“The crime of using lies to throw Imortelle Empire to chaos!”
“The crime of coming up with a scheme to overthrow Emperor Eden Lucas Natan Atark of the Imortelle Empire!”
“The crime of using false beliefs to push the people of Imortelle Empire into the abyss!”
The minister read out loud what was on the scroll.
The crowd cheered louder and louder as the list of charges got longer.
“Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!”
“Kill the witch who is wearing the mask of a saint!”
People stomped their feet on the ground, angry and excited at the same time.
A skinny dog looked around and walked around the area.
When the loud cheers broke out, the dog whined with its tail between its legs.
“Murder her right away!”
“False saint! Pay for your sins by dying!”
Eggs were thrown in every direction, and when they hit the platform, they broke.
Claire got down on her knees to look at the broken eggs.
Thud.
Rotten vegetables hit her head. Someone placed a stone on one of them which caused her head to bleed.
After that, there was a lot more trash that was thrown in her direction.
“What a mean woman! Even though she is bleeding like that, she doesn’t even scream.”
People talked in a rude way.
“It’s time for you to pay for your mistakes.”
The minister holding the scroll looked at Claire. The young priest next to him bit his lip and looked uncomfortable.
Claire raised her head slowly.
Her once-shiny golden hair and white skin were now dirty and had lost their color.
“Go in peace, please.”
The minister, who had been looking at her, got a funny look on his face. Not long after that, he put up his hand.
“Begin!”
People who had been waiting on both sides grabbed Claire’s arms.
As the execution got closer, the crowd cheered more and more. It was so crazy that it almost felt like people were going crazy.
A cold light came from the curved blade in the middle of the two poles.
Claire was pulled down under it.
Someone grabbed her hair with rough hands. They treated her like a rag doll by pulling her head down and putting it on a platform.
Her neck went down into the hole. When the rough surface touched her soft skin, it sent shivers down her spine.
“Kill!”
“Kill!”
“Kill!”
There was a strong wave of cheers from everyone.
Claire closed her eyes when she knew the end was near.
After that, something strange happened.
Thud, thud.
The sound of easy, slow steps could be heard.
The sound cut through the loud cheers and went straight into her ears, which caught her attention in a strange way.
Creak, creak.
The wooden steps screamed in protest with every heavy step.
Claire looked around.
In the glaring lighting, there was a huge figure.
In an instant, the roaring cheers stopped.
The people who had gathered around the scaffold all knelt at the same time. Their faces showed both awe and fear.
Claire turned her head to the side in the quiet. Only then did she figure out who was standing in front of her.
The ruler of the Empire of Imortelle.
Eden Lucas Natan Atark Imortelle.
He was armored, and his helmet was at his side.
The armor and red cape, which should have glistened like gold, were dull and dirty, as if paint had been spread on them.
There were also green spots on the bird-shaped mask and the black hair.
At the edge of the mask, a sticky liquid pooled and fell with a plunk. As if on cue, the crowd around them started to cheer.
“The Emperor is alive and well!”
“It’s the monster’s blood. The monster has been killed by the Emperor!”
“Look, there’s blood. That means the Emperor is looking out for us!”
Blue eyes looked at her without much care.
It was as cold as ice and gave her the chills.
“Saintess.”
A strong, deep voice came out.
“Do you want to stay alive?”
The Emperor raised his hand above the blade, as if to say that he would grant her wish to die or to live.
Claire thought about her past when she was dying.
Everything she did was for the handsome Emperor she could see in front of her. She knew it.
If she had any hope at all, it was just to get his attention.
But what came back was disgrace and death.
“This is your last opportunity. It won’t happen again.”
The cold look told her to talk.
Claire licked her lips when she saw that look. Her dry throat made it hard for her to take a breath.
“Your Majesty, we will start the execution right away.”
“Wait.”
“Don’t talk to her anymore.”
“…”
“What the Saintess is really like has already been shown. It could mess with Your Majesty’s mind. So, please…”
The minister made a plea by putting out his hand, which was already up.
In that moment, thwack!
With an ax, the executioner cut the rope that held the blade to the guillotine.
The emperor’s face wrinkled.
“Ah…”
The minister said something to show how surprised he was.
The executioner thought that the minister’s hand motion meant that the killing should go ahead.
Woosh.
As the sound of the wind got stronger, the blade fell.
Claire never took her eyes off the man in the mask.
She slowly opened her mouth.
“If… I… die and come back to life, I won’t meet you.”
When he saw how she moved her lips, the emperor’s eyes got a strange look.
She tilted her head as she thought about what was going on.
Swish!
Thunk.
The floor was covered with blood.
“Wahhhh!”
The yells of the crowd shook the ground.
Claire passed out and felt a bright light.
Flicker.
The fluorescent light, which had always been dim, flickered as if it were dying.
“Oh, I hate this so much.”
Face pressed against the monitor, Kwon In-young scrunched her face up as hard as she could.
“Don’t you need at least a good environment for people to work on?”
She had no reason to stare at the innocent fluorescent light, but she did.
It was much later than midnight.
When everyone had left the office, it felt strange.
In-young touched the top of her head.
She was tired, so her eyes were dry and her head hurt.
“Are you crazy? How can I get this done by the morning of the next day?”
The boss had given her a job and told her she had three days to finish it.
“Market research is important to understand what the customer wants, but how can it be done in just three days?”
In-young turned her head toward the chair’s back.
If there had been a new worker, she would have been able to breathe a little bit.
Unfortunately, the new hire fell down the stairs after working overtime.
Since it happened right in front of In-young, she didn’t have time to be surprised before she called an ambulance and tried to comfort the crying new hire.
But because she had so much work to do, she could no longer feel sorry for the new hire.
“Am I a slave? Ugh… my neck hurts.”
In-young scratched behind her neck.
“Am I going to die from overwork?”
She laughed in a fake way, shook her head from side to side, and moved her arms all over the place.
Stretching helped her stiff shoulders a little bit.
“But I might be able to finish it if I stay up all night.”
As she pulled her chair closer, In-young mumbled something. She bent her head again in front of the screen. She was about to put her hands on the computer when something happened.
Bang!
She lost awareness when she hit her face instead of her hand on the computer.
1.
Flicker.
It’s weird.
It felt like something had just flickered.
She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling.
‘Oh, I see.’
The light in the room had been flickering.
She was swearing at her boss for a while before she passed out. She didn’t realize that her head would hit the keys.
In-young sighed and put her hand to her head.
At that moment, her vision flashed and she thought of many different scenes.
A young girl is holding the hand of a middle-aged man who is crying and looking at a grave without any feeling.
A young man in torn overalls was using a hoe to dig into the frozen ground.
A girl walking alone through a dark, damp forest filled with fear, and a hideous finger scraping the ashes out of a fireplace…
“What the heck is this?”
She felt like she had gotten a quick look into someone’s life.
Her gut was turning and her head was spinning.
“…Claire.”
Someone far away called her. She felt like her whole body was shaking.
“Stop.”
Whoever it was, they kept at it for a long time. It hurt too much for someone to grab her shoulder and shake it.
“…Claire.”
“I feel like I’m going to puke.”
“Claire.”
Who is Claire, anyway?
Her name is Kwon In-young.
She just fell asleep while working extra hours.
‘No, did I die?’
“Claire!”
Someone shouted in her ear, but she didn’t know who it was.
Her eyes opened wide.
“Gasp!”
She sat up and inhaled deeply.
It was completely dark everywhere. As her eyes got used to the darkness, a strong smell made her frown.
Where does that foul smell come from?
She couldn’t help scrunching up her face when she smelled hay mixed with a bad smell.
As she looked around, her eyes slowly got used to the dark.
“…”
The smell wasn’t something to worry about right now.
The wooden room was pretty sturdy, but some wind got through the small spaces between the planks.
She turned my head while shaking.
Near a pile of dry grass, there was a dark shape.
Rustle.
From the sound, she thought it was a horse. Several of them were standing behind a wall and moving their tails or feet.
“Where the hell am I?”
“Claire?”
She turned her head toward the sound.
Right in front of her was the person who had been shaking her shoulder earlier.
She was a girl whose nose was covered with freckles.
Late teens?
She had a towel wrapped around her head and was wearing a worn-out gray dress with an apron over it.
Middle Ages cosplay?
She just looked at the girl blankly and thought that.
However,
Even though the girl had dark hair and eyes, she was from another country. She didn’t speak Korean.
“Who are you?”
When she asked, the girl’s eyes got big, like she was hearing someone speak for the first time.
In-young took her hand off her forehead and accidentally frowned as she looked at it.
It looked weird.
She had black soot on her hand.
She had never dealt with something like that before, of course.
In short, it’s not her hands.
She didn’t move as she looked at both hands, so the stranger with brown hair quietly took her hand and lowered it.
“You can talk now, Claire?”
Can who talk?
Does this mean that this person can’t talk before?
But even more so, “Why do you keep on calling me Claire?”
The stranger with dark hair in front of her had been calling her by a strange name for a while.
“Because you’re Claire?”
The stranger with brown hair replied as if it was a strange question.
In-young wasn’t sure if she should tell the stranger with brown hair, who was sure she was Claire, the truth.
But she was the most confused thing about this whole thing. She let out a big sigh and put her hand on her face.
“Does it hurt?”
“I wish it was.”
“Well, let’s get going.”
“For what?”
“To work.”
When she just blinked her eyes, the stranger with brown hair said in a nice way, “I thought you overslept. Even if you’re not good at your job, at least you used to get up early.”
She didn’t pay attention to the part that said ‘even if you’re not good at work.’
This must be something like a soul swap, which she can only read about in books.
The many scenes that just went through her head were probably memories from the body she had just moved into.
The only way for her to know if this is true or not is to ask the stranger with brown hair in front of her.
So, what she needs to do next is…
“My memory is a little foggy, maybe because I just had a crazy dream.”
The best way to escape suspicion while gathering information is to act like you have memory loss.
“Actually, I forgot your name too.”
“Oh no!”
Hana, the stranger with brown hair, sighed and held In-young’s hand tight.
She was fooled.
In-young was a little embarrassed by how innocent she was.
“My name is Hana. Han, na.”
She said she couldn’t remember things, but she didn’t say she couldn’t hear. Hana said her name loud and clear.
“Did you dream of something bad? Is that why you can’t think of anything?”
“Can you give me a hand?”
“Yes, just tell me what you want. I’ll share everything with you.”
Hana walked over and sat down with a sad face.
“Who am I?”
“Claire Mcllroy.”
“What do I do?”
“A servant of a noble family.”
Her luck is just bad.
In real life, she had to do what her boss wanted.
Now, though, she is in the Middle Ages.
She is now a maid who has to lie down and do what her boss wants.
How could she have had such bad luck?
If she had to be born again, she could at least do something good.
She might be a member of a noble family or a friend of a member of a noble family.
Even the noble daughter’s mother would do!
“So, do you remember now?”
“Haah.”
She sighed, not because she remembered anything, but because she felt like there was no way out of her situation.
“Not yet?”
“No, I don’t think I do, but you helped me remember a little.”
“I’m glad!”
“But not completely. So, please don’t tell anyone that I’ve forgotten.”
“Why?”
“What if other people think it’s a flaw?”
“Right. You can’t afford to have any flaws, especially since Wendy is watching you.”
‘Ah, Wendy.
The person who put Hana and Claire in the barn and locked the door.’
In-young muttered and made a funny face.
“But that is so strange. You talk so well, why have you been quiet for so long?”
Now that she thinks about it, “Claire” hadn’t said anything until now.
But given how well she talks now, it doesn’t seem like it was something she was born with, but rather something she picked up along the way.
She wanted to know why, but she put that question aside for now. It was important not to make Hana think something was wrong.
“I don’t have time to talk. We don’t even have enough time to work.”
Even though she herself thought it was a bad reason, she had nothing else to say.
“I guess so.”
Hana nodded with a sad expression.
“…”
She was so innocent. There’s no doubt that Claire and her were close.
She hugged Hana because she felt bad about what she had done.
“Let’s cheer up.”
Hana was upset, so In-young calmed her and helped her think about what was going on.
She had moved into the body of a poor maid who, wrongly, was thought to be mute.
Once the shock wore off, her reflexes to stay alive kicked in.
Even as a poor maid, she wouldn’t go hungry if she worked hard.
If she did well, the Master of the house might notice her and give her a better job.
From now on, she needs to do exactly that.
Getting the approval of her respected master.
