Episode 1
When the experiments on me first started in that awful lab, a rumor was going around outside.
A rumor that the noble Lord of the South, the “Ruler of Green,” was secretly searching for his long-lost daughter.
They said the Duke of Aubrey — master of the house that loved greenery, beautiful things, and fresh air — was proud to the extreme.
And also a liar.
He wasn’t looking for his “lost daughter.”
To be exact, he was looking for a replacement for the daughter he lost.
How do I know something that secret?
…Honestly, I wish I didn’t.
If I hadn’t ended up in this ridiculous situation, I never would’ve learned.
“Just so you know, my daughter was smart, beautiful, and had a voice like a skylark. There’s nothing she can’t do. If you want to act like my daughter, you’ll have to match at least that much.”
That was what the man — or rather, the Duke of the Aubrey family—said as he gracefully set down his teacup without a sound.
Right. And how exactly does someone know their baby under one year old has a voice like a skylark?
A thousand sarcastic comments flashed through my head, but I swallowed them and forced a smile.
“Yes…”
How… how did I end up like this?
“Well then, I’ll ask you a few questions, so write your answers down on the sheet.”
Apparently, the friendly chat was over. An arrogant order fell from his lips. Unfortunately, as a mere orphan, I didn’t have the right to refuse.
Ugh…
All I ever wanted was to get adopted into a decent merchant family or live comfortably under a noble’s sponsorship — anything better than my miserable past.
I did NOT sign up to step on a death flag AGAIN!
Right.
This beautiful man — the very definition of “arrogant jerk” — would have his entire household massacred a few years from now.
How do I know?
I DON’T!
Well… I didn’t want to know.
But I do — because I got thrown back into my childhood again!!
I held back the flood of words I wanted to scream and barely managed to speak.
“…Yes.”
“If you pass my test, you can live with my daughter for the next five years. Without lacking anything.”
He held up five fingers.
“Five years… as your daughter?”
“What? Did you think you’d get to be the daughter of a great, amazing noble like me for life?”
He looked at me as if I were being shameless while he was being ten times worse.
I already knew from my past life that this man was overflowing with self-love, but seeing it up close was… impressive, in a bad way.
“Oh, I thought it’d be more like sponsorship.”
“There’s work for you to do for a while. After five years, you’ll study abroad. Basically, you’ll live in another country under my support.”
I nodded like an interviewee trying to get hired.
“Then let’s begin the interview.”
Why a full-on job interview was needed just to “adopt” a daughter, I had no idea.
“What are your hobbies?”
“Reading… I guess?”
“Surprisingly cultured for how you look.”
…Excuse me?
What exactly does “for how you look” mean?
Do I look uncultured or something?
Rude jerk.
“How old are you?”
“Um… maybe ten?”
“My daughter is eleven. Remember that.”
Then WHY did you even ask?
What kind of tyrant behaves like this?
The man — no, the almighty Duke of Aubrey — nodded and immediately started firing off questions while checking things off on his fancy clipboard.
This is literally an interview.
Suddenly, my stomach felt queasy, like I really was sitting in a job fair.
Not that I’ve ever done one in my past life, but… somehow it felt familiar.
He flicked his hand, and the document spread out like a test sheet. His aide handed me paper and a pen.
And then… the rapid-fire insanity began.
“Here’s a donut. Using a knife only twice, divide it into five pieces.”
“There are three murderers and three priests. The priests need to bring the murderers to the temple across the river to restore their humanity. But whenever a murderer is outnumbered, he kills people. The raft can hold only two people at a time. Everyone needs to reach the temple alive. How do you do it?”
“Here’s a snail-shaped bait. A leech takes 10 minutes to finish eating it. How do you measure exactly 5 minutes?”
WHERE EVEN AM I, SIR?
My jaw dropped.
Why am I taking a MENSA IQ test here?!?!?!
…Wait.
Mensa?
What even is that?
I thought of the word myself but couldn’t recall its meaning, so I tilted my head and stared at the answer sheet. And these were ESSAY QUESTIONS. My least favorite kind.
But for some reason…
I felt like I already knew the answers.
They weren’t familiar, and yet… they were.
So under the Duke of Narcissism’s hawk-like stare, I held back tears and started writing.
How did my life come to this?
To explain that, I’d have to tell you my sad, tedious, slightly pathetic backstory.
So, the short version?
I used to be a lab rat for a crazy scientist.
Until age twenty-four.
I genuinely thought he was my father my whole life and endured all the experiments for him — only for that bastard to betray me in the end.
“Among all the kids I bought from that orphanage, you were the only one who survived. I thought you’d make a decent vessel…”
Turns out, I wasn’t his daughter.
I was just a “vessel” for his dead wife’s soul.
Why did I believe he was my father?
Because every time I tried to run away, he erased my childhood memories and reprogrammed me to think he was my dad.
Eventually, right before I died, I recovered all my lost childhood memories.
And then… I died.
Or so I thought.
Next thing I knew, I opened my eyes…
…and I was BACK in my childhood.
Right when I first arrived at the orphanage.
Why is my life a string of overcooked sweet potatoes and misery?
I don’t know.
I hate it too.
Luckily, in my past life the mad scientist read the newspaper every day, and I stole and read every issue he threw away.
I know roughly the next ten years’ worth of major events.
And this arrogant, self-loving man in front of me?
One of the names I saw ALL THE TIME in those papers.
Duke Shacol Aubrey.
The Ruler of Green.
One of the most powerful men in the Empire — second only to the Imperial family — holding half of the nation’s trade routes in his hands.
The rumors said he grew up as the youngest of three brothers in a den of vipers, so he trusted no one and felt no sympathy for anyone.
If he didn’t like something, he crushed it quietly with his looks, wealth, and influence until it never dared raise its head again. That was his specialty.
He’d been forced to drink poison every other day as a child to survive the internal battles of the duchy, so his paranoia made perfect sense.
But despite all that, there were exactly two people whose words he always listened to:
His wife, Rosana Aubrey,
and the northern Lord of Blue, Alf Argo, one of the four great dukes.
But wait. How do I know all this??
There’s no way newspapers would cover THESE details.
I frowned. Nothing specific came to mind.
Looking back… the experiments I went through left strange side effects.
Sometimes, I get déjà vu from things I’ve never seen.
Sometimes, information pops into my head like a memory I don’t remember making…
For example, how did this arrogant man ever end up treating the Lord of Blue like an older brother?
“Um… I’m finished.”
Lost in thought, I carefully handed him the answer sheet I’d filled to the brim.
“You finished already?”
He took it with zero expectations, skimmed it—
—then frowned deeply.
“You solved these? You?”
“Yes…”
“In that short time?”
He stroked his chin and glaringly scanned my answers.
Sir… YOU were watching me write the whole time. There should be no suspense.
“Yes. I’m kind of a genius.”
As I said, the questions all felt familiar. My hand practically wrote the answers on its own.
After carefully reviewing it, he finally nodded.
“Fine. I’m a genius too. Your looks are a little lacking for my daughter, but…”
EXCUSE ME SIR
MY FACE IS PERFECTLY FINE
I’M ADORABLE, THANK YOU.
“But… you pass.”
Right then, a terrifying thought crossed my mind:
Maybe I should’ve purposely failed.
But he looked genuinely pleased for the first time today.
“Good. Welcome to being my daughter.”
“Haha….”
My goal had been a calm, ordinary adoption into a warm family.
Not… THIS.
“…Yes.”
A time bomb had met another time bomb. Who was going to explode first?
“I will adopt this child.”
Duke Shacol Aubrey declared proudly.
So if you want to understand why, despite returning to the past with nothing but my body, I — an orphan — ended up in a daughter-audition for a great duke…
We need to go back three months.
To the day I died and came back
