Serena Ashterton was living on borrowed time.

And yet, that wasn’t enough—she was destined to be offered as a sacrifice before her short thread of life could even snap.

“Cough!”

“You need to get up now, Miss!”

The maids who had doused her pale face with cold water burst into giggles.

She had tried to wake before they entered her room, but her difficulty falling asleep meant she always drifted into light slumber at this hour.

‘Even if I’d been awake, these people would’ve thrown water on my conscious face anyway. Nothing would change.’

Her expression remained unchanged at the familiar torment as she staggered upright.

The moment she rose, she stripped the blanket and hung it by the window.

Wet clothes could simply be changed, but if she left the blanket soaked, it would become damp and reek so badly she couldn’t bear lying on it.

After struggling to hang the water-heavy sheets, laughter soaked in delight drifted through the open doorway.

The light, carefree laughter—whose, she couldn’t tell—made her ears ring.

Pain sliced through her head, creasing her brow deeply.

The hand that had been rubbing her temple touched the doorknob at that very moment.

“Serena!”

A harsh voice flung the door wide open.

Pushed suddenly by the door, she tumbled weakly onto the carpet.

Her door had no lock.

It had been that way ever since she’d attempted to run away several times as a child.

She’d grown accustomed to the invasion of privacy, if you could call it that, but whenever someone burst in like this, her heart still lurched every time.

Her stepmother Olivia glared down at her sprawled form with disapproving eyes, then spoke with a sharp expression.

“Why are you still dressed like that? Did you forget we’re going to see Father Bateron today?”

“No, Mother. I was just about to change.”

Despite her obedient answer, Olivia frowned with all her might.

No matter what she said, nothing would satisfy that woman.

Serena bit down hard on her lower lip to keep from sighing.

“Always so lazy… I’ll give you ten minutes. If you’re any later, you’ll walk all the way from the temple. Understand?”

“Yes, Mother.”

She answered dutifully.

Resentment that had built over a lifetime rippled deep in her chest, but it was better than having her hair torn out for not responding.

Even though she’d answered exactly as desired, Olivia seemed unsatisfied, muttering curses under her breath before finally leaving the room.

Serena steadied her swaying body and headed straight for the dressing room.

Changing clothes was always an ordeal because of her pathetically thin frame.

She didn’t want to see with her own eyes the ribs showing through her skin or the bruises scattered across her flesh, dark and rotten-looking.

Still, at least the dressing room had a lock.

Those few seconds before changing—that was the only time in her entire day when she could breathe freely.

But today, even that wasn’t allowed.

“The clothes…?”

The modest dresses she usually wore had vanished somewhere.

All that remained were fancy dresses fit for a ball.

Even those had never been worn, so they all gleamed like they’d been bought yesterday.

“Hah.”

A sigh she’d been holding back escaped at the obvious culprit.

The incomprehensible harassment brought a throbbing pain spreading through her temples again.

The Ferrensto Empire, where she lived, had been plagued by unexplained famine and epidemic for several years.

After going through a series of processes to solve the problem, the Emperor finally concluded that all these calamities stemmed from incurring divine wrath.

To appease the god’s anger, the Emperor and several nobles held secret meetings and decided to offer sacrifices to the deity.

Humans with pure souls and high Divine Power—the kind that gods would favor.

Whether they truly believed this absurd armchair theory or whether it was all a ploy to win the Emperor’s favor, she didn’t know, but Count Ashterton had worked diligently to find sacrifices.

And so he purchased Serena from her parents, who were nothing but penniless beggars.

‘Even though I don’t have Divine Power.’

Serena was terminally ill, destined to live only until twenty at most.

Born with insufficient Divine Power, her life was shorter than others despite showing no symptoms.

Since she was going to die from an incurable disease anyway, she was supposedly perfect as a sacrifice—but at first, she’d wondered why they’d chosen someone without Divine Power.

That small question didn’t last long.

Her adoptive parents, the Count and Countess of Ashterton, were being manipulated by a corrupt priest named Bateron.

They’d been fooled by his promise to raise her Divine Power before her nineteenth birthday—when she’d be offered as sacrifice—and donated astronomical sums to him.

What that so-called priest did to her was, in the end, just another form of ab*se.

‘But that’s ending now too.’

Her death was only a week away.

A life worse than death—she had no regrets, but the maids’ petty torments still wore down her soul.

‘Her parents encourage it, so there’s nothing to be done.’

A body soon to be sacrificed—they should just keep her alive, nothing more.

The Ashterton couple, who believed with absolute faith Father Bateron’s claim that Divine Power increased through hardship and suffering, abused Serena just enough to keep her from dying.

‘It’s all ending.’

The pain, the hurt, the suffering—it would all end in a week.

Perhaps all the pain she’d endured might truly save the Empire.

Perhaps her worthless, agonizing life had meaning after all.

If she could just endure one more week, someone might acknowledge her suffering. They might even be grateful for her sacrifice.

Even as she repeated this to herself, tears she couldn’t stop welled up.

She shouldn’t cry.

If she didn’t believe her death had value, that would be more terrible than any pain she’d endured so far.

So she had to hold back tears and believe that her fate as a sacrifice was right.

“Ah…”

A moan she couldn’t hide slipped through her ragged breathing.

If she didn’t let it out, she couldn’t bear it—she felt like she’d collapse under the weight crushing her.

Weak to the end, turning away from reality, Serena wept quietly.

* * *

“Have you lost your mind!”

Inside the moving carriage, merciless lashes rained down on her slender shoulders.

The cruel sound of the whip striking delicate skin was buried beneath the noise of the carriage racing over the rough mountain road.

“How dare you come dressed like this! Are you planning to seduce the priest and run away!”

“N-no. The maids hid my clothes, so I had nothing to wear…”

“Everyone knows where you’re going today, and you dare make excuses!”

“It’s just… I mean…”

“Speak properly!”

Olivia knew it wasn’t Serena’s fault that she couldn’t wear proper clothes.

She herself had ordered the maids to torment her relentlessly, to wound her and make her cry out in pain.

So the clothing was merely an excuse to administer a beating.

Amid the pouring lashes, Serena swallowed the screams that wouldn’t come out.

More than the eardrum-splitting accusations, more than the switch striking every corner of her body, the pain threatening to burst her brain left her speechless.

She could barely breathe, like her entire face had been plunged underwater.

“Mother, I can’t… breathe…”

“Stop your tricks! If you’ve done wrong, you must be punished!”

She was clearly just being beaten, yet she couldn’t breathe—like someone was twisting her windpipe.

Even with her eyes open, it didn’t feel like they were open. She couldn’t tell if what she was seeing was real or imagined.

Olivia’s voice mixed with the ringing in her brain until the noise was so loud she couldn’t understand the words.

“Please, stop…”

“Your sacrifice day is approaching, so you’re making your last desperate struggle. Then you need more beating!”

“It hurts, it hurts… Please stop…”

“Be quiet!”

The indiscriminate switch struck her cheek.

Her delicate cheek tore, hot blood seeping into her mouth.

The moment heat filled her throat, her wounded body moved on its own.

Her desperately outstretched hand grabbed the carriage door handle.

And she threw herself toward the open door.

“Kyaaaah!”

A scream—whose, she didn’t know—cut through the cold night air and rang in her eardrums.

And so Serena met a death with no meaning, no value.

She’d lived a life of nothing, so she’d hoped to avoid a death of nothing.

But the death she finally faced let her breathe freely at last.

And yet.

Why was she looking at a familiar ceiling?

‘I definitely…’

The screeching voice of Olivia that had threatened to burst her brain just moments ago, the suffocating pain that had strangled her—it had all vanished.

‘No way…’

Though she knew it was impossible, she instinctively realized she had regressed.

Everything before her eyes was horrifyingly the same.

Cruelly unchanged, she stared at the quiet room, and tears suddenly welled in Serena’s eyes.

Faced with harsh reality, all she could do was shed the tears she hadn’t finished crying.

For the first time in longer than she could remember, she wept openly for a long while.

Like it was the only thing she knew how to do.

After pouring out all the tears she’d held back her entire life, paradoxically, her heart felt lighter—like her past life had been washed away with the tears.

With her vision cleared, she finally saw the truth.

It had been a worthless life, so she’d foolishly believed that at least her death would have worth—but Serena Ashterton had died the moment she threw herself from that carriage.

The one who opened her eyes again was a new self.

One who realized there was no such thing as a meaningful death.

‘To have what must have been so easy for others—an ordinary death.’

What Serena, now fated to live her life again, desired was something so modest.

Not as a sacrifice, not as the conclusion to terrible pain and suffering.

She simply wanted to meet an end that came when her own life ran its course.

And to obtain an ordinary death, the first thing she had to do was escape the clutches of those vile people.

Regression was her chance to grasp the death she deserved.

So she couldn’t live like this anymore.