SSS Chapter 5

“I know this must be sudden, but I really need your help.”

“Help? What kind?”

I already knew exactly what I wanted to ask of Dave—to support me with food, clothing, and shelter, and to help me reclaim my original status.

Of course, I also planned to repay him fully in whatever way I could.

“That is…”

But right now, what I wanted from Dave wasn’t something that big. It was something much simpler.

‘Can you believe it? There’s actually a parallel world, and in this one, I’m a commoner maid.’

‘I pulled up the blanket to sleep and there was a cockroach crawling on the bed!’

‘Levi kicked me in the stomach and left a huge bruise. I’m still angry about it.’

I wanted to tell him everything I’d been through and be comforted by him. Honestly, everything that had happened to me was just so miserable.

“Talking while standing will take too long. Can’t we go somewhere inside the mansion instead?”

“It’s fine. Just say it here.”

“But it’s not the kind of story I can tell out in the open.”

“Really…? I see.”

Dave trailed off at the end of his words and then looked me straight in the eyes.

“Then don’t say it. Just go back.”

“…Huh?”

His demeanor suddenly changed.

It happened so quickly that I didn’t even have time to prepare myself.

“In the end, you’re just going to beg me for money, aren’t you?”

Though Dave still wore a faint smile on his face, he was clearly addressing me with a cold, detached attitude.

At that abrupt change in tone, I involuntarily froze.

“Dave?”

Tension filled the air in an instant.

“Begging? That’s not why I came—!”

“Then what is it?”

Caught off guard by the unexpected situation, I hesitated, but the look in his eyes urged me to speak somehow.

“I…”

“I’m only being polite because of our old ties. Don’t waste my time—just get to the point.”

Dave now responded with clear irritation in his tone.

A bad feeling rose in my chest. I hurried to speak again.

“Fine, I’ll say it here! Let me stay at your house.”

“You mean you want to be taken in as a maid of House Chester? In that case, I’ll let the butler know.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

Maybe it was because I had never imagined the conversation would turn out like this—

Unable to hide my panic, I grabbed his arm. But before I could say anything else, someone stepped between us.

“How dare you touch the Young Master!”

It was House Chester’s gatekeeper. Without permission, he yanked my arm away and forced me back from Dave.

Bang—!

From the recoil, I slammed hard against the carriage.

The pain in my back was just as sharp as the sound that followed.

And yet Dave, as if he couldn’t even see me, simply removed his coat with a refined, detached air.

“Disgusting. This is exactly why I can’t stand commoners.”

“Young Master, shall I send this coat to the laundry?”

“Throw it away. It’s stained with filth.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Filth”? Did he mean… me?

The face of Dave—someone I’d known for more than ten years—suddenly looked like that of a stranger.

Faced with a side of him I’d never seen before, I didn’t know how to react. I couldn’t move; I could only blink blankly.

The Dave who was always kind and considerate no longer existed in this world.

“I should’ve ignored you and gone inside. What a waste of time.”

“Hey, Dave!”

“From now on, if a commoner loiters near the gate, throw them out immediately.”

“Yes, sir!”

Dave gave that order to the guards and disappeared into the mansion— as if he had erased my very existence.

All I could do was stare blankly at his disappearing back.

Why… why was Dave treating me like this? Was it because I was a commoner?

‘But you weren’t that kind of person. You never judged people by their status or treated them this way…’

I was confused—completely shaken.

And as I stood there, a guard from the Chester estate approached me.

“Hey, you heard him. Get out, now.”

It didn’t take long before I was completely driven away from his mansion.

                                                                                     ***

I trudged back the same way I had come.

So stunned and betrayed by Dave, I could hardly even tell how I was still walking.

House Valentis and House Chester.

Ten years ago, the two Count families had been nearly equal in power—but thanks to my father’s achievements, the gap between them had steadily grown over time.

If I had wanted to, I could have easily found an excuse to break off the engagement with Dave and seek a far better match.

So maybe Dave had only been pretending to be a good person in front of me and my father, just to look favorable to us.

Perhaps, later on, that pretense had turned into something genuine—but as things stood now, I had no way of knowing.

“What a bastard. A truly awful man.”

Honestly, I was deeply hurt.

Ever since I’d woken up in this world, people had treated me with contempt and scorn, yet I had endured it.

After all, they were strangers—people I didn’t know or care about. They couldn’t really hurt me.

But Dave was different.

He had been my fiancé, the person who had been with me since the day I was born.

To be rejected by someone I had believed was on my side—it hurt more than I could have imagined.

I kicked a pebble on the road.

Dave wasn’t a good person, and I hadn’t gained anything from going to him.

Suddenly, I wanted to see my parents’ faces.

I wanted to sit beside my mother and complain about how Dave had turned out to be a terrible man, venting until I felt better.

I wanted to run to my father and whine that I wanted to cancel the engagement.

“…But there’s no Mom here. No Dad. No little brother.”

Stopping in place, I turned my head slowly and looked around in a daze.

The same blue sky, the familiar streets, the same buildings—and yet, within it all, I was a stranger.

“It’s just me. I’m all alone.”

Without realizing it, I wrapped my arms around myself.

It was clearly spring, yet I felt as if the chill of midwinter had crept into my bones.

Had I really accepted reality?

I laughed bitterly. No, I had never accepted it. I had only been deluding myself.

There was no one here on my side, and no matter how much I longed for my family, I could never see them again.

Probably—not ever.

It was such a simple, obvious truth, and yet I was only realizing it now, foolishly late.

“Mom… Dad… Ruik…”

I was alone.

“What am I supposed to do now?”

Only now did I truly grasp the reality of my situation.

In this world, I had become completely lost.

                                                                                     ***

When I returned to the annex maid’s quarters, I impulsively grabbed a knife.

It was a silver dagger I had found beneath Nelia’s bed on my second day here.

Staring quietly at the dark stains of dried blood on the blade, I wondered:

Why had the me from the original world tried so hard to live?

If someone had asked me that, I could have answered without hesitation— for my own honor.

But the truth was… there had been a slightly more honest reason than that.

Because I wanted to be a daughter my parents could be proud of.

Because I wanted to be a sister my little brother could look up to.

Because I wanted to be happier together with the people I loved.

But in this place, there were no people I loved.

No matter how healthy my arms and legs were, there was no meaning if I was alone.

“If that’s the case, then there’s no reason for me to keep living here, is there?”

I was fated to die anyway.

So I might as well die now.

Having made that decision, I raised the hand holding the knife.

The silver dagger gleamed sharply. I aimed to cut my wrist along the sharp edge.

But right before the blade touched my skin, my hand froze by reflex.

Was I afraid?

After hesitating for a moment, I closed my eyes and lifted the knife high again— so that I could slash down at my wrist in one motion, without hesitation.

Yet again, my hand stopped in midair.

‘Nel, my precious daughter.’

‘Your existence brings us joy and happiness.’

Voices that couldn’t possibly be real echoed vividly in my ears.

“Mom, Dad…”

My hand holding the knife fell weakly.

Even if I tried several more times, the result would be the same.

Suicide—no, I couldn’t do something like that.

It was impossible for me, because I was still a living human being, and the instinct to survive was something I still possessed.

“I don’t even know anymore…”

If I couldn’t die, then did that mean I had to keep living like this—alone, miserable, in this state?

Feeling hollow and hopeless, I threw the knife to the floor without thinking.

Thunk—

A faint whooshing sound escaped from where the dagger hit, as if air had moved.

It was an oddly unnatural sound for something falling on a wooden floor.

“What was that just now?”

Was there some kind of hidden space underneath?

I reached toward the spot where the dagger had fallen and slowly ran my fingers along the floor.

Before long, I found a small gap—just wide enough for my fingers to slip through.

If I lifted it here, there would probably be a hidden compartment.

Carefully, I pried the wooden plank open.

“…Just as I thought.”

As expected, beneath the board was a space about the size of a drawer.

I leaned down and examined the contents closely.

Inside were a pink scarf and an old diary, both carefully preserved like precious treasures.

In a daze, I picked up the scarf.

“Why are these here?”

It was the scarf my mother had personally knitted for me when I was a child.

I had loved its pink color, the same shade as my eyes, and wore it every winter— until, when I was eleven, it tore by accident and had to be thrown away.

With a touch filled with longing, I carefully wrapped the scarf around my neck.

It was the familiar texture I remembered from my memories.

“…It’s warm.”

Maybe it was because I had found something familiar in such an unexpected place— the warmth slowly spread through my once-cold body.

Next, I opened the diary.

The flowing, confident handwriting was unmistakably that of someone I knew well.

“Father’s diary.”

The leather cover had no worn or damaged spots; it looked as though it had been carefully maintained all this time.

“Of course it was kept safely. I would have done the same.”

Both the scarf and the diary were precious mementos Nelia had kept from her parents.

A strange feeling welled up in me.

I had thought that even if she and I shared the same name, we were entirely different people—completely separate beings.

But that wasn’t true. She had been another version of me that had truly existed in this world.

‘If my parents had died early too, I might have ended up like her.’

Feeling heavy-hearted, I turned the pages of Father’s diary one by one.

Then, about halfway through, I came across something different.

Instead of Father’s writing, there were crooked, clumsy letters.

“This is…”

It was something written by the young Nelia.

But rather than a diary entry, it felt more like she was speaking directly to her parents.

[They said I’m not Dad’s daughter.
Is that really true?
But everyone said my smiling face looks just like Dad’s.

Starting tomorrow, I have to live with the other maids and learn how to do chores.

They said I didn’t do my work properly, so Marilyn scolded me. I got scared and cried a lot. What if I get scolded again tomorrow?]

[I was scrubbing the floor with cold water, and my hands got chapped. It hurts so much.

People look at me and say my eyes and hair are dirty colors.]

Tears had fallen onto the pure white paper, smudging the already crooked handwriting into an even bigger mess.

[Mom, Dad, and Ruik.

Is Ruik growing up well where you are?

I miss you all so much. Please take me with you too.]

Plop, a new teardrop fell onto the paper.

What had only been rumors I’d heard from others was written there in Nelia’s own words.

For the first time, I thought about her. Not about the situation Nelia had been in, but about her heart.

What kind of feelings did nine-year-old Nelia have when she wrote those words?

The way people looked at her was filled with disgust.

Even I, who had always been proud, had become a mere servant in an instant — how could she possibly have adjusted to that?

In the end, the Nelia of this world chose death on her seventeenth birthday.

The bloodstain on the silver dagger — that must have been Nelia’s blood.

I could picture her climbing up to the roof after failing to stab herself properly with the knife.

How frightened must she have been as she fell toward the cold ground? I couldn’t even bring myself to cut my wrist.

Then suddenly, I remembered the voice I had heard just before waking up in this world.

‘Why do I have to go through this?’

‘I hate being born like this. I wish someone would take my place!’

Of course, no answer came back. I held the tear-stained diary tightly in my arms.

“Alright, I’ll take your place.”

I had created a reason to live.

I’ll prove that you were not born a bastard. I’ll take back everything that should have been yours.

“Watch over me from the sky. I’ll show you how your living parents would have raised you.”