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The boy glanced around the storage room, which the servant had thoroughly trashed, and smiled with satisfaction.

“You know how terrifying Lady Jesper can be, right? If you don’t want to end up copying etiquette books again, you’d better clean this up properly, Reshia Elpinard. You need to prove you’re worthy of the Elpinard name, even if it’s just in this way, don’t you think?”

Reshia Elpinard.  

The moment I heard that name, the confusion in my mind cleared up instantly, and my tangled memories came into sharp focus.  

That was *my* name.

‘Hah…’

My name is Reshia Elpinard?  

There was a significant problem with that.  

‘Elpinard…’  

That was the family of the White Mage who constantly butted heads with me!

Have I really been reincarnated into the family of that fussy noble?  

My mind rang with a loud ‘ding!’

***

The Elpinard Ducal House.  

A prestigious family that, when the Empire’s history began, was second only to the imperial family itself.  

They were the keepers of an ancient prophecy said to have been delivered by the gods who helped found the Empire and had produced countless scholars.  

In other words, this was a family with tradition, power, and renown in abundance.

The White Mage who was my companion on the expedition was the second son of that illustrious ducal house.  

Naturally, he had an exceptionally high opinion of himself.  

He deeply resented that I, a black mage from the slums, was included in the expedition.  

After all, white mages and black mages are natural enemies.  

White mages use the mana they cultivate within themselves through training, while black mages manipulate the mana that flows freely in nature.  

Even though both are mages, the process of wielding their power is completely different.  

White mages considered black mages heretical for using the mana of nature without effort, while black mages scorned white mages as fools for hoarding mana in their bodies when there was so much available in the world.

‘That’s why we fought a lot at first.’

It wasn’t just our views on magic; our values clashed as well, given that he was a typical noble and I was a commoner who had grown up in the slums.  

Well, they say that fighting can lead to friendship, and by the end, we became close enough to call each other friends.

‘Wait, could my father be *that* guy?’

A horrifying thought crossed my mind, but when I probed my body’s memories, I was relieved to find that wasn’t the case.  

My father was the Duke of Elpinard, but I wasn’t his biological daughter. I had been adopted due to a series of complicated circumstances.

‘So that means…’

Legally, I’m the much younger…

‘Younger sister?’

Ugh.  

It wasn’t the worst, but it was still pretty dreadful.

The absurdity of the situation made my body tremble, and the mischievous boy, apparently thinking it was because of his intimidation, smirked.

“Hmph. To think we have to call someone like you, who probably crawled out of some gutter, our aunt. A ‘Saint’? More like a stupid little girl.”

With a snort, the boy left the storage room with his servant in tow, closing the door with a loud bang. I carefully replayed the words he had said in my mind.

A Saint.

‘A black mage who only trusted in what they could control, now a Saint?’

But it was true.  

On the day ‘Reshia’ was born, there had been a prophecy, supposedly received by that quack priest Bael from the gods.  

I didn’t know the exact details, but it was because of that prophecy that I, a commoner, had been officially recognized as a Saint.

This was the first time in history that a newborn had been declared a Saint, putting the central church in a difficult position.  

The church’s sanctuaries were meant for the holy practices of clerics, not for raising infants.  

But sending the Saint to an orphanage run by the church wasn’t an option either.

After much deliberation, the central church decided to find a noble family to adopt and raise the child until she was old enough to be inducted into the sanctuary.

‘They must have sought out a noble family to give the commoner Saint a plausible status,’ I thought.  

And if they could forge ties with a powerful family and secure donations for the sanctuary, all the better.  

It was with these obvious ulterior motives that the church approached the Elpinard Ducal House.

The family members of the Elpinard House weren’t exactly thrilled about the stone that had suddenly rolled into their household, backed by the church’s prophecy.  

‘Of course, they wouldn’t be.’

A commoner noblewoman with no blood ties to the noble Elpinard lineage.  

Moreover, even after being recognized by the church, ‘Reshia’ had yet to show any powers befitting a Saint, even years later.  

As a result, whispers were beginning to circulate: ‘Is she really the true Saint?’

‘And on top of that, there were complaints about her behavior not being very saintly…’  

The reason I had ended up scrubbing down a storage room was because I had repeatedly skipped etiquette lessons.  

But that, in truth, was the doing of the boy who had just caused a ruckus.

‘He told me the lessons were canceled, saying Lady Jesper’s family had some major issue and that she wouldn’t be teaching for a while.’

I had believed him and hadn’t attended the lessons for a whole week.  

Unaware of the situation, Lady Jesper was furious after being stood up for a week.  

She had ordered me to ‘clean the storage room and reflect on how you should treat your teacher and your lessons!’

I might have held the title of a duke’s daughter, but I was really just a burden forced upon the Elpinard House by the central church.  

No one was going to step in and say, ‘How could you make the young lady clean!’  

Even the central church, which had recognized me as a Saint, had practically abandoned me to the duke’s household, so I had no allies whatsoever.

Sniffle. Sniffle.  

Recalling how upsetting this situation must have been for a child, tears started to well up.  

Of course, it wasn’t because I *wanted* to cry.

I had regained the memories of my past life, but this body was still under the control of Reshia’s instincts. The stronger influence on my physical responses was clearly Reshia’s, which meant my sharp mind was not being fully supported by this timid body.

‘What a headache.’

Reshia had always been an incredibly timid child, one who would shrink at the slightest raised voice. Her natural timidity had been amplified many times over from having to endure the cold and distant atmosphere of the ducal household. Even now, after being deceived by that so-called nephew and punished as a result, she could only sniffle and continue cleaning the storage room without a single word of protest.

The thought that my body might not cooperate with my thoughts in the future left me feeling utterly discouraged.

‘Anyway…’

I glanced around the mess that was the storage room and came to a conclusion.

‘Now is not the time to be stuck here cleaning.’

There was a possibility that the Mad Dragon hadn’t been properly slain. I needed to inform my old comrades from the expedition about the strange force I had discovered before I died. If my suspicions were correct, the dragon might be hiding, pretending to be dead, while it gathered more dangerous power. 

Years had already been wasted, so time was of the essence.

‘Given my current situation, who would be the easiest to approach…?’

Two faces immediately came to mind, without hesitation. The quack priest who had declared Reshia to be a Saint, and the noble young master who was legally Reshia’s older brother (ugh).

‘Hmm.’

Neither option was appealing in the slightest.

‘This must be what it feels like to choose between dog poop and cow dung…’

A sigh escaped me. But what was even more frustrating was the state of my body. Despite my intentions, Reshia’s timid instincts kicked in, making her pick up the rag again with the thought, ‘I-I have to clean! If I don’t, I’ll get in trouble again! I don’t want to copy etiquette books!’

And I couldn’t stop it.

Damn it.

‘This is not the time for this!’

I continued to sniffle as I threw the rag back onto the floor. Reshia’s instincts recoiled in shock, but I wiped away the tears indifferently.