Chapter 2: The Day of the Entrance Ceremony

“Sarah?”

“Ah, I’m so glad you’ve awakened!
You’ve been asleep for three whole days.”

I tried to sit up, but I had no strength at all, so I remained lying in bed and timidly called out to her.

Sarah leaned over me with moist eyes, unable to hide her joy.

She looked healthier than before.

She even seemed younger.

The worried expression she sometimes showed, lowering her brows as she said, “Your complexion is still poor,” was unmistakably Sarah’s.

On the way to the convent, Sarah’s complexion had been dreadful.

Three years older than me, Sarah had served me since I was ten years old.

She had been my greatest confidante.

She must have suffered deeply, unable to stop my wrongdoing that had gone so far as to result in my engagement being broken off.

Kind-hearted as she was, she must have been tormented by it.

“Three days asleep?
Why…?”

“Ah, you suddenly developed a fever and collapsed.

If all had gone well, today would have been Milady’s entrance ceremony.
It truly is such a shame this happened.”

Sarah looked genuinely sorrowful.

As for me, I could not fully grasp the situation.

Confused, I found her earlier words catching in my mind.

What did Sarah just say?

The entrance ceremony?

“Um… by entrance ceremony… you don’t mean at Torsowa Magic Academy, do you?”

“Yes, the entrance ceremony at Torsowa Magic Academy.”

At her words, I felt my entire body freeze.

My vision turned monochrome, and Sarah’s subdued voice—“I had so looked forward to seeing Milady in her lovely uniform today”—echoed faintly in the distance.

That cannot be.

Because I most certainly attended the entrance ceremony.

Three years ago, when I was fifteen, as the Crown Prince’s fiancée.

And as the new student with the highest magical power, I even delivered the representative speech.

No, wait.

I do recall catching an unusual cold a few days before the entrance ceremony.

But I had recovered the very next day after resting for one day.

So what does it mean that I slept for three days and only just woke up?

And if what Sarah says is true… does that mean I am three years in the past?

In a panic, I pulled at the neckline of my nightclothes and checked the wound on my chest.

────It’s gone.

The skin Rashel gazed upon was pale and flawless, without a single scar.

No.
That cannot be.
The pain had felt as though I were being gouged open.

Even now, remembering it makes cold sweat pour down my back.

Is this some convenient dream?

Did God grant me a brief moment of peace before sending me to the afterlife?

And the time granted to me… was it three years ago, when I felt no anxiety and believed without doubt that a brilliant future awaited me?

I was so overwhelmed by confusion that I did not even notice Sarah leaving the room after saying, “I will call Madam and the doctor.”