The desert wind swept across her parched lips. After the Emperor’s decree of confinement, Rachel had been taken to the desert, where she was slowly starving to death without being able to drink even a drop of water or eat a single bite of food.
Her body had never been able to eat proper meals even before that.
All of the servants, including the butler of the Valencia family, treated her poorly because she had been the wife of the fake heir.
And her birth family had abandoned her less than a week after learning that her husband was not the Duke’s son, but the son of a knight who had once been a slave.
Those who were confined had to procure their own food and water, but it was hardly easy to obtain such things in the middle of the desert with a body that was already in poor condition.
Suddenly, she remembered what the Duke’s true son had said back then.
—It would have been better if you had been executed together with them.
—…….
—Ask them to kill you even now. You don’t have a family that will help you, do you? That would be better than being confined—
What had I said then?
—I didn’t do anything wrong.
At the time, she had resented him endlessly for coming to her and urging her toward death like that.
What had I done wrong?
She had wondered why she had to receive the same punishment as Paris and those others.
—Don’t waste your time. You should go. I hope we never have to meet again.
—…….
And before even a day had passed since her life of confinement began, Rachel understood what he had meant.
Should I have died instead of stubbornly refusing back then?
In truth, what she had suffered was a fraudulent marriage.
But in the world of nobility, it was common for an entire family to be destroyed when a problem arose. And considering that the defense of the capital depended on Valencia blood, how could the consequences have been anything less?
She simply found it difficult to accept.
Now that she had become directly involved in something like this, she felt wronged.
But now, more than that sense of injustice, she longed for a warm room and delicious food.
A peaceful life.
If she could live that peaceful life again, the one she had always taken for granted.
“……That would be nice.”
At that moment, an unfamiliar power descended upon her dying heart.
Thump—
As light burst from her heart and dyed the night sky, a massive white door appeared before her eyes.
Rachel reached out her hand as though entranced. The door opened. Inside was 「The Record」.
Words describing fragments of events that had happened in the past, present, and future.
The moment she instinctively chose the time she wanted to return to.
Whooosh—
A white clock appeared, and its hour hand began to turn backward. The arrival of the ability, which had long since been dismissed as nothing more than a legend.
And so, Rachel returned five years into the past.
Before she was tricked into a fraudulent marriage.
Before she married Paris, the fake heir.
About a month before her wedding, the life of Rachel Ingraves, the young lady of the Marquess family, was still shining for the last time.
***
Members of the Imperial Family and nobles inherit their unique abilities through their bloodlines.
However, these abilities did not necessarily manifest, as their appearance depended entirely on individual talent and luck.
Among them, the Ingraves family’s ability was an exceptionally famous and rare power that had even played a role in the founding myth of the Olshire Empire.
Of course, because no user had appeared for hundreds of years, the family had long since been listed among the families whose abilities had died out.
No one believed that another user would ever emerge from the Ingraves family.
Yet here she was—the first person in hundreds of years to activate the ability and return.
When the hands of the white clock finally stopped turning backward.
“Gasp!”
Rachel, who had successfully regressed for the first time, opened her eyes. Frightened maids and escort knights surrounded her, and she was lying on the floor.
“My lady, are you all right?!”
The moment she opened her eyes, she instinctively knew.
She had returned.
Five years into the past. Before her marriage to Paris.
The proof was the wedding hall before her, which had not yet been completed—the very same place where she had once held her wedding.
Once the regressed soul had fully settled into her body, her heated heart gradually began to calm. Rachel slowly pushed away the knight’s back as he tried to carry her.
“I’m fine. I just got a little dizzy.”
“Really? Even so, I think it would be best if you returned home for today. You should have a physician examine you at least—”
Becky, her personal maid before the wedding, continued speaking as she supported Rachel. Judging by her reaction, Rachel probably hadn’t been unconscious for very long.
Her physical condition was normal. Looking around, it seemed they had been decorating the wedding hall.
“…….”
What was the point of preparing a wedding that would soon disappear from her life?
Having made up her mind in such a short time, Rachel nodded.
“All right. I’ve been overworking myself, so perhaps it would be good to rest now.”
“That is the right decision, my lady.”
“By the way, what day is it today?”
Becky paused before answering with a worried expression.
“It’s the first day of the first week of the ninth month, Imperial Year 1351. Early autumn. My lady, are you really all right? Is there something wrong with your memory……?”
“No. I was just thinking about how much time is left until the wedding.”
“Even in this condition, you’re thinking about work……!”
Becky’s whispers about how she was too much of a workaholic and didn’t need to push herself this far went in one ear and out the other as Rachel fiddled with her neatly flowing platinum-blonde hair.
The hair that had once lost its shine and become coarse had returned to its smooth state. Just as everyone had praised it for being beautiful.
Her sky-blue eyes, prominent nose, pink lips, and clear skin were reflected vividly against the marble wall polished enough to be transparent.
Blinking her long eyelashes, she engraved her current appearance into her memory.
If she never wanted to return to the way she had looked before.
This time, she had to keep her head straight and live well.
At the entrance of the hall, an Ingraves family carriage was already waiting.
Rachel stopped for a moment when she saw the symbol of the Ingraves family engraved on the carriage.
A white clock.
“My lady?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
She shook her head and climbed into the carriage. Through the carriage window as it soon departed, the scenery of the inner city came into view.
Scenery that had changed, yet remained the same.
As she looked at shops that would disappear five years later, stores that would gradually become famous from now on, and the clothing of nobles that looked as though its fashion had already passed, she bit her lip against the emotions welling up inside her.
This time, I’m going to live a peaceful life.
Not one where her husband turned out to be a fake, or where the true biological son of the Duke of Valencia turned out to be someone else, or where her mother-in-law had been having an affair for more than twenty years.
She wanted to live as a noblewoman in a family so uneventful that it was boring, with everything she could possibly need.
As long as she could live the life she had always taken for granted, she didn’t think anything else would matter.
Before the regression.
The ability of the Valencia ducal family, who had been Rachel’s arranged marriage partner, was . Because of this, they had a special duty unlike other families.
That duty was to maintain the great monster’s seal created by the first Duke of Valencia. Abilities were passed down through bloodlines, but there was no guarantee that they would necessarily manifest in a direct descendant.
Therefore, the first Duke of Valencia had arranged things so that the seal would remain intact as long as the person belonged to the direct line of the family, regardless of whether their ability manifested.
When the heir reached adulthood, they were required to perform the sealing ritual in front of the members of the family.
Paris was to perform his first ritual at the relatively late age of twenty-four.
Rachel still remembered that moment.
The pure-white pillars. The arched stained-glass windows.
The silhouette of the great monster visible beyond them.
And the moment something went wrong with the ritual that everyone had naturally expected to succeed.
—……The ritual has failed.
Paris’s face, standing upon the sealing formation below, twisted.
It wasn’t difficult to find the cause. That night, Paris Valencia, the Duchess of Valencia, and a knight believed to be her lover fled.
The entire world had learned that the only heir of the Valencia family was a cuckoo—a child secretly born to another man.
Which meant that right now, the first thing Rachel needed to do was break off the engagement.
Otherwise, she would simply repeat that life again.
“My lady?”
Rachel, pulled from her thoughts, raised her gaze. Becky, sitting across from her, was cautiously watching her.
“What is it?”
“We’ve arrived at the estate. You didn’t answer when I called you.”
“Oh.”
While she had been lost in thought, the carriage had already stopped in front of the familiar entrance to the mansion. After stepping down from the carriage, Rachel quietly gazed up at the main family residence for a while.
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