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Chapter 38
The subjugation squad returned to the Academy.
Erin lay on her bed, recalling everything that had happened.
She had told Lilia everything—except for the fact that she had lived through three different lives.
After hearing Erin’s words, Lilia stayed silent for a long time. She just sat there blankly, and then tears began to fall.
“Sorry… I’m so sorry…”
She didn’t even know what exactly she was apologizing for, yet she kept repeating it again and again.
“Do you believe me?”
In response to Erin’s question, Lilia began recounting what had happened to her after Calypse’s death.
The maid named Charlotte had appeared, bringing with her a mana stone, claiming it was something she had obtained with great difficulty.
She proposed to Lilia: if she avenged her friend, she would give her the mana stone.
Charlotte urged her, over and over, that Calypse’s death had to be avenged, and dangled a tempting reward no ordinary mage could ignore.
Normally, mana stones were strictly managed by the Imperial family, and ownership was only possible with the Emperor’s approval.
It was precisely because of that restriction that the Imperial authority still held some weight in a world where Swordmasters and Mages dominated.
And yet, a mere maid of a Marquis’s household somehow had one? Lilia admitted she didn’t know why she so easily accepted that absurd claim back then—but she did. It had felt natural, like she couldn’t resist believing it.
“…As if I’d been bewitched. I knew it didn’t make sense, but still…”
Her words trailed off in confusion, and Erin realized that Lilia was deeply shaken.
What Raymond had done to Erin, Charlotte had done to Lilia in the same way.
“Charlotte was the Marchioness’s most favored maid…”
A memory surfaced—of the maid standing by the Marchioness’s side, always looking down at Erin.
Even at the moment of her death, Charlotte had clung to the Marchioness’s shadow.
Erin had thought it strange at times, but she hadn’t had the strength to question it back then.
She never believed a mere maid could procure a mana stone on her own.
And, according to Lilia, the stone she saw wasn’t just an ordinary one.
It was a forbidden mana stone, created through black magic.
Clues from the shattered corpse of the Wolf Tribe’s chieftain had led Lilia to research the Academy’s records, where she confirmed it—black magic was the cause.
Erin stared quietly at the ceiling.
Why had it come to this?
Why? What had she done wrong?
She had never wronged the Marchioness.
So why had Corelia dragged her into ruin? Erin could never understand.
Things might get busy soon.
That thought was interrupted by a presence she felt approaching her dorm.
Two people. One was a trained knight. The other seemed to be the dormitory headmistress.
The headmistress’s anxious steps made her nervousness clear.
“Lady Erin Lisches!”
Erin sat up at the rough knocking on her door.
The subjugation squad had barely been back for a day. Everyone had been leaving them alone to rest—so banging on her door like this was a shocking discourtesy.
And that voice outside sounded familiar.
“Please, open the door, Lady Erin! It’s urgent!”
“Sir Rohan, Lady Erin just returned from the subjugation. She needs rest.”
“How dare a mere servant talk back to me?”
“I am not a servant!”
The heated bickering was clearly audible.
When Erin opened the door, as expected, she found a knight and the dormitory headmistress, Elua.
The knight, a towering man, looked at her with a sly grin.
She could tell at once—he was no ordinary knight.
Ah, right. This man…
He was one of First Prince Ditrion’s knights. Rohan, was it?
She remembered the way he always sneered at her when standing by the prince’s side.
“Lady Erin, it’s been a while.”
At his words, Elua looked visibly startled.
Erin was a knight now. At the Athenz Academy’s Swordsmanship Faculty, she was no longer the Marquis’s daughter.
To call her “Lady Erin” here was no different from mockery.
“What brings you here?”
“By His Highness Ditrion’s command, I’ve delivered an urgent letter from Lady Corelia.”
He handed over a letter, Erin’s name written on it in Corelia’s hand.
She took it and read:
*Erin, it’s been a while. I heard news that Raymond had come to the Marquis’s estate, but he never arrived. Since it makes no sense that he would abandon the subjugation squad, I fear something may have happened to him.
To look into this, and because I worry for you staying at Athenz Academy, I plan to visit soon.
In any case, Prince Ferdin’s victory banquet is approaching, so I’ll likely arrive around then. Since Prince Ditrion is departing earlier, you may see him not long after receiving this letter.
I’ll see you soon.
With love, Corelia.*
Leaning against the doorway, Erin read the letter and mulled over the words for a long time.
With love, Corelia.
Corelia often said that in front of others.
“I love you, Erin.”
Back then, even as she suffered, Erin had believed it was true. She thought everything Corelia did was because of love.
So she had desperately strived to be worthy of hearing those words.
Until the day she died and the truth was revealed.
If she truly loved me, she wouldn’t have treated me that way. I was such a fool.
This letter had an obvious purpose. There was no need to send such trivial news as an “urgent report.”
It was one of Corelia’s cruel games—she wanted Erin to tremble in fear after reading it. That was all.
In her first life, Corelia had often sent such letters too. Always when Erin had “done something wrong.”
Corelia knew perfectly how Erin would react—shaken and afraid.
Come to think of it, the Marchioness often visited the capital to see Ditrion.
As a relative of the Emperor and a dominant figure in the empire’s high society, Corelia wielded immense power.
She had even been entrusted with educating the princes, so her closeness with Ditrion wasn’t strange.
With a scornful laugh, Erin crumpled the letter.
Rohan’s eyes widened in shock, and he staggered back.
To see Erin Lisches treat Corelia’s letter that way was beyond belief.
He had visited the Marquis household often with Ditrion, and he had noticed that despite all the rumors, Erin seemed timid.
But Erin Lisches, crumpling Corelia’s letter? Wasn’t she the one who practically worshipped her?
“Sir Rohan.”
“…Lady Erin?”
Erin smiled faintly. Though she was still injured, dealing with this fool was hardly beyond her.
Her fist shot forward—so fast that even an elite knight couldn’t react in time.
It grazed past Rohan’s ear. Had she not pulled it, he would have taken the blow full on.
“Wh—what insolence is this!” Rohan cried in panic.
She must have gone mad, he thought. To suddenly throw a punch at someone?
“As a knight, you can’t even dodge a lady’s fist. It seems you’re unfit to guard His Highness Ditrion.”
Rohan’s face flushed red with fury.
“Y-you insolent! So discourteous for the Marquis’s daughter!”
Erin chuckled at his words.
“The rude one here is you. Before being the Marquis’s daughter, I am a knight. Yet you failed to even address me with the proper title. Truly disgraceful.”
“Pfft!”
Elua, beside them, couldn’t hold back a laugh.
Enraged, Rohan turned his glare on her.
“How dare a lowly wench laugh at me?”
He looked ready to draw his sword. Elua shrank back in fright, but soon froze in place.
The knight’s murderous aura pressed down on her with crushing force. He grinned wickedly.
But then, his expression abruptly went pale.
