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“How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I wonder if they’d give you milk in there? Perhaps Looking-glass milk isn’t good to drink—(…)”

‘Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There’, Lewis Caroll (1871)¹

♢♦♢♦♢

The term ‘remorse,’ stemming from the Latin remordere vex, meaning ‘to bite back’… as I witness my actions biting back at me, I deeply realize the profundity of this word.

I know it was too late, but I wished I hadn’t opened this album in front of everyone. Who knew it was a landmine waiting to set off… I felt like I had opened Pandora’s Box. With a groan, I pointed at the portrait of Clara the Shrine Maiden Princess (approximately 20 years old) placed in front of me.

I could feel everyone in the room waiting for me with bated breath.

I steeled myself and declared.

“Doppelgänger.”

““““““YEAH, NO!!!””””””

Ignoring the protesting voices, I made a string of excuses.

“Well, I mean, I guess we do share some similarities like maybe hair color or facial features, but that’s within the margin of error, isn’t it? Like, do we really look similar? Hmm, maybe we don’t? …that kind of margin. Besides, the model of the portrait is the Cattleya of Livitium, the beauty of the century. Comparing someone like her to some weed like me would be absolutely ridiculous. She’d be rolling in her grave if she heard that.”

Ah, perfect. Such flawless logic. This is basically arguing with a child, meaning the loudest wins the argument. That is the social convention after all. So, my perfect tactic is just to shrug and laugh it off, surely it would work just fine—

“(PLEASE) LOOK AT A (*******) MIRROR (ALREADY)! YOU’RE TWO PEAS IN A POD!!”

Eh? What is this, the second coming of Huberta?! The déjà vu was so uncanny I found myself recoiling in my chair.

“…Miss, I’m afraid that excuse is pushing it a bit.” Even Royce warned me, whispering from behind my chair.

“Umm…excuse me, I think I’m a bit confused? I mean, Lady Jill does have similar features to Lady Clara in the portrait, but I don’t think they look that alike…? W-, what is it, why are all of you groaning and holding your heads?! Did I say something weird?!”

Lynn raised her right hand in a small gesture and made a statement, immediately dismayed by the atmosphere of the people around her. Well, since I’m in an uncomfortable and confusing position as well, I understand her feelings. But explaining it would be complicated so I’ll leave it at that for now.

“…since you don’t seem to be aware of it in the slightest bit, I suggest you take a good, long look in the mirror for once, Milady.”

For some reason, Monika was holding her temple as if she was massaging it. Is she having a migraine? Perhaps becoming my personal maid and guiding Lana and Eren at the same time was finally taking its toll on her. I should have Royce assign her some days off every once in a while.

With that jotted down in my mental notepad, I decided to follow Monika’s advice, and everyone else’s before her. I got up from the armchair and walked towards the mirror hanging on the wall near me.

By the way, generally, people still use metal mirrors, but they become cloudy over time and need regular polishing, which is inconvenient. Therefore, despite the higher cost, nobles commonly use silver mirrors similar to modern mirrors on Earth, where silver is deposited on one side of the glass.

When I peered into the decorated mirror, a delicate and slender, fickle-looking girl looked back at me.

She was dressed in a frilly and lacy, light pink bustle dress adorned with abundant ribbons. Her long hair, which could be described as both thin gold and cherry blossom pink, flowed to her waist (by the way, my hairstyle involved tying both sides back with pins and decorating them with ribbons). Her large, glistening emerald eyes gazed directly at me. A straight nose framed by long eyelashes. Lips resembling cherries. White and dewy skin—yeah, no matter how you look at it, “It’s an unremarkable and ordinary face, isn’t it?” I expressed my impression, honestly half-exasperated.

Sure, compared to a year and a half ago, the excess fat had disappeared, and the lines of the face had become clearer, reducing the stuffiness. However, doesn’t that mean it loses the impact it had before? For now, I grabbed and pulled at my face with both hands, making various expressions—by the way, I’ve heard that some enthusiastic noblewomen apply nearly specialized makeup by spreading beeswax up to 1-2 cm thick on their faces and then patting on white powder. Thanks to that, they apparently can’t get too close to the fire in winter, so it would be a disaster if they did the same thing I’m doing.

Well, let alone wax-cake make-up, I don’t even apply blush on my cheeks, so nothing will fall apart—for some reason, everyone in the room held their breaths and stared directly at me, so I glanced back at them.

“THAT EVALUATION ITSELF IS WRONG!!”

The strong denial came from every conceivable direction.

“Huh?”

“How could your self-esteem be this low, for crying out loud?!”
“Well, it’s true that Lady Jill has big breasts, long legs, a thin waist, and a pretty voice, and she’s quite beautiful…eh? Eeehhh???? —?!?! Sh-, she’s beauti…ful? Wait, she looks just like the portrait!! Wh-, why didn’t I notice it?!?!?”

Bruno scratched his head out of frustration, and next to him was Lynn, staring blankly at my face as if she had just woken up from a dream. She blinked repeatedly, looking alternately at the portrait of my mother and me standing against the mirror.

(…aah, the jig’s up.)

I guess the commotion surrounding my face had gotten too big for my mentor’s recognition-inhibition spell to handle.

“I didn’t think it would be this grave…” Even Eren looked exhausted, her face down and shoulders slumped. Hm, my maids are all overworked, it seems. I don’t know what burdens them so much, but I guess we really should reconsider the details of their job, shifts, and employee benefits.

“Well, I won’t say everyone, but most noble children tend to have an excessive display of self-importance and an inflated sense of self, which can be a bit tiresome. Having a young lady like Jill who remains natural is indeed refreshing.”
“—However, there should be a limit to things.”

With a wry smile, Pryui chimed in with a sigh in response to Luke, who was trying to smooth things over. Meanwhile, next to them, Ashimi was pondering something with his arms crossed.

“Self-esteem…is it?”

I mean, before all of that, I don’t think I have a large sense of self-esteem to begin with. I (Syltianna) had faced nothing but scorn and abuse from my family members outside of my father as long as I could remember, being called ‘Ragweed,’ ‘hideous,’ ‘revolting,’ and ‘blemish of the entire kingdom,’ just to name a few. What good would having an inflated sense of self do for someone like that?

“I mean, that kind of thing isn’t what you determine on your own, is it? It’s something that comes along with effort and achievements.”
“…”

They all looked extremely dissatisfied and fell silent when they heard my sound argument.

“Ah, that’s right!” That was when Ashimi slapped his knee. “The Cattleya of the Livitium Imperial Kingdom — Now I remember where I heard that. When the Elder spoke of Jill, the words ‘Cattleya’s daughter’ and ‘Syltianna’ came…ghuekk!!”

At that instant, before I could even think, I found myself positioned behind Ashimi, locking his cervical vertebrae in a rear choke and snapping it right away, performing a killing technique. My martial arts mentor had only taught me this technique to showcase what a forbidden move was, but here I was executing it without a shred of hesitation.

“—don’t overdo it, Milady.”

Royce stopped me just in time. By the time I came to my senses, Ashimi had already fainted, his mouth frothing, slumped in his chair.

“…Hm. No bone is broken.”

Royce bent down and gently picked Ashimi up, giving me his observation, seemingly experienced.

…grr. It would’ve been broken back in my heyday. I guess I am much duller now.

Thinking about it, in my previous life, I used to whack my shins with beer bottles filled with sand to make them rock hard, and carve the calluses off my knuckles to make my punches deadlier, all in the name of training. But now, like it or not, I am a girl. To push my natural elasticity to the limit, my daily training instead focused on endurance and flexibility. I also work on my girliness like cooking and embroidery on a daily basis. Although, I feel this kind of training has had adverse effects on my fighting prowess.

To be fair, in actual combat, I would rely more on weapons, magic, and many other factors at play (such as Vier and Bartholomew) —it might seem unfair, but unlike sports martial arts, it was the norm in ancient martial arts to use anything one could utilize— so it’s not that big a problem, but it is clear that I’m a mere shadow of my previous life.

Meanwhile, while watching Ashimi being carried out of the room on a stretcher by servants that Royce called—

“That’s what happens if you make a careless remark without thinking ahead. He deserves that.”
“Beautiful and strong, she’s just too perfect. Just her status alone already makes me nervous…”
“That’s obvious. Lady Jill is amazing, after all!”

—Pryui, Lynn, and Eren chatted away carefreely. A bitter smile appeared on my lips looking at them. These girls can chat away at their own leisure even in a situation like this, their strength is clearly leaps and bounds above what you can gain with martial arts and cultivation of the mind… In a way, it is exhilarating.

(Strength isn’t about how much you can bench press, after all.)

Reaffirming my current state of being, I corrected my posture.

1. Mab: The sequel of Alice in Wonderland
   Lio: It had a sequel!?