Chapter 1: A Life Dyed in Regret

──Ah, what a life filled with so much regret it was.

I hurt so many people, and even drove unrelated innocents to their deaths.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

No matter how many times the words of apology left my lips, reality refused to change. There was only the word despair.

Rachel could do nothing but tremble as she stared at the coachman and the maid in front of her, both dyed bright red and no longer moving.

She desperately shook her head while struggling to move her body, whose strength had completely left her waist.

As if mocking her appearance, the large men standing before her wore vulgar, sneering grins.

The blood-stained swords in their hands were just about to be swung down upon Rachel.

───Snap────

At that moment, Rachel’s consciousness cut off, and her short life of eighteen years came to an end.

Or so it should have been.

♢

When Rachel opened her eyes, she was on the bed in her usual room in the marquis’s estate.

White sheets, soft bedding, and morning light streaming in through the large window past the drawn curtains.

──Why.

Did I survive?

No, I definitely died back then.

On the way to the convent, just before we passed through the forest, bandits appeared and attacked.

Sara, the maid who refused to abandon me until the very end, saying through tears, “My lady cannot manage without me,” and promised to escort me all the way to the convent.

And the middle-aged coachman who always wore a warm smile.

They were caught up in it, and yes, I died.

The stench of blood, the vivid sensation of the sword piercing my chest—I can still recall them clearly even now.

It was aimed straight at my heart, so there was no way I could have survived that.

Then, was it all a dream?

No, that couldn’t possibly have been a dream.

So why am I alive?

As Rachel turned these thoughts over in her mind, a light knock—ton ton—sounded at the door.

When she reflexively answered “Yes,” the door opened.

No way. Rachel almost cried out, but managed to stop herself by pressing her hand over her mouth.

Yet the trembling in her hand wouldn’t stop. Surely her face had gone pale.

Because the person who appeared was Sara—the very maid who had been killed alongside her.