Chapter 1

“C-cough—!”

The man who had been lying on the sandy beach as if dead suddenly coughed violently and began vomiting seawater.

Cough, cough.

After emptying his stomach noisily for quite a while, the man finally looked around.

What he saw was a small beach and a forest stretching behind it.

On the opposite side was nothing but the vast sea.

There was no sign of human life anywhere. This was clearly a deserted island.

A perfect shipwreck.

The man, who should have fallen into despair at the sight, suddenly—

“Hah, hahaha, hahahaha!”

—started laughing like a madman.

Hot tears streamed down from the man’s blue eyes.

It was not because he had fallen into denial of reality.

It was simply because this scenery was not unfamiliar to him.

“Dear God, thank you!”

Instinctively understanding everything that had happened, the man lowered himself to the ground and tearfully offered a prayer of gratitude to God.

He did not care at all about the wet sand sticking unpleasantly to his soaked body.

His tears dampened the beach sand that had been baked dry beneath the blazing sunlight.

Sand slipped through the gaps of his tightly clenched fists, veins bulging as though they would burst.

“Hngh…”

Swallowing an animal-like cry, the man—Jean de Lambert—spoke once more the promise he had ultimately failed to keep.

“Daddy, Daddy will come soon. My daughter…”

Two years later.

“Hey! Vivian, there’s still a stain left on this plate!”

“I’m sorry! I’ll wipe it again right away!”

Vivian, who had been cleaning dust beneath the dining table, quickly raised her head and answered.

After finishing the floor she had been diligently scrubbing, Vivian stood up, her face drenched in sweat.

“Hup.”

Her soft cotton-candy-like light pink hair clung in strands to her flushed cheeks.

But Vivian had no time to brush it away. She hurried over, wiped her hands, and quickly polished the plate again with a dishcloth.

“Why are you so slow? You need to finish quickly so I can put the dishes away!”

“Y-Yes… I’m done now!”

The child, having polished the plate until her reflection showed on its surface, proudly handed it to the stern-looking woman.

The woman, deep wrinkles etched between her brows, inspected the plate thoroughly before tossing Vivian a single hard black loaf of bread.

“Thank you very much, ma’am!”

The bread was so hard it had to be soaked in water for a long time before it could even be eaten, yet Vivian accepted it as though it were a precious treasure.

Her starving stomach screamed for food immediately, but Vivian swallowed hard and carefully tucked the bread into the pocket attached to her apron.

This was her only food for the day.

There was still work left to do, so she had to eat half after finishing her chores and save the other half for dinner if she wanted to survive the day.

“It’s half a handspan bigger than yesterday’s bread! Yay! I have to eat it carefully!”

It was the kind of thing that would break a parent’s heart to hear, but this was Vivian’s reality.

A young child left all alone in the world with no one on her side.

Still, things had been alright at least until Daddy, Jean, boarded a ship saying he would earn money and return.

‘If you sleep one hundred nights, you’ll see him again, young miss!’

‘Longer than ten nights?’

‘You just have to sleep ten nights ten times!’

‘Mmm. I don’t really get it.’

Back then, the butler Ron and his wife Mary had treated Vivian kindly, calling her “young miss,” and the villagers had always greeted her warmly.

The two of them changed only after rumors spread that the ship Jean had boarded had encountered a storm, and no letters ever arrived from him again.

‘He’s probably dead, don’t you think?’

‘A man who adored his daughter that much would never go this long without sending even one letter if he were alive.’

‘Then…’

His absence awakened the greed sleeping inside Ron and Mary.

One month after contact was lost, Vivian was kicked out of the room she had been staying in.

That room was taken over by Peter, the son of Ron and Mary.

‘Young miss should be grateful you met people like us. If it had been anyone else, you would’ve been thrown out already.’

‘That’s right. Do you know how hard wandering orphans have it? You should be thankful you’re not freezing to death on the streets.’

Claiming they were raising orphaned Vivian until adulthood, Ron and Mary began using the household fortune as if it belonged to them.

‘We’re sorry, young miss.’

‘We have to survive too.’

Every villager owed Jean something, whether large or small, and Ron used the debt records to force them into turning a blind eye to poor Vivian’s situation.

Before leaving, Jean had appointed Ron as his legal representative, so there was no legal issue anyone could argue.

If Vivian, who had been only five years old, had even one proper relative, things might have been different, but she had no grandparents, no uncles, no aunts.

She did not even know what family her mother had come from. Apparently, her mother had fallen in love with Jean at first sight, run away from home, and lost contact with her family forever.

Of course, Vivian knew nothing about such adult matters.

To Vivian, Mother was simply someone who had gone to heaven right after giving birth to her.

Even in these circumstances, Vivian still tried hard to live bravely, but—

“Hey! Ugly!”

The world simply refused to help her.

It was Peter, Ron and Mary’s son. He was two years older than Vivian and had been desperate to bully her ever since Jean disappeared.

Vivian pretended not to hear the spiteful voice calling for her.

“Oh? Pretending you didn’t hear me? Hey!”

“…Oh right. I still have laundry to do! I’m so busy, so busy. I need to go wash clothes!”

“Well now. You’re really going to keep ignoring me?”

“Ow!”

Peter grabbed Vivian by the hair and yanked hard enough to make her stagger.

“Let go!”

“Well, whose fault is it for ignoring me? If someone calls you, you’re supposed to answer right away—”

“When did you call me? My name isn’t Ugly.”

“If I say you’re Ugly, then you’re Ugly. Idiot.”

“I’m not an idiot! Who do you think you are?!”

“Who am I?”

Grin.

The moment Vivian saw Peter smiling, she instinctively felt uneasy.

Peter twitched one corner of his mouth while barely suppressing laughter. Even his reddening cheeks gave off an ominous feeling.

Anything that made Peter this happy could never mean something good for Vivian.

“Well, you know. Khh, kheheh. Hey. Forget it, forget it. A brat like you doesn’t need to know yet.”

After laughing unpleasantly to himself, Peter simply walked away.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Vivian rubbed her arms, covered in goosebumps.

It felt unsettling, but finishing the laundry came first.

Carrying a heavy pile of clothes to the stream, Vivian began washing them in practiced motions.

The pain in her fingers, red and numb as though they might freeze off, soon made her forget that uneasy feeling.

Grrrrowl.

Holding her hungry stomach, Vivian opened the door to her room.

She had already finished the bread she received that morning, so she planned to fill her stomach with water at least.

Ron and Mary never complained about her drinking water.

Her room was the small attic room tucked into the farthest corner just below the rooftop. After stepping out and descending one floor down the stairs, she heard voices.

“…Vivian…”

“Hm? Me?”

Hearing her own name coming from the room that used to belong to Jean but was now occupied by Ron and Mary, Vivian stopped walking.

‘Gasp. Are they trying to throw me out?’

Vivian suddenly felt her heart sink with a thud. Carefully standing on tiptoe, she crept closer.

Her blue eyes trembled slightly as she peeked through the slightly opened door.

“I think it’d be better to get them engaged first.”

“But the child’s only seven years old. How could they get married already?”

“There’s no need to hold a formal engagement ceremony anyway.”

‘Engagement? What’s engagement? I know marriage. It’s when two people promise to live happily together forever because they love each other.’

Vivian tilted her head in confusion. Why was her name coming up?

“If Peter marries Vivian, then we won’t have anything left to worry about!”

“Gah—”

Vivian accidentally let out a strange sound from shock and quickly covered her mouth