DLRV 01

Chapter : 01

The story had come to an end.

The sky was clear and cloudless, and a cool breeze drifted through the air.

Those who wished for my death shouted in mad excitement, while the executioner waited for me before the grim execution block. The distance was not far, yet every step felt unbearably difficult because I had gone days without proper food.

Under the dazzling sunlight stood a woman adorned with brilliant jewelry.

Lilia.

Her radiant golden hair and warm green eyes were beautiful.

Beside her stood people with cold expressions. Once, they had been precious to me—some even my closest friends. Now, our relationship was worse than that of strangers.

Lilia had captured their hearts, their eyes, and their ears.

And so they all turned their backs on me.

It had all begun with a thunderbolt of a diagnosis.

A terminal illness.

The young lady who had been chosen to become the Crown Princess was dying.

The entire empire was thrown into chaos, and meetings were held day after day. The engagement between the Imperial Family and my house was deeply entangled with political interests, making it impossible to dissolve easily.

Lilia appeared amidst that confusion and slowly claimed every shining thing that had once belonged to me.

Step by step.

As though it had all been destined from the very beginning.

Of course, at first I was devastated.

Humiliated.

Furious.

Resentful.

Unlike me, who was dying and growing more sensitive with each passing day, Lilia was healthy, kind, and beloved.

I hated her.

Without realizing that my ugly behavior only made Lilia shine brighter, I succumbed to jealousy.

I insisted that everything had once been mine.

That it had been stolen from me.

I cried and threw tantrums.

Never realizing that all that awaited me in the end was a disgraceful expulsion.

Never imagining that even my own family would abandon me for fear of being caught in the fallout.

Ah, foolish Anelli Roam.

Your stupidity ruined your life.

Someone’s mocking words came back to me.

And they were true.

My foolishness had burned away my honor, driven away my people, and shattered my love.

“Bring the criminal forward!”

The soldiers seized both my arms and practically dragged me to the execution platform.

Standing directly ahead was the man I had once loved.

Maxel.

My fiancé and the Crown Prince beloved by the people of the Empire.

He stood with one arm wrapped around Lilia’s shoulders, looking down at me.

The distance was too great for me to see his expression clearly, yet it felt as though our eyes met.

He was probably relieved.

After all, he had fallen in love with someone else while growing increasingly tired of the fiancée who became more irritable with each passing day.

At first, Maxel had pitied me.

His fiancée could barely manage a walk through the garden and often collapsed midway through.

But eventually, pity turned into contempt.

That was why I wanted to recover.

I thought that if I became healthy again, I could reclaim everything I had lost.

Would anything have changed if I had known from the beginning that it was all a lie?

Maxel.

Will you ever learn that the physician who declared me terminally ill had been acting under Lilia’s orders?

Will my family, who adopted Lilia and erased my name from the family registry, ever regret it?

Will the friends who once claimed to cherish me—but ultimately chose Lilia’s side and condemned me—remain friends forever?

“To this foolish child, the gods offer their final mercy. Do you have any last words?”

The priest’s question received no answer.

Instead, I quietly gazed at Maxel.

He did not avoid my eyes.

At that moment… why was it?

I suddenly felt as though I could taste the sweetness of a pastry I used to enjoy.

Perhaps I was finally losing my mind.

A faint smile formed on my dry lips, and the scabbed skin split painfully.

“…May the gods have mercy.”

I only wanted to rest.

And so, on this clear and beautiful day,

I gladly accepted my early death.

* * *

This was not heaven.

Nor was it hell.

My lungs filled with air.

No…

This couldn’t be happening.

A despairing cry rose within me and lodged in my throat.

My tongue felt stiff and lifeless, incapable of forming words.

Yet I understood.

I was alive.

Someone had revived me.

It was a resurrection I had never wanted.

* * *

“Evil spreads across the world, and thus a Resurrected One is granted unto you. Stand firm against it.”

The divine oracle turned the world upside down.

And when the world was overturned, my life was overturned with it.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself in a temple.

Unable to understand what was happening, I watched as priests bowed repeatedly before me, calling me things like Honored Savior, Resurrected One, and Saintess.

The last thing I remembered was being pelted with stones by a hateful crowd and seeing the cold faces of those who had once known me waiting for my death.

A savior?

What nonsense.

I locked myself in my room and spent an entire month refusing to cooperate with the priests.

At first, they tried to persuade me with pious devotion.

When that failed, they became desperate and resorted to offering every luxury imaginable—exquisite food, treasures of gold and silver, and countless comforts.

Naturally, I laughed at their efforts.

At the same time, I investigated the absurd miracle that had happened to me.

That was when I learned the contents of the oracle.

Evil is spreading?

Evil had been spreading for a long time already.

It spread when Lilia inserted herself into my life with her lovely smile.

When Maxel fell for her and began to despise me.

When even my family abandoned me and joined the chorus of condemnation to protect themselves.

If the gods truly wished to choose me,

why hadn’t they saved me from that suffering?

Why wait until after I had endured everything, after I had finally given up, before bringing me back as some kind of monster?

“Lady Resurrected One, Priest Morico managed to obtain some rare fruit for you.”

“You hardly ate breakfast. Please try at least a little.”

By now, I had become an expert at driving away the annoying apprentice priests.

Before my death, I had plenty of experience causing trouble for those around me, so it wasn’t difficult.

After I injured myself a few times, the apprentices learned to keep their mouths shut whenever I picked up anything remotely dangerous.

This time was no different.

The moment I grabbed a book with an irritated expression, they quickly retreated.

Through those self-inflicted injuries, I discovered that I possessed monstrous regenerative abilities.

Scars remained if wounds weren’t properly treated, but my natural healing speed was extraordinary.

My physical strength was far greater than before my death.

My senses had sharpened as well.

Yet the most significant change was something else entirely.

I could communicate with things that were not human.

I never told the priests about this ability.

Seeing my recovery, they simply assumed I possessed overwhelming divine power.

According to them, believers gathered outside the temple every day to catch a glimpse of me.

Recently, members of the Imperial Family and nobles had begun requesting audiences as well.

Some of them were even people I once knew.

The priests told me that if I wished, they would gladly arrange meetings.

But none of them mattered anymore.

The only thing that mattered was the fact that I had not died.

They said my beheaded corpse had been discarded.

Since I had been expelled from my family, no one collected the body.

It lay abandoned for days.

Yet strangely, it did not rot.

Animals did not feed on it.

Instead, they guarded it.

As people began to wonder about this mystery, the oracle descended.

The one who decided to retrieve the body was a high priest named Morico.

He placed my remains in a clean coffin.

Then one day, by chance, he discovered that my head and body had reattached themselves.

Terrified and astonished, he immediately transferred me to the Grand Temple.

It was impossible to believe they were lying.

A vivid scar still remained around my neck.

Proof of my execution.

As I absentmindedly touched the back of my neck, my fingers traced the rough, uneven flesh.

“Ha…”

It was enough to drive a person insane.

“So they thought that if they stitched a severed head back onto its body, I’d be grateful and eagerly devote myself to fighting evil.”

The execution itself had wounded my pride.

Though perhaps this outcome was better.

I pulled out a bag I had secretly prepared.

One month had been more than enough time to learn the schedules and movement patterns of everyone in the temple.

“Thank you very much.”

“This time, I’ll try dying a little more elegantly.”

My plan was simple.

I would leave.

Hide somewhere no one knew Anelli Roam.

And there, while cheering on whatever evil was supposedly spreading across the world, I would spend my days eating pastries.

* * *

House Roam was one of the founding noble families of the Empire.

As close political allies and longtime friends of the Imperial House of Syriard, a betrothal between our families had been arranged even before birth.

From the moment I entered this world, I was destined to become the prince’s fiancée.

The Imperial Family had four sons.

When the second prince, Maxel, was appointed Crown Prince, he naturally became my fiancé as well.

Raised from birth to think of myself as a future member of the Imperial Family, I fell in love with him without much resistance.

As for Maxel…

I never truly understood his heart.

Still, I remember that when I was healthy, our relationship was not bad.

My older sister, Frisian, who had postponed her own family obligations and inherited the title of young duchess, often told me:

“The Crown Prince loves you, and you love him. All that’s left is happiness.”

Looking back now, I suspect she was simply worried that I might refuse to become Crown Princess.

If I stubbornly rejected the engagement, the responsibility might have fallen onto her instead.

When I was declared terminally ill, she was the first member of the family to turn cold.

And it was Frisian who most strongly advocated adopting Lilia.

If she became Crown Princess in my place, there would still be our youngest sibling, Seiri, to inherit the family.

Naturally, she saw me as a threat.

I have no intention of condemning her ambition.

My father and mother also abandoned one dying child in order to protect their two healthy children.

It wasn’t fair to blame only her.

That was simply the kind of family the Roams were.

Pride.

Status.

Authority.

Those things came first.

And if preserving them required cutting away whatever had become useless, then so be it.

As a daughter of House Roam, I understood that way of thinking.

But understanding betrayal does not mean I must forgive it.

Especially after my name had been erased from the family registry itself.

“I heard the Duchess of Roam collapsed.”

“My goodness. Even after her mother fell ill, she still refuses to see her? Isn’t she staying at the Grand Temple?”

I glanced sideways.

The people gathered around the city’s central notice board were ordinary citizens who knew nothing.

They had only ever seen the noble and flawless façade House Roam presented to the world.

Hearing such comments from them didn’t even make me angry.

“Her reputation was terrible when she was alive. Even if she’s come back from the dead, what’s really changed?”