#02. Wedding (1)
Inside the bride’s waiting room.
“Sob, sob… What’s going to happen to my lady now…”
Sasha’s nanny, Olga, was crying as tears poured down her swollen eyes.
“My poor lady… Why does she have to marry someone like that? Huuu…”
“Stop crying. You’ll be too swollen to open your eyes.”
“My lady…”
Sasha gently comforted her, but Olga only cried louder.
Of course, Olga knew crying like this wasn’t good for Sasha.
But she couldn’t stop.
Every time she saw Sasha’s warm eyes looking at her, her heart broke.
Because…
“She’s not even an adult yet, still so young… and she’s marrying someone who’s basically dying!”
Olga’s shoulders trembled.
“They say he’ll die within five years. Then our lady will become a widow in the prime of her youth!”
Olga thought about Pavel Volkov, Sasha’s groom.
Pavel Volkov
The only heir of Duke Volkov, with vast lands and wealth.
But… so what?
All the other important things were lacking.
He was also five years younger than Sasha—just twelve years old.
Not a dependable man, but a child with soft baby hair.
Still, Olga could have overlooked that.
Five years isn’t such a big difference when they grow up. It’s not like he’s ten or twenty years younger.
But that wasn’t the real problem.
Pavel had a serious illness that made his position as heir meaningless.
He was said to be terminally ill.
Even though Duke Volkov brought in famous doctors from across the land, the results were the same.
“It’s an unknown disease. He won’t live to adulthood.”
A child like that couldn’t be a proper heir.
Even if he was the only son of the Duke, what was the point?
He’d just die and leave Sasha a widow.
She wouldn’t even benefit from the marriage for long. Maybe she’d be cast out.
Even if they didn’t throw her out penniless, what joy could she have, being widowed so young?
That alone made this marriage a tragedy for Sasha.
‘And even worse…’
Olga shuddered at the next thought.
Ever since the marriage was arranged, she’d worked hard to dig up all the information on Pavel.
Then she heard another huge flaw besides his young age and illness.
Lowering her voice, Olga whispered:
“They say Pavel Volkov is like a demon! He swears like a sailor and hits people without thinking!”
She added exaggerated hand gestures to her words, but Sasha didn’t seem impressed.
“Really?” she replied flatly.
Olga grew nervous at her reaction.
‘Why doesn’t she see how serious this is?!’
What kind of monster must this twelve-year-old boy be for rumors about his violence to spread throughout the empire?
‘How bad must it be?’
Worried thoughts wrinkled Olga’s face.
She rambled on angrily.
“My lady, you shouldn’t take this lightly! People say his temper is so cruel, he’ll probably end up killing someone someday!”
Her emotions grew stronger, and her voice got louder.
It got so noisy it could be heard outside the carriage, and finally, Sasha spoke.
“Don’t worry too much, Olga. They’re just rumors.”
Sasha stayed calm.
“If his personality is bad, it’s probably because he’s been sick in bed for so long. That kind of pain changes people.”
“Even with a cold, we get cranky. Imagine being seriously ill for years.”
“We haven’t met him yet, so we don’t really know what he’s like. Maybe he’s actually nice, unlike the rumors.”
With that, Sasha gave a small smile to end the conversation.
But Olga couldn’t smile back.
‘My goodness!’
Her lady was too kind.
Sasha had always been mature and considerate from a young age. She was selfless, fair, and never spread gossip.
Normally, Olga would’ve been proud of her.
‘But how can such an angel marry someone who’s called a demon?!’
This made Olga feel like her heart was burning.
So, she made a promise to herself.
She would be Sasha’s strength in the Volkov family.
No matter how demon-like the Duke’s heir was!
Even if the Volkov servants treated her badly!
Olga would endure it all and stay by Sasha’s side.
But.
‘…So boring.’
Sasha’s thoughts were very different from Olga’s.
“Yaaaawn.”
Sasha sat on the edge of a chair to avoid wrinkling her dress, trying to stifle a yawn.
The wedding would start soon, but she felt nothing.
She’d been through too much to get excited over something like marriage.
Some might laugh—what could a seventeen-year-old noble girl have experienced that was so dramatic?
But Sasha was confident:
‘There’s no one in the world who’s been through more than me.’
‘Is there anyone else who remembers all their past lives? Not just one—but dozens?’
Death.
That was the most intense, shocking thing she’d ever experienced.
She remembered the exact moment she died in a previous life.
She had died young.
‘I thought dying in your sleep wouldn’t hurt, but I woke up just before the end.’
‘Ah… so this is how it ends.’
She didn’t even see her life flash before her eyes—she just knew it was over.
The pain. The despair. The regret.
Then… she opened her eyes again.
“Waaah!”
She was reborn as a newborn baby named Alexandra Arban.
At first, she was confused.
She realized she had died and been born again.
That this wasn’t the same world as before.
That her new parents were a couple about her former age.
Everything was strange and unfamiliar.
But worse than that…
The memories from all her past lives kept coming back.
Not just her last life as a Korean woman—but all of them, going back hundreds of years.
She had lived dozens of different lives.
As different people, in different worlds.
Sometimes in martial arts worlds.
Sometimes in magical fantasy worlds.
Sometimes in highly advanced scientific societies.
Sometimes in familiar places—like now, Rodoss—a world she had lived in long ago.
It wasn’t Earth, but it wasn’t completely new either.
It had been a thousand years since her last life here.
She had lived as different species too—not just humans.
Men and women.
Animal-like races like beastmen or elves.
Even as a frog or a tree.
Her many lives crossed time, space, gender, and species.
At first, she struggled with identity.
The memories tried to take over her young mind.
Before they did, Sasha organized them.
She worked hard to separate her past from her current life.
Now, her past memories felt like faded sentences in an old book.
Sasha remained as Alexandra Arban, the girl who remembered many past lives—but was rooted in the present.
But just organizing the memories didn’t mean she could adapt easily.
Because remembering all her past lives meant…
She remembered dying—over and over again.
She grew tired of life.
‘What’s the point of living, if it always ends in meaningless death?’
She had lived as a powerful king, and as a rich woman who spent money freely.
But she had also lived as grass by the roadside, and as a rat surviving in the sewers.
She experienced both ideal and dreadful lives.
In the end, it always ended the same.
Death.
So, the newborn Sasha became deeply cynical.
She reacted to nothing.
She showed no interest in anything.
Always blank, like someone dreaming with their eyes open.
As a baby, people just thought she was quiet.
But as she grew older, things changed.
While other children babbled and explored with curiosity…
Sasha just lay still with a blank face.
People naturally began to call her “strange.”
