Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—when she opened her eyes again, she had returned to the past.

‘No… calling it fortunate might be too generous…’

Jaina slowly scanned the small, familiar room.

It was a dark storage space tucked away behind her sister’s opulent chamber where not even the faintest ray of sunlight could penetrate. She had always felt small, insignificant and unbearably lonely here. Even now, returning to this place awoke the same emotions within her.

For a moment, she felt as though she had been abandoned by the entire world once again.

But this was nothing new. It was the same emptiness she had felt long before her death, during her marriage to Cadel, the Grand Duke of the North.

She had chosen death to escape those feelings, to cast them away along with everything else. And yet, for reasons she could not begin to understand, she had returned. Now she was forced to endure it all over again.

In fact, she almost wondered if this place was h*ll.

Bang! Bang!

A violent pounding shook the small wooden door, threatening to splinter it apart at any moment. The door burst open.

The head maid stood there.

“The madam and the young lady have finished their meal, so hurry and prepare. We’ll be traveling farther than usual this time, so pack enough for three days.”

The head maid turned on her heel, her expression irritated, and slammed the door behind her.

Jaina understood why the woman was treating her so coldly. No servant in this household would dare show warmth to someone so openly neglected by her own family.

‘Three days…’

It must be a place that required a long carriage ride.

‘My backside is going to ache terribly.’

Jaina furrowed her brow slightly at the thought, bracing herself for the pain she knew was coming. As always, no soft cushion would be prepared for her.

Her mother and sister accompanied her everywhere to exploit her divine power for their own benefit, but to them, Jaina was nothing more than a tool.

The only small consolation was that they allowed her to ride in the same carriage for the sake of appearances.

Her father never joined them. He simply accepted commissions at the estate and issued instructions from afar. Living in luxury off the money Jaina earned, he lavished his affection — and his wealth — on his cherished daughter, her sister.

He probably didn’t even realize that Jaina had come of age long ago.

‘Come to think of it, another year has passed without my coming-of-age ceremony.’

If she could have gone back in time, it would have been better if she had gone back to a time before she missed it. Then she could have closed her eyes, swallowed her pride, and begged her parents to hold the ceremony for her.

Having witnessed her sister’s magnificent coming-of-age celebration, she had secretly dreamed of having one of her own.

But God had not granted her that wish this time either.

Then again, she had never prayed to be brought back to life. She had no right to feel resentful simply because God had not indulged her childish longing.

She had thrown away her life because she despised the fate she had been given — yet, cruelly, she had been handed that same fate once more. That alone felt unbearably unjust.

Jaina wondered if God had turned back time as a punishment for discarding the life she had been given.

As if to force her to endure the same suffering all over again.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The head maid pounded on the fragile wooden door once more, as though intending to break it down.

“Stop dawdling and come out already! Do you intend to keep the madam and the young lady waiting?!”

“I—I’m coming!”

She answered instinctively, her voice quick and submissive. Then she reached for the faded, stained grey cloak.

There was nothing to pack. She only owned two outfits.

She had spent all the money she had earned through her divine powers on her parents and sister.

In the past, she had never understood why they had treated her with such cold indifference.

Now, she did.

The night before her wedding to Cadel, her sister Selina revealed the truth about their father’s affair — something Jaina had never known.

The woman she had believed to be her birth mother was not her mother at all. The sister she thought was her full sister was actually only her half-sister.

The shock was overwhelming.

Jaina’s biological mother had met her father at the Grand Temple. Their affair had led to Jaina’s birth. Only then did Jaina understand how deeply her existence must have wounded the woman she had called Mother and Selina.

Jaina even felt guilty, as though her mere existence had caused them unbearable pain.

Looking back now, however, she realized that she hadn’t done anything wrong.

She hadn’t chosen to be born. Nor had she asked to be raised at the expense of another woman or child’s suffering.

It was only after discovering that she possessed divine power, like the woman who had given birth to her, that her father had brought her into the household. From the outset, he had intended to exploit that power for financial gain.

Back then, she had forgiven them.

Now, however, she no longer wished to.

She had learned too much.

When Cadel first chose her as his bride, her father had tried to arrange the marriage.

She later learned that Cadel had given more than half of the Grand Duke’s estate to her father in order to marry her.

Rumor had it that the ducal house was even richer than the imperial family. With that fortune, her father would become one of the richest men in the empire — rich enough, he boasted, to make Selina a princess. And so, without hesitation, he handed Jaina over to the Grand Duke.

She later heard all this from Cadel’s aide, Adil. He was not a man to lie, so there must be some truth in it.

Perhaps if Selina had gone to the Grand Duchy instead of Jaina, she would never have died. She would never have returned like this.

But that did not excuse the way her family had scorned and mistreated her, even though she had done nothing wrong.

***

“Why are you so slow?!”

The moment Jaina stepped outside in her grey cloak, her mother snapped at her. Her mother and sister wore identical white cloaks embroidered with gold thread that gleamed in the light.

“I’m sorry.”

Jaina murmured, her voice barely audible as she lowered her head. Before climbing into the carriage, her mother’s face twisted as though she had seen something distasteful.

As expected, the two of them sat side by side on plush cushions.

Jaina lowered herself onto the hard, unpadded seat across from them. With a faint sigh, she turned her gaze toward the window. Even before the carriage had properly begun its long journey, she could already feel the dull ache settling into her body—an ache that would only worsen over the coming hours.

A quiet groan slipped from her lips, too soft for anyone else to notice.

“Try some of this.”

“We just had breakfast. Why would I eat again? I don’t want it.”

“It’s only a snack.”

The two of them exchanged light-hearted banter as they enjoyed the sweet, buttery-scented cookies. They acted as though Jaina weren’t even there.

Her empty stomach let out a loud growl.

Neither of them so much as glanced her way. They simply continued their conversation as if she were invisible.

Jaina pressed both hands against her empty stomach, trying to calm the ache.

It saddened her that even after returning to the past, she still had to endure such loneliness. But she forced herself to swallow the hurt, reminding herself that this was punishment for someone blessed with divine power who had dared to throw away her own life.

Completely ignored, she set out for the village said to be overrun by monsters.

By the time they arrived, the sun was already sinking low in the sky.

The creatures that had reduced the village to ruins resembled enormous praying mantises. They had torn apart most of the homes and were devouring the villagers indiscriminately.

As the local lord was too poor to afford an expensive teleportation stone, needless sacrifices had continued while Jaina travelled slowly by carriage.

Without hesitation, she ran forward and released her divine power, binding the monsters’ legs and stopping them in their tracks. She eliminated them one by one with practiced precision.

While she fought, her mother and sister were treated to respectful hospitality at the manor where the lord stayed during his visits, as always. They sipped tea elegantly and enjoyed a leisurely meal, far removed from the bloodshed and destruction outside.

Meanwhile, Jaina hadn’t eaten anything all day.

After defeating the monsters, she began healing the surviving villagers with her divine powers. Midway through, a wave of dizziness washed over her. She turned to a nearby villager and quietly asked for some water.

At that moment, her mother and sister emerged from the manor with the lord. They must have just finished dining. The rich scent of delicious food clung unmistakably to them.

Her already empty stomach twisted painfully with hunger.

Just then—

“These are the ones who traveled all this way to deal with the monsters. Show them your sincere gratitude.”

As he addressed the villagers, the lord pointed to her mother and sister. The villagers immediately bowed deeply in gratitude.

Even those whom Jaina had just healed lowered their heads — not to her, but to her mother and sister.

Perhaps it was because her mother had died and come back to life. But suddenly, the entire scene ignited something fierce inside her.

She was the one who had fought. She was the one who had bled and pushed herself to the brink of exhaustion. So why were her mother and sister the ones receiving thanks?

Maybe it was because she had been fighting monsters and treating the injured since morning without eating anything. Perhaps hunger had intensified her resentment.

But the anger rising within her was real — and it burned.

‘Is even a word of thanks too much to spare for someone who hasn’t had a single drop of water and worked herself to the bone…?’

Silence and endurance felt undeniably unfair again. She was selling the divine power granted to her by God for money.

Despite earning it with her own strength, she never held a single coin in her own hands. She did all the work alone, yet her mother and sister accepted gratitude every time.

And her father, who gave orders but never showed his face.

Jaina found herself wondering why she had sacrificed so much for this wretched family. What right did they have to demand her obedience and endurance?

And so she made a decision.

She would abandon the family who saw her as nothing more than a source of income, and she would run away.