“So my name is……. what?”

“Miss Rosetta, what book did you read this time?”

A woman dressed like a nineteenth-century French maid smiled at me with a look of resigned amusement.

The way she said “this time” suggested this wasn’t the first or second time something like this had happened, but I couldn’t help it.

From my perspective, I was meeting her for the very first time, so I hoped she’d understand.

I had died, and on the forty-ninth day the grim reaper told me “You’ll be reincarnated soon,” so I assumed I’d be born as a baby. I had no idea I’d be shoved straight into the body of a child who had already lived for several years.

So what happened to the original soul?

Is the family still alive?

And just where exactly is this?

I had so many questions, but I didn’t need to ask any more of them.

It all came pouring out in the endless stream of complaints that began with “I can’t live like this because of Miss Rosetta,” and everything I needed to understand was in there.

I focused solely on extracting the information buried in the complaints that flowed out like a song, without pause.

So, approximately fifteen minutes after possession, my situation and profile as currently understood were roughly as follows.

Name: Rosetta Amarella Winstone. Age: eight this year.

The precious youngest daughter, raised with great love, of the Winstone Count’s household.

She had three older brothers above her, and even the youngest third brother was ten years her senior.

In other words, she was an enormous late child and the reason for that was that the brothers and I had different mothers.

Fortunately, it was not a sordid melodrama. The previous Countess had suffered from puerperal fever after giving birth to the third brother and passed away at a young age.

After that, the Count spent some time alone in grief before finding new love and remarrying and that was my mother.

The father had been married before, but for my mother it was her first marriage.

She hadn’t married young either; apparently she had been a knight in the Royal Guard, intending to work and die without ever thinking of marriage, but love changed her entire outlook on life and she became a Countess.

Is it possible to be in the Guard as a woman? I asked, and the answer was yes.

In this world, it was not uncommon for female knights to be assigned to guard female royalty, and knights possessed something called Aura beyond their basic physical abilities.

Royalty, Count, knight, Aura.

Four words that could not possibly be combined in twenty-first-century South Korea, which told me I had apparently fallen into what one might call a romance fantasy world.

***

The maid who had been chattering away switched shifts with my nanny and went straight off to have breakfast.

The woman now seated before the mirror, brushing my hair strand by strand with every intention of finishing the job, was my nanny and her name was Annie.

“You only have lessons in the afternoon today. What would you like to do before lunch?”

Whatever it was, I was going to need more information.

There seemed to be no way to undo the possession that had already happened, and even if there were, I was already dead. I had nowhere to go back to.

In that case, gathering information in order to live in this world had to come first.

All well and good, but my eyelids were heavy. Being a child, I was apparently still sleepy at this hour.

“Can’t I sleep a little more?”

“Oh, there you go again. If you sleep while the sun is up, you’ll have trouble falling asleep at night and suffer for it.”

Fortunately, it seemed the original owner of this body also struggled with mornings. A strangely welcome detail.

Annie smiled the warmest smile in the world, murmuring “honestly, Miss,” and slowly worked through my hair.

Even for a child’s hair, it had apparently gone nearly uncut until age eight. It was long, falling past the shoulders and down to the back.

The color was an ordinary, unremarkable brown, but it shimmered and swayed all the way to the ends as if oiled. You could tell she had been raised on nothing but good food and well cared for.

The face reflected in the mirror belonged to a reasonably cute girl. Not quite the looks of a child model, but still the sort that would have had adults calling her adorable.

Round brown eyes, too. Thanks to her privileged birth, no doubt, but her complexion was healthy, her skin fair, nothing particularly to fault.

“How would you like to dress?”

How would I know? It’s been less than an hour since I opened my eyes here.

“I don’t know……. just, whatever.”

“My goodness, what’s gotten into you? If you were always like this, life would be so much easier. It’s spring but mornings are still cold, so I’ll layer a velvet jacket over.”

She’s moved to tears because I said do as you like. Fair enough, at eight years old, fussing over clothes is perfectly normal.

I was too tired to think, so I left everything to Annie.

She asked this and that, and the final result was a green dress falling to the knees with a red velvet jacket layered over it. A Christmas tree combination.

White tights and shiny shoes were put on as well.

They fit my feet, so they weren’t uncomfortable, but…… having lived in a world where rubber soles were standard, wearing leather shoes felt deeply strange with every step.

Is there no rubber in this world yet?

“You look as lovely as ever today, Miss.”

“Thank you.”

“Have you decided what you’d like to do this morning?”

“Hmm…… well. What did I usually do?”

The maid had asked what book I’d read this time, which suggested I read fairly often.

Still, I needed to understand my usual behavior at least. It would be a problem if people suddenly felt something was off and thought the child had changed.

“You would tell me about your dreams from the night before, or take your time carefully choosing your outfit. Since that went quickly today, how about heading to greet the Count and the Madam first, and thinking it over on the way?”

A morning greeting to the parents there’s a faintly Confucian quality to that.

I nodded obediently. Whatever had happened, if I was up, I should at least go see the adults and say good morning.

I followed Annie as she walked ahead and stepped out of my room.

My room alone had three rooms including the bedroom, a separate dressing room, and even a drawing room attached, but outside the room was even more spacious.

How on earth do they clean all of this?

For one thing, the ceiling height was dizzying. Part of it was that this eight-year-old body was small, but even comparing it to Annie’s height walking ahead of me, it was far too high.

“Miss?”

“Oh, yes, yes. I’m coming.”

When my steps slowed, Annie turned back and tilted her head. The floor was covered in thick carpet, not a stain, not a speck of dust.

That’s why a child walking around in leather shoes doesn’t hurt her feet.

Nothing but sighs came out of me, so I pressed my lips together and followed Annie.

“Annie.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“After I’ve greeted my parents, can I go outside?”

I needed to step outside the building and take a look at the surroundings.

Whether there were mountains or a sea, I needed to know the environment to adapt quickly.

And you never know. Maybe this world has two suns, or a green sky.

“Outside? Miss, beyond the estate grounds is still……”

“No, no, just outside this building.”

“Ah, you want to go to the garden?”

Right. She said estate, so there must be a garden. I gave up and nodded.

To gauge the scale of this house that seemed to go on forever, no matter how far you walked, it would probably be easier to see it from the outside than from within.

But Annie asked a question I hadn’t anticipated.

“Which garden would you like to go to?”

“……Which one?”

“Yes. Since it’s morning, would the east entrance be better? Or would you like to go out through the south main entrance? The river sparkling in the morning sunlight is quite lovely.”

Has she lost her mind? Why is there a river on the property?

Wanting to faint, I stood there while Annie smiled brightly, her expression full of anticipation for whichever I would choose.

Can I just go back to my room?

Just an hour ago I was an ordinary civilian in the modern era. A small-salaried ordinary person living day by day.

It’s not as though I never had the hollow dream of being born into a wealthy family, but this is just too much!

If I were going to possess someone, couldn’t they at least have let me know the future in advance?

Isn’t the standard setup for this kind of story that you get possessed into a novel, drama, or game you’ve already read or watched?

You’re telling me to survive without even a cheat code knowing the walkthrough and quickly exploiting everything to grow?

I was so aggrieved I wanted to grab a god by the collar if one existed, but.

“Miss? What’s wrong?”

“……Nothing. I just want to go see my parents and greet them quickly.”

At my answer, Annie looked as if she’d heard something remarkably praiseworthy.

“Come on, let’s go.”

For now, the strategy that works in any genre. It would be best to respond with the meta of a clever, perceptive child.

I have an adult’s mind and an adult’s intuition. For now, I’ll hold on like that and figure out which direction to take my life.