Episode 2
“Haa…!”
A suppressed groan burst through my lips as my glued-shut eyes snapped open. As if to prove that the light I had seen hadn’t been an illusion, my vision was hazy.
“Am I… alive?”
Blankly, I raised my hand and covered my nose and mouth. The warm breath against my palm….
I didn’t know what had happened, but it was clear I had escaped death. Because I was breathing like this.
After blinking several times, my senses slowly returned. Chasing away the sleep that still held dominion over my body, I slowly sat up.
“Where… am I?”
Having sat up, I couldn’t help but be bewildered.
Worn and shabby furniture filled the small room. It was an all-too-familiar sight, yet also one I had forgotten.
‘It can’t be….’
At a sudden thought, I hurriedly got down from the bed and stood before a full-length mirror placed in one corner of the room. The glass was cracked here and there, but fortunately, I could still make out my reflection.
Looking at myself through the remaining fragments, I froze on the spot.
My long blue hair flowing down to my hips and my purple eyes strongly laced with red were the same, but my frail body that looked like it would collapse at a touch, and the shabby nightgown wrapped around it, told me that I had returned to the past.
Staring blankly, I raised my hand and touched the face reflected in the mirror.
That’s right. It had been like this. Before my ability manifested, this was how I had looked.
Looking at my past self, I suddenly wondered if all this might be a dream. A so-called nightmare.
That my ability had manifested, that I had received their attention and affection, that he had killed me—all of it….
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Suddenly, my heart rampaged wildly. As if protesting how I could dismiss it all as a dream.
At my heart’s fierce backlash, I raised my hand, clutched the hem of my nightgown near my left chest, and exhaled a shallow breath. Then, I felt something beneath my fingers.
The moment I realized what it was, a self-mocking laugh spilled from my lips.
Ah, that’s right…. It couldn’t be a dream.
If it were a dream, there was no way a mark like this would remain.
Straightening the waist I had hunched to catch my breath, I pulled down the left shoulder of my nightgown, revealing a grotesque scar contrasting with my pale skin.
It was something the me of this time did not have.
“….”
Looking at the scar engraved like a brand above my heart, a twisted smile hung on my lips.
My heart was right.
This was clear evidence of the crimes they had committed. It could not be dismissed as merely a dream.
Thinking that I wanted to praise my past self who had chosen to keep this, I looked at the mirror again.
‘A bastard of the Croizen family. A disgrace to the Croizen family.’
At that time, that was what they called the girl in the mirror.
Though she bore the perfectly good name Herna Croizen, not a single person called her by that name.
Croizen, what did that even matter!
My teeth ground together automatically. Thinking of my former self who had tried to become someone worthy of the name Croizen, nausea suddenly surged up.
After retching dryly a few times, I raised my head and saw my bloodlessly pale face reflected in the mirror.
That’s right. It would be unfair if only I suffered like this.
To be fair, shouldn’t I return at least as much as was done to me—no, even more?
At the thought of revenge, a convincingly twisted smile formed on my face in the mirror.
It was a smile I would never have even imagined making in the past, and I liked it immensely.
Then, I suddenly remembered the voice that had sent me back to the past.
What had it been? A god who pitied my fate?
Suddenly, a snort of laughter burst out of me.
As if that could be true.
If something pitied me enough to turn back time for someone who died by her fiancé’s hand, it wouldn’t have given me such a fate in the first place.
Perhaps it was something akin to a devil. What else but a devil would take human emotions as payment?
“What does it matter. I’m alive like this.”
Muttering lowly, I reached out and stroked my face in the mirror.
That voice was no longer audible, and now I was breathing as if to prove I was alive.
That was enough.
Having brushed aside thoughts of the voice, I felt the need to hurry. There was much to do to change the coming future.
I entered the bathroom, washed myself, wrapped my wet hair in a towel, and headed for the wardrobe.
At the sight of luxurious dresses hanging in the decrepit wardrobe, a hollow laugh escaped me.
It was because I remembered how I had looked when receiving them.
All five dresses that had come to me were ones my half-sister had grown tired of or disliked and discarded.
Not knowing that, I had simply been grateful and happy that my half-sister cared about me. I had even written her a letter of thanks.
Thinking back, I must have been incredibly stupid.
Even though they were too big and loose, with shapes and colors that didn’t suit me, I had brainwashed myself into thinking they were gifts from my half-sister.
Of course, those dresses must have suited my half-sister perfectly.
Unlike me with my cold-looking impression, my half-sister had the Croizen Count’s family characteristic red-gold hair and deep green eyes, giving her a soft and kind impression.
Harboring self-mockery, I rummaged through the dresses and found a simple one that fit my body and suited me, then put it on.
Washing myself, putting on a dress, drying my hair—all of it felt awkward doing alone for the first time in a long while, but these were things I had to get used to again.
Unable to dry it carefully as a maid would, I roughly dried my hair and tied it up, then looked at the calendar.
At the X marks I hadn’t seen in a long time, a slight smile formed unconsciously.
When I lived in this room in the past, my days had been so repetitive that I lost my sense of dates, so marking past dates with an X had become a habit.
Thanks to that, it was easy to check what day it was.
“Year 798 of the Kingdom, February 16th.”
The moment I confirmed the date, a sensation entirely different from checking my appearance in the mirror swept through my body.
It was ecstasy. The fierce ecstasy of knowing the chance to pay them back had come.
“Now’s not the time to lose myself.”
I had to hurry.
If my memory was correct, my ability was scheduled to manifest three days from now.
Before that, there was something I had to get my hands on.
***
Leaving the room, I headed to the drawing room.
At this hour, my stepmother, the Countess, had a habit of sitting in the drawing room with my half-sister, drinking tea and conversing.
As I approached the drawing room door, the butler looked at me with surprised eyes.
Well, it was no wonder he was surprised when a bastard who should be cooped up in her room suddenly appeared in the drawing room.
However, he didn’t speak to me first.
That was only natural.
When the Count died and I had fallen gravely ill from being unable to adapt to the changed environment, it was common knowledge among the mansion’s employees that the maid who had nursed me was driven out without even receiving a letter of introduction.
The reason for her dismissal was that she had violated the Countess’s order to ‘treat her as if invisible even if you see her.’
From then on, to them, I was a living ghost.
“I wish to see the Countess….”
Recalling what expression and tone the sixteen-year-old me would have used in this situation was not difficult.
All I had to do was lower my head slightly, avoid eye contact, and mumble in a small, slightly trembling voice.
“I shall inquire.”
The fortunate thing was that the employees answered when spoken to. Though of course, very formally and in clipped sentences.
At first I hadn’t known the reason, but now I knew all too well. It was because of the half-blooded Croizen blood flowing through my veins.
The name Croizen was a great source of pride and boasting for the Countess and her children.
So they could not tolerate someone with even half the blood of the Croizen family being disrespected by servants.
Only another Croizen could despise and scorn Croizen.
‘Damned Croizen.’
Curses welled up automatically, twisting my lips.
It was fortunate the butler had gone inside to relay my request to the Countess. Otherwise, I might have struggled considerably to hide my expression.
As I took a deep breath to control my surging emotions, the drawing room door opened and the butler came out.
“Please enter.”
Taking another invisible deep breath, I stepped one foot into the drawing room.
Once fully inside, the door closed silently behind me.
Carefully raising my lowered head, I saw the mother and daughter sitting on the sofa drinking tea.
At the sight of them, hatred boiled up from the depths of my body like magma.
The murderers who had deceived me, manipulated me, and eventually taken my life were wrapped in noble shells, pretending to be elegant while drinking tea.
I wanted to tear off those shells right away and expose every ugly hidden facet of theirs, but I had to endure.
Since they had not yet revealed their true colors, it was right that I hide mine as well.
Subduing the surging hatred and barely returning to the persona they knew, I heard the Countess’s voice.
“You said you wanted to see me? What is it?”
A voice devoid of any warmth, frigid beyond merely chilly….
Yes, this was the woman’s true voice.
The gentle voice that had treated me like her own daughter had been nothing but a façade to deceive me.
Suddenly, I wanted to see her face. If her voice was like that, her expression would also be different from what I knew.
As I slightly raised my head, the Countess’s face looking at me came into view.
On that beautiful face was not the benevolent and kind expression I had seen until my death, but an expression steeped in deep disgust, as if she had seen something repulsive.
After confirming her expression, I suddenly wanted to give her a standing ovation.
How had she managed to hide that expression so perfectly for two years?
It was chilling to the point of being horrifying.
“Ah, well… I’ve been feeling stifled staying inside… I wanted to step outside briefly and come back….”
Afraid my twisted expression might show, I spoke in a timid, cowering voice with my head bowed deeply, fidgeting with my fingers.
At that, the Countess immediately dismissed my words as if they were absurd.
“You want to go outside? I see you have no sense at all. Do you intend to become a spectacle for people? I thought you knew your place by staying quietly, tch.”
“….”
Strength automatically entered my clasped hands, but I suppressed it fiercely.
Without the Countess’s permission, leaving the estate was impossible, so I had to somehow obtain her consent.
Just as I was organizing my thoughts to speak again, a voice similar to the Countess’s but much younger cut in.
“Mother. That child has two legs too, so she must feel stifled. So tell her to go and come back. It’s her first time making such a request, after all.”
“But Via.”
“I know what you’re worried about. But if she doesn’t use the family carriage, no one will realize who she is. Once she walks out and comes back like that, she won’t want to go out again.”
The words that cut off the Countess and flowed out were kind, but their content was not kind at all.
I knew the owner of that voice all too well.
Viart Croizen.
Unlike me, a bastard child, born of the Countess and recognized as the legitimate heir of the Croizen family—my half-sister.
With the Croizen family’s characteristic red-gold hair and deep green eyes, she was beautiful and elegant.
It was only natural that people called her the Flower of Croizen.
Everyone in the family loved her, supported her, and revered her.
No one doubted that when Count Croizen died, the family’s power would manifest in her.
So to kill me and steal my power to give it to her, they had committed such terrible acts without hesitation.
If she said with a sorrowful expression, ‘That child stole what should rightfully be mine,’ who could refuse?
“Now your power will pass to your half-sister. Then I will be engaged to her. So I hope you’ll disappear now. Forever. From this world. As she wishes.”
The words of Leonard—once my fiancé, now nothing more than a bastard—came back to me.
The one who had wished for my death most of all was none other than that very woman sitting there with an angelic face.