VRGB 02

Chapter 2

Was it a dream? Was it all just an illusion?

Did everything — from the death of my father, Count Estel, when I was seven, to my own death one day before my nineteenth birthday — really happen in a dream?

I swallowed dryly. In the mirror, I could see my pupils trembling and my small hands shaking.

‘I have to check.’

I rushed to the bed and yanked the pull cord hanging by the headboard.

The bell connected to the maid’s room must have rung loudly several times, but the hallway remained quiet.

Of course. That was familiar.

In the midst of this chaos, finding something that hadn’t changed brought me an odd sense of relief.

I didn’t give up. I kept pulling the cord again and again until, finally, the sound of heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway.

“What on earth is it at this hour!”

Without knocking, the head maid Ashley burst into the room.

She marched in with her sleeves rolled up and glared at me.

“Perhaps a noble lady like you wouldn’t understand, but we have to start preparing for the day from the crack of dawn! Do you even think before you act? Lady Helena never causes this kind of trouble…”

“What year is it?”

I ignored her scolding and interrupted her. She blinked, momentarily taken aback.

“Pardon?”

“I said, what year of the Imperial Calendar is it?”

If this were the usual me, I would have apologized to Ashley right away.

I had to be a good girl. I had to show I was upright and humble, unlike my father.

I wouldn’t even have called her at this hour when the sky was just beginning to lighten.

But not this time. I didn’t apologize, didn’t even give her a hollow thank-you, nor acknowledged her efforts. Perhaps that’s why Ashley reluctantly answered.

“…It’s the year 182 of the Imperial Calendar.”

I died in the year 187. I hid my trembling hands under the blanket so she wouldn’t see.

“…How many days until my birthday?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Did you suddenly forget your own birthday? Good grief… You scatterbrained—It’s tomorrow! Tomorrow!”

She continued to mutter and complain, but I didn’t hear a word of it.

I had also died the day before my birthday.

I had gone back exactly five years.

“You’ve dragged me out for nothing!”

Bang!

Ashley, angry that I was ignoring her, slammed the door and stormed out.

But I didn’t have the luxury to care. My mind was spinning.

So the priests were wrong when they said good souls go to heaven and evil ones fall into hell to suffer forever?

Or were the unbelievers wrong too, those who claimed everyone starts anew in their next life?

Was there no next life after all?

Do people return to the past after death to live life all over again?

‘If not, then why… why me?’

Tears dripped down my chin and soaked into the blanket. A chill crept into my body, and I shivered like a leaf.

This time, I didn’t lower my head. I was alone in this room.

What was the meaning of all this?

Why couldn’t I go anywhere, not even to my final rest?

The answer came at once.

“Because I’m the devil’s daughter…”

I clutched the blanket and laughed like a madwoman.

At last, I admitted it. And with that, everything made sense.

In the silent room, I whispered to myself,

“It’s only natural that God’s mercy wouldn’t extend to the devil’s child. I was the fool who hoped otherwise.”

The merciful God had chosen not to send me to heaven or hell, but to force this worthless life upon me once more.

A hollow laugh escaped.

“He should’ve just let me fall into hell.”

That’s where someone like me — the daughter of the devilish Count — truly belonged.

I wanted to suffer beside others like me, whipped and burned at the stake, paying for my sins.

It was a title I had long denied, even to myself, but now I finally said it aloud.

Even if it meant groveling and submitting, I had tried my whole life to escape it.

Now that I had accepted it, I felt oddly free.

My laughter turned into sobs, then back again, a strange wheezing noise escaping with every breath.

“At the very least, He could’ve let me be Ashley. Or some wretched beggar crawling through the mud. That would’ve been happier than this.”

Anyone — just not me.

If I had to be myself again after death, then what was the point of the execution?

“Five more years… in this horrible place…”

If I had to live worse than a worm, trampled under everyone’s feet, only to end it all on a noose, what would be the point?

The tears and laughter stopped. Cold settled deep into my bones.

Tomorrow, I’d turn fourteen.

Ever since Baron Barden claimed to be my guardian the day after my father died, my reputation had plummeted — and it had already been nearly seven years since.

So what was I supposed to do now?

“…In that case, I might as well just now…”

That thought brought my gaze to the blanket in my hands — crumpled, soaked, and pitiful.

I staggered to my feet. I climbed onto a chair and tied the blanket to a beam on the ceiling.

My breath caught.

I had to do it now. If I didn’t, I would lose the courage.

But… my hands wouldn’t move. I hesitated. That thread-thin resolve began to unravel.

I stood there, fidgeting with the blanket, unable to do anything.

“Time for your meal, milady!”

Ashley burst into the room again, just as roughly as before.

“What’s this nonsense? Stop messing around and come down right now.”

She glanced at me and clicked her tongue, annoyed.

“…Fine.”

I hesitated, then untied the blanket and stepped down from the chair.

Even if Ashley hated me, she wouldn’t stand by and watch me hang myself. She wouldn’t want to be involved in such a mess.

She wouldn’t stay in my room long anyway. I just had to wait.

“Sit down.”

I laid the blanket back on the bed.

I sat in the same chair I had just stood on. Ashley slammed the bowl in her hands onto the table.

“You need to eat your penance meal.”

Ah.

At that moment, a forgotten memory surged like a tidal wave.

Inside the chipped bowl was a watery soup with a few pale white larvae squirming around.

On the plate were two pieces of moldy black bread and a few limp, bug-eaten cabbage leaves.

“You have to atone for your father’s sins. The land he burned is still barren to this day.”

She grinned at me nastily.

Ah. Ah…

How had I forgotten this? How could I have?

After Baron Barden became my guardian, I had dined with them for a while, but soon he began making excuses to exclude me.

My table manners were improper.

My gaze made Helena uncomfortable.

I ruined everyone’s appetite.

So he told me to eat alone in my room.

And Ashley brought me these “meals of atonement.”

“Haha, ahaha… ha…”

Laughter spilled out. Even though I was already laughing, it kept bursting out like a cough.

My body swayed uncontrollably, and the chair creaked beneath me.

“This lunatic… You’ve really lost it today!”

Ashley stared at me with disdain. I wiped the tears from my eyes — tears that came from laughing too much.

‘How foolish.’

My mind cleared for the first time in my life.

What had I been thinking? Crying and trying to die?

“Ashley.”

I called to her sweetly. Like the old me — timid, kind, submissive.

“Even if you beg for forgiveness now, I’ll never let it go. The sins of your father can’t be atoned for, even if you rot eating filth for a lifetime.”

She looked at me with that ‘I knew it’ expression.

I chuckled.

I had been wrong. My reputation was already in ruins — there was no need to care anymore.

After all, I am the devil’s daughter.

In my last life, I struggled to escape that name. In this one, I might as well live up to it.

Maybe my father, burning in sulfur beneath the earth, was finally watching me with a smile.

I imagined him winking mischievously, over and over, until the vision faded.

I reached for the plate. Ashley snorted, smug.

Then I shoved the plate aside.

Crash!
The old dish shattered, and the soup splashed everywhere, staining Ashley’s apron and legs.

“Kyaa! G-Gross! Worms!”

Ashley screamed and tried to shake the larvae off her legs.