episode_0004

Irha Livingston.

In my memories, she was always a tired and pitiful person.

When I was rich and never had to worry about going hungry for even a single gram, I didn’t understand why she always looked so gloomy…

But after hitting rock bottom and starving often in my second life, I finally understood why her expression was like that.

It was because she had no money and would simply starve whenever she could.

My classmate who had no money, no connections, and terribly bad luck.

A poor soul who got caught up in things she shouldn’t have, ruining both others’ lives and her own.

Anyway, it was a good thing.

I had planned to seek her out soon anyway, so I was only glad about this chance encounter.

“Do you have plans today?”

“No, I don’t really have any plans… Why?”

She fidgeted nervously, looking around.

“If you don’t have plans, let’s have lunch together.”

At my suggestion of a meal, she became flustered and agitated.

“Oh… but I don’t have any money. More importantly, why with someone like me…?”

“I had a two-person reservation here, but my plans suddenly fell through. It’s non-cancelable, so it’d be a waste. If you don’t have plans, let’s eat together.”

I casually cut her off and pushed her into the restaurant.

There was no lie in what I said. A pre-booked two-person course meal, broken plans, and a no-cancellation/no-refund policy from the restaurant…

“Wow… I’ve never been to a place like this before.”

Having entered the restaurant, Irha was spontaneously expressing her admiration.

Indeed, it was a remarkably luxurious and sophisticated place, enough to evoke such admiration.

The most high-class restaurant near Leone Academy, ‘Hiols’.

This was a restaurant that had captured both taste and style so well that it didn’t fall short even when compared to the leading restaurants in the Imperial Capital.

Instead, thanks to its eye-popping prices, it was a place where even ambiguous noble lords, let alone commoners, would find it burdensome to order a full course.

Since the Etgard family was wealthy beyond comparison to ambiguous noble families, it wasn’t a big burden for me.

Of course, after my family was completely ruined and I was reduced to a life of poverty, it became a place I could only dream of.

A server approached us with graceful steps.

During busy seasons like the current festival period, this restaurant switches to a full reservation system and doesn’t accept many walk-in guests.

Instead, they charge even higher prices than usual.

I told the server my reserved name and handed over my student ID.

“Ras Etgard-nim, you have a reservation for a private room on the third floor. I will guide you.”

Perhaps because it was a high-class restaurant, the server’s gestures, voice, and even demeanor were exceptionally elegant and practiced.

As we followed the softly stepping server, Irha poked me and asked worriedly.

“C-Can I really come in here? I know this place is really expensive… A private room, too…”

“Anyway, if you weren’t here, I’d have stuffed myself alone and gotten indigestion. And what’s so special about a private room? They just give any room a fancy name and charge more for it.”

The private room was sophisticated yet very quiet, and as soon as we sat down, a meal of just the right temperature was served.

The most expensive course meal at Hiols met all three criteria: taste, quantity, and refinement.

And my classmate, like a hungry seagull, cautiously looked around before digging into her meal.

“You’ll get indigestion. Eat slowly.”

“….Chew, chew… thank you… Munch, munch… Gulp, gulp…”

Have you ever eaten restaurant food soaked in tears?

In that same atmosphere, she was wolfing down her food, looking exactly like a hungry seagull squawking as it ate.

For some reason, her eyes seemed to be brimming with tears, giving them a sparkling appearance?

“Sniff… It’s so delicious… What is this…? Do rich people eat this every day…? Nom, nom.”

It wasn’t just a feeling like she was crying; the kid was genuinely crying.

Is it *that* delicious…?

The gloomy atmosphere was so pitiful that the pathetic smell seemed to waft all the way to me, sitting across from her.

“Even rich people don’t eat this every day. For starters, this course is expensive.”

At my words, “expensive,” she flinched, stopped eating, and hesitated.

Then she looked at me and spoke in a voice that sounded like she wanted to crawl into a mouse hole.

Seeing her like that, with sauce all over her mouth, was funny but also pitiful.

“But I really don’t have any money, and no other way to pay you back…”

“It’s fine. This place is non-cancelable, and the reservation time is set, so it was hard to bring anyone else anyway. Eat more.”

Watching her put her head down again and eat heartily with a relieved expression, I also savored the taste of old memories.

The unnamed meat dish, the incredibly well-baked bread, and the very elegantly prepared vegetable dish were all excellent.

The aroma of the food, the ecstatic harmony of flavors dancing in my mouth, and the excellent texture that chewed so well, all brought me joy.

To live with intact five senses, what a great joy it was.

“Nom, nom, nom… It’s really delicious…!”

“You certainly eat well.”

I felt the irony of life in the fact that it was *this* person, of all people, who was enjoying the richness of taste in front of me.

Irha Livingston was the one who had taken away my five senses in my previous life.

*

Irha Livingston.

A first-year student at Leone Academy, she was always a pauper suffering from poverty.

A solitary orphan, with neither parents nor family.

Livingston was not her family name, but the name of the orphanage that raised her.

Irha was a witch-in-training from the Livingston Orphanage, located in a remote corner of the Sephiroth Imperial Capital.

As a solitary orphan, she was fortunate to be born with talent in the right era, allowing her to enter Leone Academy, renowned as the best on the continent.

This would ordinarily have been impossible, but it was thanks to a policy put forth by the Empire’s Second Imperial Princess, who had begun participating in state affairs ahead of the imperial succession competition.

In simple terms, it was an unprecedented benevolent scholarship policy: a special admission program for socially vulnerable groups.

She, a pauper who hadn’t received proper preliminary education and had no money for tuition, was lucky enough to board the special admission carriage.

If she could maintain her grades and persevere for a few more years, she would become a high-level mage and be treated with respect in society.

It was truly a dramatic rise in status that was about to unfold for her.

However, this luck and happiness did not last very long.

Although she had become an adult, she had an inseparable bond with the Livingston Orphanage, and that became her undoing.

For one, she herself had no intention of severing ties with the orphanage from the start.

It wasn’t that she wanted to lie down and be cared for; rather, she had a strong desire to fulfill her duty to the orphanage that had raised and looked after her.

As is often the case with facilities for vulnerable populations, the orphanage was always struggling with financial difficulties and management issues.

Not only did it cost a lot for the children’s living expenses, but it also became a ‘tribute hotspot’ for gangsters in the back alleys who would bother them whenever they were bored.

While there were some orphanages that colluded with back-alley gangs to form cartels and sell children, Livingston was not one of them.

It was an orphanage that struggled to survive on meager government subsidies, occasional donations, and the irregular communal labor of the orphanage director.

To somehow scrape together as much money as possible for the orphanage, Irha remained impoverished after her admission.

To earn money, she would take on short part-time jobs after classes.

She saved as much of her living expenses and scholarship money from the state as possible to send to the orphanage.

On top of that, she lacked basic knowledge and had to study, so she was always short on sleep.

As a result, Irha became much more haggard than when she first entered, and her once pretty face was utterly ruined.

The head nun of Livingston Orphanage told her it was alright and to just focus on her studies, but Irha couldn’t bring herself to stop sending money.

Because she knew all too well the circumstances of the orphanage.

Well, truthfully, up to that point, she might have just managed to endure it.

But another reason made her mind and body several times more difficult.

That reason was her younger sister, Mirha Livingston.

Unlike Irha, who had become an adult and gained independence, her younger sister Mirha was still young.

From Irha’s perspective, she couldn’t separate herself from the orphanage, at least until Mirha became an adult.

To make matters worse, Mirha’s condition took a severe turn after Irha enrolled in the academy, making the situation even more pressing.

Her sister, who had suddenly contracted an unknown illness, began to waste away day by day, slowly dying.

Mirha, who had been sickly since she was little and prone to minor ailments, suddenly collapsed after Irha went to the academy.

She was suffering from a rare disease: she would suddenly experience cold spells, lose consciousness, and complain of persistent chest pain, yet the diagnosis itself was unknown.

More precisely, it was almost impossible for her to get a high-quality, precise diagnosis due to their extreme poverty.

Even if she somehow managed to get a symptom diagnosis, if it was an illness requiring surgery, there was no other way than to die.

Surgery was incredibly expensive and risky, so not just anyone could afford it, and post-operative care was also difficult.

Ultimately, there was no alternative but to use medicine effective for cold spells and painkillers, but even the cost of those medicines was burdensome for paupers.

Anyway, in such a pitiful and impoverished situation, Irha was growing increasingly exhausted and thin.

The reason she was lingering near ‘Hiols’, the high-class restaurant, today was because she wanted to at least smell the delicious food near the restaurant district.

The restaurant where she usually worked part-time after the academy was closed today.

It was because the owner, who had recently remarried, was going on a honey-dropping flower-viewing trip with his wife.

‘I want to go flower viewing too. Would flower viewing be fun? I want to hit the jackpot. I want to eat. I wouldn’t mind starving for ten days if Mirha didn’t hurt.’

Anyway, Irha, who was wandering near the restaurant district while lost in disjointed fantasies, happened to meet Ras…

‘Yay…! I knew my dreams were good last night…!!! What luck!’

After finally eating her fill of delicious food after a long time, she cheered exuberantly.

She glanced at Ras, who was leisurely enjoying his meal across from her, and had many thoughts.

‘Maybe it’s because he eats well and grew up well, but he’s really handsome. His skin is practically glowing. Lizley is also incredibly pretty, so beautiful and talented people must meet each other.’

In contrast, her own dry, lifeless skin, rough hair, unfashionable style, and shabby, pitiful appearance…

Perhaps because she was full, Irha felt a sadness that she usually didn’t even have time to feel.

Though she was full and warm now, a full stomach would eventually empty, and she would soon be sad.

Ras, who effortlessly bought and treated her to expensive meals whose cost she couldn’t even guess, and Lizley, who was having a sweet relationship with such a Ras, made her feel envious and jealous for no reason.

‘No… what a shameless thought. I should thank Ras a hundred times, and it wouldn’t be enough. Since I ate like this, I can starve for a couple of days, right?’

Shaking her head vigorously to dispel her “bad” thoughts (which weren’t really that bad), Irha repeatedly expressed her gratitude to Ras.

“Ras, thank you so much. Thanks to you, I got to eat such delicious food to my heart’s content. Hehehe… It probably won’t happen, but if you ever need any help, please be sure to tell me…”

In truth, the latter part of her statement was merely a polite add-on, without much thought.

And why wouldn’t it be? From her perspective, there was no reason for a noble like Ras to ask for help from a beggar like her.

As soon as she said it, she had a moment of regret.

Ras had a girlfriend named Lizley, who was considered one of the two school queens, and Irha worried that if someone as shabby as herself acted familiar, he might find it ridiculous.

But then….

“Oh, really? That’s good. Now that I think about it, the meal was a bit too expensive to just give away for free. Let’s help each other out from now on.”

“….????”

Seeing Ras suddenly transform into someone with the expression of a debt collector, Irha became extremely flustered.

“Let’s not do this here. Let’s go to a cafe or something and talk in detail about this ‘help’ for the future. Alright~ We’ve eaten our meal, so now we need dessert.”

Somehow, an excited Ras promptly got Irha to her feet.

‘I don’t know…! What is he?! I thought he was kind, but he was actually… kind of scary…!’

Irha began to feel a little scared of Ras, with his clear eyes.

*

A powerful, strong Monday.

When I was at the academy before, I hated Monday classes so much, but now that I’m an older student, it’s quite enjoyable.

If you think about it, I’m technically attending school again at thirty-one, so I’m the oldest here.

*Ahem*. These little brats don’t even greet their elders.

The world is truly going to ruin.

I hummed a tune inwardly, lost in thought.

On Saturday, many things had happened since I returned to the past.

First, the thrilling act of gleefully tormenting Lizley and then standing her up. I praise myself for that.

And since I didn’t go to see the “affair flower” that bloomed instead of the evening primrose that day, I praise myself twice.

Of course, even if I hadn’t witnessed the affair, that alone wouldn’t prevent the great misfortune of the future.

There were still quite a few measures I needed to take, one might say.

Anyway, I had roughly concluded how I would live throughout the weekend.

Especially regarding the liquidation of the past.

Therefore, the very first thing I attempted was….

“Hey, Irha.”

“U-Uh…”

When I called Irha, who was sitting at the front of the classroom, she timidly approached me.

I rummaged for some money and then placed it in her hand.

“Go get some bread. The one with lots of chocolate cream. Oh, and get a milk too, so you don’t choke. You can keep the change.”

It was the act of making a minion.