Chapter 2

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter: 2

Chapter Title: I Have Returned

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Someone shook her.

"Are you coming to, Your Highness?"

Medea blinked. Her face was a blank slate, as if someone had sucked away all expression.

The maid flinched at the sight of her doll-like form, devoid of any spark of life.

"Your Highness? Can you hear me?"

A figure reflected in the mirror on the table.

Vividly shining green eyes. A gracefully arched forehead and a smoothly defined nose. And cute lips that produced a pale red hue.

There stood a girl somewhere between child and woman.

Medea mechanically lowered her head to look at her own arm.

'There should be a scar here from the demon beast...'

There wasn't a single trace of the countless wounds she'd sustained on the expedition. Not even a scar—her skin gleamed white and smooth.

'Is hell this vivid? I haven't even been reborn as a child.'

The past. The sudden thought made her body stiffen.

"Peleus?"

"Pardon?"

"Is he alive?"

Peleus, Medea's brother and the king of Baldina, had died because of her.

Because she'd stolen the Sage's Stone, shattering Baldina's barrier.

Hordes of demon beasts had swarmed across the entire kingdom.

Her brother had died holding them back.

It had happened while Medea was in the empire, locked in a fierce battle for the throne on behalf of her husband.

Only then did Medea realize the role of the Sage's Stone. Why the demon beasts plaguing the continent had never crossed Baldina's borders.

"What are you saying? Of course he's alive."

At the maid's words, Medea shot to her feet.

"Where is he?"

She had to see Peleus.

Not the mangled corpse half-eaten by demon beasts, but him—whole and alive.

"Dea, don't even think of coming back. Baldina is no longer a protected land."

"I don't blame you. Just live. That's enough."

Her only family, who to the end had worried for his foolish little sister.

"Where are you going? How do you plan to see him when he's at the front lines?"

The maid grabbed Medea, who swayed unsteadily after jumping up so suddenly.

"The front lines?"

"You don't remember that either? They said you hit your head when you fell from the horse..."

"The war's still going on. The campaign hasn't ended yet? He's still alive."

Her disjointed questions sounded more like mutterings to herself. The maid shook her head.

"This won't do. I'll fetch the palace physician."

It was then that the maid let out a sigh.

"No, I need to confirm it with my own eyes."

Medea sprang from her seat and dashed out.

"Your Highness! Where are you going?!"

The maid hurried after her, but only an empty corridor greeted her.

"This is bad!"

The pale-faced maid rushed off in a panic.

In the underground chambers of Baldina's royal palace.

The lights came on in the secret place permitted only to a select few of the bloodline.

Medea descended to the very bottom of the spiraling stairs and pushed hard against the stone wall.

Cold air stung her nose as the door opened.

The altar in the center shone brightly. No—in truth, it was the national treasure atop the altar emitting the light.

"It's still... here."

Baldina's national treasure that protected its territory, the Sage's Stone.

Cold from the raw gem seeped into her trembling fingertips.

Medea buried her face in it. Tears poured down the smooth surface.

"I need the Sage's Eye. My uncle says he'll keep his promise if you bring it to him. He'll hand over the throne."

Jason had demanded the Sage's Eye from Baldina's king, Peleus, only to be flatly refused.

But Jason had gotten it in the end.

Because Medea, the king's sister, loved him.

"Help me, Medea. I'm the rightful heir to the Kazen imperial throne."

"If I become emperor, you'll stand by my side, and our children will rule the empire. Medea, you wouldn't want our kids to grow up without parents like you did, would you?"

"I love you, Medea."

Blinded by affection.

"Medea, big sister, His Grace the Grand Duke is suffering so much. If only he had the Sage's Stone, he'd be whole again."

"The Sage's Stone is just a nameplate treasure. You can give it back later. We're only borrowing it for a bit. Once relations between our countries improve, Peleus will understand eventually."

"We're saying this all for your sake."

She'd fallen for the sweet persuasion.

Thinking back, that was the prelude to the tragedy.

In her previous life, the Sage's Stone that the young, ignorant Medea had stolen was shattered and buried along the Kazen border barrier.

'The emperor smashed it in a panic, afraid I'd demand it back.'

Medea gritted her teeth.

"I've... come back."

How could she not believe it when the national treasure stood so perfectly intact before her eyes?

The gods had granted her final plea!

"Ahahaha! Ahaha!"

Mad laughter burst forth.

"Ancestors of Baldina, gods and spirits who guard this land."

She bowed and kissed the base of the altar. The Sage's Stone's soft glow enveloped Medea.

"I won't be such a fool again."

I won't squander this chance you've given me.

Medea raised her head.

Her pale face held eyes that blazed ice-blue.

"Claudio."

The glory bestowed upon her uncle's family would all fade away.

"Jason."

The radiant crown Jason desired would be taken from him.

"I've returned."

The prophecy of her return after one lifetime gleamed ominously.

Medea emerged from the dark underground passage. Her tears had dried long ago.

'That maid earlier said I'd fallen from a horse.'

Even in her distant memories, certain moments remained vivid. Especially the painful ones that had scarred her life.

Cursed princess. Half-breed. Bringer of misfortune.

All those labels clung to Medea.

Baldina's previous king had fallen for a wandering dancer during the war and made her his queen.

There was much talk of her origins, but no one dared scorn the queen.

He loved her so much that he even took her to the battlefield.

His son Peleus followed his parents to the front lines as well, but his young daughter Medea was left in the palace because she was too little and it was too dangerous.

<I miss you so much. Please come see me.>

On her seventh birthday, Medea couldn't hold back and wrote a letter.

For their beloved youngest daughter, the king and queen replied without hesitation that they would come.

But enemies harboring grudges from repeated defeats lay in ambush on their return path.

In the end, only the couple's cold coffins reached Baldina's soil.

The kingdom fell into chaos.

When word spread that the king had met his end on the way to see his young daughter, people pinned the tragedy on Medea.

"It's your fault! If you hadn't called for him! You killed my son!"

At the king's funeral, the Queen Dowager clutched not her eldest son's coffin but her young granddaughter, screaming until she fainted.

Peleus, upon inheriting the throne, immediately returned to the front lines. The boy, not yet of age, had to steady an army on the brink of collapse without its leader.

In that chaotic time, young Medea was left utterly alone.

The Queen Dowager despised her granddaughter, her brother was always at war, and she had no maternal relatives to protect her.

It was her uncle the Regent Duke and his family who reached out to the lonely, flailing girl.

To the princess in name only, they were sweet and kind.

Medea became their puppet, dancing to their tune, doing as they wished.

Without even realizing her uncle's growing power was aimed at her brother.

'How foolish I was.'

Gentle lies and cunning schemes.

Medea had seen neither truth nor sincerity.

"Mom, Dad, everyone left me because of me, right?"

The desolate palace corridor seemed to overlay the image of her younger self, drowning in loneliness and guilt, weeping alone.

But things were different now.

Medea was the schemer who had endured grueling expeditions and throne struggles in the empire to crown Jason emperor.

She could see through her uncle's orchestrated play at a glance.

'Around seventeen, I went to a tea party and fell from my horse.'

A tea party and a fall from a horse.

Two utterly mismatched events had occurred that day.

If Maid Neril hadn't thrown herself to save her, her neck would have snapped.

'But afterward, Neril left the palace.'

By the time she awoke, Neril was already gone.

"She said serving a powerless royal would kill her first."

"Neril said she'd never come back. That anywhere else would be better than here."

Hurt by the betrayal, Medea had forgotten Neril after that.

But now, her reason told her it couldn't have been that simple.

'That wasn't the kind of girl to leave without a word.'

With this second chance and return to the past, Medea's top priority was clear: build an inviolable sanctuary.

She couldn't fight alone in this palace surrounded by enemies on all sides.

'If only Neril had stayed by my side.'

If she'd had even one person she could trust with her back, one utterly loyal to her, her previous life wouldn't have been so harrowing.

"Did you hear? Jena's beating one of the maids in the Princess Palace right now."

Just then, a group of servant girls passed by the corridor. Medea quickly hid.

"Know who? It's her! That weirdo who gave up her knighthood to join the Princess Palace on her own."

"No way, her? What'd she do wrong? She was the only one who actually worked properly there."

"She's always been too straight-laced, got on the head maid's bad side. They were just waiting for an excuse, and now they're using the princess's fall as a pretext to get rid of her. Having Jena punish her."

"What? That's ridiculous. She saved Her Highness—everyone saw it."

"If the head maid says so, then that's how it is. When she sets her nose to something, even earrings become nose rings. Who in the palace would dare cross that woman? Eek, Your Highness?"

The servant girls yelped in fright at the figure suddenly blocking their path.

"Where is that?"

Medea's voice settled coldly over the corridor.