APIBAGS Chapter 1

「 Method to Summon □□

Standing □ in □

Defile the earth with the □□ of one who □□□

Draw the circle with your □ □ stained hands

Look up in reverent supplication

Let grapes ripen on thornbushes

And figs bear fruit on thistles

□□ and □□

Welcome the □□ of □□ who shall descend to earth, circling back to the ground 」

meow.

* * *

The only daughter of the Rohanson County House, Evangeline Rohanson, had died.

To the outside world it had been given out as illness, but the servants who worked in the Rohanson household never forgot those pale feet swaying in the wind, dangling from a branch of the cherry tree in full bloom.

How red and beautiful the blossoms had been that day—even now, it seemed as though their heady fragrance still lingered at the tip of the nose.

Or perhaps it was the cherries flowers packed into the coffin in place of white lilies. That might have been it.

Because the cause of death was not one that bore speaking of beyond the estate walls, the funeral was held at the manor. Once the service concluded in the annex, rather than interring her at the temple, a gravestone was to be raised in one corner of the rear garden. The temple did not receive those who had taken their own lives, so there had been no other option—but those who did not know the circumstances merely praised the count's devotion to his child and offered their condolences.

The funeral was spare.

As a rule, even a noble's final journey ought to be magnificent and grand, but Evangeline's service had a quality that seemed somehow shabby for the send-off of a young lady of noble birth.

Perhaps it was because the condolence calls of other noble families had been refused on the pretext of contagion, but those who filled the seats were only the servants of the household and a handful of knights.

Was it the scarcity of mourners, or the fact that no one wept for the deceased even in the midst of a funeral? Whatever the cause, something unsettling drifted through the hall.

The priest's prayer offered some small relief from the gloom.

The one presiding over the ceremony was a clergyman of no particular renown. His bearing as he recited the prayer, and his white vestments, gave him the look of a devout man—but a person who truly valued his honor would never have agreed to be present here for the sake of a few gold coins.

Once the priest's prayer ended, the order of service was nearly concluded. All that remained was to seal the coffin and lay the body in the hole that had already been dug.

It was around the time that the few servants given advance instruction to move the coffin were making their preparations.

In the silence that had settled over the hall, a rustling sound suddenly rang out with unusual clarity.

The priest, who was obsessively particular about his own authority, cleared his throat in warning and was attempting to resume his prayer when the disturbance only grew worse.

The rustle of something sliding through dried flowers. The sound of something unoiled grinding bone against bone as it moved. The creak of wood. Those small, small sounds gathered together in one place, and by the time the assembled people had begun to murmur, the priest, unable to contain himself any further, stopped his prayer and opened his eyes.

And he came face to face with the source of the disturbance that had set everyone so on edge.

White hair, white as new snow, cascaded down like a waterfall. The soft-looking strands, rather than suggesting silk thread, looked somehow as though spider silk had been gathered up and drawn out long into one mass.

The eyelashes trembled, and as the lids parted, crimson irises appeared from behind them. The color called to mind not gemstones like rubies, but the heart of a living creature.

Save for the red eyes that looked as though blood had been condensed into them, everything else was white. Wearing a white dress alone among the black mourning clothes, the figure looked like a being from some other side of the world, severed from this one. Still and cold and pale.

The priest understood now why that first small sound had rung out with such particular clarity. He had been closest to the coffin—of course it would. He cried out to his god in his heart and resumed his prayer.

Unfortunately, it had no effect whatsoever.

The revived corpse was beginning to move. It started by bending its fingers, then made a fist, blinked, and turned its head. It looked exactly as though something not quite human was learning to operate an unfamiliar body.

The thing gazed at the chandelier swaying from the ceiling, then swept its gaze across the people gathered in the hall. Those who met that gaze flinched and pressed their hands over their mouths and stopped breathing.

When that gaze finally reached the priest, he understood completely why the others had reacted as they did. It was like coming face to face with a masterpiece painting that had had human eyes set into it. And those eyes were moving—staring directly back at him.

To be caught in the eyes of something ill-omened that should neither exist nor have risen—it would have been better to bite off his own tongue or strangle himself, anything to escape.

A painting walking free of its canvas, or an exquisitely carved sculpture shaped from ground-down souls pretending to be human—either would have been more natural. Compared to this thing, a marionette hanging from a puppet master's strings was nearer to being alive.

"...What is my name?"

And then at last it produced human speech from that mouth.

The thing that had taken possession of Evangeline Rohanson's body, having finished adapting to its new form, smiled—as though deeply satisfied.

It seems I've been transmigrated into someone's body.

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a magnificent chandelier. For the record, it looked extremely expensive. While trying to gauge the price of the chandelier, I thought carefully about how on earth I had died.

My body had been perfectly healthy, so it wasn't illness. I hadn't started working yet, so overwork was out, and I hadn't been hit by a car while rescuing an animal or a child. I'd never met a god or a shady fortune-teller. No matter how I thought about it, it seemed I'd simply been transmigrated while I was asleep.

Sure, transmigration stories are absolutely everywhere right now, but is it really acceptable to pick someone for possession with this little sincerity? Well. It's done now, so it doesn't particularly matter.

I've already ended up here—there's no point dwelling on my past life. What matters is the body I've transmigrated into.

No memories of the original body's owner came to me. Looking at my hands, the age doesn't seem too young... If they were going to put me somewhere, couldn't they have found somewhere a bit younger? Well, I have nothing to go on about the body's owner, so it seems I'll have to push forward with amnesia as my cover.

The hair is white and the hands are fine, so it's obviously a noble family, but I can't think of any character that matches. I suppose in situations like this you're usually put into a novel you were reading or your all-time favorite work?

I don't have a favorite work, and of all things, what I'd been reading most recently was a regression story—one of those wuxia one where the Heavenly Demon regressed. It was the most recent thing I'd read, so it was the most vividly in my memory—but just the chandelier alone told me this wasn't wuxia. If I'd ended up in a wuxia novel I'd have died horribly, so I suppose this is a relief....

This won't do. I wasn't getting anywhere alone—at times like this, you ask for help.

I should ask the gentleman sitting blankly beside me something. The robes he was wearing and the thick scripture he was holding made him look exactly like a priest. If I'd transmigrated into a sickly character, having a priest nearby wouldn't be strange. And it would make the amnesia approach easier to sell.

Come to think of it, where was this? I glanced around quickly.

I was startled. Why were there so many people? I'd been aware of presences nearby, and it turned out every single person in the room was staring at me. They were all dressed in black and quietly holding their breath. How had I only just noticed?

I'd been too distracted by the unfamiliar ceiling to see, but this wasn't a bedroom. I'd thought the surface under me was soft like a bed. Looking now—it was covered in flowers. Cherry blossoms? Or plum blossoms? No wonder there had been that sweet fragrance.

…Wait. The shape of what I'm lying in is oddly familiar….

Don't tell me—is this a coffin? I was lying in a coffin? And right now, in the middle of—don't tell me—a funeral? Is that why everyone's in black?

My head swam.

It's not unheard-of to transmigrate into a dead person's body. Readers tend to feel sorry for the original body's owner if someone transmigrates into a perfectly healthy life, so plots where you get put into someone who was destined to die young, or who was already dead, come up fairly often. But even so—what am I supposed to do if I was transmigrated into someone during their own funeral?

Ah—so that's why they were all looking at me like they'd seen a ghost!

At least they could've dropped me in right after death, couldn't they?! At this level of carelessness, there's almost a consistency to it.

The priest beside me looked as though his soul was about to depart his body.

From his perspective, the corpse had just come back to life.

I was going to need to handle this somehow. What should I say? Ta-da, thought I was dead, didn't you? Hidden camera! Just kidding! Who knows. I'll just wing it like everything else. Oh right—before anything else, I had to say this one thing first.

"...What is my name?"

I'd skipped the polite speech, for the record—it was obvious I'd transmigrated into nobility.

The name of the body I'd transmigrated into was Evangeline Rohanson.

Right. Still no idea who that was.

It had been two days since the transmigration. The first day I'd been seized upon by the priest and a doctor. The second day I'd focused on gathering information about Evangeline and this world.

By my deduction—this was a villainess possession story.

Every single servant bowed their head the moment they saw me, trembled when I spoke to them, and I'd even seen someone faint during a walk when they laid eyes on me. There'd been a young maid who'd been begging me to spare her life before someone clamped a hand over her mouth and dragged her away. Whatever the original body's owner had been doing to be this terrifying—she really should have lived a kinder life.

On top of that, Evangeline had red eyes.

In rofan lore, red eyes belong exclusively to people of a somewhat morally grimy disposition. They're generally considered an unlucky color—you get abused and avoided, and then the male lead of the original story tosses out some completely offhand line like 'I think they're pretty, actually,' and you're supposed to immediately go full insta-love meltdown over him.

And Evangeline was the only daughter of the Rohanson County House. Her mother had passed away when she was young, and the household was just father and daughter. The relationship between them didn't seem particularly good—I'd been here over two days and hadn't seen his face once. Even with his daughter dead and then mysteriously alive again, he hadn't come to check on her. Villain fathers in these stories are either absolute trash or the cringe-worthy doting type—and of course I got the former.

Beyond that, I had no idea.

No fiancé either, and since rofan usually makes the crown prince the male lead—I checked that angle first. But this world's crown prince was already middle-aged and had two children. No Northern Grand Duke, no saintess, no saint.

Though I'd only gathered even this much by listening to what servants said when I asked.

I'd looked for a diary, but found nothing. And even if I had found one, I couldn't have read it. I'd gone and become illiterate.

What kind of careless transmigration results in illiteracy? Being able to speak without trouble but not being able to read letters—how does that even make sense? Not knowing how to read meant I couldn't go to a library and gather information that way either.

So in the end, I was going to have to study a foreign language I'd never studied even in my previous life.

Illiterate. Of all the half-assed transmigrations—honestly. When I told the maid I couldn't read, you should have seen her face. I didn't know I'd get to witness a live pupil-earthquake today. Still, she seemed to take the amnesia excuse well enough and said she'd buy a spelling primer.

The book wasn't coming until tomorrow, so today was house exploration day!