Prologue
I’VE LIVED SUCH A LONELY LIFE.
That thought ran through my head as I lay dying at the age of fifteen.
At the end of my life, I was all alone.
My only comfort was the potted plant that bloomed just once a year. It was the only witness to my final breath.
I was born into a baron’s family. Ever since I was little, I loved plants and flowers, and I helped take care of the estate’s garden for as long as I could remember.
In my kingdom, children participate in a Baptism ceremony when they turn five years old, where the gods bestow upon them their future Occupation. My bad luck started when the gods designated me a maid.
To my parents, I’d struck out because being a maid was a profession for losers. They were very prideful, ambitious people, so they’d had high hopes for their children’s futures. They’d wanted us to get glamorous jobs that would boost their own reputations. That’s why they were furious with my results and had apparently wanted to throw me out of the house.
Instead, due to their pride and wanting to avoid shame on the family name, they taught me manners, proper etiquette, reading, writing, and arithmetic so I could at least be hired by a family of good standing. When I didn’t learn quickly, my tutor would whip me, and no amount of tears would save me from punishment.
When I was around ten years old, my parents sent me away when they learned a certain local family was seeking a maid. I worked for that family until I contracted an incurable illness at nearly fifteen. My employers tried to send me back to my family, but my parents refused to take me. At their wits’ end, my employers kept me isolated in a shabby hut at the edge of their estate.
I was all alone, with no one to visit me.
I want somebody to love me. Somebody to look at me. Please, just one person!
That was my only wish at the end of my short life, one I thought would never come true.
I’m sorry I can’t take care of you anymore…
I weakly reached out toward my potted plant, but my arm fell limply to the floor.
For a moment I thought I was enveloped by a strange green, holy light, but surely it was just a hallucination in my dying moments.
The next moment, everything went dark.
✦ ✦ ✦
Just as my vision went black, things suddenly got bright again. I couldn’t open my eyes, but I could feel the sensation of light on them. Then air rushed into my lungs, so suddenly that I cried out in surprise.
“Master! Lord Henry! The baby is born! You have an adorable little daughter!” a woman’s voice helpfully filled me in on the situation.
But I thought I just died?
Amid my confusion, I was washed and then wrapped in a soft, cosy blanket. Suddenly, there was another soft sensation, and I realized someone else had picked me up with large, warm hands.
“She’s beautiful! Thank you, Rose.”
I heard a kissing sound next to my ear.
“Is this my sister?” I heard a voice say as a tiny finger poked my cheek.
Then I heard the babble of a slightly higher baby voice and felt an even tinier hand smack my forehead.
“Now, now. Be nice to your new little sister, you two,” said a gentle, kind-sounding woman.
“Whatser name, Daddy?” came a clumsy little boy’s voice.
“What do you think, Rose? Shall we go with Daisy after all?”
“Yes, first Dahlia and now Daisy. We decided all our girls would be flowers, remember?”
The people trying to decide on my name had to be my parents.
I’ve been reincarnated!
I finally grasped my situation.
I had been reborn as Daisy von Preslaria, and it wasn’t very long after my birth that I realized another soul resided in “my” body. There was the one named Daisy who had naturally developed from the time of her conception, and then there was me. With my reincarnation, both of our souls lived in the same body.
The Preslaria family, which included my parents and my older brother and sister, showered me with love. As time went on, I made the decision to disappear and let Daisy be the only one to inhabit this body. The love my new family gave me was truly my dying wish being granted. I was happy every single day, and I was more than satisfied.
Even little Daisy thought of me as her older sister and adored me; she was so cute. But sharing two souls in one body was both very unnatural and unstable. If I stayed around, Daisy, who was the true owner of the body, might disappear for some reason. After all, this body belonged to her. I had no right to take it over.
I decided to only leave the memories of the things I’d learned in my past life to Daisy so she wouldn’t be at a disadvantage. I thought the best decision would be to take all the unpleasant memories with me and disappear.
“I wish you nothing but happiness, Daisy.”
“Are you leaving, Sis? I want us to stay together forever. I don’t want you to leave!”
Because of her internal dialogue with me, Daisy had grown to be quite a mature child. She sadly tried to stop me, but I shook my head.
“This body belongs to you, so I can’t. Once I disappear, you’ll forget about me. But I promise to continue watching over you from somewhere, okay?”
Thank you, Preslaria family. Father, Mother, and my tiny older brother and sister. And thank you, adorable Daisy. And gods, if it was you who preserved my memories when I was reincarnated, thank you so much. The days I spent with Daisy in the Preslaria house were the happiest of my life.
Around Daisy’s fourth birthday, I hugged her as she protested having to say goodbye to me. My consciousness was enveloped by a green light, and it felt like many green entities were welcoming me as I faded away from within Daisy. The moment I disappeared, my heart was filled with love, so I had absolutely no regrets.