Sigrid - Chapter 1.4

Chapter 1.4: Sigrid Ankertna

Escorted by a member of the guard, Sigrid and Morris headed towards Morris’ house.

As Morris was the second son in his family, he’d left his family manor and lived in a house in the capital city after being knighted. The house was a proper house so that even if it was a private house, it couldn’t be compared to Sigrid’s house. It was a whole building with four servants.

When the front door was opened and they went inside, a cozy living room spread out in front of her eyes. It wasn’t as high-class as the residential area in the first district of the capital city, but it was still a decent house.

“Come in.”

“Excuse me.”

Upon entering the living room, Morris let out a long yawn, which Sigrid felt guilty for.

“I’m sorry for waking you up for nothing. We have to go to work tomorrow, so go to bed now.”

“No.” Morris answered with a shrug.

Sigrid carefully pressed her feet on the soft carpet in the room while she walked. The fireplace was decorated splendidly, and though the candlesticks on the wall looked simple, they were made by tapping brass.

Morris spoke to her as she looked around.

“I bought it with my own paycheck.”

“I didn’t say anything?”

“Everytime you see luxurious things, you’re so noisy. Talking about the so and so knight’s principles.”

Sigrid frowned at Morris’ words and for a moment, she wanted to protest, but just closed her mouth instead. Those knight’s principles in the end did nothing to stop her from getting killed, so she didn’t want to defend them.

Morris, who’d naturally expected a rebuttal from Sigrid, was rather taken aback by Sigrid not saying anything. It was unusual because their relationship was one where they would always bicker back and forth in every conversation they had.

“Sigrid?”

“Honestly, what you’ve said is correct, Morris  .”

“SIG!?” Getting more taken aback, Morris called her name.

Sigrid sighed.

“So that is how you see me– no, you can judge me that way.”

Morris believed in her innocence until the very end. He tried to get her out of prison. He deserved to judge her that way.

“Are you really Sigrid?”

Sigrid looked at Morris as if he were a strange person and said, “So you don’t think I’m real?”

“Right.”

Sigrid grinned at his straightforward remark. She then slowly rubbed her forehead and said, “I’m getting a mild headache right now. Can I get some sleep, Sir De Forest?”

“Ah, ah, yes.”

Morris then led Sigrid to the guest room upstairs.

“Thank you, Morris.”

“It’s nothing.” Morris shrugged his shoulders and then shut the door.

Sigrid sighed a little and slowly began to loosen her hair. The beautiful silver hair, which was highly praised for being like sterling silver, fell down with a thick wave. Sigrid stood still for a while, untangling her hair with her fingers. She was lost in her thoughts. She was clearly beheaded at that time. It was a real thing that happened to her. But what happened? Why did she come back five years earlier? Was this a dream? A dream that people saw after death? ‘Let’s meet the magician.’

There were many scammers who called themselves mages, but real mages or wizards were very rare. Sigrid slowly began to search for a certain name in her memory. Soon a name came up.

‘Arcana.’ 

From what she could remember, that person will be a famous mage three years from now.  But, whether that mage was famous or not right now, he was still a mage. Thinking that she should find him, Sigrid began to take off her boots and sat on the bed.

‘I can’t sleep’

Sitting on the bed, Sigrid slowly rubbed the sheets with her hand. The rough hand caused by holding the sword caught on the smooth bedding.

‘I’ve always envied Morris.’

Sigrid didn’t like thinking like that before. She always thought she did not envy him. However, she despised him as the second son of the noble family.  Nevertheless, it was envious. Born nobility. That was what she envied.

‘I envied the nobles”

She also wanted to be part of it. In that time, after being accepted as a knight as a female, she had to make desperate efforts to be recognized by the Imperial Guard as a knight. She even matched all of her beliefs and life principles to the knighthood life. And because she couldn’t be part of the nobility, to defend herself, she always ridiculed it.

‘Stupid.’

After she died, everything she had done before felt stupid. She tried everything she could do, but eventually, in the end, it was the thing that she was proud of that killed her. Sigrid let out a long sigh. She then laid her body in bed.

‘It seems like I haven’t come out as a swordmaster? I guess I was flustered.’

As Sigrid looked up at the ceiling, she patted her empty side.

‘So at this time, I also wasn’t yet an aura user, was I?’

When someone reached the highest mastery of a sword, they could use aura. In her case, she became an aura user three years from this time around and then was selected as a member of the Imperial Guard.

Sigrid then raised her hand. No aura core had been formed yet. But, how it was formed was the same. She swung her hand like a sword. A faint light wrapped her hand but because there was no aura core, the light could not unite and disappeared.

“It works….”

Sigrid clenched her fist. It was clear that right now was not a dream. What has been learned or experienced was something someone cannot do in a dream. In other words, she really came back with her memories.

“Oh my God.”

Sigrid put her fist on her forehead and closed her eyes tightly.

‘First, find the mage.’

Then, what is she going to do after that? Change the future, is that it?

Sigrid opened her eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling.

“Change.”

Change her life.

Little questions had been raised at the same time whether it was okay to change it, but also why not? She didn’t want to go up to the guillotine again. She didn’t want to be criticized and stoned. Her core aura was dug up, and to be whipped, and her throat-

Sigrid wrapped her face and breathed heavily.

She didn’t want to be betrayed again. The people she thought were on her side, the people she thought were kind coldly turned away from her. She was thrown away.

His Majesty the Emperor.

She swore an oath of loyalty, followed everything he commanded. Yet, he blamed her and put her on the guillotine.

Instead, it was the friends who she’d left who tried to help her. It was the people who she despised.

Change.

She had to change. But how? How could she change her life?

The way people live is the mirror of the way they think, their own behavior. She would start changing them. Even it was not a kind of change that could be done fastly.

That night, Sigrid stayed up all night.