Chapter 01
A leisurely afternoon.
The perfect time to spend an ordinary day.
I, too, was savoring the fragrance of rooibos tea—supposedly helpful for sleep—and had just been about to take a sip.
“Tie.”
“Khk.”
A cold voice shattered the peace.
“I think you’ve forgotten something you’re supposed to do before drinking tea.”
Ah.
My sister was staring at me with lifeless eyes.
If I ignored her now, something huge would definitely happen. A chill instantly ran down my spine.
“Unni, isn’t it troublesome to come by every single time I have tea?”
I swore to the heavens I wasn’t trying to dodge the situation.
I simply thought it would be better to calm her mood first.
“Flotie Rosena.”
…It seemed my judgment had been the wrong one.
The color slowly drained from my sister’s face.
“Okay, okay.”
Seeing her looking like she might flip the table at any second, I hurriedly grabbed a silver spoon and plunged it into the teacup.
“……”
My sister stared at the cup as though the spoon might suddenly turn black.
But even after a long moment passed and nothing happened, her expression finally relaxed.
“See? Nothing’s wr—”
As expected, she didn’t even listen to the end of my sentence before turning around and leaving.
The tension in my body melted away at once.
“My lady, the tea has probably gone cold. Shall I prepare a fresh pot?”
“No, Elian. If I brew another cup, Unni will come charging back immediately.”
“Lady Serphina is…”
“Even if she’s far away, Unni always knows. She’s watching over me no matter where I am.”
“You do realize that sounds terrifying, right?”
Elian looked toward the direction my sister had disappeared with a worried expression.
Of course I knew. I was extremely worried too.
After swallowing the lukewarm tea, I let out a sigh.
“It might sound scary, but don’t take it that way. I’ve told you countless times—Unni doesn’t act like this out of bad intentions.”
“Yes, I know, but…”
Her neat green eyes shone with unwavering loyalty, as though she would do absolutely anything for my sake.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“You don’t actually believe those rumors that Unni stole my position as young duke and then went mad, right?”
“Of course not!”
Serphina Rosena.
Ever since she was adopted, people called her a magical genius that appeared only once in a thousand years.
She had once been considered the family’s greatest prodigy, but at some point she shut herself away in the ducal estate, and no one knew anything about her whereabouts afterward.
From then on, rumors spread that she had interfered so I wouldn’t inherit the dukedom, and that she still hated me.
But my sister never reacted to any of those rumors.
“Unni loves me.”
“You’re just too kind, my lady.”
“No, really. Unni acts like this because she loves me very much.”
I know everything.
When I was very young, I realized one very simple fact.
I was unusually perceptive compared to other people.
And the things that seemed blatantly obvious to me somehow appeared invisible to everyone else.
When I was younger, I wondered if the entire world was playing some grand trick on me.
But now I know that’s impossible.
Still, if you asked whether knowing was a good thing…
My answer would naturally be no.
Because every single day drives me nearly insane.
First—
Serphina Unni, who had just interrupted my tea time and caused a commotion, had probably regressed through time.
I know it sounds absurd, but I had several reasons for believing it.
The first time I became suspicious was when I was thirteen and Unni was fifteen.
She suddenly barged into my room one day.
I had always been frail since childhood, so it wasn’t unusual for me to spend days bedridden.
That day in question, I had only just woken up late.
‘Flotie!’
Her face pale as death, Unni rushed over and immediately grabbed my shoulders, frantically checking my condition.
Back then, she hadn’t been adopted into the family for very long, and I still felt awkward around her, so it had been an overwhelmingly confusing experience for my younger self.
Imagine being thirteen and suddenly hearing that you had an older sister you never even knew existed, only for her to appear out of nowhere.
How was a child supposed to react calmly to that?
Besides, even when I spoke to her, she rarely answered, always locking herself in her room to read books.
We’d never had the chance to grow close.
‘Are you okay? Why is your complexion so pale? Did you eat Ludwih berries again? Did it reflux? Or did you take Laurelby herbs again—!’
‘U-Unni?’
Up until dinner the previous evening, she had been perfectly normal.
Yet now she clung to me and cried for a long time, like someone who had been separated from me for a lifetime.
At the time, though, I didn’t find it strange at all that a fifteen-year-old was rattling off advanced medicinal herbs and treatments only healers should know.
I truly mean that.
Maybe it was because her first impression had been so cold.
But having her hug me like that and finally let me close felt so nice.
Still, after that day, Unni became a little strange.
Just a little.
‘Flotie, I think the viscount’s family will send tea leaves in about three days. When they arrive, you must give them to me.’
‘You have a feeling the viscount’s family is going to send tea leaves in three days? And you want me to hand them over to you?’
‘Yes. Absolutely. You have to give them to me. No matter what. They know how much you like tea.’
The nonsense left me bewildered.
Yet exactly three days later, tea leaves arrived as a gift from the viscount’s family.
‘Unni, is this the tea you were talking about?’
‘It was sent from House Ross, right?’
‘Ah, yeah. They said they managed to acquire something rare because they know I love tea.’
Curious, I obediently handed it over to her.
I assumed she simply wanted to drink it badly.
But the moment I gave it to her, she threw the leaves straight into the brazier and burned every last one.
‘This time, I absolutely won’t lose you, Tie. Anything that could put you in danger—I’ll destroy it all.’
The way she spoke made it sound as though I had once fallen into danger because of her mistake.
As though she had already lost me before.
Honestly, if she had acted strangely only around me, I might have stopped at mere suspicion.
But her bizarre behavior didn’t end there.
No—it couldn’t even be called bizarre behavior anymore.
It was an achievement.
A historical event.
‘ I am your real daughter.’
On the day of her debutante, she personally dispelled the dark magic placed on our parents and revealed herself to be the legitimate eldest daughter, throwing the Empire into chaos.
The two families identified as being behind it were exterminated.
But even after reclaiming her family, my sister’s only concern remained me.
‘I’ll never lose you again by wasting my time on trivial matters like these.’
She even made such a shocking promise.
I couldn’t argue back, even though calling direct family matters “trivial” was ridiculous.
She even turned the magical world upside down when she rejected the Magic Tower’s recruitment offer despite their admiration for her powerful memory magic.
‘If Flotie cannot be with me, then I will not go to the Magic Tower. If I hadn’t gone there in the first place, this child would never have been left alone that night…’
I took advantage of the situation to hand over the position of young duke to her.
That exhausting role had never suited my tastes in the first place, and since I spent most of my childhood bedridden, I couldn’t properly receive successor training anyway.
Unni accepted the position gladly, saying she would be happy if it meant sharing my burdens.
‘Unni… do I die?’
‘Why would you die?!’
Whenever I asked questions like that after witnessing her increasingly suspicious behavior, she would always scream in panic as though she had personally witnessed my death.
Even now, after I turned seventeen, she still checks every drink and every bite of food for poison before letting me consume them.
And every night, she storms into my room with bloodshot eyes, locking the windows and checking the doors.
‘I need to see you live past nineteen and become an adult. Only two years remain, and the preparations are complete.’
At this point, wouldn’t it be stranger not to realize the truth?
For whatever reason, Unni had traveled back in time.
And apparently, in her previous life, I died before turning nineteen.
Ah, but don’t be too shocked just because there’s one person hiding the fact that they regressed through time.
Because this is only the beginning.
Didn’t I say it already?
In this world, everyone except me is hiding something!
