DRSW 03

Chapter : 03

“Miss. Pull yourself together and listen carefully.”

I had slept in the carriage for a night, and when I woke up with my back feeling like it was about to kill me, my nurse was changing my bandages while giving me a serious warning. Since the short, stout woman, who barely came up to my chest, had such a frightening look on her face, I naturally clasped my hands together and listened attentively.

The nurse opened her luggage and took out an identity card registered with the Empire, along with a mana stone in the shape of a chip.

“You’re young and don’t know much about how things work outside, so let me tell you. If you can’t prove your identity, you won’t be able to get a part-time job or accept guild requests.”

Hmm. She really didn’t know me at all. I already knew that, and even without going through the regular channels, I could find work if I wanted to.

I had spent so much time reading the setting guides we made among the café members. If you wanted to take on dirty jobs that couldn’t be discussed publicly, all you had to do was go to the second counter of the Adventurer’s Guild, which existed in every sizable town, knock twice on the table, and ask if there was any work left over.

“You know how I came to be your nurse, right, Miss?”

Huh…… Could it be that?

The nurse’s own child had been buried before reaching a hundred days old. Although she had lost her child, her milk had not dried up, and she had originally been a servant working at the ducal estate. Then, because of Duchess Nephthys’s inconsiderate words—“Well, that worked out nicely.”—she became my nurse.

The duchess had been unbelievably tactless, but the nurse raised me like her own daughter in place of the child she had lost. So naturally, I probably felt more like she was my mother than my biological mother.

This world had neither vaccines nor anything else of the sort, so newborn children died easily. That was why citizens weren’t officially registered until they had reached one year of age. The thing the nurse had given me must have been something she had kept all this time because she couldn’t use it for her dead child, yet couldn’t bring herself to throw it away either.

“Use it, Miss.”

“No, but still, this is……”

“It may be presumptuous of someone like me, but I raised you thinking of you as my own child.”

I knew that too.

Damn it. The nurse was making me cry again.

I stuck out my lower lip and looked at the ceiling, trying to hold back my tears. Then I quickly wiped the corners of my eyes and accepted the identity card.

“Then, legally speaking, I’m your daughter now. So I’m going to call you Mom.”

“How could someone as lowly as me possibly be your mother, Miss?”

“Then I won’t take it. Throw it away.”

“Oh, goodness! This girl’s temper! That terrible temper of hers!”

I could see the nurse struggling to suppress her urge to smack me upside the head. She had truly raised Mitchell like her own child, so whenever I acted up, she would occasionally smack me when no one else was looking. She used to hit me on the back, too, whenever she felt like it. She couldn’t do that now since I was a patient, though.

“All right. But I’ll continue calling you Miss.”

“Yaaay! I have a mom now!”

You really never knew what life had in store for you. At my age, I had somehow acquired a new mother.

I was so excited that I laughed, “Heeheehee!” But Mom put the chip into a stapler-like device and abruptly slammed it into my right forearm.

“Aaaaaagh!”

Warn me before you do it! Give me some warning!

I screamed that at her, but Mom gave me an annoyingly pleased smile and said that things like this had to be done without warning so they wouldn’t hurt as much.

“Check it. My child’s name was Evan Laef.”

Evan, Eleanor’s child.

So Mom’s biological child had been a boy. The name was pretty, so I didn’t really mind.

At Mom’s urging, I snapped the fingers of my left hand together.

Mitchell Nephthys

Status: Blessing of Urshu

Experience: 100

N) Freeze Lv.5 — 500 until next level

N) Throw Lv.3 — 300 until next level

N) Healthy Lv.5 — 122 until next level

R) Noble’s Grace

UR) Fusion

Mitchell Nephthys’s status window appeared.

“……”

“Why? Is there a problem because it’s too old?”

Come to think of it, I had never seen a case in the setting guide where two biochips were implanted in one person’s body. Even if I implanted one, I assumed I would have the exact same skills and stats anyway, so it seemed like it would only cause unnecessary pain.

Just in case, I snapped the fingers of my right hand—the one Mom had implanted the chip into.

Evan Laef

Status: Terminally Ill, Blessing of Urshu

Experience: 0

N) Taming Lv.8 — 800 until next level

N) Riding Lv.8 — 800 until next level

L) Cutting Corners

EX) Nothing Is Impossible When Your Life Depends on It

Mom, what the hell is this?

Wasn’t I amazing? Evan was freaking incredible!

He didn’t have a single offensive skill, but he had a Legendary skill and even an Extra skill. And neither of them merely had flashy names.

The Cutting Corners skill had the effect of rapidly increasing the experience needed for leveling up, while the Nothing Is Impossible When Your Life Depends on It skill made it relatively easy to obtain various abilities.

I had no idea just how much “relatively easy” meant, though.

“……”

More importantly, why was I terminally ill again?

“Miss? Does the mana stone not work after all?”

“No. Evan Laef showed up.”

At my answer, Mom’s face brightened.

She said that as long as I was registered as an Imperial citizen and could continue living, I would at least be able to lead an ordinary life from now on.

Then she quickly became gloomy again.

The young lady who had lived a life of luxury at the ducal estate was now going to have to live buried away in the countryside, and Mom dabbed at her eyes with tears once again……

I didn’t care whether it was the countryside or the city.

I was just scared shitless of that terminally ill status.

Had I been sick with some disease?

Mitchell—or rather, Evan……

No, that wasn’t it either.

Was my body sick?

Was that why “terminally ill” kept appearing?

The Dawn has been updated. Imperial Crowell Academy admission required for survival. D-156.

Oh.

So I was going to die in 156 days.

“……Why?!”

“Miss? Are you feeling unwell? Car sickness?”

I had learned that I would die in 156 days.

Completely dazed, I let my body sway with the carriage and could only make an “Ebeebe” noise.

I wondered whether I should just spend the remaining time living happily with Mom before kicking the bucket, but 156 days was way too short.

It wasn’t even a year.

I had come here from Korea and hadn’t even had a chance to properly adjust to this place.

And now I was supposed to live for a measly 156 days and die?

It sounded strange, but even if I had to die, I couldn’t live like that.

I wanted to live.

“Mom.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“I have to enroll in the academy next year.”

“Yes, yes, of course! I’ll prepare everything! Just trust this Eleanor, Miss!”

The admission fee alone was one hundred million crowns. How the hell was Mom going to prepare for that?

Mom was excited, saying that I wasn’t the kind of person who would just lie down and give up here, and that if I entered the academy under the name Evan Laef, I would eventually rise through the ranks and achieve great success.

But realistically, things looked bleak.

The tuition was one thing, but for a commoner to enter Crowell Academy, you had to either be unbelievably intelligent, be exceptionally good at fighting, be a mage, or otherwise be some ridiculously talented bastard.

Besides, next year was the year the main couple enrolled, wasn’t it?

Life at the academy during that period was more dangerous than tap dancing in a minefield.

For the sake of the protagonists’ growth, the academy had been stuffed to the brim with crises, monsters, conspiracies, schemes, and basically everything imaginable that could scare the living hell out of people.

No matter how much Confession of the Dawn was an ensemble novel, there was still a main couple who received the most attention and appeared most frequently.

They met at the academy, fell in love at first sight, went through all the usual love, justice, comradeship, and blah-blah-blah, and eventually succeeded in defeating two of the Four Demon Kings threatening humanity.

After that, a plague targeting humans was unleashed from the underground tomb of the suddenly appearing Hades King, and Prince Sayan, whom I had loved more than anyone, met a completely absurd death.

Hanging around those people was basically the same as walking around with a name tag that said:

I am suicidal.

“Uwaaaaa……”

If I didn’t enroll, I would die.

If I enrolled, there was a high probability I would die anyway.

So many incidents and accidents occurred that only a dozen or so students from the protagonists’ year actually graduated.

And if the princess was involved, she would recognize me since we had encountered each other here and there in the Imperial Palace. Even if she didn’t, there was a good chance one of her close attendants or guards would recognize me……

“……That’s it!”

“Goodness! You startled me!”

After making “ebeebe” noises for a while, I suddenly jumped to my feet.

Mom immediately told me it was dangerous and ordered me to sit down, but I suggested to the coachman that we stay at an inn in the next village we reached.

I had brought a little gold with me, so I needed to exchange it for money.

And I needed to kill the radiance of this ridiculously beautiful face.

◇ ◆ ◇

“Miss, are you sure I should do this? I really have to do it?”

“I told you to do it. Hurry up, Mom.”

“Oh, goodness! How could I possibly stick a needle into our precious young lady’s beautiful face?!”

It couldn’t be helped.

I was simply too beautiful, so if I walked around as I was, I would attract attention.

Did she think silver-haired women with porcelain-doll faces and eyes bluer and deeper than a lake were common around here?

I quickly sold a goldsmith’s brooch, pocketed a hefty amount of money, and bought glasses, dye, and ordinary clothes.

And, of course, a properly sterilized needle.

If Mom put her mind to it, my beauty could be ruined as much as necessary.