At that moment, her head started spinning.
It's poison. Her precious father fed her poison.
Why? Why on earth?
And then, the name he said.
'Me, Aila?'
Rodrick and Ophelia's only daughter. The Aila they lost a dozen years ago, that is... as soon as...
“Who would have thought you were Rodrick’s daughter? You are just as stupid as your father. Just like your father. Every time I saw you, I felt sick. Those blue eyes, just like your father's. The hair, just like Ophelia’s, was passable.”
Incredible stories continued to pour out of Byron's mouth.
I trusted you with my whole life. I lived my whole life only for my father. I even killed people for my father.
That father, he's not a father.
The person she killed was her biological father.
She wanted to grab Rodrick and ask him if Byron's words were true, but there was no way a dead man would answer.
“Aila, Aila. Thank you. Thanks to you, my revenge was completely successful. Kidnapping you, raising you as my daughter, and making you kill your own father with your own hands. That was my plan for revenge against your father.”
It was hard to accept, but if Byron's words weren't all true, there was no reason for her to die like this.
Cough, cough, Another lump of blood poured out of her throat.
She was angry and resentful. It must have been because she drank poison that she was spitting out blood like this, but even if that wasn't the case, she felt like she would clutch her chest and vomit blood at any moment.
“Consider it my final act of consideration to kill you on the same day as your father. It may be comforting, but your mother need not worry. My Ophelia will be happy by my side.”
She heard Byron talking nonchalantly. She struggled to stand, but her legs eventually gave out.
Aila Hailing Weishaffen lay down beside her father, Rodrick.
This is miserable.
What tormented her more than dying was the fact that she had been deceived her entire life. She felt wronged and angry.
That man laughing and smirking was a devil. He couldn't have done that if he weren't a devil.
Even after death, I will not forgive that demon. That was what Aila swore. Even as a vengeful spirit, she will curse that demon again and again.
The price for deceiving and using her will be paid with his life.
It was with that determination that she took her last breath.
“Aila!”
She saw someone's silhouette running towards her, calling her name. It was hard to see who it was due to the blurry vision, but it didn't take long for her to figure it out.
Mother.
Her mother, Ophelia, whom she had vaguely missed all her life, without even knowing her true identity.
With the last sight of tears welling up in her affectionate purple eyes, Aila took her last breath.
***
Aila Hailing Weishaffen is dead.
She must have died for sure.
She was deceived by a man she had trusted her entire life, and she killed her own father with her own hands. She, who had served her purpose, was also poisoned by that man.
The pain in her throat was burning. The pain of feeling like every single blood vessel in her body was being torn apart. Those sensations remained vivid in her memory.
But why?
Why am I alive? Why am I breathing?
She didn't even feel any pain at all. How could she survive without any aftereffects when her life was taken away by the poison?
She jerked up, gasping for breath. It was as if she had been dreaming. A terrible nightmare.
But it couldn't be a dream. She hoped it was, but the memory was too vivid for that to be the case.
The warm gaze of Rodrick, who never resented his own daughter who had hurt him, and the gaze of Byron, who laughed at her as she died.
Even the face of Ophelia, who was looking at her with tears in her eyes at the last moment, comes to mind vividly, so it can't be a dream.
She took a deep breath and looked around to assess the situation.
Old stone walls covered in moss here and there. Simple furniture.
'What?'
She couldn't understand what the hell was going on. Where was she, and why wasn't she dead, and was she alone in this strange place?
No, was it really a strange place? She searched her memory for a familiar landscape. She had seen this landscape countless times. When she was young, wandering around with that devil named Byron...
That was when.
“You’re awake, Miss.”
The old wooden door opened, and a familiar face came in. It was her maid, Laura.
She had been taking care of her since her childhood when she wandered around with Byron, and when she entered the Duke's household as a Princess, Laura also disguised her identity and took a job at the Duke's household to serve her.
It was said to be a maid, but now that she thinks about it, it was clear that it was meant to be a surveillance role for her.
“Please hurry up and wash up. You have to do some morning training before you can have dinner with the master.”
Laura spoke bluntly, putting the washcloth she was holding down on the small table next to the bed.
As Aila looked at Laura like that, she realized that something was strange.
Laura seemed a little younger than she remembered. Laura was clearly in her early twenties, but why did she suddenly look like a girl in her late teens?
That's what they said. Morning training.
Although her life was only eighteen, she had trained her entire life to avenge Byron.
She woke up at dawn to build up her basic physical strength, learned how to swing a dagger, and practiced shooting arrows from a distance at small targets.
She learned where to cut to kill someone in one fell swoop on a realistic human model, and she also studied how to handle poison.
But that was before she entered the Duke's household when she was sixteen.
After she entered the mansion disguised as a Princess—well, it turned out that it wasn't a disguise at all—Laura never woke her up to do morning training.
Well, her only purpose in life was to avenge Byron, so she did some strength training in her room from time to time in case her body got rusty, but that was it.
“Why are you looking at me like that? You should wash up and change your clothes right away.”
Laura spoke coldly as if she were Aila's master and left the room.
Aila, left alone, stared blankly at Laura's back, lost in thought.
Doesn't it feel like going back in time to my childhood?
It was ridiculous. It couldn't be...
She looked down at her hand. It was small and chubby, just like a child's hand. The arms and legs were short.
Since it was a room without even a mirror, she looked at her face in the washbasin that Laura had left behind. The face reflected in the water was that of a young girl who looked to be about twelve years old.
Before she died from drinking the poison offered by Byron, she was apparently one day shy of her eighteenth birthday.
The night before her birthday was the D-day for revenge.
The banquet scheduled for the next day was an important event for the Duke of Weishaffen. It was to celebrate the eighteenth birthday of their lost only daughter, Aila, and to announce her as the official successor.
To prepare for the grand banquet, workers were rushed in from outside, and those delivering birthday gifts to the Princess from all over the Peles Empire were constantly coming and going from the mansion.
No matter how strict the security was, there was bound to be a gap, and Byron took advantage of that gap.
But no matter how much she looked at the face reflected in the washbasin, it didn't look like the face of someone about to celebrate their coming-of-age ceremony at the age of eighteen.
Aila stared at her face for a long time as if she were possessed. It was truly a confusing situation.
“...Are you back?”
Are you saying that I can really turn back time and go back to my childhood?
She knew it couldn't happen. It's the law of nature that time cannot be turned back. But no matter how much she thought about it, all the evidence said so.
Laura, who treated her as if nothing had happened, and her young face and small hands, and feet. These were things that would have been impossible without turning back time.
She didn't know how it happened, but this was a chance given by heaven. A chance to punish the man who had deceived her all her life, used her... and abandoned her when she had served her well.
And...
'Mother, father.'
It was only a short period of about two years, but during that time, her biological parents loved her more warmly than anyone else. A chance to meet Rodrick and Ophelia again.
Their love was so strong that it shook even her foolish past self, who only lived for Byron's revenge.
At first, she laughed at their foolishness. She saw the Duke's family giving their all without even realizing that they were assassins who had come to take the Duke's life.
But as time went by, she felt guilty and was shaken. She even wondered if Rodrick was really a villain who deserved to die.
Every time that happened, Laura, who had never left her side, whispered to her as if brainwashing her. 'Don't forget what that bad guy did to Master.'
Now that she thinks about it, wasn't she the fool? She was the most foolish person in the world, who didn't recognize her own parents even though they were right in front of her, and who played into the devil's hands and even killed her own father.
The tears that fell from Aila's eyes made ripples in the still washbasin.
Why didn't I recognize it? Aila lamented, looking at her reflection in the water.
She didn't know it when she was fooled by Byron and didn't even suspect it, but now that she looks at it, Aila couldn't be Rodrick and Ophelia's biological daughter. They look so much alike.
The clear eyes and high nose are exactly like Rodrick's. Even the sea-colored eyes that seem cold at first glance actually contain warmth.
Her overall face shape, small lips, and hair that seemed to be made of melted silver and gave off a soft glow were all very similar to Ophelia's.
'Father...'
As she recalled the last image of Rodrick looking at Aila with eyes filled with affection even as he died, tears welled up in her eyes again.
To kill that person with her own hands.
Aila looked down at her hands. The hands of a child that were not yet stained with Rodrick's blood. But she had no intention of keeping them clean.
'The blood on these two hands will now belong to the devil.'
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