Two days had passed.
Enough time for Shiki to stop denying reality.
She was not dreaming. She was not hallucinating. She was not in some realm of the afterlife. Every detail was too consistent to be an illusion: the date on the digital clock remained steady, the household routines ran exactly as she remembered, and the dragon-eyed ring remained coiled around her finger, invisible to everyone but herself.
The conclusion was simple and undeniable.
She had returned. Three years before the teleportation event that would plunge her life into the hell known as the Procession Tower.
Shiki had not forgotten the voice she heard in the final seconds of her life. The voice that offered a choice. The voice that opened this path. She did not know who it belonged to—whether a being, a system, or something far older than this world. Nor did she know if this "opportunity" was a gift… or a longer chain.
Gratitude and wariness intertwined, but Shiki wasted no time weighing which was right. Whatever the purpose behind her awakening, a second chance was still a chance.
And Shiki had no intention of squandering it.
Her experience in the Procession Tower had crushed what little innocence she once possessed. The world did not operate on justice, morality, or good intentions. The world bowed to only one unchanging law:
The strong have the right to decide everything.
She repeated that principle in her mind, not as a justification, but as an acknowledgment of reality. If the voice had indeed made her a pawn, then the only way out was to stop being one.
For now, she was weak. And weakness demanded patience.
Shiki chose silence.
She chose to wait.
She chose to grow stronger without drawing attention.
She would sharpen herself slowly, building power, gathering influence, and keeping her distance from traps she did not yet understand. When the time came. When she was strong enough. No secret would be able to hide from her—including the identity of that voice.
That was how the world worked.
The strong exploited the weak. And the weak, though aware they were being used, often lacked the power to resist. Even in her home world, before the teleportation, theories about the few who controlled everything were not mere rumors. They were a reality allowed to keep spinning.
To noble families, commoners were nothing more than worker ants. They lived, struggled, and died to uphold the luxury of a few "queens" lucky enough to be born in the right nest.
And even though those ants knew the bitter truth, they still could not fight back.
Because in the end, everyone is a slave.
A slave to others.
A slave to money.
A slave to power.
A slave to desire.
Or a slave to their own foolish thoughts.
Shiki, who had rotted for years in a trash-filled basement, understood one thing she never had before: that place was not just a symbol of disgrace, but freedom in its most honest form. There, she no longer had to pretend. There was no role. No fake crown.
But there was another kind of freedom that continued to haunt her.
The freedom possessed by that man with the violet eyes.
Or was that, too, just an illusion?
Was it possible that he, too, was bound by chains Shiki had never seen?
She did not know the answer.
And the only way to find out was to find him again…
capture him…
and demand the answers directly from him.
During those two days, Shiki acted exactly like her old self: an arrogant girl who viewed the world as if it revolved around her. Her tone of voice remained unchanged, her gaze remained high, and her demeanor was still filled with the sense of superiority that had been her trademark since childhood.
She did all of this intentionally.
A change that was too rapid would only invite suspicion. Furthermore, Shiki noticed that Andrea had glanced at her several times longer than usual—a gaze that was no longer just attentive, but probing. That morning had clearly left an odd impression. Shiki did not rule out the possibility that Shinsei and Emberlyn had sensed it and asked Andrea to watch her more closely.
Therefore, Shiki chose to move slowly.
She would change, but bit by bit—subtle enough to be seen as a sign of maturity, not an anomaly.
Behind her seemingly unchanged attitude, her mind worked ceaselessly. She reconstructed pieces of the future, trying to recall every significant event that would occur in the next three years. For Shiki, remembering was not difficult.
The dragon blood flowing strongly through her veins gave her more than just superior physicality and intelligence above the average Nagawira. Since birth, she had carried something far rarer.
The Dragon's Eye.
A pair of eyes capable of recording everything she truly saw, storing it without distortion, unblurred by time. Every face, every place, every symbol that had ever fallen within her vision was stored intact, as if etched forever.
However, the ability was not perfect.
The Dragon's Eye only worked on sight, not on sound, smell, or emotion. If Shiki heard an important conversation but her gaze was diverted—to a wall carving, a flower on the table, to anything at all—then what was stored was only what she saw, not what she heard. Because of this, her ability was more accurately called perfect visual memory, not absolute memory.
And therein lay her regret.
The young Shiki had been too preoccupied with herself. Too drowned in arrogance to truly pay attention to the world around her. Many warnings, many signs, and many vital conversations had passed her by—not because she was incapable of remembering them, but because she never felt the need to pay attention.
From the three years prior to the teleportation, only a handful of major events were truly etched clearly in her memory.
But now, Shiki no longer hated her former self.
That arrogant girl was dead. Rotted in a basement, left among trash and disgrace. The one standing now was someone who had seen the world for what it truly was.
A Shiki reborn.
A Shiki born from suffering.
And a Shiki whose obsession began with the gaze of a pair of violet eyes.
"Is there a particular reason why you chose Vespera High?"
"Hmm, no specific reason. I just know it's the best high school in Ignisira. Besides, any school I enter will be the same."
Shinsei only nodded slowly, as if understanding the meaning behind Shiki's words. Currently, they were enjoying a family lunch. Shinsei sat in the main chair as the head of the family, with Emberlyn on his right and Shiki on his left.
The dishes served on the table, as usual, were lavish. Each course was prepared with absolute dedication by the Ganko Family's private chef—a culinary expert with decades of experience who devoted his skills to satisfying the palates of the three nobles.
Meanwhile, Andrea and the other servants stood ready in the corner of the room. They were prepared to serve and execute every command given by the three nobles as they enjoyed their meal.