She Forgets His Sin
As soon as I woke, I flicked the sheet with a sharp smack.
The memories flashed like a lightning bolt: hiding behind Damien, clutching his sleeve, crying as I told him to trust me, and thanking him for believing in me.
Ugh, if only I had superpowers, I would have torn that sheet to shreds instead of flicking it.
I got up, opened the window, and peered outside.
It was still dark, but dawn was coming. The whole world would soon be bustling like ants at first light.
Back when I was just born, I struggled to adapt, but after twelve years here, I had grown used to it too.
I had nearly died from a monster attack, and I had rewritten my worst life by combining twenty-three years in Korea with twelve years here—total thirty-five years. Yet it all felt like yesterday.
Today, like some ancient housewife, I had to agonize over the morning menu.
Wait. Thinking about it, we still hadn’t managed to get any ingredients after all that chaos?
What on earth should I eat today?
I had spent some time pondering in the early hours and ended up cooking. There was simply nothing left to do.
No, this is insane. Really, there’s nothing. Eggs—all gone. Meat—none. Bread—none…
Hold on. What about black bread? I couldn’t just eat that hard, crusty stuff… so I decided to make a stew. Black bread and stew—those were the eternal meals of commoners.
And I swear on everything that Pythia would never have been able to cook a stew like this. With her skills? Ridiculous.
When I first arrived in the Hamilcar territory, I had assumed the Gerka temple would be an incredibly grand place, so I had brought along some precious ingredients.
If I had known the true state of this temple, I would have packed plenty of ordinary goods… Well, no, I wouldn’t have brought any in the first place. That was an impossible assumption to begin with.
Ah, these are such precious mushrooms and dried fish. Cooking a stew with them… Well, it’s basically like making broth with caviar.
But what could I do? I had to eat something. And today—today was when everything would be sorted out.
I’d pluck the spine right out of the Demia temple.
Even if the heavens fell, this was a matter of survival.
I resolved to use every last bit of the fish and mushrooms without holding back. Better food meant better bargaining power.
Today was truly a big day—the day that would change everything. Adrenaline surged through me like it did on the day of the college entrance exam!
…But on a day like that, why was our house’s combat expert just gnawing on black bread?
Had yesterday been too exhausting for him?
I mentally replayed the events of yesterday. His combat power had indeed been incredible… but it wasn’t easy to call it a fierce battle.
If anything, it felt more like squashing ants with my finger.
But he was probably a mage, so he could summon something like a frozen spear out of nowhere.
It looked so easy for mages, yet they must have been under incredible strain. No wonder their appetite was off.
“Are you alright?” I asked, worried. Damien shook his head. He wouldn’t even look at me while stubbornly chewing his black bread.
Was he angry with me? So he wouldn’t eat the food I had prepared?
I ran a quick internal audit. What had I done wrong yesterday…
He didn’t know who I was, after all, so feeling insulted by a commoner using casual speech was completely understandable.
And suddenly throwing him into battle with monsters could have annoyed him too. I had made some dismissive remarks yesterday. Honestly, it was lucky that proving a priest was a monster gave him some reason to forgive me… but still, saying it without any basis had been ridiculous… A lot.
I had truly made him angry.
Normally I would have snapped, “Don’t eat it then!” but today was different.
I approached carefully. Damien was almost burying his head in the bread while chewing the tough crust with difficulty.
I lowered my head to try to meet his eyes and spoke slowly.
“I’m sorry for using casual speech. But you’re using it too. We don’t seem that different in status. I’m Arian Danier. You remember the time we met at the summer palace… right?”
He might not remember. Honestly, how could I expect a three-year-old’s face to stay clear in memory?
Damien Hamilcar was an overwhelmingly handsome boy whose face had overshadowed even his prestigious background.
Yet I had still failed to connect the child from back then with the adult he was now. Children changed their faces every day as they grew—obviously.
By that logic, it was completely natural that Damien didn’t recognize me.
But humans are humans. It was hard to say he had recognized me while I had forgotten him.
Perhaps surprised, Damien looked at me with a complicated gaze.
“I remember.”
“We couldn’t greet each other back then, but maybe we should now? Arian Danier. I’m really grateful that you came to help.”
“I went to the jousting tournament for you. Why are you thanking me? You didn’t even show up much back then.”
What? You were at the tournament? Last year, that one?
At the time, I was already ten years old.
This wretched medieval world didn’t consider ten-year-old girls “children.”
In this world, what counted as a “child” was completely different from what I knew. Either way, by around ten they were already treated as teenagers.
Using my family as a standard, ten-year-olds were expected to do the work of a full adult.
Waiting until fifteen or sixteen to debut in high society was a noble-world thing. The poorer you were, the faster they demanded you become an adult.
I had learned this naturally simply by being born and raised here.
Anyway, at ten I was basically a teenager in the eyes of the modern world—mid-high-school level.
My mother had said, “Even so, you can still go watch the tournament until ten,” but my father and two older brothers strongly opposed it.
At fifteen you had to debut in high society, and having a flighty ten-year-old girl sitting at a jousting tournament would only create unnecessary gossip.
No matter how strong my mother’s voice, the final decision rested with my father.
Yet my father, unusually, agreed with my mother’s wish to watch the tournament.
The reason? “I cannot seat my daughter among all the riffraff of the world.”
Mother had been disappointed at the time. She stroked my head and said how sad it was that I was about to experience “the life of a woman.”
But back then I had been thinking, “It’s time I started earning my pocket money?” and was already searching for someone suitable to serve as my agent.
That was why I had no real interest in jousting tournaments. Here, people loved them.
And I could guess why.
It was an event where you risked your life, your pride, and your honor. I didn’t understand why anyone would hold such a foolish event, but losing meant losing a lot—so naturally the spectators got a massive dopamine rush.
Truly medieval. Modern tragic dramas were nothing compared to this.
Watching a body break its neck right in front of you, then whistling, drinking, and waving handkerchiefs—it felt like living in the “barbarian age.”
Jousting was fun, but as a modern person I couldn’t help but flinch every time someone got hurt and screamed.
Yet that was far too undignified behavior for the daughter of a chamberlain.
So even as a child, whenever I watched the tournament I secretly looked elsewhere or chewed my tongue to stay quiet.
For that reason, unlike my mother, I had felt no real interest in jousting tournaments.
Instead, I had wanted to become one of the people who got entangled in the sweet trap of jousting and almost ruined themselves, then pick one as my agent.
In short, I hadn’t cared who represented the Hamilcar territory at the tournament.
I had been busy plotting how to make Jacques Bochel my agent.
Of course I had confirmed that the Hamilcar count himself would come. He hadn’t, though.
At that time, the representative for Hamilcar had been Damien.
Wait, they had put a ten-year-old in charge of the tournament? No way?
“You went to the tournament back then?”
“No, my knight went.”
With Damien’s status, of course he would have had bodyguards. And he would have sent someone in his place. Maybe one of those flashy knights who drank with him.
In this world, many nobles sent knights to represent them at jousting tournaments in exactly that way.
“That’s a relief. If you had gone, it would have been terrible.”
I knew the winner of the tournament back then—my little brother David.
“If I had gone, my opponent would have been in trouble. Why would I be the one in trouble?”
David could never have beaten him. You’re out of your league.
Bullshit… Speaking of which, I hadn’t seen David’s status yet, so I couldn’t be sure.
But at the time, they definitely wouldn’t have been on equal footing. Why? Because…
“You were only ten back then.”
“I’m twelve now. And even back then I was strong.”
Whenever the topic of fighting came up, he lit up like that. He raised his pride with every swing of the sword.
But my soul was thirty-five years old and Damien was only twelve. I, who had lived more, had to understand.
“Yeah, you’re strong and I’m done for.”
I spoke gloomily and tried to leave in front of him, but Damien quickly grabbed my arm.
“Why…? Why did you get done for?”
“I was going to go to the Demia temple to see if there was a priest who was a monster and take some ingredients. We really have nothing to eat now.”
I pointed with my chin toward Pythia. Damien’s gaze moved that way.
Pythia was gloomily tearing black bread and dipping it in the stew. “Even though Arian is here… he’s eating black bread…” She muttered, sounding extremely unhappy.
“Just go get it from the village. I’ll go.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I can.”
“How are you going to get it?”
Damien grinned. His expression said he was wondering why I was so worried about such a trivial thing.
“I’m Damien Hamilcar. Whatever is on this land belongs to our family.”
He was still spouting the same nonsense.
Ah, it must be nice for you. After you say that, who do I have to trust and make deals with?
“Yeah, so that’s why you’re the one who can’t.”
My face probably had a big “idiot” written all over it.
Damien shouted, “Hey!” but I refused to look at him.
I’m the older sister to two brothers. If it was Bertrand I could understand, but David was even more hot-tempered than Damien.
Ah, that must be it. In this world, names starting with “D” must mean someone with a fiery temper.
Ah, I’m so depressed. What now? Ingredients? Should I try stealing from another temple instead of Demia?
But since the monster had attacked me, using that as an excuse was the best option. That way I could get a big haul.
“Life is really hard. There’s nothing that works out.”
I muttered as I tried to leave in front of Damien, but he grabbed my arm again.
“You can just go to the Demia temple. What’s the problem?”
“Your condition isn’t good. You’re sick—how can you cause a scene?”
“I’m in good condition?”
“No, I can see you’re sick from how you’re eating.”
At that moment, there was a sharp crack from somewhere on Damien’s body.
He let go of my arm, tore his black bread to pieces, tossed it all into the stew, stirred vigorously, and gulped it down.
He jumped up and shouted,
“Let’s go! Right now!”
I glared at him with narrowed eyes.
“You’re the only one with a mouth? I couldn’t even take one bite, and the temple head priest is still eating.”
He let out an “Ah!” of realization, sat down gracefully again, and smiled.