I dreamed while I was asleep.

It was an unpleasant dream, filled with past trauma.

I grew up as the only daughter of a wealthy family, receiving abundant love from my parents with a promising future.

I thought my life, devoid of any envy, would continue this happy day by day.

Misfortune struck in an instant, taking away everything I had.

While going on a family trip to celebrate my parents’ wedding anniversary, a major traffic accident occurred.

A drunk driver crashed his vehicle into our family’s car.

In that accident, not only the perpetrator but also my innocent mother and father died on the spot.

I barely survived, rescued from that hellish scene.

“Mom, Dad…….”

Losing my parents was sad enough, but my life changed completely from that point.

The vast inheritance left by my parents. It was all because of my greedy relatives.

They were greedy for my share of the inheritance, treating me kindly and affectionately.

“Ah, how hard it must have been for you. Come with us.”

At first, I was grateful for these words, thinking them truly kind people. Foolishly so.

I only realized later that they were not on good terms with my parents.

I only felt thankful and apologetic to them for taking me in like a real daughter without expecting anything in return.

I strived to be recognized as a family member, studying day and night to the point of exhaustion, and was shocked when I overheard a shocking conversation while I was bedridden.

“When will we stop taking care of that child? Do you know how our daughter complains about being compared to her every day?”

“Shush. What if the child hears? If that happens, the inheritance that will fall to us will fly away!”

“Why care about a girl who can’t even move from being sick? And, are you sure she’ll hand over the inheritance to you?”

“Just wait a bit longer. It seemed like she was completely fooled by us, so if we coax her well, she might quickly hand over the inheritance.”

“Once we get that, we’ll kick her out. To the orphanage.”

“…….”

Even at a young age, I realized that my relatives took care of me just to take over the inheritance.

That their kindness and love were all for money.

Whether it was anger or sorrow, I cried as I wailed, and as soon as I got better, I left that house.

It was not a runaway without a plan, so I went to find my grandmother and begged her to take me in.

My maternal family, who were estranged for opposing my mother’s marriage to my father. I went there and begged.

“I won’t ask for anything more. Please take me in until I become an adult. Grandmother, you have a lot of money, so… at least you won’t covet the inheritance my parents left for me.”

“…….”

“Please help me. If you take me in, I will repay this favor later.”

“…You don’t need to repay a favor. What would I get from a small child like you?”

My grandmother pitied me and did not kick me out.

She performed the role of a legal guardian for me. She never gave me a drop of affection, perhaps still hating my mother, but I was satisfied with that alone.

“Where can you trust someone to not stab you in the back?”

After seeing the true nature behind the kindly masks of my relatives, I became a very skeptical person.

Since that day, I couldn’t trust anyone.

Things like kindness and love seemed only a luxury, and if someone bestowed those things on me without reason, I doubted them first.

I didn’t want to be used anymore.

My grandmother would say to me, almost like a habit,

“Life is alone. You have to be able to live on your own.”

I grew up exactly like that.

I became a cold adult who doesn’t trust those around me and always tries to solve everything alone.

I lacked nothing in terms of material things, thanks to the inheritance and insurance money left by my parents, and the job I earned through my efforts.

But my heart was always empty.

“Am I really doing this right?”
Loneliness followed me like a shadow, and every time it did, I digested a busy schedule as if being chased.

I didn’t want to know loneliness, nor sadness.

I didn’t want to know the things that made me miserable.

Because I didn’t want to destroy what I had built.

The days I endured with only the belief that I could live well on my own passed like a panorama, and I was overwhelmed.

But there’s a foundation I’ve made over there.

‘I want to go home.’

Not worrying about surviving from the zombies trapped in this nonsensical world.

‘Send me back home!’

I want to go back to my own home that I can rely on and believe in!

As I screamed in my dream, a giant golden hamster approached and looked down at me.

“Hey, it’s time to wake up and work.”

At that moment, I opened my eyes from the nightmare.

“……Damn.”

Even after waking up from the dream, the color of my hair caught on my fingers was silver, and the reflection in the mirror was not me but Elizabeth.

The nightmare was not over.

I can’t go back to my comfortable life alone until I safely finish the quest.

(This is a time separator.)

Several days had passed since the party was held.