And before an answer could return, she flung the door open and stepped into the room.

“……!”

“Shall we make a deal?”

Her coldly frozen jade eyes curved beautifully toward the Count.

Bartholomew Ashterton.

He was a man skilled in calculation. Even with trivial actions, if they brought him no benefit, he wouldn’t spare them a glance. He acted like a madman, harming others solely for his own gain and accumulating wealth to grasp ever stronger power.

His gaze, devoid of any warmth, swept over Serena from top to bottom. Perhaps it was because she was smiling. Or perhaps he’d read the anger in the eyes staring at him.

Having instantly noticed Serena was different from usual, he wiped the emotion from his face like it had never been there. With an impassive expression, he slowly opened his mouth.

“What nonsense are you spouting?”

His cloudy green eyes, like fog had settled over them, glanced at her sideways.

Whenever he looked at her that way, Serena always felt goosebumps. Her whole body would tremble like her very existence was wrong, and she’d unconsciously bow her head. Though as always, she’d done absolutely nothing wrong.

It was precisely because of those eyes that Serena had begun to doubt his true intentions. Those eyes that hid himself in fog and acted like he stood one step removed from all of this—eyes utterly arrogant because of it.

She’d only suspected. In her foolish previous life, she’d never tried to be certain. That offering her as a divine sacrifice meant nothing. That ultimately, everything was merely a show to gain the Emperor’s favor.

All those terrible truths—that her adoptive father, Count Bartholomew Ashterton, knew better than anyone else.

Olivia was different. Not only did she worship Priest Bateron like a god, but even when abusing Serena, she never stopped praying. Like someone who’d surrendered her soul somewhere, she recited incomprehensible prayers over and over.

‘That was even more frightening.’

When she’d been foolish enough to lack even basic judgment, she’d thought that way. That Bartholomew, who seemed normal even if cold, was better than Olivia, who rolled her eyes grotesquely and muttered unintelligible words.

It hadn’t taken very long to learn that both of them simply wished for her death. And so, having accepted herself as a sacrifice, Serena began to see Bartholomew differently.

How could he be so calm? While starving and beating someone, while suddenly throwing her into sewage while walking down the street. Like someone processing tedious work. Like someone fulfilling a duty with nothing new about it.

How could he have such clouded eyes?

Only after thinking that did realization finally come. Perhaps he didn’t believe any of this. Perhaps pushing her into suffering worse than death truly was nothing more than tedious work to him.

Perhaps he simply wanted to show the Emperor—who believed all this was truly for the Empire—that he’d done his very best.

‘Such an obvious truth.’

Before her regression, she’d refused to believe it until the end. Because believing it would mean denying that her death had any meaning.

So Serena hadn’t accepted it to the very end. Her death and pain had to be a sacred sacrifice for the Empire, to everyone. Even to herself.

If she’d planted even the tiniest seed of doubt in those words she’d carried like fate in that hellish reality, she couldn’t have endured a single moment.

This was what regression had given her. It made her accept all the facts she’d refused to know in the past.

Regression had forced her to open the eyes she’d been keeping shut. So she wasn’t afraid.

‘If I’m merely a means for you to gain profit, then I’ll treat you the same way.’

A rich gleam appeared in her clear jade eyes that resembled a lake.

“I’d like you to move my room.”

“Move your room?”

Bartholomew pulled up the corners of his mouth unpleasantly. He released the arm propping up his chin and buried himself deep in his chair.

She could understand his leisure. He’d think she had no grounds to persuade him.

But he was wrong.

‘How arrogant.’

Her lightly moved steps headed toward the chair placed before his desk. It was prepared for guests, but a seat never once permitted to her.

Serena’s place had always been in a corner of the room, on the cold floor where not even carpet was laid. Without even seeking his permission, she plopped down and crossed her legs.

His eyebrows twisted instantly as they followed her smoothly exposed ankle.

“Impudent thing.”

Rising from his chair without hesitation, he strode over. Even while moving that short distance, his anger-soaked tongue knew no rest.

“A wh*re’s child—truly like mother, like daughter.”

Approaching her, Bartholomew raised his rough hand. Her slender arm blocked the palm that came crashing down without even aiming where to hit.

‘Ugh.’

It would be a lie to say it didn’t hurt. He was twice her size, after all.

But that fact didn’t matter. She no longer had any reason to endure his violence.

Her lips, forcibly hiding the pain, curved in a round arc toward him.

“Calling me a wh*re just for showing my ankle? Seeing you react so sensitively, you must have been playing around quite freely with your lower half.”

Blatant mockery hung beneath her leisurely curved eyes.

Grind—the sound of grinding teeth leaked through his closed lips.

“How dare you…!”

His grip roughly struck away the wrist blocking his hand, then seized her hair. Then he placed one foot on the chair and drew close, thrusting his chilling face before hers.

“Hup.”

His eyes twisted at the groan she barely suppressed.

“I heard you acted impudently before Kyle recently too. You’ve definitely become strange somehow. What is it? Did you really do something? Or are you just showing bravado before dying?”

“……Let go of this hand.”

“No, I can’t comply if you say it like that.”

Bartholomew laughed voraciously through his grotesquely twisted lips.

“You need to beg prettily, ‘Please let go,’ for me to even consider it, don’t you think? You should prostrate yourself at my feet and plead to be spared. Just like you’ve done your whole life.”

His arrogant cheekbones rose sky-high, knowing no limits. The red corners of her lips facing him curled up bewitchingly.

Thunk.

He who’d been whispering with a shameless face was flung away from Serena. And immediately after, a scream more thunderous than a newborn monster burst from his mouth.

“Aaaagh!!”

A letter opener was embedded in the arm of the screaming man. Her letter opener, which she’d brought from her room before coming to his study.

Sharp objects weren’t permitted in her room. Because there was a risk that she might lose her reason and attack them—or herself.

But the letter opener wasn’t considered a weapon. It was a blade, but not sharp enough to harm a person.

‘Just because you can’t cut doesn’t mean you can’t stab.’

Even stabbing with all her strength couldn’t inflict seriously grave injuries. Still, it was enough to remove Bartholomew’s filthy hand, and that was sufficient.

As he stamped his feet here and there in excitement, objects from the display cabinet crashed down with a clamorous noise.

“My lord! Are you all right?!”

Without delay, the Count’s servants swarmed. Being people with ears as sharp for opportunity as Bartholomew, they couldn’t miss such a conspicuous chance.

But their movements couldn’t enter the room. When she’d entered the room, she’d already locked the door firmly.

She had absolutely no desire for anyone to interrupt this moment.

“Gaaaah!! That, that crazy b*tch!”

Bartholomew spewed meaningless sounds wildly. Serena’s head tilted crookedly, disappointed by his reaction that fell short of expectations.

‘I thought he’d show a more plausible reaction than this.’

Serena had expected a reaction like wielding violence unconcernedly despite having a weapon embedded in his arm. Until her regression, he’d been that kind of existence to her.

His pitiful collapse from a single attack was enough to evoke disappointment in Serena. Compared to the pain she’d endured all this time, it was less than a stream before the ocean.

The more passionately he screamed, the greater her disappointment grew. That disappointment was clearly directed at herself.

That what had made her so desperate, what had made her turn away from everything, was such a worthless existence. Why hadn’t she realized it sooner—her foolish self was utterly pathetic.

“Let’s begin the deal.”

She spoke, ignoring the black stream of blood flowing down his thick forearm. His bleary eyes turned sharply toward her.

“What… did you say?”

“I said let’s make a deal. So stop and return to your seat.”

At her leisurely lowered eyes, Bartholomew glared.