[Episode 95] - The Snow White Story (1)
“So listen quietly. This is an opportunity I’m giving you.”
At those coldly spoken words from Princess Snow, I could do nothing but swallow dryly and nod. Princess Snow furrowed her brows as if merely recalling the memory was irritating, then soon began to speak her story aloud.
“...At first—”
*
At first, I thought it was only a dream.
When I woke up and opened my eyes, I had returned to when I was five years old. Can you believe it? I, who had been right before turning seven, went to sleep and woke up to find myself returned to five.
I didn’t know what to do in a situation I’d only ever seen in novels. But the confusion lasted only a moment. Because the situation wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. My first life hadn’t gone well with others.
So this time, I believed I would definitely get along better with others. No, I resolved to do so. Of course, that included the Second Queen Vivian, with whom my relationship had been really, really bad.
Truly pure and foolish, wasn’t I?
In my second life, I started by greeting as many people as I could. To passing maids, to nobles, to ministers, and to His Majesty my father.
Even though I merely greeted people diligently, my reputation became completely different from my first life. I became close with the maids, and with the ministers too. I went to my father to study.
I was truly happy then. Because it was completely different from my first life. Everyone liked me except for one person. Yes, except for the Second Queen Vivian. But still, I didn’t give up, right?
“W-wow, Your Majesty the Queen... the weather is nice today... Th-this is a gift from me...!”
“......”
Every time I went to see Vivian, I brought at least a single flower. But even when I approached her like that, Vivian hated me. Even when I always greeted her, she would look down coldly, click her tongue, or ignore me.
Because I was young then, I only thought that I had done something wrong. I thought that Vivian hated me because I had done something wrong. I was a foolish child who didn’t know how to blame others.
Still, I truly didn’t give up. Because my goal this time was to truly get along with everyone. But the distance between Vivian and me never narrowed at all, and time passed until just before I turned seven.
This time, I ‘regressed’ to four years old.
‘Why?’
Again, right before turning seven, I went to sleep and woke up having ‘regressed.’ Why on earth? That question wouldn’t disappear from my head. Because I really didn’t know the reason for this regression either. Moreover...
‘My birthday was in a few days...’
I was sad that I had regressed again without passing my seventh birthday. This time, I had made promises with my father and the ministers too. That this birthday would be truly special. That it would be a day I would remember for the rest of my life.
But in the end, I regressed. The moment I thought, ‘Is it that no matter what I do, I can’t get past seven?’ I truly felt as if I were trapped in a maze with no exit.
Still, I didn’t give up even up to my third life. This time, to find out why I regressed whenever I turned seven, I began investigating in earnest. I tried to find out the conditions for regression.
I read books and gathered rumors. Of course, it was no help at all. Even reading books, I couldn’t find anything about regression, and even if there was, it was a story that only appeared in novels.
Realizing that I couldn’t learn from books, I began looking for commonalities between my first and second lives. Suddenly, I thought, ‘Could it be that I accidentally fulfilled some condition?’
But even after pondering for years, I couldn’t find anything. Time passed so pointlessly, and eventually, it became just before I turned seven, exactly like my previous life.
That day, unable to sleep comfortably due to the anxiety that ‘I might go back again when I wake up,’ I must have looked pitiful even to others, as a maid approached me.
That child was one of Vivian’s maids, with the name ‘Ellie.’ I remembered her face because I had seen her every time I went to meet Vivian. Ellie approached me and asked.
‘Princess, are you unable to sleep?’
I was so exhausted that I couldn’t even answer properly and just nodded. Then Ellie looked at me with a truly kind smile, saying she would brew a tea that would help me sleep.
So I took the tea Ellie brewed and stared blankly at the teacup. The moment I was about to bring it to my lips without any suspicion, something came to mind.
In my first life, and in my second life.
The memory that someone had given me ‘tea’ the night before I regressed. Truly, it was a memory that surfaced by chance. When that memory arose, a small suspicion sprouted in my mind.
‘...Ellie, I don’t need it, so would you drink it?’
‘Y-yes...? How dare I, a humble servant, drink the Princess’s tea...’
‘Don’t worry about that.’
I wished that suspicion wasn’t the truth. I wanted to believe that my exhausted mind was thinking wicked thoughts. If what was in this teacup was truly poison...
‘Hurry and drink.’
Because Ellie would simply discard it without drinking.
The face of Ellie, who took the teacup I held out, gradually began to turn pale white. Her hands trembled so much that the teacup in them shook, and then soon she made gulping sounds from her throat as if she were about to vomit.
After showing such a reaction for a while, Ellie eventually...
‘...I shall drink it gratefully.’
She drank the tea in the teacup in one gulp and smiled at me. A normal, gentle smile as if there were no problem at all.
Then, bowing her head deeply to me, Ellie returned to her room as if nothing had happened. Seeing Ellie showing no problems even after drinking the tea, I let out a sigh of relief, thinking it was a relief.
So what Ellie gave me wasn’t poison. Thinking that I had worried for nothing, I lay down on the bed and tried to sleep. Praying that I wouldn’t regress again when I woke up.
And so the next morning, fortunately, I did not ‘regress,’ and.
Ellie was found as a ‘corpse’ in her room.
Ellie’s cause of death was ‘poison.’
And that poison was discovered in the ‘teacup’ that Ellie had handed to me. When I learned that Ellie had died from the poison in that teacup, do you know how I felt?
More than the shock that the condition for regression was ‘death,’ it was painful that Ellie had died because of a single word from me. I know that Ellie had tried to kill me. And that she had taken her own life after failing.
But even so, young as I was, more than almost dying myself, the fact that a person had died because of words from my mouth was agonizingly hard to bear. As I agonized like that, I suddenly had this thought?
‘If only I had regressed again.’
If I regressed once more, I could create a future where Ellie didn’t die and where I didn’t die either. Isn’t it funny? I had struggled so hard to escape regression, and I had even learned that the condition for regression was death.
But I wished for regression again.
As time passed in such agony, I did not regress until my seventh birthday after all. That duration was the evidence that both my first life and my second life had died by poison.
And so, my seventh birthday that I finally welcomed was, as my father and the ministers had said, a day so beautiful that it would remain in my memory for the rest of my life.
For a moment, I could be happy, free from guilt.
I danced with my father, and with the ministers too. In that moment when I thought I was a little happy, when I wished that such days would continue.
‘Princess. So you were here.’
Vivian came to find me as I walked alone in the corridor. At Vivian’s expression, smiling at me for the first time, I approached her with a bright smile. With a pure heart, thinking that perhaps she had come to congratulate me on my birthday.
‘Queen Vivian, Your Majesty!’
As I approached with a bashful smile, Vivian simply smiled and looked down at me. Honestly, until then I had quite liked Vivian. Why? Can’t you believe that I liked Vivian?
The reason I liked Vivian was... first, she was beautiful in appearance, wasn’t she? And even if she wasn’t my birth mother, Vivian was in the position of my mother. That must be why. I, who missed my mother, truly wanted to get close with my stepmother Vivian.
Truly, until then I had wished for that.
The moment I approached Vivian and raised my head, Vivian pushed my shoulder hard. So hard that my body flew. And as fate would have it, where I flew was a steep staircase.
...After that, honestly, I don’t remember well. Only the sounds of bones breaking as I rolled down the stairs and the pain. But there is one thing I remember clearly.
Vivian’s expression when she pushed me down the stairs. As if she had seen something disgusting, furrowing her brows—Vivian’s expression as she pushed my shoulder remains in my memory.
Closing my eyes in that pain, and opening them again.
I had returned to being five years old once more.
The moment I returned, I screamed, feeling the illusion and pain of my neck breaking. I wasn’t in my right mind. I couldn’t endure that moment without going mad.
Because, isn’t it? It was the moment when death was proven to be the condition for regression, and the moment I learned who the culprit had been, killing me all this time.
‘Why on earth? Why are you trying to kill me? I loved you so much?’
This is the story up to my fourth life.
*
“......”
While listening to Princess Snow’s story, I couldn’t take my eyes off the red thread tied to my wrist. At first it had been to watch for Princess Snow’s lies, but the more I heard the story, the more I wished this red thread would snap.
However, the red thread connecting me and Princess Snow showed no signs of snapping. The red thread tied to my wrist was saying that Princess Snow’s story was the truth, that it wasn’t a lie.
Not knowing what to say, I pressed my lips tightly shut, and Princess Snow scoffed and looked at me. Having perhaps cried a little while talking, the corners of Princess Snow’s eyes were slightly red.
“So I think I was even angrier at you. Even if you were different from the Vivian I knew, your appearance was ‘Vivian.’”
“......”
“You, who hated me enough to kill me, are now raising ‘me’ with love. I’ve never received such affection from you even once.”
Princess Snow smiled bitterly and continued speaking. Saying that her story wasn’t over yet, she continued once more. This time...
It was Aurora’s story.
*
From after the fourth life, it was a battle with Vivian. I tried to survive while avoiding Vivian, who tried to kill me. But it wasn’t very easy.
If poison didn’t work, she would push me from the stairs like before, or start a fire in my room and lock the door from the outside. She even had assassins infiltrate the royal palace. She must have hated me that much.
Fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh. Dying and regressing, dying and regressing—after doing that so many times, I learned a few things. The first thing I learned was...
First, the timing of the regression was all different. Sometimes to when I was five, sometimes to when I was four; even when regressing to the same age, the time and date were always different. That time was definitely the twelfth.
The time I returned to through that regression was—
‘Sister?’
When I was one year old.
When I returned as a baby who could barely babble, my mood was truly miserable. The shame of having my embarrassing places completely seen by the maids without being able to do anything was as painful as dying and regressing.
So, spending time endlessly on the bed as a baby, I overheard the maids’ conversation as they slacked off.
‘How is Her Majesty Queen Aurora’s condition?’
‘She seems a bit better these days. She’s taking her medicine diligently too.’
‘If she’s gotten a bit better, I wish she would come see the Princess...’
The moment the name Aurora reached my ears, I felt my heart sink. Because I heard that my mother, who I had been told died after giving birth to me when I was young, was alive.
‘In this timeline, Mother is alive!’
It was the moment another goal was born for this regression. I had heard from my father that Mother had definitely passed away growing weak from an ‘illness.’
So I set the goal of saving my mother using this regression. Because Vivian would never love me. So if I saved my mother, surely my mother would love me.
I believed that, foolishly and firmly.