‘Did I come back properly? But why do they keep calling me Rianne?’

She blinked several times to clear her blurry vision, and gradually became aware of many eyes on her. Then she realized, with a startled jolt, that faces she never expected to see were staring back at her.

“Rianne, do you have a chronic illness? You should have told us sooner! You gave us such a fright.”

“…Me? To you two?”

“Oh my… it looks like you hit your head first. Are you all right?”

The ones calling her ‘Rianne’ and asking after her were Tartie of Count Blenta’s family and Winda of Baron Shern’s family. Even if Hailey had collapsed, these were people who would surely have sneered and walked right past her, yet here they were, supporting her and helping her up.

‘Why am I……’

All she did was turn back time, so why was she with noble ladies she wasn’t even close to? Hailey found it baffling.

Could the distortion of time have changed her relationships too? Or had something else gone wrong?

Several questions flashed through her mind, and then she caught sight of the color of the hair scattered beneath her chin and nearly fainted.

“Huh? Wh-what?”

Pink? Why is my hair pink?

“Rianne, your color doesn’t look good.”

“What…?”

“Your face is pale. Are you all right? I think you need to rest.”

Tartie stroked Hailey’s back with an expression of sympathy she had never seen on her before.

…Wait. They’ve been calling me Rianne this whole time, haven’t they? Rianne was definitely the pink-haired girl from the Schrant family… close friends with Tartie and Winda…

“I, I…”

“Yes. Go ahead, Rianne.”

“I…”

As Hailey stumbled over her words and stared blankly at the two of them, Tartie and Winda exchanged glances and shrugged. Just then, a glinting mirror caught her eye inside Winda’s handbag.

“Can I borrow your mirror for a moment?”

Surely not… I couldn’t have become Marianne, the fallen noblewoman of the Schrant family, could I?

Winda, now wearing an expression just as bewildered as Hailey’s, gently handed over the hand mirror and studied her complexion.

The moment she looked into the mirror, her suspicion turned to certainty in an instant.

The golden hair and golden eyes were gone without a trace, and in the mirror stood only Marianne with her pink hair!

A woman with cascading pink hair and green eyes the color of fresh grass. Marianne, whose slightly downturned eyes often earned her the description of ‘a lovely young lady with rabbit-like eyes.’

Half the people in society liked her for being cute, and the other half disliked her for being uncouth. Sadly, she became a fallen noble and lived as a commoner, bearing the weight of disgrace.

The foolish conduct of a family that went overnight from farmers to counts, and the reckless investments of the mistress of the Schrant Count’s household, the countess… That was how Marianne briefly rose from a farmer’s daughter to a noble lady, only to fall again and scrape by as a commoner.

No, perhaps her days as a farmer’s daughter were happier. The feeling of longing for something you never had and the feeling of longing for something you once held were worlds apart.

And now, Hailey herself had become that Marianne.

“Haaa.”

Hailey spread her handkerchief on the ground beneath a secluded tree, sat down, and clutched her head.

‘I’m Hailey, who went from a duke’s daughter to a duchess. What do I do now? Is there even a way out of this?’

On top of everything, whether from her inexperience with the compass, she landed far from the date she calculated. Not one year back, but a full… four years.

* * *

A short while earlier. Wandering aimlessly through the capital as Marianne, Hailey spotted ‘823rd Year of the Founding’ printed on a festival commemorative pamphlet issued by the royal family and nearly lost her mind. That moment was one she would not forget for a long time. Every calculation she made and remade to bring her husband back became utterly worthless in an instant.

The 823rd Year of the Founding meant not one year before the day she turned the Compass, but one year before her wedding. No matter how many times she recalculated, she turned back time by four full years. This was before she and Damon began courting, which meant that if things continued as they were, even the fact of their marriage might be erased entirely.

“Shuesturnah!”

Toasts rang out here and there through the streets, leaving her ears and heart numb. Every time glasses clinked together, it felt like another crack forming in her chest. Though they were no one to blame, she wanted to fault those strangers for everything.

With no idea where to begin, Hailey walked and walked through the capital without end. She walked in such a daze that she didn’t even feel the cold numbing her hands. Before she knew it, the sun was sinking low on the horizon and a cold wind began to blow with a lonelier edge.

“When does Lady Shue give her blessing? Has it started?”

Faint snatches of conversation between the kingdom’s residents drifted to her ears.

Wait. A blessing, does that mean the goddess’s blessing? That’s right! It’s Shuesturnah…!

Shuesturnah: a festival name honoring Shue, the goddess of time, and also a blessing in an ancient tongue of unknown origin meaning ‘may Shue be at peace.’ During this festival, there was a customary event held only in the Kingdom of Onyx.

‘An event where you can actually have an audience with the goddess!’

In other words, she could appeal to Shue, the goddess of time, and beg her to set this impossible situation right.

‘Why did I only think of that now!’

The moment that thought struck her, Hailey plunged into the crowd and began running, following the flags bearing the kingdom’s crest.

At last year’s Shuesturnah, the goddess was asleep, so the audience was conducted as a mere formality, and two and three years ago, the audience time was comparatively short because the goddess was said to be preparing for her slumber. But now, four years ago, the audience time would have been long. The event was held with the added significance of commemorating Shue’s return from abroad.

“Ugh!”

Carrying that small hope, she ran and ran, unaware that her breath was nearly gone. She staggered and nearly lost her footing, but gritted her teeth and clutched her skirt. At last she passed the capital’s fountain and arrived at the audience hall set up in the mansion before the castle gates. Her shoes came off and her hair was a complete mess, but she had no time to worry about any of that.

“Hah, hah.”

She barely had a moment to catch her ragged breath.

“Au, audience… I want an audience.”

Hailey approached the nearest attendant and asked for an audience outright, believing she found the one and only fastest way back to her original body.

‘Thank goodness, truly thank goodness!’

But there was something Hailey got wrong.

“Looking at how she behaves without a shred of manners, she’s obviously a former slave.”

“Oh my, you shouldn’t judge a person by appearances alone.”

“What does it matter? It’s not like I said anything untrue.”

At first she didn’t realize they were talking about her, but a sharp prickling of stares made her turn her head, and that was when she understood something was wrong.

‘Oh no.’

She wasn’t the only one who wanted an audience with the goddess. The line of people ahead of her already stretched so far the end was nowhere in sight. Having waited in the cold for a long time, they all looked at Hailey with contemptuous eyes and clicked their tongues.

“Get out! Can’t you see we’re waiting here?”

“That pink-haired girl! If she doesn’t get out, let’s drag her out ourselves!”

“Wait, just a moment! I didn’t know!”

While she was off guard, a man behind her grabbed Hailey by the hair and threw her to the ground.

“Kyaah!”

“Can’t you see there’s a line here? Who do you think you are, trying to cut in?”

Once one person acted, others joined in. They grabbed her arms roughly, tried to tear her skirt, and shoved her back down dozens of times every time she tried to get up.

“Kyaa! No! It’s a misunderstanding!”

“What misunderstanding!”

There was no escaping the clawing hands and the kicking feet that tore at her.

“Help me! Please, someone help me!”

“Serves you right!”

The people who stood watching without intervening only made a show of it and did nothing to stop it in earnest. In the end, Hailey gave up on being rescued and was dragged every which way by the crowd.

“Aah…”

By the time their anger finally spent itself, Hailey barely managed to get free, catching her breath with a body in complete ruin. She looked terrible. She could tell without a mirror. A metallic taste of blood lingered in her mouth, and vivid red marks stood out on her knees.

“Ha…”

What on earth was happening?

Tears spilled from her eyes on their own. The sight of her arms, bruised a deep blue, and her torn clothes left her unable to claw her way out of despair. She simply could not accept what was real.

Of all her plans, the only one that succeeded was turning back time. But even that sent her four years into the past, and she went from duchess to fallen noble, reduced to a state where even a small mistake earned her a beating. No, hadn’t someone even called her a slave?

“Urgh.”

Perhaps from the severe stress, a sudden wave of nausea left her head swimming. She quickly pressed her hand over her mouth to hold it down, but the dizziness made it impossible to keep herself upright.

“Ow.”

She only meant to cover her mouth, but the tender flesh inside pressed against her teeth and stung. The metallic taste of blood came again. Yet even in despair she could not escape, she had to move. She dragged her exhausted body, crawling more than walking, toward a patch of sparse undergrowth, and then sank heavily to the ground with her back against a tree.