Chapter 2 · To the Royal Palace (1)

Anastasia.

In the ancient language, it means ‘resurrection,’ a noble name only royalty could possess.

But to me, it was a name no different from a curse.

It must be because of that unlucky meaning—resurrection—that I was enduring this endless hell of regression.

“Prin…cess? Princess? Her? Ana… what? Her name is Asha.”

“Th-there must be some kind of mistake.”

My adoptive mother, apparently afraid, couldn’t bring herself to come closer and cautiously opened her mouth from a distance.

“What? This brat is a princess? Ha! You barge in here spouting such nonsense—”

My adoptive father, apparently cowed by the pressure, turned pale and protested, but shut his mouth when Paeon’s cold gaze flew at him.

“This was confirmed in Princess Beatrice’s will. She entrusted Princess Anastasia to House Windmilld and asked that she be brought to the palace.”

“That’s impossible! The princess passed away years ago! She never even married, so how could she have had a child?!”

“Under Santra’s national law, absolute primogeniture,”

he warned in a cold voice.

“Princess Anastasia will inherit the right of succession to the throne from Princess Beatrice, who was the First Princess. Even if you have been disrespectful until now out of ignorance of the princess’s identity, please do not forget that from this moment onward, you can be punished for insulting the royal family.”

The three family members flinched and shrank back against the wall.

They still gaped at us as if they couldn’t believe it, looking back and forth between us, but they seemed to have instinctively realized at least that they ‘needed to shut up.’

“Princess, we must leave at once. Do you have anything to take with you?”

There was no way I had anything like that.

All I owned was a cheap bronze locket necklace I had secretly smuggled away from the family.

“…I don’t have anyfing.”

“Then let us go.”

Just then, my adoptive mother, who had been rolling her eyes and staring at us, shouted.

“Wait! What about the child-rearing expenses?!”

…Really, it was nonsense full of audacity no matter how many times I heard it.

“…Did Princess Beatrice not pay child-rearing expenses?”

“Sh-she did pay! But it was nowhere near enough! Do you have any idea how hard it is to raise a child these days…? Besides, it was during the war.”

“If you submit a claim for the amount to the royal palace, I will see to it that it is calculated and sent to you.”

As he turned as if there was nothing more to see, his long white cloak fluttered and drew a circle in the air.

A smile of relief rose on my adoptive mother’s face.

A smile that seemed to say, ‘I’ve hit the jackpot.’

Of my nine lives, I had gone to the royal palace four times, and in five, I had run away from this house before I even turned four.

But in all my lives, I had never really taken revenge on the people who had abused me.

Because this holy knight’s aura was so murderous that I couldn’t bring myself to speak to him first, and I wanted to leave this place as quickly as possible, even a second sooner.

Normally, it would have been the same this time, but—

Now that I knew you were my father, this life would be different.

“Don’t give them money.”

I said, clutching the hem of his cloak tightly.

He looked at me as if slightly startled.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t give these people money. They make Asha work every day, don’t feed me, and hit me. They’re bad people.”

“…Are the princess’s words true?”

“Oh my, this child! A… no, Princess! What are you saying?! When did we ever do such a thing…!”

My adoptive mother rushed over to me in a panic.

I shrank back hesitantly and pulled up my loose sleeve.

“Even like this?”

When I showed him the mottled bruises and welts, the holy knight’s eyes widened slightly.

“That… that’s because the princess tripped yesterday while running around. She loves to run about so much… Haha, it seems the princess has some grievances against us. But we truly did our best for the princess…!”

“Look at this too, please.”

I infused mana into the stone I had been clutching all this time.

Then a faint image formed in the air, and small sounds flowed out.

The people of House Windmilld screamed all at once at the sight.

And no wonder—it must have been the first time in their lives they had seen magic.

Only a very few people could use mana, and most of them were royalty or nobles.

Commoners, who rarely had any occasion to encounter them, might see magic once in their entire lives, if at all.

I had known since my first life that I could use mana, but I had met death many times without ever getting the chance to learn how to wield it properly.

After several lives of desperate effort, I had taught myself image magic.

It was a relatively low-difficulty spell, and I had luckily found a magic stone suitable for making an image stone while doing work my adoptive mother had ordered me to do.

The image in the air changed constantly.

The inside of the house rocking and flipping along with me, all kinds of verbal abuse, screams, and crying…

Their atrocities, laid bare in the image stone, were all too vivid.

And the voice that flowed out at the end.

“She’s a woman who abandoned her own child. That bloodline has to show somewhere.”

Andy, pale with terror, collapsed as if his legs had given out.

And he babbled like a madman.

“N-no… I didn’t know she was the princess… Damn it! She hid that she could use magic! That demonic bitch! She’s clearly possessed by a demon. She never seemed like a four-year-old child at all, from the very beginning—”

Flash!

In the instant a light so intense it seemed to swallow the house flashed, Andy could not continue speaking; he choked and foamed at the mouth before collapsing.

As if crushed by an invisible force, he thrashed but could not rise.

His parents screamed and rushed to him, but they too were flung back by an invisible force and fell to the floor.

‘So divine power can be used this way, too.’

Feeling the power of the strongest holy knight on the continent firsthand sent a fresh chill through me.

“How dare you,”

Paeon said in a voice sunk to a depth incomparable to before.

“How dare you do such things and still shamelessly go on about child-rearing expenses.”

I wondered whether he was truly angry, but he was the type who almost never changed expression, so it was hard to tell.

“As soon as you arrive at the capital, you will be sent straight to Yuditium.”

Yuditium was the largest underground prison in Santra, notorious for its severe torture.

They mumbled and begged for their lives, tears and snot streaming down their faces.

Andy seemed to have even wet himself.

“That is, if you can make it to the capital alive.”

◇ ◆ ◇

The three were tied up one after another like sausages at the very back of the carriage procession and made to walk barefoot all the way to the capital.

It was the middle of winter and the ground was frozen, so I thought they might truly die on the way.

‘Compared to the decades of suffering I’ve endured, this is nothing.’

I resolved to harden my heart.

In this life, I had decided to live ruthlessly.

When we went outside, the other knights kept glancing at us.

I bowed politely to them again and again.

Having lived many lives, I had learned that a well-mannered child was generally not disliked, so I had gotten into the habit of always greeting everyone politely whenever our eyes met.

“Commander, is that person really… the one we were looking for?”

A few quickly saluted at the sight of me, but most looked doubtful.

Then again, who would look at me and take me for a princess?

“Stop wasting time and depart at once.”

Paeon ignored the question and gave the order.

If I were a knight, I would really hate to serve under a superior like this.

“Excuse me.”

He lifted me up to put me in the carriage.

So carefully, as if holding a glass sculpture.

And I,

“Ow!”

Put on as much of a fuss as I could.

“…!”

Startled, he hurriedly adjusted his hold on me.

He was so awkward about it, as if he had never held a child before.

“I apologize. I touched a wounded spot.”

Not missing the moment I was lightly held against him, I hugged him with all my strength.

“It hurts…”

When I spoke in a tearful voice, I could feel him at a loss for what to do.

Unable to help it, he climbed into the carriage with me in his arms.

“I will heal you right away. However…”

As soon as he sat down, he removed his hands from me.

I was sitting on his lap.

The way he kept glancing at the seat beside him made it seem he wanted to set me down.

Since only a very slight touch was needed to heal with divine power…

I clung to him even more tightly.

He hesitated for a moment, then let out a small sigh and pulled me back into his arms.

“It may feel strange. It is divine power, so do not be alarmed.”

A warm energy seeped into every corner of my body.

There had been a time, once, when I was badly injured in the royal palace and the priests had healed me with divine power.

But perhaps because it had been so long since I had felt such warmth, or perhaps because this man’s power was especially strong, tears threatened to burst out all at once.

‘No, I can’t be moved by just this much. This man is only doing his duty. I thrust wounds like that right in front of him, so…’

I held back my heart as it kept trying to soar.

In an instant, the throbbing all over my body subsided.

The treatment was over now, so I could have pulled away, but I pretended not to know and wriggled in his arms, listening to the sound of his heart.

‘So this man has a heart after all.’

Even knowing I was his daughter, he had left me unattended in every life.

Of course, I knew he was the commander of the holy knight order, and so there had not been many occasions for him to be involved with me.

But the royal palace and the temple were adjacent, and we had constantly run into each other at all sorts of meetings, reports, dinners, banquets, prayer gatherings, and all kinds of events, yet he had never once even exchanged a proper greeting with me.

He must have known that my reputation in the royal palace was the worst and that I was hated by everyone, yet he did not bat an eye…

That was no different from abuse.

I would probably never be able to forgive this man.

How on earth had he fallen in love with my mother?

He was renowned as the ‘true apostle of Lord Lux.’

A true apostle who lived solely for the god Lux, did not fear risking his life for God’s mission, and had renounced all physical and mental pleasures so as not to use the power God had granted him for wrongful ends.

He also had the nickname ‘the cruel envoy of Lord Lux,’ for he possessed a ruthlessness that mercilessly cut down heretics and false prophets who disturbed the hearts of the people.

And such a man had broken a vow to his god that he guarded as if it were his life?

And with none other than a princess of this country?

‘How utterly outrageous.’

Perhaps my mother had made the first move.

His face was so beautiful that it would be a waste for him to live a life of chastity forever.

My mother was an extreme face-con, so she might have coolly vaulted right over his inhuman personality and the barrier of religion.

But if that were the case, I could not understand why this man had not resisted.

Could it have been mutual after all?

I still could not understand that either…

In any case, I decided to bet on the possibility that he had at least a little human heart in him.

‘I want to live properly at least once.’

Not the royal palace, where I would have to live under the threat of death, caught up in a succession struggle, nor the streets, where I would have to wander aimlessly in a child’s body.

My goal was to live comfortably in a place where no one would target me or look for me.

If… this man would take my side.

If he would become the knight who protected me, at least until I could grow strong enough to protect myself…

I carefully raised my head and met his eyes.

“If you’re a knight… you’re an angel, right?”