I gripped the dagger tightly.

Then, with a determined face, I turned to Un Ryeong and asked.

“Un Ryeong, can you take responsibility for your words?”

“Responsibility?”

“For saying that I skip training and am lazy.”

At my words, Un Ryeong nodded.

“Of course, my lady. You are that kind of person, after all.”

She looked very confident.

Un Ryeong had a certain expression she always made when looking at me.

A look in her eyes that belittled me, as if to say ‘What can you do?’

‘She must be confident because she knows I cannot use martial arts.’

I spoke to Un Ryeong.

“Alright, don’t forget those words. That you’ll ‘take responsibility.'”

After saying that, I turned to look at the others. In front of their hostile gazes, I opened my mouth.

“I know how to use the Changgong Sword Technique.”

At my words, the noisy people all fell silent. Some looked at me with disbelieving eyes.

Nam Gung Hyun Jong shouted with a face red with anger.

“You have no talent! You’ve never properly learned the sword. How could you possibly use the Changgong Sword Technique!”

Grandfather interrupted Nam Gung Hyun Jong’s words.

“Stop!”

“Father, but she is lying right now. To hide her laziness…”

“I will be the judge.”

At grandfather’s cold words, Nam Gung Hyun Jong closed his mouth.

Grandfather’s gaze turned to me.

“You say you know the Changgong Sword Technique?”

“Yes, please give me a chance to clear my name.”

The dagger uncle’s voice was heard in my ear.

[Is knowing all? You can show it more perfectly than anyone here.]

The dagger grandfather’s voice sounded somewhat excited.

“You intend to use the sword in that body?”

I looked at grandfather with a strange expression. Because his words sounded like he was worried about me.

When everyone here didn’t care about my condition.

I shook my head.

‘That can’t be.’

Grandfather’s eyes were as dry as could be. It was an appearance that couldn’t possibly imagine worrying about someone.

[T-that’s right. I got excited for a moment. It’s been so long since I had a physical body that I didn’t know what state you were in.]

The dejected voice of the dagger uncle rang in my ear.

As grandfather said, my physical condition was the worst. But I couldn’t do nothing like this either.

If I did nothing because of my poor physical condition, people would be even more excited to gossip.

“I can do it, please let me.”

Grandfather, who had been looking into my eyes for a moment, silently held out a wooden sword that was in a corner of the room.

I took the wooden sword grandfather handed me. Then everyone’s gazes turned to me.

“What kind of confidence is this? Lying in front of the family head.”

“I heard she’s never attended training even once, how can she show the Changgong Sword Technique?”

“I had expectations because she’s Hyun’s daughter, but she always disappoints.”

I could hear the voices of the spectators chattering.

These were people Nam Gung Hyun Jong had brought to humiliate me.

To show how pathetic I looked in front of others.

I looked at grandfather standing in front of me.

Grandfather was frowning deeply, as if something displeased him.

‘Of course he’s not happy with me.’

I had heard that father was grandfather’s most beloved son.

Nam Gung Hyun.

The person they had expected to become the greatest under heaven in the distant future.

Everyone in the Nam Gung family loved him.

Unlike me, an extra, he was a character often described even in the Heavenly Demon Sovereign.

The most outstanding talent in the Nam Gung family.

If he had lived, he could have become the greatest under heaven in the future.

[I’ve always lived hearing such words too.]

The dagger uncle’s voice was very low. It was a grave voice I had never heard before.

[Others always tried to judge me. Even though they were worse than me. In the end, if you show your skills, they’ll have to shut their mouths.]

‘But I really can’t do anything.’

[No, you can. You just had your opportunities stolen.]

That’s when it happened.

The figure of a man appeared before my eyes.

A young man? Or middle-aged?

He exuded a fierce aura with his long hair disheveled.

A strange atmosphere emanated from him that made it impossible to guess his age.

‘He’s really handsome.’

The man with long hair falling over his shoulders bowed his head before me.

I looked around.

It seemed the others couldn’t see the man who had suddenly appeared.

I realized this man was the dagger uncle.

[Then excuse me.]

As soon as his words ended, I quietly raised the sword.

But it wasn’t my will.

The one moving my body was the dagger uncle. As soon as I raised the sword, I could see the change in other people’s eyes.

A hint of interest gleamed in people’s eyes.

[Show those foolish ones. What possibilities they tried to steal.]

The dagger uncle continued.

[There’s no need to think of the sword as difficult.]

Whoosh, the wooden sword moved at a speed my body couldn’t produce. With each movement of my body, people’s gazes changed moment by moment. The most spectacular among them was Nam Gung Hyun Jong’s expression.

He was staring at me with his mouth open and a dazed look on his face.

I didn’t know the details, but what I was displaying was clearly the Changgong Sword Technique. In the small room given to me, I had always watched my cousins with envious eyes.

Those children were learning the Changgong Sword Technique I was displaying now.

‘But it’s different from the sword my cousins displayed.’

[Anyone with a desire for the sword should be able to learn it.]

I felt my heart racing.

I had thought those children’s Changgong Sword Technique was impressive, but the one unfolding from my body was on a different level.

I could feel a depth I couldn’t comprehend.

If even I, a complete novice in swordsmanship, could feel it, the martial artists gathered here must have recognized it too.

That my swordsmanship was bizarrely perfect.

When my sword finally drew the last sword path, silence hung in the room. The first to regain his senses was Nam Gung Hyun Jong.

He shouted, looking at me with an unbelieving face.

“You, you… impossible…!”

His eyes were full of betrayal.

“How on earth do you know the Changgong Sword Technique? You clearly had no talent… How can this be so perfect, as if I’m seeing Hyun…”

Nam Gung Hyun Jong’s words were incoherent. He kept muttering as if in a daze. He quickly approached me and tried to grab my shoulder.

“What trickery have you used!”

But Nam Gung Hyun Jong’s hand didn’t reach me.

“How unsightly, Hyun Jong.”

Grandfather grabbed Nam Gung Hyun Jong’s arm. Nam Gung Hyun Jong’s complexion turned pale at grandfather’s words.

[Hah, serves him right!]

I also heard the dagger uncle’s excited shout.

I felt good too.

But separate from feeling good, I had really reached my limit now.

I had just gotten up after collapsing from a fever. Then I had used strength I couldn’t handle.

The world was spinning.

Not long after getting up, I collapsed again. The last thing I saw as I fell was grandfather looking at me with a bewildered face.

[This is the timeline separator]

Those were words Un Ryeong had said to me once.

The person who hindered me most from learning martial arts was Un Ryeong.

She looked at me as if I were pathetic. As if to say that if she had been born as me, she wouldn’t have lived like I did.

Un Ryeong said that while shaking her head. Un Ryeong said grandfather had abandoned me.

She whispered that the reason he had been away from the family for 8 years was partly because he was busy, but also because he didn’t want to see me.

I didn’t tell Un Ryeong, but I had experienced a similar situation in my past life too.

Maybe that’s why.

In fact, Un Ryeong’s words didn’t hurt me much.

It was because my mental age was higher than other children’s and I was also used to having people like Un Ryeong around.

‘Does fate really exist? Why is my life like this?’

My life in my past life wasn’t spent with very good people either.

Un Ryeong said that while clicking her tongue.

She shouted at me as if frustrated.

Un Ryeong.

I’ve already done that before.

I’ve tried hard to be loved before. But if it’s love that I can only receive by trying hard, is that really love?

These were words I didn’t bother saying to Un Ryeong.

My vision flips.

Now I’m no longer in the martial arts world of the Heavenly Demon Sovereign.

A cramped studio apartment with no space to lie down comfortably.

It was my room in the modern world.

‘I really hate this.’

It was a nightmare I often had. The first time I was abandoned in that small studio apartment.

My father placed ten 10,000 won bills in my hand.

It was a ridiculously small amount compared to the money he had.

My half-sister stood beside him.

She looked at me with sympathetic eyes, then grabbed father’s hand and left.