Chapter 1-1:
Becoming Good
WHEN I AWOKE, I WAS LYING ON A SOFT BED rather than that tough one from the prison. Thank goodness, I thought. I must’ve just had a nightmare. It was so awful!
My body felt warm, and I was drenched with sweat. I tried to raise my voice to call for a servant.
“Wah!” I cried.
“Oh my, have you woken up?” a servant said.
She must’ve been nearby, as she immediately arrived and scooped me up to draw me to her shoulders. I realized that I was being cradled.
Huh? Aren’t I a bit too small? My gaze traveled to a small hand on the servant’s shoulder—it was tiny like the limb of a doll. In shock, I summoned my strength. The tiny hand rose in the air. Huh?
I tried my best to swivel my head around to take a look around the room I was in, but my body didn’t move the way I wanted it to. All the while, the servant gently cooed at me. I was certain that this was my room, albeit much cleaner than I remembered. Finally, I spotted a large, full-length mirror behind them…and reflected in the mirror, cradled in the arms of a servant, was a baby staring back at me.
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I quickly began to cry louder. The servant seemed troubled, but I didn’t care. I’d died, only to become a baby again—who could blame me for wanting to shed a few tears? It seemed that babies had extreme mood swings, though, because after a good cry, I calmed down and fell asleep. I was only a little tired, but babies easily slumbered.
When I woke up, I had regained my composure, but my mouth moved clumsily and hindered me from speaking properly. Even if I wanted to speak with my servant, I had no means of communicating. I feel like this servant never worked here when I was alive.
I must’ve been reincarnated. I had read about it in a book many years ago. The life where I’d been executed was my previous one, and I’d gotten reincarnated into this current world. But as chance would have it, I was reborn into the same manor that I’d once lived in.
I was dying to know who I’d been reincarnated as. In my previous life, no one in the manor had been pregnant—was I in the distant future? While I pondered, another figure entered the room. The servant addressed the newcomer as “madam.”
I did my best to twist my body toward the door and spotted my mother. I had never seen her look this young before. She had the same silky, black hair as me, and her face was lovely like a doll’s. At first, I suspected that this lady merely resembled my mother, but her voice, mannerisms, and gestures made it clear that she was indeed the parent I remembered.
She made no movement to hold me and only cast a passing glance before she left the room. As I had thought, she looked completely uninterested in me. My parents’ marriage was simply for convenience, and my mother held no regard for her daughter. Even when I’d been trapped in prison, not once did she drop by for a visit.
It was only when I saw her cold attitude that I was finally able to grasp my situation. I’d been born again as Serena Rosenberg—I would live my life a second time from when I was a baby.
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Just because I understood my situation didn’t mean that I could do much. Babies were powerless. If I suddenly burst into eloquent speech, everyone would find me odd. And so, I chose to spend this time to think.
I’d only met my untimely death because I lacked talented allies. If I’d had access to those, Eleanor would’ve died long ago, and I would’ve become queen. In my past life, I hadn’t been blessed with competent people. It was essential to find loyal servants in my new life who would work tirelessly and do my bidding.
The main issue now was how to gather them. Since I could barely crawl from my bed, I had plenty of time to come up with a plan.
I eventually cooked up a perfect idea. To execute my scheme, it was imperative to act the part of a pure, just, and benevolent child. I’d always been a splendid person, of course, but I had to act duplicitously kind like Eleanor and pretend to be saintly.
And so, starting from my third birthday, I always thought about what my archnemesis Eleanor would do and acted mindfully. In my previous life, if a servant dropped and shattered a vase, I would crack a witty joke.
“Oh, that vase is more expensive than you. If I drop you from the room, will you shatter into pieces?”
However, in this life, I expressed sentiments that didn’t come from the bottom of my heart.
“Are you all right? Are you hurt? You’re more important than the vase.”
When a servant spilled tea on my clothes, I would normally have an elegant response at the ready.
“Why don’t I soak your clothes with your blood?”
Now, I showed kindness which I, privately, found tacky.
“Hmm, perhaps I shall dye my clothes in the tea’s color. It would look lovely.”
When my servant made a mistake with my schedule, I usually had an intelligent word or two to offer.
“I suppose I know what your future plans will be.”
Now, I chose to lie.
“Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t very eager about that plan anyway.”
Thanks to my mindfulness, the servants spoke of me in glowing terms, and my reputation in the duke’s manor rose higher than ever.
“Lady Serena is so benevolent!”
“Lady Serena is so virtuous at such a young age!”
How could everyone fall for such an obviously manipulative act? I thought that they were all crazy; no human could possibly be this selfless. But now, I knew how Eleanor cunningly grasped the hearts of others and beguiled them. No doubt Prince Edward had been tricked by that wicked woman who acted like a saint!
I also worked hard on my education. I’d mastered etiquette in my previous life, so that wasn’t much of an issue, but it was essential for me to become stronger so that I would never meet such a grisly end again. I learned equestrian skills, swordplay, and self-defense techniques—skills that normally no noblewoman should fixate upon. The moment I’d been restrained and forced to my death had traumatized me.
I wanted to train myself so that I would never be treated with such insolence again. Here, in my second chance at life, I didn’t care who it was—no one had the right to touch me as they pleased.
I also worked hard on my magical studies. The duke’s household frequently produced people with great magical power, but because I hadn’t had much mana in my previous life, I didn’t take my studies seriously.
However, magic was essential in this world. And so, even from infancy, I secretly trained to heighten my magical abilities. Repeatedly chanting basic spells and envisioning how to use mana heightened one’s magical prowess. As long as one had the knowledge, any toddler could cast spells.
I had all the time in the world. My training worked in my favor, and my magical abilities and mana grew exponentially. When I turned six, my first magical teacher was utterly astonished.
“Lady Serena, you have superb talent for magic!” she gasped.
Of course I did! I’d trained hard since I was a baby and was on a completely different level from any normal child. The one mysterious factor was that my knowledge of magic was surprisingly vast.
Had I always been such an expert in this field? I asked myself. Our manor had numerous books on magic, but I hadn’t read many of them. Yet, puzzlingly enough, I was able to recall much of their contents. I even remembered the books I’d never opened. I also had a feeling a book that was supposed to have existed in this manor had vanished. While I was confused about these differences, my magical powers grew.
By the time I was eight, I had learned mid-level spells. Though those around me showered me with praise, I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted enough power to burn that irksome Rosewood Academy to the ground. I studied hard every day, hoping to one day wipe out my friends and teachers who had forsaken me in one fell swoop.