Chapter 2: The Day I Was Accused of Stealing the Queen’s Panties Right After Regressing!
"Thump."
"Thump!"
"Thump!!"
The sound of my own heartbeat echoed in my ears loudly as the darkness finally started to run away before I felt my physical body once again.
I snapped my eyes open, wondering what time I had regressed to because the talent description only said a few years ago but hadn’t explained how much this "few" meant.
A bright light assaulted my eyes as rudely as ever but someone else tried to outrun the light with a sharp knife.
The instincts honed in my previous lifetime snapped into place immediately as I rolled slightly to the side with a small smile on my face.
TEAR!
The woman who sought to attack me with her knife was surprised as her weapon buried itself into a pure white mattress instead of my poor flesh.
"Good morning to you as well, elder sister."
I greeted her with a smirk before pushing myself up from the bed. My body felt slightly wobbly due to the after effects but it seems, the regression wasn’t a scam after all... and I have actually returned back to the good old days when I wasn’t a duke.
But I still wasn’t sure at what exact time I had returned since this knife routine was quite common back then.
Meh, whatever.
I took a deep breath of fresh air.
"Ahh, how refreshing it feels."
I said before looking at the beautiful girl with pale white hair, cold blue eyes and a face that seemed sculpted by God Himself. She was looking at me with all the love she had to offer, which, by the way, was very much in the negatives.
"I missed you too, dear sister."
[Regression Completed]
[Status Window Available]
Many system windows flashed before my eyes but I dismissed them for now. Naturally, I had to have a chat with my lovely and definitely not murderous sister first and figure out what crime I was being murdered for this time.
Was it the time I stole her favourite dress and gave it to the head maid’s daughter? Or was it the time I humiliated the guy she had a crush on? I couldn’t tell but the answer came soon enough anyway.
"Zenith, you bastard, how dare you... how dare you steal the undergarments of the Queen? I am going to kill you before those Holy Knights do." She gave me a hateful glare.
Ahh, so it was that time, huh? Out of all moments, I had to return to the one where that perverse fucker Cedric, my older brother, framed me for a crime I didn’t commit.
Then again, fate was never particularly kind, especially towards me and I was already grateful the talent hadn’t sent me all the way back to day one, when I reincarnated into this world as a baby.
That would have been both troublesome and incredibly annoying.
I looked at my sister.
"How could you even say something so vile to your dear brother? Even if the whole world stood against me, even when everyone accused me of something I didn’t do, I hoped that at least you, the eldest among us, would understand me. I thought maybe you wouldn’t blindly trust those accusations."
I put on a pitiful expression.
"But I guess that was just wishful thinking on my part."
Her expression immediately faltered as I smiled inwardly.
Oh, how nice it feels to be back.
The girl before me, my elder sister Amyra, was a true pushover.
She had always been like this. Behind her murderous glare, she was quiet, protective and loved me deeply or at least that was what she told me when I killed her in my previous life.
Her bloodied face overlapped with the one before me and I shook my head.
I won’t need to do it this time, will I, Amyra?
Naturally, she had no idea what I was thinking.
"No... that’s not it. I trust you but people in the mansion are talking about it." She hesitated. "They say... you sneaked into the guest room where the Twelfth Queen was staying with the Princess and stole her undergarments."
"And you believed them?"
"No... I didn’t mean to, but... but..."
She was about to continue when I stepped forward and pulled her into a soft hug.
"You don’t need to explain, Sis. I know how difficult things have been for you since Mom passed away, but please trust your younger brother... that’s all I ask."
As fun as it was to tease her and get reactions out of her, I didn’t want to be cruel to her, at least not in this life.
She froze, probably not expecting me to speak to her like this, let alone hug her as the knife slipped from her hand.
At this point in the previous timeline, I was kinda in my edgy phase.
Despite being a young reincarnator from the modern world, I couldn’t control my sorrow and anger after my mother’s death. After all, she was the first person who taught me the meaning of family.
I blamed Amyra for our mother’s death, creating trouble after trouble for her and she cleaned up every mess I left behind.
I still remember this incident. Although I was a troublemaker, I knew there were lines I shouldn’t cross but that perverse half-brother of mine, Cedric, had pinned his crime on me.
Even then, without knowing that I was framed, without knowing the consequences that would follow, Amyra tried to protect me. In exchange, she lost her right to participate in the succession and was married off to the second son of the Twelfth Queen.
And in the end, she died by my hands.
She would have made a perfect protagonist for some tragic drama.
I even wondered, if she had regressed instead of me, would she have hated me? Would she have cursed me? Would she have killed me? Or would she have still hopelessly tried to protect me?
But those were meaningless thoughts for now.
Amyra stayed silent for a moment before pushing me away.
"Why are you acting like this all of a sudden? Are you alright? Are you sick? Did you have a bad dream?"
Question after question left her lips, concern replacing everything else. Hell, she had even forgotten the trouble I was in but I merely gave her the brightest smile I could.
"Nah. It’s more like this is the first time I have truly been awake."
Before she could reply, the door to my room burst open and four guards entered, clad in shining gold-plated armour bearing the sigil of a dragon standing atop a hill.
I recognised them immediately.
The Holy Knights of the lovely Holy Empire I belonged to.
They looked at me coldly.
"Zenith Von Ruinbringer, you are hereby summoned for the Trial Beneath the Sun Throne."
Looking at them, my smile widened even more.
Ahh, truly the good old days.
