I Start with a Bad Hand!

In the carriage heading to the ducal house, it was just Cedric and me. 

‘Thank goodness it’s raining today,’ I thought. If it weren’t for the sound of rain tapping on the carriage roof, the silence inside would have felt even more awkward. Cedric, irritatingly enough, held a blanket awkwardly in his arms, neither offering it to me nor using it himself, and sat across from me.

“I’ve arranged a meeting with the Duke.”

“Okay.”

“As you said, there really was… evidence in that room.”

I had told Hayden that everything was sorted out and that Roxanne had been accepted, but in truth, there were still unresolved issues between us. Roxanne hadn’t yet mentioned the documents to the Duke. That was at my request.

With tightly pressed lips, Roxanne had been silent for a long time before stammering to me.

“Thank you for giving me time to sort things out.”

“I didn’t do it for you, cough, so there’s no need to thank me.”

Wiping the cold sweat from my forehead, I replied, and Roxanne, her face slightly flushed, bowed her head.

“Even so…”

When I didn’t respond further, Roxanne noted that I didn’t look well and handed me a handkerchief. I refused it, taking out my own handkerchief from my pocket instead.

“I asked for a carriage from the ducal house… Cedric, I mean… Sir Cedric is waiting below… Oh, Dietrich! Are you okay?”

As soon as the tension from seeing Hayden’s back eased, I began to cough violently, covering my mouth with the handkerchief from my pocket. At some point, the black handkerchief was completely soaked with blood, and I felt something round in my hand. At that moment, I could finally relax.

‘I did it. I was right.’

As I staggered with blood-stained lips, Roxanne hurriedly tried to support me, but someone pushed her aside and approached me. The person who grabbed me as I licked the inside of my mouth was… Cedric.

“Ugh.”

Whether it was the metallic taste filling my mouth, the sudden release of tension at the thought that it was finally over, or Cedric’s oddly concerned yet shameless expression, I retched.

The meeting with the ducal house was postponed by a week because of this.

“The necklace…”

Today, as the carriage from the ducal house arrived, neither Cedric nor I spoke. He glanced at the necklace made from Dietrich’s soul fragment that I had taken out and worn over my dress. Cedric had once crushed this very necklace.

I instinctively placed my hand on the necklace. From imprisoning Hayden, I had acquired one soul fragment, flanked by white and slightly blue magic stones.

“You really need to be careful now. If you break it again, I won’t be able to do anything.”

The next day, after retching from seeing Cedric’s face, I visited the priest. Hearing the whole story, the priest sighed, rubbed his forehead, and asked for divine intervention before sternly advising me.

“What are these new beads on the sides?”

Feeling a bit embarrassed by his constant invocations, I asked as I sat beside the priest, who was crafting the necklace.

“They’re soul amplifiers. Now that there’s so little of Dietrich left in this world, we have to use magic to draw out her power.”

“Why didn’t you mention such a good thing earlier…?”

“But there’s a catch… Because we’ve artificially boosted her power with magic, the new beads are less durable than the previous ones.”

As the priest fastened the necklace around my neck, he said,

“Yes, so be careful.”

“I understand. I won’t drop it or break it.”

“No, that’s obvious. You must be careful about that.”

With a sharp smack on my back, the priest, looking stern, added,

“Be careful not to let this soul run wild. Make sure it doesn’t break not just from external forces but also from within. Keep it from exploding.”

“Break from within?”

“Yes, I mean don’t stimulate the soul inside to exert more power than necessary. Do you understand?”

“Yes…”

“Judging by your expression, I don’t think you really get it.”

At that moment, I nodded vaguely, not fully comprehending his words. I thought, surely nothing like that would happen. I had lived close to two and a half years here with Dietrich, who was usually calm and didn’t easily lose control.

“You’re late.”

But the moment I saw the Duke in front of me, I had a feeling I understood what he had been trying to warn me about.

In the room prepared for the banquet, the Duke sat at the head of a large table. I was guided to the far end, so far that I couldn’t see his face clearly unless I focused.

“I heard from Cedric. You are…”

My real daughter, or that you were indeed our daughter. You’ve had a hard time. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. Will you forgive us? Those were the kinds of words I expected, vaguely. I bowed my head, waiting for the cliché phrases to follow.

“You are quite exceptional.”

But the words that came out of the Duke’s mouth were entirely different. I snapped my head up to look at him. I needed to check if this was really the Duke of Elexion or if I had somehow returned to my original world and possessed someone in the middle of a job interview.

At that moment, something fragile within me, which had been precariously supported, seemed to crumble. No, it felt like it had crumbled completely.

Disappointment and heartbreak. I had never expected such things between me and the Duke. To be honest, the love or hatred I held for my drama club professor was probably greater than anything I felt towards the Duke of Elexion.

‘No, I didn’t expect a tearful family reunion, but this is a bit much…’

The Duke’s face, sitting at the far end of the long table, looked as if he were an interviewer. He wore glasses and carefully examined documents one by one, mumbling to himself.

“Second in entrance exams, top of the class twice, better grades than Evan at one point.”

“…”

It seemed the documents he was examining were records of my life and achievements. How did he get those? I found the answer easily.

When I glanced at Cedric sitting beside the Duke, I noticed he avoided my gaze slightly.

‘That bastard… He handed over my personal information without asking me?’

The Duke glanced at me, then spoke in a commanding tone.

“Answer.”

“…Yes. That’s correct.”

“You need to undergo etiquette training again.”

The Duke clicked his tongue lightly, and I felt an indescribable emotion. Disappointment, despite expecting nothing from the Duke. A sense of deprivation, despite having no expectations. Feelings I shouldn’t have had towards him.

“Won the autumn hunting festival. Led the imperial academy to victory in the friendly competition. Hmm. Your grades have dropped recently, but you won the arts festival. Tsk. Wasted effort. From now on, don’t spend your time and emotions on such worthless activities. As an Elexion, you should be able to abandon things that have no value to you.”

As he listed my accomplishments and followed them with dismissive remarks, I closed my gaping mouth. At that moment, I felt something lightly tickling my cheek. Thinking it was a strand of hair, I wiped my cheek, but what came off on my hand was neither hair nor an eyelash, but a transparent liquid.

‘What? Am I… crying?’

The Duke was still absorbed in his documents, and Cedric was preoccupied with watching the Duke’s mood. I didn’t know what to do with the tears that kept flowing despite my attempts to wipe them away.

‘So this is what Dietrich is feeling.’

When that thought crossed my mind, my heart sank. Unlike with the Duke, Dietrich was not just a stranger to me. Feeling her heart break at the Duke’s words, which meant nothing to me, was agonizing in a completely different way.

“When you were around four years old… you first came here.”

The Duke, oblivious to his child’s feelings, continued to speak in that same stiff, monotonous voice. He only briefly raised an eyebrow when he noticed my tears. Or maybe he didn’t notice at all. The tears blurred my vision, and the long table between us meant I couldn’t be sure if he even saw me crying.

“Unlike Cedric, you were slow to learn back then.”

So what? Even at this rare reunion, the Duke was just criticizing me. And wasn’t it natural? Cedric had been raised with the Duke’s education from birth, while Dietrich had not. If two people raised in different environments learned at the same pace, wouldn’t that mean the Duke’s education was ineffective?

“But a gem shows its quality even in a muddy field. From now on, live up to the Elexion bloodline,”

“I was five years old.”

A strange voice escaped my lips. Cedric, who had been sitting with his head bowed, and the Duke, who had been gazing wistfully out the window, both turned to look at me.

‘That wasn’t me… Why did I…?’

Even I, who had been half-listening to the Duke’s droning due to his premature senility, took a moment to realize I had interrupted. I must have been really annoyed by him to unconsciously correct him.

“What?”

The Duke’s voice carried a hint of annoyance as he asked again. I was about to make an excuse when,

“I was five years old when I entered the ducal house.”

The voice came out again on its own. I was taken aback by this unexpected occurrence. The voice was mine, but it wasn’t coming out by my will. Just as I was about to speak, something seemed to block my vocal cords, preventing the sound from coming out properly. No, it wasn’t my vocal cords. Even my lips wouldn’t part as I wished. I could only sit there, silently, in response to the Duke’s question.

‘This is the first time my words haven’t come out as I intended… Never before…’

Then I remembered the priest’s words.

“It’s a soul amplifier.”

“Be careful not to let this soul run wild. Make sure it doesn’t break from within as well as from external forces. Keep it from exploding.”

“Don’t stimulate the soul within to exert more power than necessary.”

‘Damn. This is what he meant by stimulation? How am I supposed to control this?’

My mind was a chaotic mess when suddenly, another involuntary statement escaped my lips.

“What about Roxanne?”

“Roxanne?”

“Roxie, stop it.”

The Duke’s questioning and Cedric’s low warning came simultaneously, sending a shiver down my spine. The tone of the Duke’s inquiry was so emotionless, and the ‘nickname’ from Cedric’s mouth was directed precisely at me.

“Stop being pathetic. How long are you going to act clueless? ‘Roxanne’ is you. You need to correct this now, so don’t make any more mistakes.”

The Duke’s stern words made my tears well up again involuntarily. With a quick gesture, Cedric called over the steward, who handed me a handkerchief. But I, or rather ‘Dietrich,’ didn’t accept it.

“You said it didn’t matter. Even if I’m not of Elexion blood… you said I already had the qualities of an Elexion, and ‘because of that,’ you loved her.”

“…What?”

The Duke frowned slightly, looking puzzled. Even I couldn’t fully understand what Dietrich meant by that. I had no memory of hearing such words from the Duke. And if he had said them, I wouldn’t have been the one to hear them. So what was Dietrich talking about?

“Stop the nonsense. I told you not to worry about things that don’t matter. I already have enough to deal with because of you two.”

Tears welled up once more, as if struck by a dull hammer to the chest. It would have been better if someone actually hit me with a hammer—at least then, it would be a tangible attack that I could block or dodge. Intangible wounds, however, were harder to confirm and took longer to heal. The old wounds from the ducal house continued to batter Dietrich’s heart relentlessly.

Since the moment the Duke last spoke, Dietrich hadn’t stopped crying, but her words remained steady. Her breath was short and quick, yet her voice flowed clearly from her strong diaphragm.

‘Is this Dietrich’s real voice?’

When I spoke using Dietrich’s body, I always used a slow, low voice, just as my original self did. But now, a voice that suited Dietrich’s body and soul was emerging, and it felt strange. By then, I decided to just let it happen.

“So… ‘back then,’ you abandoned me because I wasn’t good enough.”

…Back then? My heart raced at her words. No, I didn’t have my own body, so that wasn’t possible. But if I did have my heart, it would have been pounding because of Dietrich’s words. ‘Back then’ implied…

‘That means she remembers everything from before… before she turned back time.’

As I became a mere spectator to this moment, I was too stunned to think clearly. Dietrich, who hadn’t taken the handkerchief offered by the steward, was in a complete mess, and Cedric, unable to bear it any longer, stood up and walked towards us.

At that moment, Dietrich spoke again, in a markedly different tone.

“You should have at least been sincere to her.”

Her previous words had come from a chest so tight it was hard to breathe. Now, with a deep sigh, she spoke. The voice, laden with slow despondency, was weak and drained of energy. What was she despairing over? I couldn’t tell.

“You should have just truly loved her, raised her with affection, and been unable to abandon her because of it.”

Then I could understand why it was her and not me, why I was abandoned ‘back then.’

The stinging sensation on my cheeks from the fresh tears over old tear tracks was sharp. In the grand hall of the ducal house, no one made a sound.

“Then this moment wouldn’t be so miserable.”

“Stop it. Stand up. You’re being emotional right now.”

Cedric roughly grabbed my arm, and at the same time, Dietrich spoke for the last time.

“I’d like to discard something worthless for once, too, as an Elexion.”

Dietrich brushed off Cedric’s hand and muttered. Instinctively, I knew this was her final statement to the ducal house and her family.

“I won’t return to the ducal house.”

I had to cough violently to expel the blood clots in my throat. The final soul fragments tumbled out onto the table—black and in multiple shards.

‘…The last fragments have shattered?’

Shards, even at the very end. The final, unbreakable pieces broken apart on the white tablecloth of the ducal house, stained with blood. I flexed my body, now moving of my own accord.

“Of course, if you’re fine with my corpse, you can take it in just a little while.”

These last words came from me, the outsider who had to deal with the situation, the one who didn’t love them at all.