Episode 3
What in the world…
Was this a side effect of the experiment?
That was the only explanation that made sense.
Then two voices suddenly cut through my thoughts.
“I guess you really plan to kill me in the end.”
“That is the price for feeding off our family. A thing like you should be honored to sacrifice yourself for the great Rehaven family.”
“I hate you. I hate all of you. Filthy Rehaven. I want to rip you apart.”
Unlike before, the scene played in my mind clearly, like a live theater show happening right in front of me.
“Wait.”
I finally realized why the whole thing felt so strangely familiar.
Those voices were not hallucinations.
And the images were not illusions.
None of this was a side effect.
It was the last mercy given to me by a god.
“I cannot believe I only remembered this now.”
I finally understood.
“If things continue like this, I am going to die for sure.”
I remembered who Chloe Ritz was.
And where this world came from.
Fragmented memories slid through my mind like a slideshow.
All of them showed Chloe Ritz’s miserable future.
Was my brain broken from the experiment?
It felt too detailed to be a simple hallucination.
Of course, I had not personally lived through these events.
But even if I wanted to deny it, I could not.
“To think I got thrown into this awful world…”
I realized it clearly.
I was not originally from this world.
Everything came back to me at last.
On my way home from work, I died in a traffic accident with a truck often seen in isekai stories.
When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn as a baby.
When I turned one, I encountered a massive light like the sun.
Dad later told me he had a terrible cold at that time. Thinking back, that light must have been a god.
That god kept telling me to swallow something.
It must have been the power that erased my past-life memories.
Because after that, I forgot everything and lived as a normal baby.
Anyway, the world I was reincarnated into was the fantasy novel called Chronicles of Arthur.
It was a pretty typical fantasy story. Nothing unusual.
Whether it was about the worldbuilding, the hero Arthur, or the heroine — none of it really mattered.
Like most fantasy stories, the weak hero slowly became overpoweringly strong.
The real important part was the villain.
The Rehaven Duke family.
The final boss of the story.
In the novel, they were the strongest family besides the protagonist.
And in fantasy stories, what does that usually mean?
It means something shady was going on.
The reason the Rehaven family held such power was because of the “Children of God.”
Children of God.
Every few generations, two children were born in the Rehaven family with special powers.
Light and darkness, water and fire, plants and wind—various abilities.
And those two could share their powers with each other.
By sharing power, they could use many different abilities.
However, the family did not want two balanced children.
They wanted one transcendent being.
So they misused their blessing.
They chose the superior child and drained all the power from the other.
And the era when Aphelion Rehaven was born as a Child of God was the beginning of Chronicles of Arthur.
There were two other sons besides Aphelion, but they were not chosen.
Rarely, a Child of God was born outside the family line.
That rare outsider was Chloe Ritz, a commoner.
Chloe never went to an academy or school, so she never awakened her power and did not know how to use it.
But strong power always finds a way to leak out.
Every time Chloe drew a picture, she instinctively used divine power.
Those paintings, which she sold for pocket money, eventually reached the duke who was searching for the hidden Child of God.
And that was the start of the tragedy.
Just like what happened to Dad and me earlier, Chloe was fooled by the title of adopted daughter and entered the Rehaven family.
But what waited for her there was not a bright future.
It was her destruction.
After forcing her power to awaken, the family drained all of Chloe’s abilities to strengthen Aphelion.
The power shared by Children of God included ability and life force.
So when Chloe lost everything…
“She died.”
I whispered the future of this body in a hopeless voice.
The poor Chloe, sacrificed by the Rehaven family, even met her end at their hands.
The family killed her to silence her, worried she might reveal the truth someday.
“So they really did want to use me like a battery.”
The experiment earlier must have been the beginning of the full drain they planned.
Since they adopted me, everything was following the original story.
“Should I run away?”
I inherited divine power. If I tried hard, maybe I could escape.
But then…
“What about Dad? Where will he be?”
“Dad will always stay here. So you can come see him anytime you want.”
But that was the problem.
If I ran, those beasts would find Dad.
I had not even awakened my power. I could never fight the Rehaven family.
If I escaped, Dad would die.
And I would end up back where I started, alone.
“But I cannot just sit and do nothing…”
As I searched for a plan, I heard footsteps outside.
“I think I heard something in here.”
“Did the sacrifice wake up already?”
I instinctively closed my eyes and pretended to be unconscious.
Someone leaned over me. I felt them inspecting my body.
My eyelids twitched from nerves, and I tried desperately to hold still.
“She is still out cold.”
“I swear I heard something.”
“It was probably the wind. This weak body will not wake up for a long time after that drug.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
They actually fell for my terrible acting.
They moved to the table across from me and took out flasks while talking.
“What did His Grace order us to inject earlier?”
“A sedative and a memory eraser.”
“A sedative? Why?”
“We drained power from a weak body. She’ll die if she is unstable. The duke said it is better to extract the ability slowly after the sacrifice awakens, so the sedative keeps her alive.”
“So… beat her, heal her, repeat?”
“We cannot cut open the goose that lays golden eggs yet.”
Excuse me? Why did they keep calling me a sacrifice?
Hearing that as the sacrifice was infuriating.
But thanks to their creepy conversation, I finally understood my situation fully.
I could not escape right now.
But if I stayed still, they would drain all my power and kill me once I became useless.
“I need to do something.”
If they injected the memory-erasing drug, I would forget everything I just realized.
Then I would walk the exact same path as the original Chloe.
What about Dad?
My loving father who only wanted me to be happy…
“If I die, Dad is next. The duke will kill him.”
So I had to live.
If I lived, Dad lived.
If I was happy, Dad could be happy.
Thinking about Dad cleared my mind.
All the chaotic memories calmed down like cold water was poured over them.
I finally understood what someone powerless like me needed to do to survive.
“Start with the memory eraser. Who knows when the sacrifice will wake up.”
“Got it.”
The moment they approached me, I snapped my eyes open.
Our eyes met, and the man froze in shock.
He panicked and did not even manage to hold me down properly.
“Wait, the sacrifice is awake—”
Before he could finish, the other man reached out to grab me.
I was faster.
I snatched the syringe from his hand, threw it to the floor, and bolted.
I grabbed a large glass shard from a broken beaker on the table filled with tools and chemicals.
“Go get the duke. Now.”
I pressed the glass shard to my neck.
“Are you crazy?”
“If you do not bring him, I will stab myself right now.”
As they hesitated, I cut my neck with the glass to show I meant it.
“You know exactly how big a loss my death will be for the Rehaven family.”
