Chapter 1 The Worst Timing for Regression

While being carried in a cold and filthy cart, Lydia sensed the end of her life approaching.

Who would have expected such an end? Born as a marquis’s daughter, she never dreamed she would meet her end in a labor camp.

As she exhaled her final breath, Lydia thought.

She thought how she wished she could go back to the past when she was blinded by a man and made a foolish choice, just to slap herself hard across the face.

“……”

But she never expected such an opportunity would actually come.

Momentarily dizzy and staggering, Lydia steadied herself against the tea table before rising with a determined expression.

Since the opportunity had presented itself, she raised her right hand and slapped her own cheek with a resounding smack.

The stinging in her cheek seemed to help clear her mind somewhat.

“Lydia!”

“Now you’re doing all sorts of things. Did you think I would let you go so easily?”

The Emperor coldly rebuked her.

Lydia backed away, watching the knights who were slowly closing in around her.

So the situation began when Lydia, invited by Giselle the empress-to-be for tea, suddenly realized her regression.

While she was bewildered amid fragments of flooding memories, the Emperor burst in with numerous guards.

He claimed to have received a report that Lydia had smuggled poison into the imperial palace and ordered a body search.

Giselle intervened, arguing that male knights shouldn’t search a lady’s body, and during this commotion, Lydia secretly touched her left sleeve.

Yes, that’s where the vial of poison the Emperor was looking for was hidden.

Ah, right. This life was ruined from the start.

Of all times, why did she have to regress to the day she attempted to poison Giselle?

It should be at least the day before the attempted poisoning. If not that, then at least this morning.

To be extremely generous, even realizing while riding in the carriage would have been better.

Looking at the Emperor’s fierce gaze and Giselle’s shocked eyes, Lydia first slapped her own cheek.

So that was why Lydia suddenly hit her own cheek.

It seemed she had returned because of her wish to go back in time and slap herself.

Well, perhaps she didn’t need to hit herself.

But Lydia thought she deserved at least one slap.

Because today’s wrong choice had completely ruined her future.

“Let me ask you one thing.”

The Emperor raised his hand, stopping the knights who were approaching Lydia.

“Why did you try to kill Giselle? Did you think I would come back to you if she died?”

“That’s……”

Reflecting on her past life’s memories, definitely not.

Lydia simply wanted to kill Giselle who had stolen her fiancé, the Emperor, and show the Emperor who had cruelly abandoned her the pain of losing someone beloved.

She had planned to watch the Emperor wail while holding Giselle’s cold body, then drink the same poison and die.

Lydia had put poison in Giselle’s teacup, but ultimately failed to kill her. The same was true for herself.

‘Instead, something more terrible awaited me.’

Imprisoned, then sentenced to correctional labor, she was dragged to a labor camp.

After struggling there for over five years, she finally closed her eyes after contracting the plague.

Recalling the cold and filthy labor camp, Lydia shuddered.

She hated it. She absolutely didn’t want to return to that labor camp. She hated that more than death itself.

“I seem to have hit the mark, seeing how you can’t answer.”

The Emperor sighed faintly as if annoyed. His face was drunk with confidence.

Golden hair like the sun, high nose bridge, and manly broad shoulders.

His appearance that Lydia had loved so much remained unchanged, but her eyes looking at the Emperor now boiled with anger.

She had given him everything—her body, heart, wealth, and family name—all because of that polished exterior.

He was handsome, but not the world’s most beautiful man, and when he first met Lydia, he wasn’t even a crown prince, just a prince born from a commoner.

What had she found so appealing?

Should she have stabbed her eyes instead of slapping her cheek? Lydia regretted as she clutched her head.

Hating them and resenting her past self wasn’t important right now.

What mattered was how to avoid punishment after being caught bringing poison into the palace.

Just bringing poison into the palace was a crime in itself.

The Emperor, who already wanted to eliminate his former fiancée who stood in Giselle’s way, could use this as an excuse to dispose of her.

“I wasn’t trying to kill Giselle.”

Lydia first denied the accusation.

There was no point in lying about not bringing poison when a body search would reveal it anyway.

Better to provide a plausible excuse for why she had to bring it.

But what kind of excuse would work?

‘Maybe saying I brought it to drink myself might be enough to get away with……’

Yes, what if she drank the poison herself?

Lydia’s light blue eyes gleamed faintly.

Bringing poison into the palace was a crime, but ironically, causing a scene by threatening to kill oneself in the palace wasn’t.

Moreover, for someone with a story like Lydia’s, the worst punishment would be an order to exercise self-restraint and becoming gossip fodder for a while.

“Then why did you bring it? To kill me instead of Giselle?”

“No, to kill myself.”

Lydia took out the poison vial from her left sleeve.

Of course, she didn’t really intend to drink it. She only planned to pretend.

Lydia observed the knights who had started approaching her again.

In the brief moment it would take for her to open the vial and bring it to her lips, they could easily reach her.

If she died here, the scandal of the Emperor’s former fiancée committing suicide by poison in the palace would haunt the Emperor and Giselle for a very long time, so it wouldn’t be a completely meaningless death.

At least it would be a small revenge, right?

“Couldn’t you come up with a more plausible lie?”

“It’s not a lie, Your Majesty.”

She knew it was a gamble. She might lose her life, but if there was even the slightest chance of being dragged back to the labor camp, she would rather die.

A life worse than death—no thanks.

Lydia bit her lip tightly and opened the vial.

With a pop, the vial made a cute sound despite containing poison, and at the same moment, the door to the reception room opened.

“I called but there was no answer, so I just came in……”

Lydia’s gaze fell on the large man who burst in.

As the vial tilted toward her lips, a knight beside Lydia hastily struck her wrist, all happening in the same instant.

Having dropped the vial, Lydia blankly stared at the man who had entered the reception room.

Arsen Edis.

Seeing his face, she remembered why she had managed to endure five years in the labor camp.

The people who had embraced Lydia when she had nothing—they must still be suffering in the labor camp at this very moment.

So she had to go and save them. She absolutely had to survive and save them……

She needed to, but why did she feel so nauseous?

“Ugh!”

Unable to suppress the rising nausea, Lydia covered her mouth.

Bright red blood overflowed between her slender fingers.

Her legs weakened, her vision turned black, and beloved faces appeared in her mind.

“I must go get them… I must… go.”

Mumbling, Lydia reached out toward them before collapsing.

No, this can’t be. She couldn’t die, there were things, things she had to do……

She could no longer endure.

* * *

‘Why?’

Arsen felt wronged.

It was the Emperor who abandoned Lydia. It was Giselle who took the Emperor away.

Naturally, the reason Lydia drank poison was because of them.

Yet somehow, Arsen was the protagonist of the rumors.

For some unknown reason, throughout Lydia’s collapse while coughing blood, she stared at Arsen, no, only at Arsen.

If she had merely looked at him, one could say she was disoriented, but Lydia even stretched her blood-covered hand toward Arsen.

Until the very moment she lost consciousness.

Why?

Everyone in that room had the same question.

Why did the marquis’s daughter look at Arsen, not the Emperor or Empress, as she fainted?

‘Sir Arsen, what kind of relationship do you have with Lydia?’

‘Commander, do you have some grudge against the marquis’s daughter? Otherwise, why would she glare at you even as she was dying?’

Everyone who knew him, whether the Emperor or his subordinates, asked why Lydia had acted that way.

Yes, if he had at least known the reason, he wouldn’t have felt this frustrated.

He was merely a vassal of the Evansi Marquis family and and Lydia the daughter of Marquis Evansi.

They knew each other’s faces but had never even conversed alone.

There couldn’t be any grudge between such people.

But gossipmongers, unaware of this fact, were spreading unspeakable rumors linking the Emperor, Empress, Lydia, and Arsen.

This was troublesome for Arsen.

He had things to do, and until those tasks were completed, he needed to remain outside of people’s attention.

This kind of public interest in Arsen would only hinder his plans.

Perhaps the commotion would die down if he secluded himself again in the remote borderlands of the marquisate where few people passed.

The problem was that he needed the Marquis’s permission to leave for the borderlands where his mansion was located.

Visiting the Marquis’s residence would be adding fuel to the rumors, but he had no choice.

With the mindset of taking the beating sooner rather than later, Arsen visited the Marquis’s residence.

“Oh my, sir, the horse, the horse isn’t listening to me.”

“I’ll take it myself. Where’s the stable?”

The horse he had handed to the servant was oddly unruly today.

As if it understood its master’s complicated feelings.

Eventually, Arsen had to lead the horse to the stable himself, calming the excited animal as he asked,

“Is there a door that leads directly inside?”

“There’s a back door, but why would you use such a……”

“Let’s go that way. I hate going in circles.”

Feeling no need to go around to the main entrance, he entered through the back door despite the servant’s protests.

And after walking a few steps…

Arsen discovered Lydia sprawled on the stairs and regretted not listening to the servant.

“…Sir Arsen?”

“What are you doing there, my lady.”

Originally, he had no intention of visiting Lydia.

He hadn’t planned to inquire about her condition either. Getting further entangled with Lydia would only cause him trouble, so he had intended to quickly meet the young marquis and leave.

But what kind of cursed fate kept entangling him with that woman?

They had already given her emergency treatment at the imperial palace before sending her back, so why was she collapsed on the stairs again, looking half-dead?

‘And not a single servant in sight.’

A sigh escaped from Arsen’s lips.

* * *