I nodded, looking at his glassy stare.

Yes, I am a terrible existence to him now. Even though I did it to him while I was on drugs, he felt so horrible about the fact that I hugged him. Although we didn’t love each other deeply, we still believed that we were in love.

Well, I didn’t have to hate him. In fact, I did it to him for my own comfort rather than loving him. I did everything I could to avoid being dumped like her. I didn’t jump into his arms because I liked it. I even sold my body to him like a prostitute.

It’s a wild gamble anyway that I bet all my life on the extreme distant chance of success.

For good or evil, my gamble was a success.

Two months after that, I was told by the royal doctor that I was pregnant.

“I am having your baby. Won’t you congratulate me? ”

I smiled with my hand on my tummy although I didn’t feel swollen at all. I felt very satisfied with the anger in his indifferent eyes.

No matter how coldly you look at me, you can’t do anything to me anymore because people already know I’m pregnant with your baby. So, even if you are the emperor, you can’t dump me just because you have fallen out of love with me, who is pregnant with your successor.

You watch! I’ll never be another Tia who was killed by you in vain. Since she was such a noble woman, Tia may have tolerated it, but I will not let you use and dump me.

You know that? It is easy to take one from the one who has ten, but it is extremely difficult to take one from the one who has only one. So, you had better not think about taking anything away from me anymore. Now you have fallen out of love with me, what remained of me is just my title as the empress. I thought like that…

I believed that was enough. Even if I lost his love, I believed that as I kept the title of the empress, that was enough for me. I was so stupid, though.

While I was content with the fact that he couldn’t harm me because I was pregnant with his baby, I was faced with a greater misfortune after he, who didn’t see me at all when I was pregnant, left the capital under the pretext of leading an expedition by himself.

“Duke Jena, don’t you know how much I trusted you? How could you do it…”

Little did I think the duke would betray me.

He was the only one who took care of me even when the nobles always cast a contemptuous glance at me. It was because of what he told me when I believed that Rube loved me, and that I should accept his love for my own safety.

So, even when I finally realized that he was falling out of love with me, I even asked the duke for help…

“How foolish you are! Did you really think that I would help a vulgar woman like you when I don’t know even your family background?”

On the day I was laboring to deliver a baby, clenching my teeth, and on the day, I finally gave birth to a baby girl, burning with the hatred and revenge for him who left me coldly, I had to suffer much more than all the hardship I went through until then.

I was so weak after delivering a baby, but I had to run away on my wobbly legs.

As soon as I escaped from the secret passage that never seemed to end forever, I had to face that old man who was laughing at me contemptibly.

I had my baby taken away, then I was murdered by the very man that I trusted since I became estranged from Rube.

When I opened my eyes again, I stood in a pure white space.

For the first time I met God, and I heard from Him why I came to this place.

And I became even more upset after hearing his explanation, rather than understanding the situation.

I cursed God. Why the heck am I called the child of God’s blessing?

If I had been truly the child of God’s blessing, He should just have left me alone as an ordinary senior high school girl.

If God had really cared for me, he shouldn’t have thrown me away in a place like hell then take me here for the reason that my fate was entangled.

And if it had been inevitable for God to take me here, he should have given me the right talent, not divine power. He should have given me the type of power that could help me make up for what I had missed for the 19 years in this world and imitate Cinderella, to say the least. When I thought of that, however, I ended up being faced with a second hell.

***

I’ve had a second chance in my regained life.

I believed that if I had one more chance, I would never make that mistake again.

I vowed that I would get even with all those who hurt me.

Having prepared everything, I was confident that I could do better than her at least in this life.

However, my second life that I barely received after I vented out violent curse and anger was still a failure.

***

‘What a damned woman!”

Jiun muttered, looking at the woman who already disappeared. Aristia just left with some words after coming to see me at night.

She was really nasty until the last moment. Normally, she would be so happy about the fact that she survived. But she picked a fight with me, asking me why she saved my life, while calculating her gains and losses.

“How cold-hearted she is! Obviously, her blood must be cold.”

I chuckled. Actually there was nothing new about her attitude because she was such a woman from the beginning. Even though her life was threatened several times, she remained silent for the interests of her faction instead of running around to take revenge on her opponents. Then, she crushed them as soon as she grabbed the chance.

“Oh, I like her firm attitude like that.”

Although I could never like Aristia, I liked that firm attitude of hers. Although I’ve been waiting for a good chance to go after her for the past two years, she never let her hair down until her last moment.

Duke Jena, who tried to own the empire and might have achieved his dream, was by no means a pushover in my second life. I approached him with the purpose of competing with Aristia and ruining him after earning his trust, but he never let his guard down. Besides, he gradually isolated me within the noble faction when he could not control the emperor and Rublis as he wished. If I had not been the child of God’s prophecy, he would have abandoned me a long time ago.

But Aristia destroyed the duke all of a sudden.

I observed him up close and concluded that he was far from a pushover. But Aristia eventually overthrew him and his family. Although she and I were born with different talents, the reason we ended up having different outcomes despite our shared goal was because she was superior to me. Actually, I could not figure out why Rube left the capital, leaving me alone, Aristia seemed to quickly understand the reason after hearing about the situation a bit.

Why did I come back then?

I laughed bitterly. In the end, I didn’t win or get even with her in my confrontation with her.

Although Duke Jena was executed, it was she, not me, who made it possible. Moreover, I hadn’t yet overcome my past.

“I would rather have thought of it from the beginning…”

I mumbled with a dejected expression. I often recalled her reminder that he was definitely different from the old him in the past.

I didn’t trust her. Even though I saw him treating her kindly and even though I felt he was sincere in treating me, I could not trust what she told me.

I thought that as one’s inborn character could not be changed, he was still the same as before, and as a result, he should be punished for his crime.

But the moment I saw him wailing at her death, I stopped thinking that. The old him that I used to know would never have shown such a reaction.