TPPE 02

Chapter 02

When I opened my eyes again, I saw a familiar ceiling.

There were no ashes drifting in front of me. No terrifying waves of mana.

‘Then… is this heaven?’

The patterns on the ceiling were extravagant enough to seem like it.

‘Do people in heaven like designs like this? It looks exactly like Duke Agnito’s taste—’

Wait. Agnito?

I shot upright.

Old belongings were piled up in one corner. A worn desk. A cracked window patched up roughly with glue.

‘This is… my room. What happened…?’

At that moment, a sharp pain struck my head.

When the pain slowly faded, unfamiliar scenes began to surface in my mind.

They were different faces, but the lives were similar.

An orphan without a family. A child who longed for love.

Yet in the end, she never received the affection she wanted and died—either in an accident or from a serious illness.

The most recent memory was of a life in “Republic of Korea.” That one ended with being hit by a truck.

And then came Hanisha’s memories.

My memories.

Only then did I realize.

Everything I had just seen were memories of my past lives.

‘What in the world is going on…?’

As I blinked blankly through the flood of memories, something suddenly caught my eye.

A mirror placed to the side.

Inside it stood a small child.

A frail body too thin for her age. Hollow cheeks. Small hands.

Unkempt platinum-blonde hair, wrapped tightly in bandages.

Hanisha.

In other words… me.

The girl who had wanted recognition from her family, yet died alone in the end.

“Gloomy thing.”

“Like a wicked child who sucked all the fortune out of the house.”

The ‘me’ from the Republic of Korea and the ‘me’ now were not very different.

For a moment, I was speechless.

It was the first time I had seen myself objectively, from a third-person view.

‘So… this is what I looked like.’

So dark. So pitiful.

While I was becoming like this, what had I been clinging to?

I…

What I wanted was—

“…I wanted to become an Agnito.”

The words slipped out without me realizing.

At that moment, my mind began to clear.

I had lived only for others’ recognition. I never cared what happened to me.

And what I received in return was betrayal.

If that was the case—

‘Just this once… can’t I live for myself?’

If I had returned to the past, that meant I knew the future.

‘In other words, I can change it.’

The confusion slowly turned into resolve.

My uncle, Duke Agnito, had never acknowledged me, his illegitimate niece. I was a disgrace to the family.

Yet he had suddenly recognized me as a lady of the house and tried to marry me off to the rebel leader. That alone showed how closely House Agnito was tied to the Imperial family.

But the rebels would never spare an Agnito.

‘I can’t stop the rebels from attacking.’

But I could avoid facing them.

‘To do that, I need to escape Agnito first…’

Just then—

The door suddenly burst open.

“Oh my goodness, Lady Hanisha!”

A familiar voice.

Orange hair. Brown eyes. A slightly worn maid uniform.

Ah.

Even after so much time, I remembered clearly.

The only person in this house who had treated me kindly.

My only friend.

The maid assigned to me—Lisa.

As the eldest child in her family, Lisa had come all the way to this distant territory to work and send money home.

She said that whenever she saw me, she was reminded of her youngest sibling. That was why she wanted to treat me better.

But she should not have done that.

“P-Please don’t treat the young lady so harshly…!”

When she blocked my cousin Bert from bullying me, she was imprisoned in solitary confinement.

“Do not give her a single drop of water or a piece of bread.”

It was winter.

Lisa could not endure the cold and hunger.

She died.

I had been too young then to fully understand what loss meant.

It was only after I saw her cold body—after I reached out with trembling hands and held her—that I understood.

So this is what it feels like to lose someone precious.

So painful it crushes your chest.

So sad you cannot even breathe.

And now—

Lisa was alive.

Alive and standing before me.

With the same face as back then.

My vision blurred, then cleared again. Lisa was already walking toward me with wide eyes.

“Are you all right, Lady Hanisha? Does it still hurt a lot?”

She gently wiped the tears at the corners of my eyes. I hadn’t even realized I was crying.

“You didn’t even groan while you were unconscious, so I thought you were fine…”

She examined the bandages wrapped around my head, looking worried.

How long had it been since I felt this touch?

Tears threatened to fall again, but I sniffed quietly instead. I did not want to worry her.

“I had a nightmare. That’s all.”

“I see. I should have stayed by your side. I’m sorry.”

“No. You’re busy, Lisa. …What’s that?”

“Oh, I brought this just in case. It will make you feel better if you put it against your head.”

She placed something cold and hard behind my head.

It was an ice magic tool commonly used in the kitchen.

“…Thank you, Lisa.”

“It’s nothing. I just picked up something that was lying around.”

Lisa smiled brightly.

But I knew how difficult it must have been for her to obtain something so common in the ducal household.

She was my maid.

And being ‘Hanisha’s maid’ meant standing at the very bottom of the hierarchy in the duke’s estate.

Bang!

The door burst open without a knock.

“What? You’re awake?”

An unpleasant voice followed.

Sharp eyes. Darker blond hair than mine.

Bert.

The son of Duke Agnito.

My cousin.

“Was I not strong enough? That’s disappointing.”

He walked in without permission.

Lisa stepped in front of me protectively.

“Y-Young Master Bert. What brings you here…?”

“I came to visit the sick.”

“…Excuse me?”

“I said I came to visit.”

Bert grinned.

An ominous feeling crept over me.

“Here. A gift.”

Something dropped to the floor.

A piece of bread, blackened at the end from being burned.

“You fainted and couldn’t eat properly, right? I specially brought it for you. Isn’t this a wonderful get-well gift?”

He shrugged.

Lisa bit her lip helplessly.

This was my position.

Even at low insults, I had no choice but to stay silent.

The daughter of a disgraced Saintess.

‘It calms down a little after Esther, Bert’s twin sister, manifests her divine power.’

But that was still far in the future.

Right now, House Agnito had no Saintess.

And Bert hated that.

“Listen carefully. For a child who stained Agnito’s name, this is more than enough. You understand, don’t you?”

Lisa stretched her arm back to shield me.

Instead of refuting him, this was the most protection she could offer.

Bert stood there arrogantly.

Just like when he bullied me.

Just like when I knelt before the solitary cell, begging for Lisa to be released.

“You should have listened better.”

He had always been confident in front of my despair.

“….”

I inhaled quietly.

My fists tightened without me noticing.

“Why aren’t you eating? I told you to eat.”

“….”

“Ah, did you hurt your head so your hands are slow? Should I feed you?”

Thinking I was afraid, Bert picked up the bread and strode toward me.

“Here. Eat.”

He held it out.

“Today is a special day, after all. I secretly took it for you behind the adults’ backs.”

The bread was heavily burned on one side.

It had just fallen on the ground.

“L-Lady…”

Lisa did not know what to do.

I stared at the bread.

Then I spoke.

“Bert. Do you know what karma is?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“It means you receive back what you’ve done. In a place I once lived, people used that word often.”

In my previous life, my grandmother, who believed in shamanism, used to say that often.

She had taken in an orphan like me and raised me, saying heaven would reward her for it.

‘But whenever I tried to do anything, she said it would return as karma and stopped me.’

Why did that memory surface now?

I didn’t know.

But I knew what I had to do.

“…Did you hit your head too hard? What nonsense are you spouting? And I told you to speak louder. I still can’t hear you!”

Impatient, Bert pushed Lisa aside and came closer.

When he stood right in front of me, I slowly took the hard bread from his hand.

A triumphant smile spread across his face.

“That’s right. You should have listened from the start.”

The words I had heard over and over again.

At that moment—

I straightened my body.

More precisely—

My upper body.

Thud!

The top of my head slammed hard into his chin.

“Argh!”

Bert fell flat onto the floor with a loud groan.

If my head throbbed this much, his pain must be far worse.

“Y-You lowborn thing—how dare you…!”

There it was.

Even after taking a hit, he kept spouting insults.

I felt no guilt.

I walked toward him.

His face filled with confusion.

“Why are you coming closer—what are you doing with that bread?”

Thanks to Bert, I had learned something.

Hard bread hurts.

A lot.

Smack!

I swung the bread at him.

“Argh!”

Again.

“Aaaagh!”

Bert’s screams echoed through the entire ducal estate.