An Incalculable Debt
“That is a difficult request. The moment you enter into a contract with me, your existence in ‘this world’ becomes anchored. I cannot interfere with other royals who are not my contractors, which means I cannot touch your parents here, either…. Let us do this instead.”
The white entity spoke.
“I shall allow you to be born briefly into another world. You will be born to wonderful parents, receive a fine education, and be loved to your heart’s content. Yet, give or take a few years, it will end the moment you reach your current age in that realm. Your very existence there will be erased as well. In the end, to fulfill our contract in earnest, you will inevitably awaken once more in your former body from the past. …When that happens, you will no longer be ‘the you of right now.’ Are you truly all right with that?”
“I—I don’t care.”
“Your memories will not remain intact, either. Not that you need to remember you are my contractor. But passing your soul back and forth between worlds carries a toll. The reality you remember may linger in a distorted form.”
“It’s fine.”
“That is what I can grant you. From here on, we speak of what you must do once the contract is bound.”
It was a long, arduous tale.
The white entity asked once more if she truly wished to make the contract, and Titania agreed without hesitation. Whatever the cost, she would not regret it in the slightest.
Titania felt sorry toward Raymon. Shamelessly, only now. She could not forget Lisianthus’s venomous words when he had denounced her.
Yet she had simply never known any other way.
She had been told that a normal person—anyone with a shred of decency—would never treat Raymon that way.
She had been told countlessly that everyone would be better off if she simply ceased to exist.
Then what, exactly, was ‘normal’?
Watching Bibi, whom she had so deeply envied and resented, Titania finally understood what those words meant.
Yet whenever she looked upon Bibi—cherished by everyone—the awareness of her own ugliness flared back to life, so unbearable she could hardly stand it.
So she had harbored spiteful, wicked thoughts, and this had been the result. It was retribution. She had brought it upon herself.
I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry.
If only dying could serve as an apology, but she was told she must not die.
There was no reason to blame anything in this world.
The one who was wrong was Titania. The one who had burdened everyone was her.
So let us start anew.
I do not need to be loved.
And I will not dare to love so shamelessly again.
Then everyone will be better off than they are now.
When I opened my eyes, an unfamiliar ceiling greeted me.
“……”
And stranger still were the people keeping vigil at my bedside. Wh-what? What is this?
The moment she saw my eyes flutter open, a maid who had been frozen like a statue beside the bed sprang to her feet and shouted:
“Her Imperial Highness has opened her eyes!”
“H-Her Highness!”
“Lady Titania!”
I froze at their feverish reactions, like devout believers witnessing the arrival of a descending messiah. I would bet good money not even my actual birth received a reception like this. Every single one of them looked gaunt and hollow, as if they hadn’t slept in days, yet their eyes blazed with madness.
With a baffled expression, I surveyed the bed I lay in and the surrounding room.
It was completely unfamiliar to me.
The chamber was ridiculously massive. The bed alone looked wide enough to comfortably sleep four or five grown adults.
Towels, water carafes, medicine vials, bandages, mysterious magic crystals glowing in a myriad of colors, and silver trays bearing soup bowls that still wafted gentle steam…. It was a display of lavish luxury that would put any VIP suite in a modern chaebol hospital to shame.
No matter how hard I looked, neither the decor nor any of these furnishings belonged to the Rose Palace….
Nor did these faces….
More importantly, wasn't that person sleeping on the floor over there—utterly exhausted, paying no heed to the commotion—wearing vestments that only a High Priest would wear…?
Right when I was still in a daze, unable to properly grasp what was going on, the doors swung open.
“Sister!”
Bibi came bounding in like a little rabbit. She moved to throw herself into my arms, only to flinch and hesitate, looking at me as if terrified I might shatter if touched. The moment I met those adorable eyes cautiously reading my expression, I gave an involuntary nod.
At once, Bibi broke into a beaming smile, pulling my hand close to bury her cheek against it.
Against the soft, warm touch of her cheek, I felt my heart melt like a snowman sitting beside a blazing fireplace. Is—is this the power of a female lead? Is that it? Wh-what is this? Bibi, what are you doing to me? Bibi! Why are you so unbelievably cute?!
“…I’m so glad you woke up! If you hadn’t, Bibi… Bibi would have….”
Sniffling, her bright blue eyes welled with large, trembling tears.
“I would have died of heartbreak!”
It was an utterly sweet and precious thing to say, yet something about it felt strangely loaded. Was it because I knew she was a regressor…?
It almost sounded like she was declaring in code: ‘Listen up, you lot. You’d better treat my sister like royalty, or else.’
From the moment tears filled Bibi’s eyes, the servants barely clinging to consciousness around my bed openly panicked.
“You must not, Young Miss!”
“Please, take care of your health!”
“Her Imperial Highness is safe!”
“Anything but those words, please!”
I see….
These people, that comatose High Priest on the floor, and these absurdly opulent furnishings—it was all thanks to Bibi, after all….
Enlightened at last, I nodded in humble realization. Having hovered on death's door not long ago, the difference between panting through a scorching summer in the Rose Palace without proper medical care and this current luxury was, quite literally, night and day.
Our Bibi truly was like the magpie repaying a debt of gratitude. What a sweet girl.
Looking at the array of devices powered by magic crystals of every conceivable color, I was rendered speechless.
That one regulated humidity, that one managed the room temperature, that one kept body heat stable, that one repelled insects… and on and on.
It was a brand of extravagance unimaginable anywhere outside the Castrein Duchy, which held a total monopoly over the distribution of magic crystals.
I could swear that if I pawned just the items sitting in this single room, it would cover the Rose Palace’s entire operational budget for five years.
What was more, when I experimentally put weight into my back and sat up, my entire body felt impossibly light.
I don’t think I had ever felt this comfortable in all the time I had inhabited this body.
The High Priest splayed on the floor—who looked as though every ounce of life force had been thoroughly sucked dry—had undoubtedly played a major role in that.
Just then, hurried footsteps echoed outside.
“She’s awake?!”
My eyes widened drastically the moment I saw who it was. Young Duke Raymon, a man who normally lived with razor-sharp perfection in attire and demeanor, had rushed in looking visibly disheveled.
From somewhere across the hallway, I thought I could hear the yapping of a mad dog shouting, ‘Hey, dammit, Brother! How could you dump this on me and bolt?!’—though perhaps that was just an auditory hallucination.
The man’s golden eyes took me in with shock, softened with relief an instant later, and then clouded with an inexplicable shade.
Something resembling self-reproach, or perhaps regret….
He strode toward me without an ounce of hesitation, stopping barely a pace before me as I sat upright, blankly blinking with one hand surrendered to Bibi.
Then, he dropped to one knee.
“……?!”
Wait, what? Why is this man doing that here?! Why?!
I was genuinely stunned.
The price of Raymon’s knee was astronomical. Bluntly put, he didn’t even kneel before the Emperor.
In the original novel, there had even been an episode where the Emperor schemed desperately to extract a kneeling bow from Raymon during his formal succession ceremony, only to be utterly humiliated.
The renown and authority of the Castrein Duchy stood virtually on par with imperial sovereignty itself. Given the reality of an empire that offloaded the security of over half its vast territory onto the duchy, forcing the Castreins to submit was an impossible feat.
If it were the second son, Lisianthus, or the youngest, Lasper—or perhaps their adopted sister, Bibi—that would be one thing. If they chose to kneel on their own accord to repay a personal debt of gratitude… well, that was understandable.
Yet the knee of Raymon, the future head of the house, did not belong to him alone.
No matter if she was his fiancée, or even the savior who had spared his family from death, it was not something a young lady could childishly beg for out of romantic longing for a knight’s sworn oath.
Weighed upon that knee was the blood price of all the loyal Castrein knights and soldiers who had perished holding the northern front….
“Your Imperial Highness, First Princess Titania Sol Kite Hamastion.”
His profile, carved as though forged from tempered steel, spoke as if reciting words that must be said. His eyes, like sunlight melted and set in dusk, held me entirely as he spoke:
“We owe you a debt beyond measure.”
It was at that very moment.
I could hardly believe my eyes.
Following Raymon’s lead, everyone present in the room slowly dropped to their knees.
Even those who had just been looking at Bibi with pleading eyes, crying ‘Please pull yourself together, Young Miss!’—now, without a word of protest, bowed with utmost solemnity.
Facing in the direction of where I sat, they lowered their heads.
Bibi did the exact same.
Gathering her skirts, she knelt beside Raymon and bowed her head. The face that had worn such an innocent, childish smile only moments ago was astonishingly solemn. The sight of their hair and garments cascading across the floor before me was breathtaking. It felt surreal.
“On behalf of all of us, Raymon of Castrein expresses our deepest gratitude to you.”
“……”
“A debt repaid to fill two hands; vengeance relentless until both feet give way. Yet the grace we have received from you runs deeper than any measure could ever hold.”
Repay kindness tenfold with both hands, through every means and measure possible.
Pursue vengeance without pause until the victim’s grievance is settled. To whoever inflicted harm, grant no forgiveness.
Such was the unofficial motto of House Castrein. And then….
“Therefore, from this day forward, Castrein shall be your hands, your feet, and your sword.”
Confronted with something I had never even dared to imagine, I momentarily lost my senses.
That Raymon of House Castrein slowly pressed his lips to the back of my hand, and then to the top of my foot.
With boundless reverence.
As though handling something so fragile that the slightest misstep might shatter it.
It was something I had never dreamed of, not even in my wildest fantasies.
“Not even Death itself shall be permitted to claim your life.”
And yet, things were certainly… never supposed to turn out like this….
I couldn't say a single word. All I could do was desperately press down against the fierce, thumping beat of my heart.
Dazed and staring blankly down at Raymon, my expression must have looked utterly pathetic.
And yet, for some strange reason, I felt as though tears might spill over.