#5. The Purpose of Life
2023.08.05.
Elise instinctively burrowed toward the warmth. Something soft and fluffy wrapped around her snugly.
Was this heaven?
With the moderate temperature, the gently blowing wind, and the cozy fragrance she smelled, how could she think of hell?
Elise slowly opened her eyes. Her eyes hurt at the bright light she hadn't seen in so long.
At the stinging pain, Elise closed her eyes again.
"Would you like to sleep more?"
Someone spoke to her.
"No, I shall get up."
If this place was beyond the living world, there was no time to dawdle.
She had intended to meet someone, anyone, and beg for forgiveness, asking for a chance.
"Oh my, why the sudden honorifics, my lady?"
My lady—a title she hadn't heard in nearly eight years.
Because a full eight years had passed since Elise inherited the title of Viscount.
"Even if you want to sleep more, I can't let you. Didn't you say His Highness Chase is coming today?"
Chase? His Highness?
Sensing something strange, Elise opened her eyes narrowly.
Her pupils, having grown accustomed to the light in the brief moment, came into clear focus.
"Are you hurt somewhere?"
The face of one who suddenly approached right before her was familiar. Yet strangely unfamiliar.
"...Regina?"
Elise grabbed the wrist Regina extended.
"You, what is this?"
"My lady, oh my, that hurts! You're full of energy from the morning, aren't you. It's me, Regina. You're not sleeping with your eyes open, are you? Are you dreaming?"
Regina's brow furrowed.
Regina? And a young one at that?
Without erasing the light of suspicion from her eyes, Elise surveyed her surroundings. Familiar sights entered her vision one after another.
The desk, chair, and wardrobe she had used in the viscount's estate, and even the scenery visible outside the window were all the same.
"At this rate, you'll make His Highness wait. My lady, please get up."
Regina, neatly wearing an apron, snatched away the blanket she had been holding.
Beneath the thin sleepwear, white and smooth legs were fully exposed. Elise's eyes, looking at her legs, went wide.
"The scar is gone?"
In the autumn of her twentieth year, Elise had gone out on a Gate investigation and suffered a great accident.
She had received a large wound on her leg then and had been scarred, but now her leg was smooth.
Elise tensed up completely. Turning her head slowly to look at Regina, Elise asked.
"Regina, how old am I this year?"
"You know you're acting really strange today, right? My lady is nineteen this year."
"Nineteen? Then what month is it now?"
"Oh, come on, my lady, why are you like this?"
Regina answered readily while looking at Elise with suspicious eyes.
"It's the month of Galmuri. Is it because you want to come of age quickly? Please endure just a few more days. The New Year is soon."
Season-wise, it was the tail end of winter.
"Are you nervous? Because His Highness Chase said he's bringing an engagement ring?"
Elise sprang up from her seat.
The winter of her nineteenth year, and an engagement ring!
Elise kicked off the bed and got out. She went straight into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. Cold water poured down over her head.
Her body trembled in fits and starts, and her mind snapped awake.
"My lady! You'll catch a cold! Even if you're in a hurry, how could you wash yourself while dressed? Come out, quickly!"
Regina stamped her feet in frustration, but Elise didn't budge an inch.
'I'm back, to nineteen? Or am I dreaming?'
If that were the case, the pain was too vivid.
Even now, the ankle Gabriel had stomped and broken throbbed with pain.
Her fingertips, which had worn away from drawing magic circles, burned.
'What I experienced wasn't a dream. If so.'
Had her last wish before death come true?
Was the regression array real?
Elise turned to the mirror attached to the bathroom wall. She ran her hands all over her face.
She was alive, and she had returned!
Joy wrapped around Elise's body once and disappeared. Then, a question arose.
'Who activated the regression array?'
Elise groped through faint memories. Then, a voice that had desperately called out to her came to mind.
Karan.
He, who had become the subject of scandal with Elise, had come for her.
Could it be that Karan had activated it? But he wasn't a mage.
The regression array—to activate an enormous magic circle that was daunting even in name alone—a mage of Sage rank or higher was needed.
Could he have been a mage?
Had he been hiding that he possessed such tremendous mana that he could use a regression array?
If so, it was possible.
Still, the doubt didn't completely vanish.
A mage of Sage rank received tremendous treatment regardless of origin.
A Sage-rank mage could raise a house driven out by rebellion in an instant.
In any nation, if a Sage-rank mage appeared, they were desperate to boast of it.
Yet he had hidden it.
And that too, in Titris, a land pointed at as being forsaken by God for being unable to produce mages?
It was too confusing.
"My lady, His Highness Chase has arrived!"
At Regina's words, Elise's body stiffened. Her excited eyes turned icy in an instant.
Now was the time to brace herself and deal with Chase.
***
"Elise!"
As Elise opened the parlor door and entered, Chase sprang to his feet.
A flower-like smile formed on his face.
My beautiful woman.
Chase ran to the door in one bound and grasped Elise's hand tightly.
"Let go, Your Highness."
But Elise's attitude was different from usual. The smile that would spread like wildflowers upon seeing him had vanished without a trace.
"Elise, is something wrong?"
Chase examined her face.
"No. Trouble will arise from now on, I suppose."
"Huh? What does that mean?"
Elise looked up at Chase.
His face, made presentable; his body, grown sturdy and strong. She had made all of it with her own hands.
And now it was time to break it.
The moment she laid eyes on his face, she couldn't stand that she had promised a future with him.
'I feel like I'm going to vomit. So let's end this.'
Elise forcibly pulled up the corners of her lips.
"Your Highness, I shall make the engagement as though it never happened."
A crack formed on Chase's face. His sparkling pupils dried up, and the area beneath his eye twitched.
He looked pitiful at a glance, but to Elise, he only looked hideous, nothing more.
Not wanting to face him any longer, Elise turned her body.
"Wait! Elise, I must have misheard, right?"
Chase grabbed Elise's forearm.
Elise swung her hand without mercy. The swung hand struck Chase's shoulder hard and fell away.
Both Elise and Chase were surprised.
But Elise quickly schooled her expression.
"That just now was a mistake, Your Highness. But my words saying I will not engage are sincere."
"Elise, why are you suddenly like this? What did I do wrong?"
Suddenly... to Chase, this might be a sudden occurrence.
But to Elise, who had been used and discarded by him until she was twenty-nine, it was not sudden.
"Wrong..."
Elise muttered as if to herself.
"Yes, Elise. If I've done something wrong, tell me. I'll apologize and fix it, okay?"
"Is someone's wrongdoing necessary for a breakup?"
Elise asked coldly.
You didn't do that to me, did you?
To me who had done no wrong, you even fabricated crimes that didn't exist and pushed me away.
"Well, that's..."
"Make it my fault, Your Highness."
Since everything would become my fault anyway. Just as it had in the past.
Elise didn't want to explain any further.
Her past life, which had been like a nightmare, was so vivid that even standing was a struggle.
She needed to rest and organize her thoughts.
"Don't come looking for me again, Your Highness."
Elise turned her back on Chase.
Just as he had left her alone in the underground dungeon and turned away, she didn't look back even once.
"Haah."
The moment Elise entered her room, she locked the door and sank to the floor.
Throughout facing Chase, her emotions had fluctuated, making it difficult to manage her expression.
Even though he had discarded her so easily, Chase had looked quite wistfully at Elise.
'As if he truly loves me.'
But now she knew.
That his affection was nothing more than a passing fever, a mirage that could not be grasped.
She still couldn't believe she had returned alive. Elise felt over her body. Only after feeling the flesh filling her hands and the warmth did it feel real.
'It feels like I had a terrible, long nightmare.'
But the memories were too vivid to dismiss as a dream. The sensation of dying hadn't been forgotten either. Karan's desperate voice continued to echo in her ears.
"His Highness Karan..."
Recalling him, complicated thoughts arose in succession.
Elise had many things she was curious about regarding him.
The most curious was the reason he had saved her.
Karan and Elise had no major points of contact. They had spoken a few times for the subjugation of the evil dragon Ragnaros, but it was ambiguous to say they had a personal friendship.
'Didn't Karan dislike me?'
Dance requests, requests to dine together—Karan had refused them all. He had even often averted his gaze.
But why had he activated the regression array for her?
'No, I might be thinking wrong. He's not even a mage. Perhaps by chance...'
Elise let out a scoff. Such fortune couldn't happen to her life by chance.
As expected, the one who activated the regression array was Karan.
There must be a special reason he had hidden being a mage.
Having reached that conclusion, gratitude toward him welled up more than curiosity.
"I must repay this favor."
What could the mere second daughter of a viscount's house do for the prince of Titris?
There was something she had to do before that.
'Chase and Iris... what to do with the two of them.'
Chase, who had used her thoroughly and discarded her, and Iris, who had always tormented her and eventually driven her to death.
Elise looked out the window with a stiff face.
Come to think of it, she had returned to the damned House of Viscount Werton. She had barely become Viscount Werton in the past.
To Elise, the Viscount and Viscountess Werton, her parents, were no less enemies than Iris.
Abuse, discrimination, mistreatment......
When childhood memories surfaced, she shuddered.
'I'm starting over from the beginning. Think. An opportunity has arisen. Do what you want to do.'
Until now, she had lived for others. In this life, she would live for herself.
To do that, she had to remove the people who obstructed her life.
'The first thing I must do.'
The eyes reflected in the window sparkled.
"Is to thoroughly break off the engagement."
As originally planned, today Elise would receive the engagement ring and become engaged to Chase a month later.
But since she had said they should break up, that future would change.
Since there was no way Chase would hold onto Elise.
"My lady, a gift has arrived."
But Elise's conviction was shattered. Chase had sent a gift to Elise.