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Chapter 1
Cinderella married the Prince and lived happily ever after.
Just like the ending of every fairy tale.
But, Fairy Godmother…
How long is “ever after”?
These days, Cinderella doesn’t look happy at all.
It seems she’s even forgotten how to smile.
Even when she eats delicious food or wears beautiful dresses.
There was once a time when she wore a dress created by magic and glass slippers, smiling as though she possessed the entire world…
Fairy Godmother, the royal palace is a strange place.
It acts kind, yet it won’t let Cinderella do anything on her own.
“Your Highness the Crown Princess need not concern herself with such matters.”
“There is no need for Your Highness to do it personally.”
They never tell her anything because they insist she doesn’t need to know, and they never let her do anything because they insist she doesn’t need to.
Now she doesn’t have to wash clothes, clean, or cook.
She no longer has to sleep beside the hearth because she has no room or bed.
She no longer has to wander around covered in ashes because she has no time to bathe or change her clothes.
Yet every night, in the grandest and most magnificent room in the world, Cinderella cries herself to sleep alone.
Fairy Godmother.
The Prince searched for the mysterious young lady who disappeared, leaving behind only a single glass slipper.
He found her.
He claimed her.
And then he locked her away inside the palace.
Now that she is no longer mysterious or magical…
Did he simply lose interest?
At some point, the Prince stopped looking for Cinderella.
Five years ago, I saw him laughing happily with another young woman in the palace garden.
With the same gaze he once reserved for Cinderella.
Three years ago, that woman entered the palace as his mistress.
And just yesterday, it was decided that Cinderella would be stripped of her title.
Because she had failed to bear an heir.
But…
Is that enough to end a promise of eternity after only ten years?
Does “forever” not even last a decade?
Was it because it wasn’t truly for life?
I don’t understand.
Sometimes I wish I had taken Cinderella and run away from the palace.
But the truth is…
There was nowhere to go.
Where could we have gone?
Back to that estate where she had barely escaped, where she lived with her stepmother and stepsisters?
Once, Cinderella’s eyes sparkled brighter than all the treasures in the world.
Now…
There is nothing left inside them.
More radiant than the beauty everyone praised was everything those eyes once held.
I truly believed she would be happy for the rest of her life.
I thought she would never have to suffer again.
Everyone said so.
Yet the girl who owned nothing but still possessed an unbroken heart…
Has now lost even that.
What do we do now?
If I had known that fleeting happiness would be the last happiness she would ever know…
Then that day, even if it meant being trampled to death by the crowd, I would have ruined the wedding.
But now…
It’s too late.
I’m already so old that I don’t even have the strength to stand.
Truthfully, even if I weren’t old…
Even if I could return to the days of my greatest youth and strength…
What could I possibly do?
For someone like me, merely surviving was always the best I could manage.
I can’t do anything.
Nothing at all…
Fairy Godmother.
I’m nothing more than a filthy little mouse.
But Cinderella…
She accepted me anyway.
The moment Cinderella gave me a name…
I stopped being just another mouse on the roadside.
I became someone special.
The reason I’ve lived far beyond a mouse’s natural lifespan…
The reason I can understand human speech and think unlike other mice…
It’s all because of her.
So I’ve already received more than enough.
Far more than I deserved.
If only I could return all of that good fortune to her.
My only wish…
Is for Cinderella to smile again.
Just as she once smiled, looking as though she possessed the whole world despite having nothing at all.
“So… that’s your final wish.”
The voice was hoarse, low, and so chilling it hardly sounded human.
A black hood concealed him from head to toe, while snow-white hair spilled from beneath it.
No matter how one looked at him, he resembled a demon far more than the Fairy Godmother the old mouse had sought so desperately.
“You never change.”
His fingernails, stained pitch-black, lightly touched the tip of the old mouse’s fur before pulling away again.
His hand barely retained its shape, as though it had been broken, rotted, and decayed countless times.
“…”
He had never touched the mouse directly before.
Even the slightest contact from him could effortlessly extinguish such a tiny life.
For he was living death itself.
Only after the old mouse’s breathing had completely ceased could he finally reach out.
Even then, he could not bring himself to stroke it properly.
Only the very tip of its fur.
“You couldn’t even say those last words—that you didn’t want to die.”
If you had only said that…
Somehow, I…
Somehow, I could have freed you from your curse…
“…Ah.”
After a long silence, he let out a short, bitter laugh.
How ridiculous.
How could someone like him dare think such things?
A monster whose touch ruined everything.
What right did he have to speak of salvation?
“The curse upon you can only be broken by that child.”
And so, he willingly granted the old mouse’s final wish.
The happiness of the girl it had prayed for until its dying breath.
“If she smiles… then you will smile as well.”
If she is someone you loved enough to give everything for…
Perhaps, unlike me…
She can grant you a miracle.
A miracle that will return you to where you were always meant to be.
Return everything you were meant to have.
Restore the precious bonds that should have been yours.
And finally…
Lead you to happiness.
“…Live like that.”
Never knowing what misery is.
Never becoming so desperate that you have to make wishes to a demon.
Never searching for me in the darkest, most miserable places.
“In your next life…”
“Stay only where the sunlight reaches.”
“So that you’ll never have to meet someone like me.”
cover
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Elody’s eyes flew open at the sound of heavy footsteps.
Every time the ceiling shook, dust rained down like a shower from above.
“Cinderella!”
“Cinderella, you lazy girl! Do you even know what time it is?!”
The shrill voices of Cinderella’s sisters, Rose and Daisy, echoed one after another.
‘This is…’
It was dark beneath the floorboards, untouched by sunlight.
Cobwebs covered every corner.
The space was so cramped that only the smallest species of field mouse could barely survive there.
It was the place she had lived ever since she first remembered anything…
Until Cinderella left for the royal palace.
‘This is beneath the floor of the Bluewood estate.’
How could this be?
Elody knew better than anyone that she had been standing on the brink of death.
So why…
Was she alive?
More importantly…
‘Why are Rose and Daisy bullying Cinderella again?’
The two sisters, along with their stepmother, had been exiled to the countryside, forbidden from ever returning to the capital.
So how could they possibly be ordering around Cinderella, who had become Crown Princess?
It made no sense.
‘Unless… time has actually turned back…’
Just then—
“Yes! I’m coming, Sisters!”
A familiar voice reached her ears.
Much younger than she remembered.
Without thinking twice, Elody dashed out.
She had to see it with her own eyes.
The cheerful, bouncing footsteps.
The lovable smile.
Bright eyes sparkling with curiosity.
A gentle voice that perfectly reflected her kind yet resilient heart.
Cinderella before she entered the palace.
No…
Even younger than that.
Seraphina Bluewood.
The youngest daughter of House Bluewood.
‘Sera!’
She was really there.
Dressed in rags.
Carrying a tray of teacups.
Running as fast as she could to appease her ill-tempered sisters first thing in the morning.
Her blonde hair, dulled by soot though once brilliantly glossy, swayed as precariously as the teacups upon the tray.
‘…She was this young.’
Back then, even young Sera had seemed like a giant to Elody.
After all, field mice were only about the size of a human thumb.
She had never truly realized it.
No matter how mature she acted…
She was still only a fourteen-year-old girl.
A child forced to endure unimaginable cruelty in the Bluewood household until adulthood.
Of course she would cling to the Prince, whose shining appearance resembled salvation.
No one else had ever reached out a hand to her.
Elody hurried after Sera.
‘I’ve come back in time.’
Her heart pounded wildly.
‘Was this the Fairy Godmother’s magic?’
The Fairy Godmother had once used magic to grant Cinderella’s wish to attend the royal ball.
A magnificent gown.
Brilliant glass slippers.
Though the spell vanished after midnight, lasting only a fleeting moment like a beautiful illusion…
‘Even so…’
She had been given another chance.
“The tea’s gone cold!”
“I’m sorry, Sister. I’ll be more careful next time.”
“Tsk. You’re always good with excuses. And what is that appearance?”
“Ah…”
Sera looked embarrassed as she rubbed at the soot staining her skirt.
“I wonder if you even wash yourself. Who could eat something served by someone so filthy?”
“I do wash… but I sleep beside the hearth because I don’t have a room…”
“Stop making excuses. If even a speck of ash gets on my precious clothes, you’re dead.”
Ever since Sera was little, the Countess of Bluewood had treated her like nothing more than a kitchen maid.
Her daughters learned from their mother and copied her behavior perfectly.
They stole Sera’s room and forced her to sleep beside the fireplace.
Then mocked her for always being covered in ashes.
‘But at least they weren’t related to her by blood.’
The one who had always angered Elody the most was…
“Tsk. Don’t make such a fuss.”
Count Bluewood.
Only three months after Sera’s birth mother passed away…
He remarried.
Though he was the head of the prestigious Bluewood family…
He never once protected his own daughter.
No matter what the stepmother, the sisters, or even the servants did to her…
He merely clicked his tongue.
Calling her a fool incapable of taking care of herself.
Yet unlike the others, who at least received some punishment…
He paid no price whatsoever.
He lived comfortably until the very end.
Simply because he was the head of the distinguished House of Bluewood.
“Don’t talk back to your sister.”
“…”
“The least you can do is obey.”
The worst kind of trash.
The moment Sera’s blue eyes, desperately pretending to stay cheerful, began to tremble—
Elody leaped out from the blind spot where no one could see her.
She was still nothing more than a tiny mouse.
Even after being given another chance, she could never become a heroic prince riding in on a white horse to save Sera.
But she could still run faster than anyone.
She had sharp, powerful teeth capable of gnawing through grain.
For now…
That was enough.
Prepared to be trampled to death, she charged forward with all her strength—
“AAAAAAAHHHHH!!”
—and sank her teeth straight into Count Bluewood’s hooked nose.
