Chapter 04
The knight uncle let out a startled, “Uh—?”
The people who had been sleeping woke up and began to murmur. I quickly stuffed my novel into my bag and leaned forward to look ahead.
“Ma’am, what’s going on?”
“Who knows? Maybe there’s been an accident on the road?”
At that moment, as if answering their question—
“SKREEEEECH!”
A terrible sound scraped across the road. At the same time, the bus shook violently.
“Ahhh!”
Sharp screams filled the air.
That wasn’t all.
Rumble—boom!
A massive noise echoed, like a giant marching forward. The view outside the window tilted downward all at once, as if the ground itself had collapsed.
“Kyaaah!”
What was happening?
At first, I couldn’t understand it. Then, as my body lifted into the air, I realized something horrifying was happening.
It felt like the sky and the earth were switching places.
I screamed at the top of my lungs, as if my throat would tear apart.
And then—
Darkness swallowed my sight.
Yes.
It would have been better if I had just died then.
“Ugh!”
When I opened my eyes again, I felt terrible pain.
I couldn’t see clearly, but something sharp and hard seemed to have pierced through my thigh.
“Ugh… ah…”
Groaning, I moved my hands around, but all I could touch were sharp fragments. Feeling around carefully, I realized I was trapped on all sides.
I was lying there like a piece wedged between collapsed rubble.
“It hurts… it hurts…”
To think this was the price of winning third prize in the lottery—I wanted to grab a god by the nose hairs and shake him hard.
“Give me back my life!”
“Hic… Mom…”
It seemed the road the bus had been driving on had collapsed.
What kind of poor construction was that?!
There was no sound around me.
I didn’t know if anyone else had survived.
The only thing I understood was this—
No one might come to rescue me.
And I would slowly die here, trapped.
It was miserable. It was terrifying.
“C-Cold… How much time… has passed?”
My fear became reality.
The feeling of being completely alone was horrible.
No matter how much I trembled and cried, no one came.
The pain only grew worse and worse.
I screamed.
I laughed.
I cried.
I sang.
I begged.
Over and over.
Soon, I couldn’t even speak properly.
“……”
Grrr…
In the end, what I felt most clearly was hunger.
It felt like my stomach would tear apart.
I was so hungry.
I felt like I could grab bread even if it had rolled in the dirt and devour it.
Chicken. Pizza. Ribs. Delicious food floated before my eyes.
Ha.
Why did I work so hard in life…?
If I’m born again…
I’ll play like crazy…
After enduring that endless darkness, I lost consciousness as if falling asleep.
It was a lonely and painful death.
The problem was what happened after.
“Hm?”
When I opened my eyes again, I was wrapped in very soft fabric and held in someone’s arms.
It was warm, but my vision was blurry and frustrating.
What? What happened?
I was dying, wasn’t I?
Had I been miraculously rescued?
Maybe I could have kept believing that happy misunderstanding—
If I hadn’t heard an unfamiliar language.
“Uh?”
Voices that had sounded like distant whispers suddenly poured over me.
I couldn’t understand the meaning, but they were soft and gentle.
<Little one.>
<Come here, my daughter.>
The moment I heard that voice, my eyes burned with unknown relief.
I clenched my tiny fists and opened my mouth to express my feelings.
And then—
“Waaah! Aaaah! Waaah!”
What came out was not what I expected.
It was the loud cry of a baby.
That’s right.
Incredibly—
I had died and been born again.
The kind of second life you only see in novels.
That was how I was miraculously reincarnated.
At first, it was very hard to adjust.
Imagine this: a woman in her mid-twenties who used to walk, talk, and live normally suddenly becoming a baby who couldn’t even control her own bodily functions.
In kind words, it was boring.
In harsh words, it was terrible.
It was an endless series of embarrassing moments.
Especially the feeling of wetting a diaper—ugh.
“Oh my, she’s smiling. Our young lady is so cute, isn’t she?”
“That’s right. She barely cries. I’ve never seen such a calm baby.”
“Maybe she takes after the quiet Duke?”
“But His Grace is lively, though?”
Listening to the maids chatting was my only joy.
Thankfully, my new body had an extremely sharp mind.
Even when I could only babble, I somehow understood everything they said.
Red, blue, yellow—
The maids’ colorful hair was dazzling and beautiful, nothing like simple dye.
Wow. A true fantasy world.
Whenever I giggled at them, they would kindly hold my hands and speak softly.
“Hehe.”
It seemed my new life would not be unlucky.
In many reincarnation stories, the heroine suffers under cruel maids who starve and insult her.
But that was not my fate.
My maids were kind—and unique.
“Good. This life is a golden spoon!”
Sometimes, they even showed strange powers, as if each of them had special abilities.
One could make people sleep with her singing.
Another could control water like it was her own hands and feet.
“Hm?”
I tilted my head.
Why does this seem familiar?
No way…
At that time, I never imagined that I already knew this world.
Time passed, and I grew quickly.
That means I became surprisingly chubby.
I was a baby who ate and slept well.
Sometimes, when I lifted my legs and saw my round little ankles without any shape, even I was shocked.
My plump skin looked like rich white broth.
Then one day, I became curious about my mother.
I clearly remembered hearing both a woman’s and a man’s voice when I was born.
But I never saw my mother.
“Please don’t feel sad, my lady.”
“Your mother will come see you soon.”
“Hehe, the Duchess is truly amazing!”
“My lady, shall we show you some magic?”
Even though I couldn’t speak, the kind maids talked to me constantly.
According to them, because of magic, there was no such thing as postpartum recovery here.
In just one second, the body could return to perfect condition.
And my mother—
As soon as she gave birth with her fully restored body—
Left for the battlefield.
What kind of person is my mother?
I met her for the first time two months after I was born.
One day, she suddenly returned from the battlefield.
She wore a magnificent uniform.
“Azalea. I am your mother.”
“Aung.”
The entire mansion was celebrating a great victory.
My father, who had been calling her name in tears every day, was smiling brightly like a sunflower.
And between them stood a woman with red hair.
My mother was a bold and powerful beauty.
We stared at each other for a while.
She spoke first.
“It looks like you’ve stuck bread to your cheeks. They’re very puffed.”
That was her first impression of the daughter she had painfully given birth to.
Sadly, I couldn’t argue.
When I squeezed my cheeks with my tiny hands, they were indeed very round.
From the side, they probably stuck out like a cartoon character.
“Strange. Why isn’t she crying?”
“Our young lady rarely cries, Your Grace.”
“Yes, dear. Our baby is very dignified.”
“Hmm…”
At that moment, tension rose sharply.
Her fierce red eyes, sharp enough to defeat beasts, stared at me.
S-Scary!
“Ha ha.”
Then she suddenly laughed.
To my surprise, her smile was gentle and warm.
The stiffness in my tiny hands relaxed.
“You have great courage. A very fine baby, my daughter.”
Shh.
It’s a secret that I had just wet my diaper.
I grew quickly, like a sprouting bean.
Sometimes coughing blood.
Sometimes breaking a leg.
Sometimes getting nosebleeds.
Because—
My body was terribly weak.
According to my maids, my mother feared nothing in the world—not even the Emperor.
But when I turned five, she gave up on me.
“She can’t even hold a sword,” she said.
She made sure to confirm that I would never be able to kill even a mosquito with one.
I was painfully untalented at fighting.
My stamina was trash.
Both my parents were first-class swordsmen.
But their daughter couldn’t even run for a few minutes without collapsing like dried squid.
In my past life, I was strong except for stamina!
“Forgive me, young lady. You…”
“I don’t even have magic talent?”
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
“It’s not your fault… It’s just that I’m incompetent…”
“My lady!”
I had no magical ability either.
The only thing I possessed was an exceptionally sharp brain.
So my parents gave up on other paths early and hired a teacher for me.
My stamina was far too pitiful to enter the Academy early.
