Was it all a dream? Was it all a figment of my imagination?

 

Was my whole life, from the moment my father, the Earl Estelle, died when I was seven, to the day before I turned nineteen and supposedly died, just a dream?

 

I swallowed. My pupils were shaking, and my trembling hands were reflected in the mirror.

 

“I have to confirm it.”

 

I jumped onto the bed and pulled furiously on the rope hanging above my head.

 

Although the alarm connected to the servants’ quarters must have gone off several times, there was silence outside the door.

 

This was a familiar situation.

 

When I found something that didn’t change even in the midst of the confusion, I felt relieved.

 

I didn’t give up and kept pulling on the rope until I heard footsteps coming from far down the corridor.

 

“What on earth is happening so early in the morning?”

 

The person who burst into the room without knocking was my lady-in-waiting, Ashley.

 

She rolled up her sleeves and approached me with a frown.

 

“I know you don’t realize this, Lady Helena, but we have a lot of preparations to make from first thing in the morning, and we have to start the day early! Do you have plans or not? You don’t have to worry about such things, but…”

 

“What year is it now?”

 

I cut Ashley off without even listening to her. She momentarily lost her composure and stuttered.

 

“Pardon?”

 

“What year is it in the Empire?”

 

Had I been myself, I would have apologized to Ashley immediately.

 

I had to be a good child. To prove that I was different from my father, I had to be virtuous and humble.

 

Before, I wouldn’t have called Ashley before I started to get upset. But this time I didn’t. Ashley reluctantly responded to my ungrateful and unappreciative attitude, not even apologizing or acknowledging my efforts.

 

“…… It’s been 182 years since the Empire was founded.”

 

182 years!

 

I died in 187 years. I slid my trembling hands under the blanket to hide them.

 

“How long until my birthday?”

 

“Huh, how silly of you to suddenly forget your own birthday. What a fool… It’s tomorrow!”

 

She grumbled and complained loudly, but I couldn’t hear a thing.

 

The day I died was just one day before my birthday.

 

I had gone back exactly five years.

 

“You called a busy person and didn’t even pay attention to me!”

 

With that, Ashley slammed the door loudly and left in her anger at me for not paying attention to her.

 

But I had no intention of paying attention to her. I felt numb.

 

Could the priests’ words about the righteous ascending to heaven and the wicked descending to eternal damnation in hell be misinterpreted?

 

Could it be that some non-believers were mistaken when they claimed that we all go on to a new life after death?

 

Is it even possible that there is such a thing as a next life?

 

When we die, do we have to go back and relive our lives?

 

“Or, if not, why am I…?”

 

A trickle of water ran down my chin and soaked into the blanket. I shivered like an aspen tree, overcome by a chill.

 

But this time I did not lower my head. For there was no one else in the room.

 

What am I to do?

 

Is it my fate to wander aimlessly, denied even a final rest?

 

The answer came to me even as the question formed on my lips.

 

“Because I am the daughter of the devil…”

 

I tore at the blankets and laughed like a madwoman.

 

I finally faced the truth. And everything fell into place.

 

I murmured to myself, alone in the room with no one to hear me.

 

“No wonder God’s mercy does not extend to the devil. But how foolish of me to expect it!”

 

God’s merciful decision was neither to send me to heaven nor to condemn me to hell, but to give me another chance at this worthless life.

 

I laughed bitterly.

 

“I would rather fall into hell.”

 

That is where I really belong as the daughter of a demonic count.

 

I longed to feel a whip and be punished, to stand next to others like me, to atone for my sins.

 

Although everyone else had accepted it, I had always refused to acknowledge the alias I had been given.

 

Although it was humiliating and made me feel insignificant, confessing to the name I had avoided all my life gave me an unexpected sense of relief.

 

Each time I spoke, a strange whistling sound mixed with my sobs and laughter.

 

“I’d rather be Ashley, no, I’d rather be rolling around in the mud.”

 

I just want to become someone else, anyone but myself.

 

If I had to die and be reborn as myself, what was the point of hanging me?

 

“To spend another five years in this horrible place…”

 

What would be the point of enduring a life trampled by everyone and everything, even insects, only to be hanged by a rope in the end?

 

My tears and laughter faded and a cold shiver ran through my body.

 

Tomorrow I will be fourteen.

 

It has been almost seven years since my father died, and the Duke who looked after me has become my guardian, and my reputation began to plummet.

 

What can I do now?

 

“…In that case, just for now…”

 

My thoughts were in disarray, and my gaze shifted to the crumpled and damp blanket in my hand.

 

I stood up, staggering, and climbed onto a chair to hang the blanket on a pillar in the ceiling.

 

My breath quickened.

 

I must do it now. If I don’t do it now, my courage will disappear.

 

But… my hand didn’t move immediately. Hesitation stopped me. My will, as fragile as a spider’s web, was about to disappear.

 

Just then as I was standing by the bed, unable to do anything, Ashley came in.

 

“Dinner is ready, miss!” 

 

She announced, opening the door roughly, just as she had when she left.

 

“What are you doing? Don’t play any funny tricks and come down here.” 

 

She said, looking at me dryly and frowning.

 

“Okay.” 

 

I hesitated for a moment, then untied the sheet from the bedpost and got off the chair.

 

No matter how much Ashley disliked me, I wasn’t going to let her see me strangle myself in front of her. I didn’t want her to get involved for no reason.

 

Anyway, Ashley wasn’t going to stay in my room for long, so I just had to wait for her to leave.

 

“Please sit down.”

 

I put the sheet back on the bed and sat on the chair I had just been standing on. Ashley put the plate she was holding down on the table with a thud.

 

“You’re going to have the penitential meal.”

 

Ah.

 

At that moment, memories came crashing down on me like a tidal wave.

 

Several pale larvae wriggled in the watery soup in the chipped bowl.

 

The entire meal consisted of two pieces of black bread covered in blue mold and a few wilted cabbage leaves with insect holes here and there.

 

“Shouldn’t you repay the debt of Estelle, the former Countess who was your father’s patron? The land he set on fire has still not grown a single blade of grass,” she said. 

 

She spoke and laughed at my stunned expression.

 

Ah, how could I have forgotten? How could I have been so blind?

 

After Baron Varden became my guardian, I dined with him for a while, but the Baron eventually kicked me out for various reasons.

 

He said my table manners were improper, that the way I looked at Helena was rude and made her feel uncomfortable, and that I ruined the atmosphere of the meals for everyone.

 

So he ordered me to eat my meals alone in my room.

 

And what Ashley brought me was this ‘repentance meal.’

 

“Haha, ahahaha….hahaha….!”

 

I burst out laughing. Even though I was already laughing, the laughter continued like a cough.

 

My body shook uncontrollably and even the chair was shaking.

 

“What a fool…! You’ve really lost it today!”

 

She glared at me with contemptuous eyes, wiping away tears that had formed at the corners of her eyes with her index finger. They were tears from laughing too hard.

 

‘Like a fool.’

 

My thoughts cleared. It was a sensation I had never felt before.

 

What had felt like an agonizing stranglehold on my throat just moments ago now felt simply stupid.

 

“Ashley.”

 

I called out to her kindly, like the ‘real’ me: gentle, tender and quivering.

 

“Even if you begged me for forgiveness now, I would never grant it. Your father’s wrongs are so great that he could never repay them, even if he ate rotten food for the rest of his life.”

 

She was taken aback for a moment, then looked at me with a face that said, “Well, then.”

 

I burst out laughing again.

 

I was wrong. Whether my reputation was already ruined or not, there was no point in worrying about it.

 

After all, wasn’t I the devil’s daughter?

 

In my previous life I had struggled to escape that name, but now it felt worthwhile to live up to it.

 

I wondered if my father, burning in the sulfur and flames beneath the earth, was smiling at me for the first time.

 

I blinked my eyes playfully, as if winking, and a vision of myself doing this repeatedly, as if in a hallucination, flashed before me and disappeared.

 

I reached for the plate, and Ashley snorted at me with that ‘well then’ look on her face. I pushed it aside.

 

Crash! As the old crockery and plates shattered, food flew in all directions. The dirty soup stained Ashley’s apron and calves.

 

“Eeek! Bugs!”

 

Ashley grimaced as she brushed a caterpillar off her leg.

 

I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her repeatedly stomping on it as it fell.

 

“You’re crazy! You’ve finally lost it!”

 

She shouted at me while flailing her arms. It was both embarrassing and satisfying.

 

“Can I tell you a secret?”

 

I whispered with a smile.

 

“I have nothing to atone for.”

 

Since you called me the devil’s daughter, I will live up to your expectations.

 

“Are you listening, Father, down in the underworld? I won’t voluntarily go and visit you in this life.”

 

I won’t try to die again. I won’t hide my true nature or lie to myself.

 

As you have done to me, so I will do to you.

 

“So just go and die.”