“Aren’t you supposed to be immortal too? Like the Emperor.”

Clavis asked secretly as if discussing something important.

So Rena couldn’t help but laugh.

“I don’t know why you’re asking that again. You’ve seen it a few times already.”

How absurd. It was clear what kind of thinking lies behind the action of checking one thing over and over again.

So Rena rather sympathized with this man who was still not afraid of her.

She could inflict pain on this man too if she wanted to, and she could be as merciless as he had done to her in the past, but Rena didn’t.

The reason for the mercy that Rena had never received was simple.

That was because Rena had memorized a poem.

***

In my lifetime, I have accumulated countless amounts of gold.

The balance of my mind is as much as the waves of sunlight

but I don’t want to be ruined just because I’m hurt.

Because I know that it’s myself who makes me weak.

Yet to you who hate me

I’d rather offer flowers.

—

Rena has loved books since childhood.

She liked essays and prose books, and she liked novels and poetry. She cherished the sentences that were made with pretty expressions.

Among them, the one that Rena most loved was the poetry of Vitra, the author of the Empire’s classics.

His sentences were as warm as the midday sun, and Rena memorized all those many verses.

It was only then that she could bear the loneliness.

.

.

.

“Master will be happy too.”

“This is what Master ordered.”

“If you do this, Master will be disappointed.”

During her time at the villa, the words that moved little Rena always began with ‘Master’.

Although she had never met him in person, everything about

Rena was at the mercy of her father.

He could not be seen or touched, but he had absolute dominance. The world called such a being a god.

It was the same. To little Rena, her father was like a god.

And Rena, who revered her father like a god, was a child well suited to the expression ‘pitiful’.

Gentle gestures, careful gestures, and eyes full of charm.

Everything was a cry for love, and it was pitiful to see her yearning for affection.

There was a reason why the precious lady of a noble family was so pitiful.

When Rena was very young, she was sent to a villa in the suburbs. It was to yield her mother’s arms to her younger brother, who was not born yet.

Instead, there was a nanny, but Rena couldn’t hug the nanny to her heart’s content.

“Today is my last day, Miss Rena.”

“Thank you for all this time, Miss. Please be healthy.”

“Hello, Miss. A new nanny will come tomorrow.”

Rena’s nanny changed day by day.

Because they changed so often, Rena didn’t have time to get attached to them, so she couldn’t be spoiled by the nanny as much as other children in the family.

It was her father’s policy that her nanny was changed so frequently.

Viscount Ruber wanted his bloodline to be treated as masters, even if they were young.

So, to keep the presumptuous nanny from pouring out unrequited affection for Rena, or to keep Rena from following them more than necessary, he changed her caretakers every half a year at most.

Thanks to this, Rena repeatedly fell in love and got her heart broken even before she finished learning how to speak.

She shouldn’t be okay, but the fortunate thing was that Rena was quite smart.

‘It’s okay.’

Although she was young, Rena knew how to handle her loneliness.

‘I have a family.’

She wobbled to and fro like a boat, knowing where to go.

“I’ll go home one day, too.’

Rena thought that her family wasn’t the nanny that would change once she got used to the person she liked, and her family wasn’t the butler who came to check on the situation every quarter.

Rena had a family, although they only met through portraits.

Rena’s father was the god-like being who everyone agreed to name her, and decided everything about this villa.

Little Rena instinctively realized that all she has to love is her father, and that she should be loved by him.

So she prepared to be a child worthy of being loved.

Learned to wait patiently and practiced perfect etiquette. After hearing that her father liked to listen to music, she studied the violin even harder.

And when she finally met her father, Rena rejoiced with her whole body.

“Come here, Rena.”

It was her time being called by her first name, not by her title.

With that one call, Rena’s world changed.

It felt like she had finally found her place. Rena was relieved that she did not have to be thrown away any longer, and she felt like crying.

So 6 years later, the night before her 12th birthday was even worse.

Because it wasn’t the first time.

Rena was used to being abandoned by the people she trusted.

However, being used to it did not mean that there was no pain, and there were times when it was more frightening to know the reality.

For Rena, that was exactly what happened that day.

.

.

.

The abandoned child longed for affection again, not because she was foolish, but because otherwise she would die.

“Sir, I am actually 12 years old, not 10.”

It was for that reason that Rena, the subject who had been sold, spoke politely in the carriage heading west.

“Yes?”

“I, I think you have misunderstood.”

“Therefore?”

“I’m afraid that the preparation will go wrong because of that..”

Self-esteem needs to be built from the bottom.

“I’m worried..”

A child who barely managed to scrape and maintain her broken heart intact had no sense of pride.

In fact, it was more urgent to look good to this new person.

Since the life of little Rena Ruber had been so sustained up to now, Rena acted very lovingly toward the man who had bought her as if he had kidnapped her.

“Are you worried about me now?”

When Clavis asked the question as if it was absurd, Rena nodded shyly.

Clavis looked at Rena like that, and then suddenly burst into laughter.

“How did he raise a child like this?”

Clavis smiled in surprise and lifted Rena’s chin. Then he sighed as he looked at Rena who was happy even at the touch of a stranger.

“I knew he didn’t deserve to be a father, but this is a bit too much.”

Rena didn’t understand what Clavis was saying.

She felt the ridicule mixed in it, but she looked only at his mood instead of being ashamed.

This gentle submissiveness was similar to the attitude of noble concubines. Whether intentional or not, it was not the attitude that a 10-year-old child would have had.

But Viscount Ruber raised her as an irresistible, lovely animal that one could not possibly get if they were raising a daughter.

The intention was so obvious that Clavis smiled with his eyebrows furrowed.

“Your father must have thought of selling his daughter for a high price.”

He said so and caressed Rena’s soft cheek.

“I should be glad you were sold to me, right?”

Clavis’ voice was friendly with a hint of laughter, but it was an empty tenderness without substance.

There was no way a child who had lived her whole life watching people’s eyes could not have known about it. Still, Rena pretended not to know.

The way to be loved by Rena was to wait patiently, so she believed that if she looked good to him again this time, something would change.

However, the end of that waiting and faith was a deep red rift, and as a result, Rena crumbled once more.

.

.

.

‘In my lifetime, I have accumulated a lot of gold.’

Rena looked up at the sky, trembling.

‘I don’t want to be ruined just because I’m hurt.’

Inwardly she memorized a poem, and she looked at the bright red sky.

‘Because I know that it’s myself who makes me weak..’

As she squeezed her clogged breath tightly, she desperately memorized her poems.

‘Yet to you who hate me, I’d rather offer flowers.’

A single streak of tears streamed down Rena’s cheek as she vomited her last verse.

Numerous tongues clipped as if to lick her.

Rena couldn’t bear to see it, but she couldn’t turn her head completely away.

Then, the black dead who surrounded Rena as if ridiculing her appearance, whispered amongst themselves.

— She is alive.

— A living sacrifice.

— A girl.

— A young kid..

Rena bit her lip at the creepy sound like snake hissing, and suppressed her crying.

Falling into the middle of the Tomb, it only took Rena a few minutes before she was besieged by the dead.

She didn’t even have time to be surprised at the unfamiliar texture of the land and the bloody sky. The dead who smelled her scent rushed in and surrounded Rena.

There were all kinds of dead. Those that took the form of a withered human, those with horns sprouting like a crown, those that looked like dragons and snakes, and those that stood on their feet on all fours.

There was only one reason that Rena was still alive even after encountering those hideous beings. The dead were fighting among themselves over Rena.

― It’s mine. Both the blood and the flesh are my supper.

― It’s the same for everyone who feels thirsty, so don’t try to monopolize it.

― It’s a shame to rip and burn a woman. Give it to me, and I will make her my wife.

― It’s still a child. Please have mercy..

Not exactly the dead, but those beings who rule over the dead.

They argued that they would tear Rena, burn her, or make her a concubine. There was a voice that stopped them, but compared to the other cruel voices, it was too small and weak.

Rena memorized her poems in the midst of it.

She thought she would rather faint.

― Then why not share it?

After a long quarrel, someone said. Then everyone responded as if they had been waiting.

— I’ll have the guts.

— I’m fine with any part that is oily enough.

— Her face is as beautiful as mine was back then, so bring it without hurting it.

They quickly compromised, and the feeble voice that had stopped them was no longer heard.

When the conclusion was reached, the voice ceased. At the same time, the dead, who were holding each other in check, slowly began to approach.

‘You are a cold dream in midsummer.’

Rena was going crazy, so she memorized her poems again.

‘When I stretch out my hand thinking you’re like the first snow..’

A long snake started climbing up Rena’s legs. She could clearly feel the sharp scales scratching her skin. So Rena repeated the verse more desperately.

‘I wake up with only broken dreams left with nostalgia.’

Rena’s breath stopped as the dead approached. Her sobs came up from her lungs and she couldn’t even breathe properly.

So she closed her eyes tightly and vomited out her voice without realizing it.

“On a fleeting night, just me..”

Without this, she could not breathe.

“The only one left alone and lost..”

Perhaps this reading was in exchange for crying.

There was something like a large hook caught around Rena’s neck as she whispered faintly.

Rena begged earnestly at the unfamiliar touch.

Help me, save me, I hate this, save me, someone please, please..

But no matter how much she prayed, there was no savior.

Rena, abandoned again, was completely alone.

Where she had no one to look after and no one to protect her, all that was left for Rena were verses of poems.

Blessed with sorrow, Rena, thinking that it was finally over, squealed as if squeezing the last verse of the poem.

“..I’m the only one crying looking for you again.”

Nevertheless, a helping hand to Rena never came.

Instead, the world had been twisted in an unexpected direction.