So, I look like this.'
Char brushed the mirror carelessly.
The cold glass felt awkward.
Her hands trembled.
On a long silver sword, the handle had a blue jewel infused into it.
It's the view that the Emperor saw whenever he stood in front of a mirror holding Keira.
But now, what she saw in the mirror is not a long sword but a person.
"Charlize Ronan."
The youngest daughter of archduke family. She repeated the name of hers that she remembered. Her voice was clear and solid like a transparent diamond.
Her clear features were fascinating to her. Long lashes. A cute face.
It is her face. She found it hard to believe because she traveled over hundreds of years through time.
She wiped the droplets tears from her reddish eyes with her fingers.
'I can shed tears.'
She silently thought to herself.
Her eyes were blue and mysterious and the rims around her eyes were the kind of dark color that's impossible not to stare at. Her ash blond hair matched well with her clear skin. It was not a perfectly clear blonde. It was soft and pale.
She pulled herself together.
As she stepped outside of the room, fresh air rushed in.
'…the summer smell.'
Before she returned, summer was the season she hated the most because it's the season when she was born. She's always been considered a sinner because the grand duchess died while giving birth to her. Being young, she felt reluctant to go outside in the spring. Now it was different. The Archduke castle is the same as she remembered in her memory.
She ran into maids in the hallway. They all had blank faces.
"What year is this?"
The maids were surprised that she asked them a question rather than by the question itself.
Her dark energy was gone entirely and instead, she's shined brightly like the glistening sun.
The maid swallowed silently.
"This year is the Imperial Year 298, my Lady."
She quietly contemplated the answer she was just given. Facing something she's never known, a maid raised her gaze.
Around Char's eyes are red. Her blue eyes, with clear tears looked mysterious. Was she weeping?
The maid paused for a moment. She looks at her as if her lady was possessed. Strangely, she felt a destructive explosion in that tiny body.
A great sense of pressure that she should not overlook. A kind of overwhelming energy that she's never felt before.
'What's happening to me?'
The maid tried to get her head together. She was fascinated by Charlize but she was only allowed to be for a split second.
Archduke and two young masters treated Char very poorly and every single maid knew about this. Archduke thought that the reason for the loss of the harmonious family was because Charlize was born.
That was why Char grew up neglected in the Archduke's family.
"It is time for the master to return, my lady…"
In case Char could be hurt by what archduke said to her, the maid blurted it without thinking about it. It was a nudge for Charlize to go into her room.
No longer contemplating, Cha looked directly at the maid.
"I'm not going into the room."
"Pardon?"
"I've lost all my desire to avoid my family, or please them or to hold any grudge against them."
The 13-year-old Charlize just said something the maid did not understand. Before her return, she was naïve enough to believe that her family could love her if she attained the Level of Mastery.
She tried so hard not to hate her family even when they blamed her for the death of the Grand Duchess. Now, she had given up all her childlike delusions.
Char didn't do anything wrong.
Being alive should not be a sin.
Being born is being born and there was no reason to take responsibility for someone's sadness as a result of you being born even if a death is the price of your birth.
"I won't apologize."
Char smiled brightly. It was a kind of smile so alluring that anybody who looked at it might believe the rumor that she's a child of a fairy is true.
The maid felt an urge to step aside. For some reason, she could not breathe with ease.
Charlize walked gently. She looked at all the surprised faces of the maids and servants but did not blink an eye.
'I traveled exactly 400 years back in time.'
Imperial Year 298.
She returned as a thirteen-year-old girl. So many years she endured as Keira. She had no clue on how she returned or why she returned.
She just believed that God miraculously responded to her earnest prayer. She felt the 'energy of Ehirate,' still alive and breathing in her body. No fragments left of it but it was infused into her soul, she realized intuitively.
'I feel it, all of it.'
Emperors had poured so much mana into Keira.
They assumed mana ran out but in fact, mana didn't just disappear into thin air.
The mana that emperors poured into Keira was alive and breathing. The enormous amount of mana accumulated over the centuries.
I just knew, not out of arrogance but out of conviction.
'I am strong.'
The level of her power had never been seen in history and would never be ever again.
Before her returning, her power was the level of 'a genius beyond understanding,' but now it's almost at the level of god-like power.
It was rumored that there is a word that might describe the level that goes beyond 'Master.'
Now, she's probably even beyond that level.
There is literally no one who would be able match the power she has throughout the whole continent.
Clank.
When she reached the end of the hallway, a sword was thrown over the marble floor. To be precise, it was the sword that was pulled to the sword of Keira.
She suddenly stopped walking.
She bent down and grabbed the sword. Keira's afterimage brushed before her eyes.
'I've never been so attracted to a sword. It's more like a masterpiece of art rather than a sword.'
Not everybody was afraid of Keira because of the fact that it's a 'cursed sword.'
Artists were fascinated by Keira.
Upon holding the handle of the sword, it stuck to her as if it's a part of her body. It felt as light as air.
"M-My apologies."
The knight looked scared. He ran to her and bowed his head before her. He apologized and looked embarrassed.
It's because she was effortlessly holding the large sword, which is too heavy even for a muscular adult to lift up.
She swung his sword lightly in the air.
"I see you ran from the drill hall. Your sword flew away in the middle of sparring with someone."
"How did you know.... And, how…"
The knight's face looked ashamed. He looked at her handed the sword to the knight. As everyone did, she could not withstand the lack of human warmth the knight expressed for her.
She noticed it before she returned. She always assumed it was just how people showed their dislike for her.
But now, it seemed it was more like jealousy and a feeling of hidden deprivation upon witnessing a genius.
She suddenly realized that.
'The reason why I did not have a teacher before the return is not because I killed the grand duchess.'
It's just no one was good enough to teach her. No one had the talent that she did.
She felt sad because she had to hide her talents because of the Archduke family's resentment of her.
The drill hall was close by. All of the knights suddenly stopped training and looked at her.
Why didn't she know that before?
It wasn't that they were looking at her with a look of scorn.
They were jealous of but at the same time, they admired her brilliant talent.
She looked at a knight who was biting his lips.
"You have a habit of wielding a sword with your shoulders too tense. Just use this much force."
She grabbed the knight by the shoulder and pressed it down. Looking startled, the knight lowered his shoulders down.
"If you wield a sword this way, you will never drop it again in the middle of a fight."
She let go of the knight's hand. A quiet-faced girl. A small girl.
She was a young lady but the knight was not offended by her instructions. His face blushed after a moment.
"Thank you, my lady."
She traveled back in time to get here. The situation was the same as before but she no longer had the mind of a clumsy thirteen-year-old.
Her rational mind grew, matured cold and calculating over the course of hundreds of years. She could wield her sword in her sleep.
Having swallowed a thing of evil, the Ehirate, she now instantly recognized the weakness of her opponents and the fastest way to double up on her strengths.
The knight later became a trustworthy Master soldier and the closest advisor of the first young master.
The knight's trembling gaze poured over on the back of Charlize.
"Why did the princess summon us?"
"If I knew that, would I be scared right now?"
The maids whispered among themselves because they sensed a sudden change in her.
She finished her tour of the Archduke's Castle after checking every guest room.
Not sure whether it's lucky or unlucky, she didn't run into her family.
The door opened. She went in walking smoothly and in a straight line.
That alone, she had the most dominant presence in the room.
All the maids became silent.
"The reason for summoning you, ladies…"
She sat at the top of the table and crossed her lefts.
Her white calves were visible at a glance. Sensing the mysterious force in the little girl, they looked at each other and bent down their backs.
"Maybe you already know."
"..."
"No? You've forgotten about it, and I'm the only one who remembered everything?"
Despite her beautiful smile, shivers went up on their backs upon hearing that.
"Then," she said, "I have to remind you."
"You tried to pour a hot cup of tea on me when I was a kid, pretending it was an accident."
Her pointer finger moved.
"You hid a rat body in my favorite blanket."
The maids took a quick breath.
The bullying of the princess had been taking place under the unspoken permission of the master and the young masters. But she never has protested it. They thought it's just way it's supposed to be. No?
"You put bugs in my breakfast soup."
She pointed her finger at the guilty maids and recited the charges.
A face of a maid turned pale white and some faces of other maids turned blue.
"You ripped the back of my dress to humiliate me."
"I have committed a mortal sin, my lady!"
The maids, who now understood the situation fell flat on the floor.
"I apologize, my lady!"
"Forgive me."
"I won't do that again."
A cold silence fell on the lobby.
Before the return, she had tolerated both insult and rudeness from everyone. Now, she no longer had the intention of putting up with it.
There is no need to respect your opponent who does not respect you.
"Forgiveness is not the word the perpetrator should say."
Her voice sounded sweet and friendly, but it was cold and without warmth like a sharpened sword.
Revenge doesn't require sensitivity.
There is no anger to waste on those who aren't the target of your revenge but there is a need to vent once in a while.
She was not going to let anyone else disrespect her. A cold and determined voice broke the silence in the space.
"Every one of you is fired..