Year 1228, Crad Castle
Swooooosh!
A summer shower poured down on Crad Castle, which had just finished hosting the Ashtarian army. It was the first rain in a long time, washing away the fatigue of prolonged battles—except for one person.
Bernoa, the kingdom’s saintess dispatched to Ashtar.
She had fallen into a deep sleep after so long, but it did not last.
Before her eyes, an endless sequence of unknown nightmares unfolded.
***
“Oh. Demon King… You were the true lord all along.”
In the near future, she would be captured by Seto, corrupted by the Demon King through him, and reborn as the Fallen Saintess, Berna.
“Aah, power is overflowing! The Demon King’s power!”
“You are now the Fallen Saintess, Berna. Now, we have plenty of time. Go and exterminate the humans in the lands liberated by the Ashtarian army. Kill the false lord and ease my worries.”
At that moment, the wheel of fate was thrown off course.
Following the Demon King’s orders, the Fallen Saintess Berna killed and corrupted countless humans with her own hands.
And in the end, she lured the true lord—the one she had cherished so deeply—into the Demon King’s castle, trapping and killing him.
“You seem to be mistaken. The Demon King is the true lord! I have pledged my love and loyalty to him of my own free will! You’re nothing but a loser. That’s why you’ll die by my hands right here and now! There is only one true lord, and that is the Demon King!”
With her own hands, she took his life.
***
“Ah… Ugh… Hic… Ahh…”
Tossing and turning in bed, Bernoa wept endlessly.
She had tried to stop it.
But her corrupted self had ultimately killed the lord.
And time moved forward once more.
The Demon King was slain by the mage of the Hero’s Party.
Then, someone came forward to challenge her directly for all the atrocities she had committed.
Olivia Rapha Ashtar—the lord’s grand daughter.
She was the reincarnation of the Hero’s Party’s mage.
With her overwhelming power, Olivia mercilessly beat Berna to a pulp.
“So this is how you led my grandfather to his death?”
After taking a severe beating, Berna barely managed to escape with her life.
Yet, despite not actually being struck herself, Bernoa could feel pain searing through her back and body.
Berna had once tried to corrupt Olivia’s close aide, Syria—but Syria was no weakling either.
“If I win, I get to marry Lady Olivia!”
Crackling—!
Syria grabbed Berna’s face and slammed her straight into the ground of the Demon Realm.
In that instant, Bernoa’s entire body shuddered.
It felt as if her skull had shattered.
“Aaaagh! Ugh… Hiiik!”
Berna was eventually captured by Ashtar and executed by the lord’s son.
At least, that was what was known on the surface.
In reality, Olivia—who had inherited the lord’s memories and will along with the Demon King’s energy—used Berna’s unstable mental state to keep her under her thumb.
And she punished her.
She forced the Fallen Saintess to become a saintess of the corrupt Imperial Goddess Church.
That was the worst punishment imaginable.
“If you didn’t want this, you shouldn’t have betrayed us.”
With Olivia’s mocking laughter, Bernoa felt an uncontrollable surge of fury as she snapped her eyes open.
***
“Gasp!”
Bernoa woke up lying in bed.
All she could see was a plain ceiling—nowhere in sight was that infuriating Olivia.
“That… that was a dream? No, it was too vivid to be just a dream.”
Beeeep—!
A piercing ringing filled her ears, followed by an unbearable pain coursing through her body.
Cold sweat trickled down as she vividly recalled the sensation of killing the lord with her own hands.
Forcing herself to use a miracle, she barely managed to ease the sharp, needle-like pain.
Once her body had calmed down a bit, Bernoa picked up a handheld mirror.
There was no more ashen hair or crimson eyes from her transformation into a demon.
Instead, she had dark hair and brown eyes.
“Was that really something I went through? No, no way. That’s absurd.”
She was drenched in sweat.
It wasn’t an ordinary dream.
It was far too real to dismiss as one.
‘Could that really have been me? No, which one of us is real? Did I… return to the past?’
Some saints in history had spoken of regression or theories about parallel worlds.
Perhaps she had truly returned to the past.
Or maybe, the Fallen Saintess Berna was another version of herself from a parallel world.
Shudder.
The thought sent chills down her spine.
If that were true, then had she truly killed the lord with her own hands?
It was horrifying.
Utterly horrifying.
As the chilling sensation took hold of her body, Bernoa abruptly leapt out of bed.
“Then… what about the lord?”
‘Whether she was Berna or Bernoa no longer mattered.’
She wanted to see the lord.
With that thought alone, she bolted out of her room and ran toward the lord’s office.
***
When she arrived at the office, she saw—
“And so, if we disperse the forces…”
Eldakrad.
Lord Eldakrad of Ashtar.
The man she loved.
The true lord was alive.
The man she had tried to convince herself was false—just to justify killing him—was right there, alive.
She loved the true lord after all.
Bernoa ran toward him with all her might.
“Lord!”
“Ve… Bernoa?”
“Lord! My lord!”
Bernoa threw herself into his arms.
Perhaps because of the dream, it felt like she was seeing him for the first time in decades.
It had to be more than just a dream.
It had to be something she truly experienced.
“W-what is the meaning of this, Bernoa?”
Eldakrad gently pushed her away.
After all, he was a married man—it wouldn’t be proper to embrace a saintess like this.
“Ahem. Saintess, the lord has a wife. This is inappropriate. How could you, as a saintess, commit such an irreverent act…?”
Standing in the office was also the lord’s close aide, Kyle.
Realizing Kyle had witnessed everything, Bernoa’s face turned bright red.
“I… um… well…”
“Did you… cry? What in the world happened?”
Eldakrad looked puzzled.
‘Bernoa, crying?’
The saintess had never shed tears before.
“Actually… um…”
Bernoa subtly glanced at Kyle.
A silent plea for him to leave.
“This matter cannot be spoken of in front of others.”
“Kyle, step outside for now. It seems she’s had another strange vision.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Sensing that something was off, Eldakrad dismissed Kyle.
“If you don’t wish to speak, you don’t have to. But if it was enough to make you cry, then it must not be something to ignore.”
Yes. This was something she couldn’t keep to herself.
At first, she considered letting things unfold as they had in the future—allowing herself to be captured by Seto and delivering a blow to the Demon King in the process.
But she needed to stay alive to warn them about the Demon King in advance.
She had to speak.
“If I tell you the truth, will you promise not to be angry?”
“Hmm. Is it something that would anger me?”
What could possibly make the saintess tremble like a frightened puppy? The sight of her was pitiful.
“You might think of me as nothing more than a whore and cast me aside.”
Eldakrad furrowed his brows.
‘What nonsense was she saying?’ He couldn’t understand her meaning at all.
“You are a saintess. How could a saintess call herself a whore? Did you sell your body?”
“No.”
“Of course not.”
“Then… did you give your heart to multiple men?”
“No—no, actually… that might be true.”
‘It might be true?’
‘That made even less sense.’
Her appearance hadn’t changed at all, yet there was an unfamiliar air about her.
And her eyes—they looked at him as if he were a dead man.
“What are you talking about?”
Bernoa told Eldakrad everything she had been through.
Eldakrad listened intently.
He couldn’t dismiss the words of a saintess, not when she was so serious.
But he never expected to hear that he would die.
And at her hands, no less—at the hands of a corrupted Bernoa.
“My lord, I am a filthy woman. Abandon me. And stop your advance here. You must focus on governing your lands.”
Eldakrad scowled at her words.
Now that he had heard everything, he had a rough understanding.
A saintess was the holiest woman of the Goddess Church.
It was said that some possessed divine foresight.
And looking at Bernoa now, he could tell that she wasn’t lying.
“How strange.”
“…What?”
He understood her words.
But—
“So what do you want me to do?”
What exactly did she expect him to do?
She was mourning something that hadn’t even happened yet.
“My lord, this wasn’t just a dream. I truly—”
It was real.
This wasn’t something that could be taken lightly.
“Yes. I can tell you’re different from before. But even if you really did regress, what of it?”
“My lord.”
He spoke so easily.
But of course, he hadn’t lived through it himself.
“It hasn’t happened yet, has it?”
“That’s…”
She couldn’t deny that.
“If it is the truth, then we simply change it.”
His expression showed no anger.
Even though she had been the one at fault, he comforted her.
Since it hadn’t happened in this timeline, he simply said they would change it.
“My lord…”
He was a fool.
What if she betrayed him again?
“If you try to leave my side over something that hasn’t even happened, I won’t forgive you.”
“…I understand.”
This was why he had been deceived.
Because he never once doubted her.
Because he always assumed she would remain his saintess.
And so, he had walked into that trap.
Perhaps… he had known all along and still let it happen.
And maybe—maybe that was why she had fallen for him.
‘I’m such a fool.’
‘Why had she done something so stupid?’
“Then, do you not know what the Demon King really is?”
“No. I think it might be something Seto created.”
She wasn’t sure if she had experienced a dream or regression.
But one thing was clear—whether because she had yet to meet the Demon King in this life or because she knew what lay ahead and refused to be swayed, she no longer felt any loyalty to him.
If anything remained, it was a lingering resentment toward Olivia, Eldakrad’s granddaughter.
It wasn’t just because Olivia had defeated her—the fact that Noah, the one who had slain the Demon King, was within her only added to her frustration.
Still, now was not the time for that.
Olivia and Noah wouldn’t even be born for decades.
Right now, the immediate threat was Seto.