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Chapter 1
A quiet afternoon.
The perfect time to enjoy an ordinary day.
I was also enjoying the scent of rooibos tea, which was said to help with sleep, and had just raised the cup for a sip when—
“Tie.”
“Khk.”
A cold voice shattered the peace.
“I think you forgot something you’re supposed to do before drinking tea.”
Ah.
My sister was staring at me with lifeless eyes.
If I ignored her now, something terrible would definitely happen. A chill ran down my spine.
“Unni, isn’t it tiring to come check on me every single time?”
I swear to the heavens, I wasn’t trying to avoid the situation.
I just thought it would be better to calm my sister down first.
“Flotie Rosena.”
…It seemed that had been the wrong choice.
The color slowly drained from my sister’s face.
“Okay, okay.”
She looked like she might flip the table at any moment, so I hurriedly grabbed the silver spoon and plunged it into the teacup.
“……”
My sister stared at the cup as if she expected the spoon to turn black immediately.
But even after some time passed, the spoon showed no change. Only then did her expression finally relax.
“See? Nothing’s wr—”
Just as expected, she turned around and left before even listening to the rest.
The tension left my body all at once.
“My lady, the tea has gone cold. Shall I prepare a fresh cup?”
“No, Elian. If I make new tea, Unni will come running back immediately.”
“Lady Serphina is…”
“Even if she’s far away, my sister always knows. She’s watching me anytime, anywhere.”
“You do realize that sounds very scary, right?”
Elian looked worriedly toward the direction my sister had disappeared in.
Of course I knew. I was very worried too.
After swallowing the now-lukewarm tea, I let out a sigh.
“It may sound scary, but don’t take it that way. I’ve told you many times already, Unni doesn’t do this out of bad intentions.”
“Yes, I know, but still…”
Her neat green eyes shone with unwavering loyalty, as if she would do anything for me. I couldn’t help smiling.
“You don’t actually believe the rumors that my sister stole my position as heir and then went mad, right?”
“Of course not!”
Serphina Rosena had been called a once-in-a-thousand-years magical genius ever since she was adopted into the family.
She had been considered the greatest talent of the duchy, but at some point she shut herself inside the estate and disappeared from public view.
Since then, rumors spread that she was interfering so I could never inherit the duchy and that she still hated me.
But my sister never reacted to any of those rumors.
“Unni loves me.”
“You’re too kind, my lady.”
“No, really. My sister acts like this because she loves me very much.”
I know it better than anyone.
When I was very young, I realized one simple thing.
I was unusually good at reading people.
And things that were painfully obvious to me somehow seemed invisible to everyone else.
When I was little, I even wondered if the whole world was trying to deceive me.
But now I know that would make no sense.
Still, if you ask whether knowing everything is a good thing—
Of course it isn’t. I’m on the verge of losing my mind every single day!
***
First of all, my sister Serphina, who just interrupted my tea time and caused a small disturbance, has probably regressed in time.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but I have reasons to think so.
I first became suspicious when I was thirteen and my sister was fifteen.
One day, she suddenly burst into my room.
I had always been physically weak since childhood, so I often fell sick. That day, too, I had only just woken up late from bed.
“Flotie!”
My sister rushed in with a pale face and immediately grabbed my shoulders, checking me over frantically.
At the time, she had only recently been adopted into the family, and I still felt awkward around her, so the experience completely shocked me.
I barely even knew she existed, and suddenly she appeared out of nowhere. How was a thirteen-year-old supposed to stay calm?
Besides, she normally never answered when I spoke to her and only stayed in her room reading books, so we never had the chance to grow close.
“Are you alright? Why do you look so pale? Did you eat Ludvig’s fruit again? Did your condition worsen? Or was it the Laurelvi herb again—!”
“U-Unni?”
The night before, she had eaten dinner with us completely normally.
But now she hugged me and cried as though we had been separated for a lifetime.
At that moment, I didn’t even think it was strange that a fifteen-year-old was naming advanced herbs and treatments only healers would know.
And I truly mean that.
Maybe because her first impression had felt so cold, it simply made me happy that she was hugging me and staying beside me like that.
But after that, my sister became a little strange.
Just a little.
“Flotie, in about three days, a viscount family will probably send tea leaves. If that happens, give them to me no matter what.”
“You have a feeling a viscount family will send tea leaves in three days? And you want me to hand them over to you?”
“Yes, no matter what. You absolutely must give them to me. They know you love tea.”
I was confused by her absurd words, but three days later, tea leaves really did arrive from the viscount’s house.
“Unni, are these the tea leaves you mentioned?”
“They came from House Ross, right?”
“Y-Yeah. They said they found something rare since they know I like tea.”
Curious, I handed them over exactly as she asked.
I thought she must have really wanted to drink them, but the moment she got them, she threw every last leaf into the fire and burned them.
“This time, I won’t lose you again, Tie. Anything that puts you in danger, I’ll destroy.”
The way she spoke made it sound like I had once fallen into danger because of her mistake… and she had already lost me before.
Honestly, if she had only acted that way around me, I might have just stayed suspicious.
But her strange behavior didn’t stop there.
No, calling it strange behavior wasn’t enough.
It was an achievement. A historical event.
“I am their real daughter.”
On the day of her debutante, she broke the black magic cast on my parents with her own power and revealed herself as the true eldest daughter of the duchy, throwing the empire into chaos.
The two families accused of being behind it were destroyed.
But even after reclaiming her real family, my sister only cared about me.
“I won’t lose you again because I was busy with trivial things like these.”
She even made such a shocking promise. I couldn’t even argue back. How was being the direct bloodline of a ducal house considered “trivial”?
She even turned the magical world upside down by rejecting an offer from the Magic Tower, which admired her powerful memory magic, simply because she wanted to stay beside me.
“If it’s a place where I can’t stay with Flotie, then I won’t go to the Magic Tower. If I hadn’t gone there in the first place, this child wouldn’t have been alone that night…”
Taking that opportunity, I handed the heir position over to her.
I never liked such troublesome responsibilities anyway, and because of my weak health, I spent most of my time bedridden and couldn’t properly receive heir training.
My sister accepted the title happily, saying she would gladly carry my burdens with me.
“Unni… do I die or something?”
“Why would you die?!”
Whenever I asked questions like that after seeing her suspicious behavior over and over again, my sister would always scream as if she had witnessed it herself.
Even now, after I turned seventeen, she still checks every drink and every bite of food for poison.
And every night, she barges into my room with bloodshot eyes, locks the windows, and checks every door.
“I have to see you live past nineteen and become an adult. There are only two years left now, and my preparations are complete.”
At this point, wouldn’t it be stranger not to realize it?
For some reason, my sister had traveled back through time.
And in her previous life, she must have died before turning nineteen.
Ah, but don’t be too surprised just because one person is hiding the fact that they regressed.
This is only the beginning.
I told you, didn’t I?
In this world, everyone except me is hiding something!
