discarded. Expelled from the family as well, no one had collected the body, so it had been left abandoned for several days, they said.
Yet strangely, it did not rot, and animals not only did not tear at it but rather guarded the body. Finding this strange, the oracle descended.
It was Moriko, a high priest, who collected the body with perhaps skeptical thoughts. He placed the body in a clean coffin, and one day happened to notice that the head and body were joined, and in shock immediately transferred me to the Great Temple.
They didn't even suspect that everyone was deceiving me, for a vivid scar remained on my neck. It was evidence of the beheading. Absentmindedly touching my nape, I felt the uneven mark.
"Ha……"
It was truly enough to drive one mad.
"Did they think that if they attached my severed head to my body, I would be grateful and zealously fight evil?"
Being beheaded wounded my pride, but rather, it worked out well.
I took out the bag I had secretly hidden away. A month was sufficient to grasp the movements and schedules of the clergy within the temple.
"Thank you. This time I'll try to die a bit more elegantly."
First, I intended to leave somewhere and hide. To somewhere that didn't know Anelli Roam. There I would cheer on the evil rampant in this world while eating pastries.
* * *
The Roam Ducal House was a family of founding merits of the Empire. As they were close political partners and friends of the Syriad Imperial Family, the engagement between the families' children in the womb naturally came to pass.
I had been a prince's fiancée since birth. The Imperial Family had four sons, and among them, the second prince Maxel was appointed Crown Prince, so my fiancé was determined as him as well.
Educated from birth as a member of the Imperial Family, I came to love Maxel without particular resistance.
Maxel's—well, I don't really know Maxel's heart.
But at least I remember that 'when I was healthy,' our relationship was not bad.
Frizian, my older sister who became the heir in my place by putting aside the family promise, used to say occasionally. The Crown Prince loves you, and you love the Crown Prince, so only happiness remains.
Thinking back now, she seemed worried that I might say I didn't want to become Crown Princess. If I stubbornly refused, saying I disliked it, the obligation of that promise could fall to her.
My sister was the first among my family to turn cold when I received my terminal diagnosis. She was also the one who strongly advocated for taking Lilia as an adopted daughter.
Even if my sister became Crown Princess in my place, there was Seyri, the youngest sibling, so there was no worry about the family succession. Naturally, she would have been on guard.
I have no intention of condemning her ambition, which I observed more closely than anyone. Father and Mother also abandoned one terminal child to protect two healthy children, so there was no point in resenting only my sister.
Roam was such a family. Each person's face and pride came first, and to maintain authority, they would cut away and discard useless parts when necessary.
I too am a child of Roam, so I do not fail to understand their thinking.
However, just because I understand the circumstances of the betrayal doesn't mean I must forgive them. Much less when my name has been erased even from the family register.
"They say the Roam Duchess has collapsed."
"Good heavens, her mother collapsed and she still won't meet her? They say she's at the Great Temple."
I glanced sideways. Those gathered at the central bulletin board in the city were citizens who knew nothing.
People who had only encountered the noble and magnificent shell that Roam had created. Since such people were speaking, I didn't even feel anger.
"Her notoriety was so high in life, so what would change even if she resurrected."