Chapter 1 – Gambling Failure? Success? (Part 1)

“I’m going to be home late today.”

Baron Brian said as he dressed in front of the mirror.

“…….”

Behind him, Ellerdin stared at him blankly.

“I’m coming home with Sarah, so don’t come out of your room.”

Ellerdin, who was sitting in a wheelchair and listening to him silently, nodded weakly.

Her reflection in the mirror looked pitiful.

The Baron clicked his tongue and strode over to her.

“What is my wife so dissatisfied about? Hmm?”

“…….”

The Baron smiled, raising the corners of his mouth as if mocking her tightly closed lips.

Ellerdin turned her head to avoid his eyes.

Anticipating what was to come, she gripped the handles of her wheelchair tightly.

The Baron hardened his smile and looked down at her with a cold expression.

“……So, you’re not even going to answer me now?”

Ellerdin’s pale fingertips trembled.

“Useless thing. Instead of smiling at your busy husband who feeds you, you dare to show dissatisfaction?”

The Baron kicked Ellerdin’s wheelchair hard. As the wheelchair toppled over, Ellerdin quickly curled up on the floor.

The Baron shouted with a distorted face.

“You’re not even worth treating as a human being! If I had known you were such a piece of junk, I wouldn’t have bought you. What can you even do?”

The Baron glared at her, seething with anger.

Ellerdin’s clothes were torn in places. Despite the humiliation and excruciating pain, she endured it.

Seeing this, the Baron clicked his tongue and pointed to the servant waiting by the door.

“Don’t feed this pathetic trash today and lock her in her room.”

“Yes, understood.”

The servant hesitated as she approached Ellerdin.

Despite being the Baron’s wife, she was someone the servants didn’t even want to touch.

Seeing the servant’s slow movements, the Baron stopped her.

“Never mind, come to think of it, there’s no need for us to personally take her there. Right?”

The Baron squatted beside Ellerdin, who was still curled up on the floor.

He gently stroked the back of her head.

His fingers running through her hair gave her goosebumps.

Feeling her shoulders trembling finely, the Baron smiled and asked,

“Maybe you’ve become spoiled because I’ve always helped you up. Isn’t it time for my beloved wife to walk on her own?”

“…….”

“If you get up now, I might give you a meal.”

At the Baron’s kind words, the servants standing around clapped, praising their master’s kindness.

‘I have to get up… so that… I can escape from here a little sooner.’

But her body, already broken beyond repair, did not easily obey her words.

It was only when the applause began to die down that she managed to raise her upper body.

Seeing her staggering as she stood, the Baron laughed and pushed her frail shoulders with his foot.

“Getting up at the sound of food. My wife is so gluttonous that I have no choice but to control it. Today, why don’t you crawl to your room by yourself as an exercise?”

At the repeated mockery, Ellerdin involuntarily let out a bitter laugh.

Her empty eyes scanned her surroundings.

Everyone in the room was looking at her and laughing.

In her dizzy mind, their laughter echoed like hallucinations.

With a shaky vision, Ellerdin slowly extended her arm and began to crawl on the floor.

“Yes, it’s only fun to keep you around if there’s this much entertainment.”

The Baron laughed as he watched her.

Born as an Earl’s daughter, Ellerdin was sold to Baron Brian due to her father’s gambling debts and had become everyone’s laughing stock.

Her legs were originally fine, but after being sold to the Baron, he broke her ankles because he disliked her tall height, rendering her unable to walk.

When Ellerdin finally reached her room and grabbed a chair, she used all her strength to sit down and catch her breath.

But there was no time for her to rest. If she didn’t process the documents before the Baron returned, she would surely be beaten again.

Although she was treated worse than a maid at home, the Baron tried to use the intelligent Ellerdin in any way he could.

As she sat in the chair and signed the documents, she pressed her forehead against a slight dizziness.

‘There are so many documents to process…….’

Her body was already reaching its limit.

In her slowly fading consciousness, Ellerdin desperately hoped he would come home late.

***

“You damn thing!”

With someone’s shout, Ellerdin felt a dull pain and opened her eyes.

She didn’t know how long she had been unconscious, but it was already dark outside, and the angry Baron was standing in front of her.

Ellerdin, who had been knocked to the floor in an instant, slowly blinked.

Feeling as if she was floating, she stared blankly at him.

“You’re out of your mind right now. Not doing the work I told you to!”

Ellerdin’s head turned, and blood flowed from her lip as it split open. Unsatisfied, he even grabbed nearby objects.

‘Ah, if I’m lucky, I might die today.’

In her flickering consciousness, Ellerdin faintly smiled.

But contrary to her wish, when she opened her eyes again, she saw the familiar view of her room.

It seemed the Baron had left her unconscious and went away, leaving broken objects scattered around and blood smeared on the floor.

A splitting headache hit her, possibly from being struck on the head.

She slowly raised her aching body and leaned against the wall.

Through her blurry vision, she saw that the clock was already pointing to 11:59 PM.

In one minute, it would be her mother’s death anniversary.

“Mm…….”

She heard a woman’s moan from the next room.

‘Right… he said he was coming home with Sarah.’

Sarah, the Baron’s mistress, often came to the house to spend time with him.

Despite having many rooms, the Baron always stayed with her in the room next to Ellerdin’s.

Although she didn’t cry, her heart felt empty. It was futile that she couldn’t recall a single happy moment from the past.

At first, she wanted to be loved, and then she wanted to avoid disappointing them.

However, due to countless despair and abuse, she was utterly exhausted at the young age of twenty-four.

There was only one reason Ellerdin continued to live.

Atonement.

Turning her gaze back to the clock, she saw the hour and minute hands pointing to exactly midnight.

Ellerdin opened a drawer and took out a knife she had hidden.

Having handled it dozens of times a day, the knife’s handle shone smoothly.

“It’s been 14 years since my mother passed away. She suffered for so long because of me, so I thought I’d live a lifetime in this hellish life in pain… But I can’t endure it any longer. If I’ve held on this much, it should be okay to die a bit Early, right?”

Ellerdin murmured self-deprecatingly and smiled sadly.

Listening to the ticking of the second hand, Ellerdin unhesitatingly brought the knife to her neck.

She intended to stab it precisely.

But the knife’s tip missed and only scratched her neck slightly.

The knife clattered to the floor.

“Ha ha…….”

Ellerdin slumped to the floor and let out a hollow laugh.

‘What’s with this sudden fear of dying when I actually try to do it?’

She didn’t have the will to live, yet she didn’t even have the courage to die.

She was the worst kind of human.

Ellerdin squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them.

Her vision was still blurry.

‘……Let’s work.’

Nothing would be solved by just sitting here.

As Ellerdin tried to get up, her strength gave out, and she collapsed to the floor.

‘What……?’

She blinked in confusion.

Suddenly, a chill ran down her spine. She felt her body stiffen.

‘Why……?’

Could it be because of the knife cut just now?

Ellerdin fumbled and touched the torn skin. However, very little blood came off on her hand.

At that moment, she felt a warm liquid from the left side of her head.

Blood was seeping again from the wound the Baron had inflicted Earlier.

Ellerdin’s mouth opened and closed.

‘Consciousness…….’

She could feel her death coming.

Ellerdin stared blankly into space.

‘If I had escaped from them… would it have been much better than now?’

Feeling her consciousness slowly fading, Ellerdin slowly closed her eyes.

***

Ellerdin frowned as she felt a shivering cold.

‘Cold…….’

Her body curled up automatically, and her toes shriveled from the cold penetrating her skin.

Wrapping herself in a thin blanket, Ellerdin noticed something strange and opened her eyes wide.

She hurriedly threw off the blanket and looked at her legs.

‘……I can feel my legs?’

With a trembling expression, she cautiously moved her toes. Feeling the definite sensation, she gasped.

“What is… this…….”

While she was confused, someone knocked on the door.

Ellerdin flinched and looked up.

A maid entered with a bowl of soup.

“Oh, you’re awake. The Earl has gone out for a while.”

It was a familiar face, but not the maid she had seen yesterday.

‘This girl worked at my family’s house before I was sold to the Baron… how is this possible?’

Ellerdin looked at her with wavering pupils.

The familiar maid placed the soup on the table.

‘……And this room looks like the one I used to live in… Ah.’

Looking around, Ellerdin came to a conclusion and sighed.

“This must be the afterlife?”

“Pardon?”

The maid frowned and looked back at Ellerdin.

“No matter how much it’s the afterlife, this is a bit much. To see this place even after dying.”

“……Miss, please get a hold of yourself. If you say such nonsense in front of the Earl, you’ll surely get scolded.”

The maid shook her head and left the room.

Left alone again, Ellerdin looked around.

The scenery beyond the window was summer, but seeing her breath in the air, it was indeed her perpetually cold room.

‘But… the sensations are too vivid for me to be dead.’

She wanted to check something else.

‘But could I walk now?’

With a trembling heart, Ellerdin took a step.

Feeling the ground under her feet, her body stood upright. The realization that she was standing alone without a wheelchair brought an indescribable emotion.

Ellerdin got up and grabbed the doorknob.

From beyond the thin door, she heard the maids chatting.

“So, they’re coming tomorrow?”

“I don’t know who they are, but they must be amazing. To think of taking the young lady away.”

“Still, it’s a relief that she’s getting married. The Earl can’t keep her forever.”

Ellerdin shivered at the familiar conversation.

‘This is the conversation I heard the day before Baron Brian came to take me. Could it be that I haven’t died but returned to the past? Is that even…possible?’

Ellerdin’s expression turned serious.

It was too Early to make a judgment. Returning to the past… it was an impossible thing.

At that moment, she heard voices outside again.

“Oh, I forgot this. Can you wait a moment? I’ll just drop this off.”

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing special. I just forgot to give the young lady a rag. The room seemed a bit dirty yesterday.”

Footsteps approached the door. Ellerdin quickly climbed back onto the bed.

As soon as she sat in the same position as when she first woke up, the maid opened the door and entered.

The maid walked into the room without even glancing at Ellerdin.

“Um…….”

“Yes, what is it?”

The maid answered bluntly.