Chapter 06

A Tough Cookie, or a Mad Dog

The emotions that had surged up inside me when I saw him standing beside Seoyoon, the Saintess, just as he had in my previous life, quickly cooled under the touch of the hands that gently surrounded me.

I looked at my parents standing on either side of me.

Every time I saw them, it was still difficult to believe that they looked at me with such affectionate eyes.

But it made me happy.

Yes.

Now that I thought about it, what did it matter that I was seeing those two again?

I was already a dead person in that world.

And besides, they could no longer have any influence over me.

Once I had calmed down, I looked straight ahead and saw the Emperor step forward.

“Saintess, whom Lord Asteras has sent to the Stern Empire.”

At the Emperor’s call, Seoyoon stepped forward.

It seemed that the Emperor wanted to use this opportunity to announce that the Saintess had received God’s blessing.

“It must have been God’s will that the Saintess’s coming-of-age ceremony was held at the Stern Imperial Palace. This too must surely be God’s grace. Saintess, what is your name?”

“My name is Lee Seoyoon. I look forward to getting along with everyone.”

Her clear voice rang out.

It was a small voice, but it carried distinctly throughout the hall.

That was only possible because every noble in the hall was holding their breath and listening intently.

Listening to that familiar voice, which was even younger than the one I remembered, I simply watched her without emotion.

After the Emperor finished his coming-of-age congratulatory speech, the hall became noisy again.

I could see the Emperor, Empress, Saintess, Crown Prince, and Ciel sitting in the upper seats, drinking champagne and talking among themselves.

They were still distant from me.

It was rather amusing that this, at least, seemed not to have changed.

A tiny bit of bitterness welled up inside me, but I quickly brushed it aside as I talked with my parents and my brother, who affectionately surrounded me.

“Our daughter is going to become an adult soon, isn’t she?”

“If there’s anything you wanted, tell your father.”

“That’s right, Rin. You said you wanted a bow, remember? Ask Father to buy one for you.”

“A bow? Really?”

Mom covered her mouth in surprise, and I nodded vigorously.

In my previous life, the weapons I primarily used were a bow and daggers.

Even then, just as now, I had a small frame, so I was more skilled at fighting from a distance than engaging in close combat.

Once I became an adult, I wanted to help Dad and my brother with their work.

There were two reasons our family had never been able to escape poverty.

One was that our territory was small and its land was poor.

The other was that it was located at the very edge of the empire.

There was a reason the Emperor had repeatedly emphasized God’s blessing.

With the help of the temple, the Stern Empire was protected by God’s blessing—in other words, God’s barrier.

I hadn’t known that Espers existed here, but I knew that monsters did.

After all, monsters were the enemies our family’s guards had to fight.

The farther God’s barrier spread from the center of the empire, the capital, the weaker its power became.

That was why most nobles living on the outskirts of the empire maintained knight orders to fight monsters.

However, not just anyone could call themselves a knight order.

They needed to have at least two hundred knights before they could officially be given that name.

Therefore, since our family had fewer than a hundred knights in total, we were called a guard unit rather than a knight order.

I knew monsters well.

They were creatures I had fought endlessly in my previous life.

Once you identified a monster’s distinctive traits, dealing with it became considerably easier.

There were things you could determine simply from the monster’s appearance.

I had also been studying the monsters found here whenever I had the time.

I did so by looking through the monster encyclopedia my brother used.

That was why I needed a bow, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to ask for one.

If I asked them to buy me a bow, an expensive weapon, they would undoubtedly find a way to get one for me.

But I couldn’t avoid feeling guilty about the burden it would place on them.

However, if I said it was a coming-of-age present, that was different.

It was something I needed anyway……

Should I ask them to buy it for me?

I considered it something I absolutely needed if I wanted to help my family in the future, and forced myself to let go of my guilt.

Dad quietly looked into my eyes before nodding in approval.

“Heh heh. I never imagined that you would ask for a bow as your coming-of-age gift. I thought you’d ask for some pretty jewelry……”

There was disappointment in Dad’s voice.

I took his hand firmly and said,

“I wanted to help you. I’ll train hard and make sure I can help you and my brother.”

“Heh heh. So that’s why……”

His large, thick palm gently touched my cheek before falling away.

He looked as though he had actually wanted to ruffle my hair roughly, but Mom had quickly jabbed him in the side.

She had been on high alert for quite some time, determined to protect my makeup.

After all, the coming-of-age ceremony wasn’t over yet.

Just then, a middle-aged man who had been repeatedly drinking champagne beside us suddenly burst into loud laughter.

“Hahaha! Good heavens. How short-handed must you be to have to put even your daughter to work? If that’s the case, you shouldn’t be calling yourselves a guard unit in the first place. Well, it’s not as though a guard unit is anything impressive! Hahaha!”

He was blatantly looking down on my family.

I turned my head and looked at him.

“Young ladies these days are certainly audacious. To speak so casually about hunting monsters as though it were nothing more than taking a stroll. This is why children need to be properly educated from an early age. Parents ought to teach them that ignorance is a sin!”

“I agree with Viscount Bitters. Subjugating monsters is by no means an easy task. Even a knight who has trained their entire life can return half-dead after having their very soul beaten out of them. Good grief.”

I carefully observed Viscount Bitters and the people around him.

The Viscount’s eyes were half-lidded as he downed his champagne in one gulp.

“Champagne provided by the Imperial Family really is in a class of its own. I’ve never tasted champagne this sweet and smooth before. Hahaha!”

Every time he laughed while speaking, the belly protruding over his trousers jiggled.

“Dear, don’t.”

I heard Mom whisper.

When I turned my head, Dad and my brother were glaring at the Viscount with frightening expressions completely different from the ones they showed me.

Mom poked the two of them with her fingertips as though trying to stop them and whispered again in an extremely quiet voice.

“Our Rin’s coming-of-age ceremony isn’t over yet.”

At Mom’s words, the eyebrows that had been raised fiercely on both Dad’s and my brother’s faces drooped simultaneously.

Every time something like this happened, my heart swelled painfully.

Family love was something I had never experienced even once since birth.

Could people really love someone this unconditionally?

Could they love someone without asking for anything in return simply because they were family?

Was that really what blood relations meant?

If so, then all the more reason I couldn’t just let that man off.

A tough cookie, or a mad dog.

That had been my nickname in the special forces in my previous life.

Back then, I had lived with anger burning inside me, so I never let anyone I considered an enemy get away with anything.

I had a personality where I couldn’t feel satisfied unless I somehow paid people back for whatever they had done to me.

Or even more than that.

After possessing this body, I had never encountered a situation that brought that side of me out, so I had believed that my personality had changed.

But apparently, a person’s nature wasn’t something that changed so easily.

My eyes moved on their own.

To make sure I wouldn’t forget his appearance, I carefully looked him over from head to toe.

Then I noticed the button on his trousers, which looked as though it might fly off at any moment.

He must have drunk an enormous amount of champagne.

His trousers looked ready to burst.

He had insulted my father and brother.

Didn’t he deserve to pay the same price for that?

I raised my hand as though brushing through my hair and secretly pulled out one of the pins.

I pressed down on its pointed end repeatedly to make it firmer, then quickly flicked it away as I turned around.

The pin struck its mark perfectly, severing the thread connecting one of his trouser buttons.

Only one button had fallen off.

But apparently, his trousers could no longer contain his jiggling belly, because the remaining buttons began popping off one after another.

“Huh?”

Perhaps his lower body was rather scrawny compared to his plump upper body, because his trousers fell completely down.

“Eeeek!”

A noblewoman nearby covered her face with her fan and screamed, while the male nobles standing around frowned as though they had seen something they shouldn’t have.

It was a shame I couldn’t watch the scene unfold, but by then I was already heading toward the balcony with my family.

Dad and my brother must have caught sight of what happened from a distance, because the corners of their mouths twitched.

They couldn’t laugh openly and seemed to be desperately holding it in.

Seeing the two of them like that put my mind at ease.

I had always hated anyone touching what belonged to me.

I had lived on the streets for as long as I could remember, and in my previous life, Korea had been a place where the rich got richer and the poor got poorer.

And in places without the protection of Espers, that gap had been even more obvious.

No.

It couldn’t even be called a gap.

The place where I grew up could generously be called a jungle.

Put less kindly, it should have been called a garbage dump.

It was filled with all kinds of monster remains, trash, and corpses.

I survived there and eventually joined the special forces.

And in my previous life, the only things I could truly call my own were the bank account I had worked hard to build up and my former husband, Ciel.

My family now was different from Ciel.

Their unconditional love filled my heart.

But strangely, it also made me even thirstier.

I wanted to receive more of my family’s love.

And I wanted to give them just as much in return.

“Slowly, the stars are beginning to appear, Rin.”

Looking at Mom as she gently held my hand, and Dad and my brother standing protectively on either side of me, I naturally lifted the corners of my lips.

Ciel and Seoyoon no longer came to mind.

That’s right.

I’m not Yoo Seohyun anymore.

I’m Irene de Cloche.