TDPMVI 2

Chapter : 2

When I opened my eyes again, I saw a familiar ceiling.

There was no drifting ash before my eyes, no terrifying surge of magic.

Then… is this heaven?

The ornate patterns certainly made it seem like heaven at first glance…

Do people in heaven like patterns like this? It looks exactly like Duke Agnito’s taste—

Wait. Agnito?

I bolted upright. Piled-up old belongings stacked in one corner. A worn desk. A cracked window roughly patched together with adhesive.

This is… my room? What on earth happened—

At that moment, a sharp pain throbbed through my head.

When the pain slowly subsided, unfamiliar scenes surfaced in my mind.

The faces were all different, yet their lives followed similar paths.

An orphan without a family. A child desperate for love.

Yet in the end, never receiving the affection they longed for—dying in accidents or from grave illness.

The most recent memory was a life in “the Republic of Korea.” That one, too, had ended beneath the wheels of a truck.

And then came Hanisha’s memories—my own.

Only then did I realize.

Everything I had just seen were memories of my past lives.

How… how is this possible…?

As I blinked blankly in the flood of memories, something suddenly caught my eye.

A mirror standing to one side. Reflected in it was a small child.

A frail body, so thin it was hard to guess her age. Slightly hollow cheeks.

Small hands.

Unkempt platinum hair, and bandages wrapped tightly around her head.

Hanisha. In other words… me.

The girl who had wanted acknowledgment from her family—
and who ultimately died alone.

“What a gloomy child.”
“She’s the wicked thing draining our family’s fortune.”

I wasn’t much different from the “me” I had been in Korea.

For a moment, I was speechless.

It was the first time I had looked at myself objectively—through the eyes of a third person.

So this is… what I looked like.

So dark. So pitiful.

While I had become like this… what exactly had I been clinging to?

What I wanted was…

“…I wanted to be an Agnito.”

The words slipped out unconsciously.

At that moment, my mind slowly cleared.

I had lived seeking others’ recognition. I hadn’t cared what happened to myself.

And what I received in return was betrayal.

Then…

Wouldn’t it be alright to live for myself this time?

If I had returned to the past, that meant I knew the future.

In other words, I can change it.

The confusion gradually solidified into determination. Regaining my composure, I calmly faced my situation.

My uncle, Duke Agnito, had never acknowledged me, his illegitimate niece. I was a stain on the family name.

Yet later, he would belatedly recognize me as a lady of the house—only to marry me off to the leader of the rebel army. That was how closely the House of Agnito was tied to the imperial family.

But the rebels would never spare an Agnito like me.

I can’t stop the rebellion from happening…

But I can at least avoid facing the rebels myself.

To do that, I first need to escape from Agnito…

Just then—

The door suddenly swung open and someone entered.

“Oh my goodness, Lady Hanisha!”

A familiar voice followed.

Orange hair. Brown eyes. A slightly worn maid’s uniform.

Ah.

Though time had passed, the memory was still vivid.

The only person in this household who treated me kindly while everyone else ignored me.

My only friend—my personal maid, Lisa.

As the eldest child in her family, Lisa had come all the way to this distant estate to work as a maid and earn money for her household.

She once told me that whenever she saw me, she thought of her youngest sibling—and that she wanted to treat me better because of that.

But she shouldn’t have.

“P-Please don’t treat the young lady so carelessly…!”

After Lisa had stepped in front of me when my cousin Bert was bullying me, she had been thrown into solitary confinement.

“Don’t give her a drop of water. Not a single crumb of bread.”

It had been winter then.

Unable to endure the cold and hunger, Lisa died.

I had been too young to truly understand the weight of loss.

Only after seeing her cold body—
only after reaching out with trembling hands and pulling her into my arms—

did I understand.

So this is what it feels like to lose someone precious.

This crushing pain in my chest. This suffocating sorrow.

And yet—

Lisa was alive.

Alive, standing right in front of me.

With the same face as back then.

My vision blurred, then cleared again. Lisa was approaching me with wide eyes.

“Are you alright, my lady? Does it still hurt a lot?”

She gently wiped the corners of my eyes. I must have been crying without realizing it.

“You didn’t even groan while you were unconscious, so I thought you were fine…”

Lisa examined the bandages wrapped around my head, clearly at a loss.

How long had it been since I felt this touch?

Tears threatened to spill again, but I didn’t want to worry her. I sniffed instead.

“I had a nightmare. That’s why I was startled.”

“I see. I should have stayed by your side. I’m sorry.”

“No. You’re busy, Lisa. …What’s that?”

“Oh, I brought this just in case. It should make you feel better if you hold it to your head.”

She pressed something cold and hard against the back of my head. It was an ice magic tool commonly used in the kitchen.

“…Thank you, Lisa.”

“It’s nothing. I just picked up something that was lying around.”

She smiled brightly—but I knew how difficult it must have been for her to obtain this common magic tool from the duke’s household.

Lisa was my maid.

And being Hanisha’s maid meant ranking at the very bottom in the duke’s estate.

Bang!

The door burst open without a knock.

“What? You’re already awake?”

An entirely unwelcome voice rang out.

Sharp eyes. Darker blond hair than mine.

Bert—son of Duke Agnito and my cousin.

“Was I too gentle? That’s disappointing.”

Without waiting for permission, Bert strode inside. Lisa moved to shield me behind her.

“M-Master Bert, what brings you here…?”

“I came to visit the patient.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said I came to visit.”

Bert grinned. A sinister feeling crept over me.

“Here. A gift.”

Thud.

A piece of bread, blackened at the edges, dropped to the floor.

“You must’ve missed a proper meal after fainting. I brought this specially for you. Pretty nice get-well present, right?”

He shrugged. Lisa bit her lip, helpless.

This was my position.

Even the lowest insults had to be endured in silence.

The daughter of an impure saintess.

After Bert’s twin sister Esther manifests holy power, this will quiet down a little…

But that was still far in the future.

Right now, the House of Agnito had no saintess to its name—and Bert deeply resented that.

“Listen carefully. For a child who’s tarnished the Agnito name, this much generosity is more than enough. You understand?”

Lisa stretched her arm behind her protectively instead of arguing back. It was the most she could do.

Bert stood arrogantly before us—

just as he had when he bullied me,
just as he had when I knelt in front of the cell, begging for Lisa’s release.

“You should’ve known better than to disobey.”

Before all my despair, he had always stood proud.

“….”

I inhaled quietly. My fists clenched without my realizing it.

“Why aren’t you eating it? I told you to eat.”

“….”

“Oh, did you hurt your head so badly your hands don’t work? Want me to feed you?”

Mistaking my silence for fear, Bert picked up the fallen bread and strode toward me.

“Here. Eat.”

He thrust it forward.

“It’s a special day today, after all. I sneaked it out for you without the adults knowing.”

The bread was half burned and hard—
and had just fallen onto the floor.

“M-My lady…”

As Lisa stood there helplessly, I stared at the bread and spoke.

“Bert. Do you know what karma is?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“It means you get back what you’ve done. Where I used to live, people said that a lot.”

In one of my previous lives, my grandmother, who had believed in shamanism, used to say that often.

She had taken in an orphan like me, claiming heaven would reward her accordingly.

And yet, whenever I tried to do anything, she would warn me it would come back as karma and stop me from doing it.

Why did that word come to mind now?

I didn’t know.

But what I had to do was clear.

“Did you eat something weird? What nonsense are you spouting? And didn’t I tell you to speak up? I still can’t hear you!”

Impatient, Bert brushed past Lisa. “Hey, move aside.”

He stepped right up to me.

That was when I slowly took the hard bread from his hand.

A triumphant smile spread across his face.

“See? You should’ve listened from the start.”

The same words I’d heard over and over again.

And at that moment—

I straightened my hunched body.

More precisely… my upper body!

Thud!

As if I had been waiting for it, the top of my head slammed straight into Bert’s chin.

“Ugh!”

With a loud groan, Bert crashed onto the floor.

My scalp throbbed, so his pain must have been considerable.

“Y-You lowborn wretch, how dare you…!”

Ah. There it was.

Even after getting hit, he was still flapping his mouth. I felt no guilt whatsoever.

I walked straight toward him. I could see the confusion spreading across his face.

“Why are you coming closer—what are you doing with that bread?”

I realized something thanks to Bert.

Hard bread hurts.

A lot.

Smack!

I swung the bread I was holding straight at him.

“Argh!”

Without stopping—harder.

“Aaaaagh!”

Bert’s screams rang loud enough to shake the entire duke’s residence.