Elise instinctively sought warmth. Something soft enveloped Elise warmly.
Is this heaven?
With the right temperature, rustling wind, and a cozy scent, how could one think of hell?
Elise slowly opened her eyes. The bright light, which she hadn’t seen in a while, hurt her eyes.
Stinging from the pain, Elise closed her eyes again.
“Do you want to sleep more?”
Someone spoke to her.
“No, I’ll get up.”
If this place was the afterlife, there was no time to dawdle.
She had to meet anyone and beg for forgiveness, it was time to ask for a chance.
“Oh my, why the sudden honorifics, Miss?”
Miss, a title she hadn’t heard in about 8 years.
It had been exactly 8 years since Elise had inherited the title.
“I can’t let you sleep more if you want to. You have arranged for His Highness Chase to come today.”
Chase? His Highness?
With the strange vibe, Elise squinted her eyes.
In a short time, the focus of her eyes, accustomed to the light, became clear.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
Suddenly, the face of the person coming in front of her was familiar. But strangely unfamiliar.
“…Regina?”
Elise firmly grabbed Regina’s outstretched wrist.
“You, what’s going on?”
“Miss, oh dear, you’re full of energy this morning. I’m Regina. You’re not sleeping with your eyes open, are you? Are you still dreaming?”
Regina’s forehead furrowed.
Regina? And she’s young?
Elise looked around with a skeptical gaze. Familiar sights came into view.
The desk she used to write at in the mansion, the chair, the wardrobe, and even the view outside the window were all the same.
“You’ll make His Highness wait at this rate. Miss, please wake up.”
Regina, who was tightly wrapped in an apron, snatched away the blanket she was holding.
Underneath the thin nightgown, her white and smooth legs were fully exposed. Elise’s eyes widened as she looked at the legs.
“There’s no scar?”
In the fall of her 20th year, Elise had a major accident while investigating a gate.
She had a big scar on her leg from that time, but now her leg was smooth.
Elise tensed up. She slowly turned her head and asked Regina.
“Regina, how old am I this year?”
“You’re really strange today, aren’t you? Miss, you’re 19 years old this year.”
“19 years old? Then what month is it now?”
“Oh dear, why are you like this, Miss.”
Regina looked at Elise with suspicious eyes but answered calmly.
“It’s the end of the year. Do you want to become an adult quickly? Just bear with it for a few more days. It’s almost the new year.”
If you go by the season, it was the end of winter.
“Are you nervous? Because His Highness Chase is bringing the engagement ring?”
Elise abruptly straightened up.
The winter of her 19th year, and the engagement ring!
Elise kicked off the bed and rushed out. She went straight into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Cold water poured over her head.
Her body shivered as she came to her senses.
“Miss! You’ll catch a cold! Even if you’re in a hurry, what will you do if you bathe with your clothes on? Come out, quickly!”
Regina stomped her feet, but Elise didn’t budge.
‘Did I return, to when I was nineteen? Or did I dream it?’
The pain was too vivid for it to be a dream.
Even now, her ankle, which Gabriel had stepped on and broken, was throbbing.
The fingertips that had worn out from drawing magic circles were burning.
‘What I went through wasn’t a dream. Then…’
Did my wish before I died come true?
Was the regression circle real?
Elise looked at the mirror in the bathroom. Elise touched her face wildly.
I survived, and I returned!
Joy wrapped around Elise’s body once and then disappeared. Then, a question arose.
‘Who activated the regression circle?’
Elise groped her faint memory. Then, a voice calling her desperately came to mind.
Karan.
He, who had been the subject of a scandal with Elise, had come to find her.
Could it be that Karan activated it? But he wasn’t a wizard.
To activate the regression circle, a magic circle that is tremendous even by its name, a wizard of sage level or higher was needed.
Was he a wizard?
Did he hide the fact that he was a possessor of tremendous mana that could use the regression circle?
If so, it’s possible.
But the question didn’t completely go away.
A sage-level wizard received tremendous treatment regardless of their origin.
Even the family that was driven out by rebellion, because there was a sage-level wizard, was able to raise it in an instant.
Every country was impatient to boast when a sage-level wizard appeared.
But he hid it.
Even in Tetris, which was pointed at because it couldn’t produce a wizard and was abandoned by the gods?
It was too confusing.
“Miss, His Highness Chase is here!”
At Regina’s words, Elise’s body stiffened. Her excited eyes cooled in an instant.
Now was the time to pull herself together and face Chase.
“Elise!”
As Elise opened the door to the reception room and entered, Chase quickly rose from his seat.
A flower-like smile bloomed on his face.
My beautiful woman.
Chase ran all the way to the door in a single stride and tightly held Elise’s hand.
“Let go, Your Highness.”
But Elise’s attitude was different from usual. The smile that used to bloom like a wildflower when she saw him also disappeared.
“Elise, what’s wrong?”
Chase examined her face.
“No. There will be something later.”
“Huh? What does that mean?”
Elise looked up at Chase.
The neat face, the mature and robust body. She had made all of that with her own hands.
And now it was time to break it.
The moment she saw his face, she couldn’t bear the promise she made with him for the future.
‘I feel like I’m going to throw up. So let’s end this.’
Elise forced a smile on her face.
“Your Highness, I will consider the engagement as if it never happened.”
A crack appeared on Chase’s face. His twinkling eyes became dull, and his under-eyes twitched.
He looked pitiful for a moment, but to Elise, he only looked ugly.
Elise didn’t want to face him anymore and turned her body.
“Wait a minute! Elise, did I hear wrong?”
Chase grabbed Elise’s arm.
Ellis swung her arm without mercy. The swung arm hit Chase’s shoulder and fell.
Both Elise and Chase were surprised.
But Elise quickly composed her expression.
“I made a mistake just now, Your Highness. But I mean it when I say I won’t get engaged.”
“Elise, why are you suddenly like this? What did I do wrong?”
Suddenly…It might have been sudden for Chase.
But for Elise, who had been used and discarded by him until she was twenty-nine, it wasn’t sudden.
“Wrong…”
Elise muttered like she was talking to herself.
“Yeah, Elise. If I did something wrong, tell me. I’ll apologize and fix it, okay?”
“Do we need someone to be at fault to break up?”
Elise asked coldly.
You didn’t do that to me.
You pushed me away, even blaming me for sins I didn’t commit.
“Well…”
“Let it be my fault, Your Highness.”
After all, everything will be my fault. Just like it was in the previous life.
Elise didn’t want to explain any further.
The nightmare-like previous life was so vivid that it was hard to even stand.
She needed to rest and sort out her thoughts.
“Don’t ever look for me again, Your Highness.”
Elise turned her back on Chase.
Just like he had turned his back on her and left her alone in the underground dungeon, she never looked back.
****
“Sigh.”
As soon as Elise entered the room, she locked the door and slumped to the floor.
Throughout the time she faced Chase, her emotions were turbulent and it was hard to manage her expression.
While he easily abandoned her, Chase looked at Elise quite pitifully.
‘As if he truly loves me.’
But now she knows.
His affection was nothing more than a fever of the moment, an uncatchable mirage.
She still couldn’t believe that she had come back to life. Elise touched her body. Only when she felt the flesh and warmth filling her hands did she realize it.
‘It feels like I’ve had a terrible and long nightmare.’
But the memory was too vivid to dismiss as a dream. She couldn’t forget the sensation of dying. Karan’s desperate voice kept ringing in her ears.
“His Highness Karan…”
When she thought of him, complex thoughts came up one after another.
Elise had a lot of questions about him.
The most curious thing was why he saved her.
Karan and Elise didn’t have much in common. They had a few conversations to subdue the evil dragon Ragnaros, but it was ambiguous to say they had a personal friendship.
‘Didn’t Karan dislike me?’
He refused all requests for dances and separate meals. He even avoided eye contact.
But why did he activate the regression circle?
‘No, I might be thinking wrong. He’s not a wizard. Maybe it’s a coincidence…’
Elise chuckled. There’s no way such luck would happen in my life.
Indeed, it was Karan who activated the regression circle.
There must be a special reason why he hid the fact that he was a wizard.
After concluding, gratitude for him welled up more than curiosity.
“I have to repay his kindness.”
What can a mere daughter of a nobleman do for the prince of Tetris?
There was also something to do before that.
‘Chase and Iris… What to do with the two of them.’
Chase, who used her to the fullest and discarded her, and Iris, who always abused her and eventually killed her.
Elise looked out the window with a stern face.
Now that she thought about it, she had returned to the damned Warton nobility. In the past, she had barely become a Warton noble.
To Elise, her parents, the Warton nobles, were enemies no less than Iris.
Oppression, discrimination, abuse…
When the memories of her childhood came up, she shivered.
‘It’s a fresh start from the beginning. Think about it. I’ve got a chance. I can do what I want to do.’
So far, she had lived for others. Now this life is for herself.
To do so, she had to get rid of the people who were hindering her life.
‘The first thing to do.’
Her eyes twinkled in the window.
“It’s definitely breaking off the engagement.”
If things went as they were, Elise would receive the engagement ring today, and a month later, she would be engaged to Chase.
But since she said she wanted to break up, the future will change.
Chase wouldn’t hold onto Elise.
“Miss, a gift has arrived.”
But Elise’s faith was shattered. Chase had sent a gift to Ellis.
