“Hoo!”
Laila gasped for breath and opened her eyes.
At first, she didn’t immediately grasp the fact that she had opened her eyes.
She thought she was dead.
“Where is this…?”
She looked around. It wasn’t the afterlife.
‘My bedroom.’
Hurriedly, she reached for the desk calendar, checking the date.
‘It was yesterday!’
Laila blinked her eyes.
This place, this date.
She wondered what had happened.
Could it be that she was dreaming?
She recalled the dream where she swept valuables into a bag, hid them under the bed, and fled from the family as soon as night fell.
‘No, it’s not a dream.’
Laila’s complexion turned pale.
‘I’m back in the past again.’
But why?
She was dead.
Laila bit her lips and tried to recall what had happened before she returned to the past again.
‘I was definitely…’
She left the inn early in the morning and boarded a carriage.
Until then, it was enjoyable.
She felt so excited and happy that a hum escaped her lips naturally.
How should she live her second life? Lost in these thoughts, she let time pass.
It was about thirty minutes after the carriage had departed when she sensed something strange.
‘Coachman, are you sure this is the right road……? It seems too remote…….’
‘Don’t worry. Skilled coachmen always take this road. It’s a shortcut.’
‘Oh, I see.’
Laila trusted the self-proclaimed ‘skilled’ coachman.
She shouldn’t have.
If, even at that moment, she had noticed something suspicious and jumped off the carriage, could it have led to a better outcome?
As it turns out, the coachman didn’t take Laila to a shortcut.
Technically, it was a shortcut.
The problem was that it wasn’t a shortcut to the capital but a shortcut to the afterlife.
‘You said it was a shortcut!’
‘I’m sorry. I’ll make it as painless as possible.’
The coachman stopped the carriage on an uninhabited forest path and abruptly changed professions.
From coachman to robber.
‘You picked the wrong person! I’m a beggar! I don’t have anything!
‘Well, let’s see if that’s true.’
“Ugh…….”
A groan escaped through the gap between the hands covering her mouth. Laila halted her recollection.
She didn’t want to recall what happened next. Not that she remembered much of it anyway.
In any case, she died. At the hands of a coachman—no, a robber disguised as a coachman.
‘Crazy bastard.’
Laila slammed her shaking fist into the pillow.
‘You lunatics! Trash! The worst! Even if you are a robber, how could you think of robbing a young child’s pockets…?’
As Laila raged and pounded on the pillow, she paused.
She thought about it.
Really? How?
Why would the robber target a child like Laila?
‘He wouldn’t have known that I had money.’
She deliberately chose inconspicuous items for her bag and clothes.
When she boarded the carriage, Laila was just an ordinary ten-year-old child.
Knowing that her hair color might attract attention, she didn’t even take off her hood.
Laila sighed.
‘The Inn.’
Her mind cleared for a moment. The mystery was solved.
“He was in cahoots with the innkeeper.”
There was only one person who saw the contents of Laila’s bag.
The innkeeper came into Laila’s room late at night without knocking while she was organizing her belongings, mistaking it for an empty room.
After a quick apology and realizing the mistake, the innkeeper left.
The next day, the innkeeper took the initiative to call a carriage, citing it as an apology for the previous night’s disturbance.
‘He called his accomplice.’
Laila muttered in a disappointed voice.
‘It was premeditated, a planned crime.’
Laila let go of the now-tattered pillow. She was no longer angry. Instead, other emotions took their place.
Anxiety and worry.
‘What if it happens again?’
Thanks to the regression stone, she was back in the past again without going to the other side.
So far, so good.
But now what? What if she went on the run again, like she did yesterday, and fell victim to a similar crime again?
There was no guarantee she wouldn’t.
Laila suddenly looked into the full-length mirror.
Rich pink hair down to her waist.
Vivid green eyes.
And a tiny head, tiny shoulders, tiny torso, tiny limbs, tiny hands, and tiny feet…
‘So young.’
Laila swallowed dryly.
It was only now that she realized it. She had learned a great lesson.
The outside world was too dangerous for a ten-year-old. Perhaps even more so than this house ruled by a villain.
“Running away recklessly was a foolish thing to do.”
Laila decided to change her escape plan.
‘I need to grow up a little more and…’
Six years later,
At sixteen, Laila decided that she would go out for a change of mood one day and then run away.
She went into her favorite dressing room, changed her clothes, put on a wig, and went out the back door.
After successfully eluding the family’s guards, she took a carriage straight to the harbor.
At the port, she was met by a man who would give her a fake ID and a mercenary who would temporarily escort her.
Laila received the ID, gathered the mercenaries, and boarded a ship departing from the kingdom.
The ship smoothly sailed away, cutting through the water.
Laila climbed up to the deck and gazed at the vast sea unfolding before her.
Finally.
At last.
She successfully escaped, this time for real.
“Farewell, damned villains and their lackeys…”
The past six years flashed through Laila’s mind fleetingly.
How she had endured all those times for today.
She had been relatively quiet by nature, but over the past six years, she had lived even more quietly.
Like a corpse merely breathing.
Existing but not really living, like a lifeless doll…
As a result, no one within the family guarded or monitored her, and Laila seized that opportunity to accumulate wealth, creating the chance to escape successfully.
Laila bit her lip slightly.
Tears threatened to fall, but now was not the time to cry.
It was time to laugh, especially heartily and to the fullest!
“Hahaha!”
Laila laughed until she felt refreshed while gazing at the horizon.
After more than two weeks of sailing, the ship finally brought Laila to a small kingdom.
In this unfamiliar kingdom, Laila settled in a remote territory and became “Nana Rula,” the daughter of the fallen Baron “Rula.”
Although she wasn’t fond of the naming skills of the person who created the fake ID, it was alright.
Over time, she grew attached to the name Nana and found it quite cute.
The sparsely populated, remote territory was peaceful.
Laila made do with the money she brought, and occasionally, when she got too bored, she’d use her literacy skills to get to work.
It was quiet.
It was peaceful.
Comfortable… well, not always. Honestly, there were times when it felt uncomfortable. Compared to big cities, resources were lacking, and things moved somewhat slowly.
Still, it was peaceful.
Was she happy?
…Yes, she was happy.
Yes, it was definitely not a bad life.
She doesn’t need children and grandchildren. If she could live like this until the age of ninety… she’d be happy….
“Laila Hildegarde.”
“Yes?”
Walking down a country road, Laila casually turned around, responding to her name from behind.
Instantly, she realized her mistake.
Laila.
No one in this territory would know that name.
“So this is where you’ve been.”
Sure enough, what appeared before Laila was not a resident of the territory.
What came to find Laila was a nightmare.
A living nightmare.
Something she never imagined she would encounter for the second time…
Before Laila could even determine whether this was a dream or reality, she almost instinctively opened her mouth.
“Save me…”
ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚
“Ow!”
Laila screamed as she opened her eyes.
The sensation of a soft bed greeted her.
The familiar sight of her bedroom came into view.
Imao again??