Resetting Lady

Chapter 1

It wasn’t until a considerate amount of time that she figured out the mechanics of the loop.

1. The duration is one year. It always starts in the garden while it’s raining.

2. After one year, Carynne dies for whatever reason and will return to the same time and place.

3. She would start anew while bringing back with her the things in her hands that she was holding as she died.

Thanks to the third law, she was able to have faith that she wasn’t dreaming. The number 116 was engraved onto the flat gold coin in her hand. After changing the number 6 to 7, she looked up at the ceiling. She couldn’t even remember her original face anymore.

She had lived as Carynne for more than a century. As her mind grew more than twice as old as her body, she had lost any hope of being able to leave this novel.

“I’d rather die, really.”

“You’re not supposed to say that, Milady. I can’t imagine a world without you here.”

Nancy, a dark-skinned maid, berated Carynne lightly as she brushed her hair. She could still remember a time where the world’s most important Missus was a woman who had the same dark skin. It was more than a hundred years ago. It was too vague of a memory to even call it a memory.

Whenever she saw this maid who was closest to her, Carynne would be reminded again that she wasn’t from this world. When she saw for the first time how the maid bowed towards her, Carynne shuddered in reluctance.

But then again, if this maid did not keep her head down as she left the room, she would be punished and beaten. This was how colored people were treated here, even the elderly. She had witnessed it for 117 years. Only time could change such values of humanity.

“Does Milady not like Lord Dullan to that extent?”

There’s no way she would like him. All the people here were like ink on paper to her. It was all meaningless, fleeting, and yet ink inherently wasn’t harmless. Anyone could die if they drank ink. Should she say that the ink was poison? What’s left would be but an ephemeral moment of joy. It was a short pleasure spanning for even less than a page.

She chuckled inwardly. As disfigured as Dullan looked, he was worse in bed. The last time she slept with him was a few years ago. And he had always been a stuttering, clumsy, ugly young man who lacked vigor.

“He’s ugly.”

“…Oh my goodness.”

“If we swap his lower parts with your lover’s, I’ll consider him again.”

“…Where did Milady hear such words? Which maid said that?”

“Don’t be so uptight. It’s just a harmless joke from a 17-year-old girl who doesn’t even know what a man’s genitals look like.”

“I’ve been taking care of you since you were a baby, but what are you talking about now? I didn’t raise you like this… In any case, after ten years of marriage, something like this would be nothing.”

That’s not it.

“Do you think it would last ten years with Dullan?”

“Then will it end after only a year? You’ll have more time. Let’s hurry up and tighten your corset first. You should see if you can have at it with a better man than Dullan with a thin waist.”

“…Mmh!”

If it weren’t for this bloody corset, she could have had more fun. The whalebone corset, which squeezed her dry even of her swearwords, would more likely chew and bite at her waist than to just make it thin. It was suffocating. She hated this era.