Chapter 2: I Hate My Second Life

Roxana’s Past

“Asil!” The scream of my mother echoed in my ears.

Even in death, Asil, who had just a few days prior smiled warmly at me, kept smiling at us. Rigor mortis had taken hold and his cold body was still. I was unable to move. I fixed my gaze on his pursed lip and dreamy eyes. His expression remained frozen on his face until his body  was removed from our sight.

Asil had not lived up to his noble title, the woman who identified herself as a family executive revealed. His execution for being a disappointment and a waste of space had been in our best interests.

I trembled as though freezing water had been poured over my entire body.

My mind wandered back to three years ago, when my father had looked at me with the same lifeless expression that Asil was giving me right now. My mother was shaking once more, just as before. This family was strange and unsettling from the beginning, but to this extent…

My mom, who was clutching Asil’s body, fainted. She would remain ill in bed for the next ten days.

I was also in shock. I discovered the reason for my mother’s insistence on my schooling while I was visiting her. Her worst fears had materialized in part. Asil has been discarded, and I would be the next if I continued to be incompetent. My skin developed goosebumps as I took in her words.

 Only capable people were permitted to reside in my father Lant Agriche’s territory. I put more effort than ever before into my academic work. I reassessed my circumstances with a clean head.

“Sana, have you been studying well lately?” My mother later asked.

“Yes, mother. I’m doing well,” I replied.

“Good, to become a great Agriche, you must properly study our family values,” she said.

“Yes, mother.”

I did not question her about my curriculum anymore.

My primary topic had been seducing men since I became eight years old, but I was also supposed to continue with my previous studies. My understanding of different weapons systems, botany for poisons and remedies, psychology, and debating skills increased. 

Over time, I learned that this deranged and evil family had a custom. Every month, my father would invite his “top three children”—those who had excelled—to a family meal. Naturally, Asil had never received an invitation to a dinner.

Since his death, two more children had been discarded. One of them made an attempt to leave our estate because she thought she was going to be the next.  In the end, she was killed in the most brutal way. She was tortured and maimed before being set on fire. 

I frequently questioned the world’s sanity. I came to the conclusion that only my father, Lant Agriche, could tell me how to survive in an environment controlled by him.

When I was 12 years old, one summer after Asil’s death, I was invited to one of my father’s dinners for the first time. I had my suspicious before, but our conversation then finally convinced me that I had reincarnated in a novel I had read in my past life, a novel where my character died young..