“Gkk… gkah—”
A man who had been lying motionless on the sandy shore suddenly convulsed with a violent cough, expelling seawater from his lungs.
Cough, cough.
After a long, ragged struggle to empty his chest, the man finally lifted his head.
Before him stretched a narrow beach, beyond it a dense forest. On the other side lay nothing but an endless ocean.
There was no sign of human life anywhere.
An uninhabited island.
A perfect shipwreck.
A situation that should have driven a man to despair.
And yet—
“Ha… hah… hahahaha!”
The man burst into laughter like someone who had lost his mind.
Hot tears streamed down his blue eyes.
But he wasn’t in denial of reality.
Rather, it was because this scene… was not unfamiliar to him.
“Thank you… thank you, God!”
Realizing something deep and instinctive, the man dropped to the ground and began to pray.
He didn’t care that wet sand clung unpleasantly to his soaked body.
His tears darkened the sunbaked sand, soaking into the beach that had already been scorched dry by the blazing sun.
Veins bulged sharply along his clenched fists as grains of sand trickled through them.
With a guttural, beast-like sob forced down his throat, Jean de Ranber finally spoke the promise he had once failed to keep.
“Dad… I’ll be there soon. Wait for me… my daughter.”
“Hey! Vivian, there’s still residue on the plate!”
“I’m sorry! I’ll wipe it again right away!”
Vivian lifted her head quickly from where she had been scrubbing under the table.
After finishing the floor, she hurried to her feet. Her face was drenched in sweat.
“Ugh… there we go.”
Soft cotton-candy pink hair stuck to her flushed cheeks in damp strands.
But she didn’t even have time to fix it—she ran straight back to washing dishes, wiping them down with a cloth.
“Why are you so slow?! If you don’t finish quickly, I can’t even start stacking the dishes!”
“Yes, yes… I’m done now!”
The child polished the plate until it reflected her face like a mirror, then proudly handed it back to the sharp-eyed woman.
The woman frowned deeply, inspecting it carefully, then tossed a piece of hard black bread at her.
“Thank you very much, ma’am!”
Vivian caught the bread carefully, as if it were precious treasure.
It was so hard it would need to be soaked in water for a long time before it could be eaten.
Her stomach screamed for food immediately, but she swallowed her saliva and tucked it safely into her apron pocket.
This was her only meal of the day.
There was still more work to do—she would have to eat half after finishing and save the rest for dinner just to survive.
“It’s even bigger than yesterday’s bread! Yay! I’ll have to make it last!”
To anyone listening, it would sound heartbreaking.
But this was Vivian’s reality.
A child alone in the world, with no one on her side.
Still, things had been better before—when her father Jean left by ship to earn money.
“Sleep through a hundred nights and you’ll see him again, young lady!”
“Is that longer than ten nights?”
“Just sleep ten nights ten times!”
“I don’t really get it…”
Back then, the butler Ron and his wife Mary treated her kindly, calling her “young lady,” and the villagers smiled at her warmly.
Everything changed when rumors spread that Jean’s ship had been caught in a storm—and then no letter ever arrived again.
“He’s probably dead, right?”
“A man who loved his daughter that much wouldn’t go silent unless something happened.”
“Then…”
Their absence awakened something else in Ron and Mary.
A month after contact was lost, Vivian was thrown out of her room.
Their son Peter took it instead.
“You should be grateful people like us are taking care of you. Someone else would’ve thrown you out already.”
“Exactly. Do you know how hard it is for wandering orphans? You should be thankful you’re not freezing to death.”
Ron and Mary began treating Vivian’s inheritance as their own, claiming it was payment for raising her until adulthood.
“Sorry, young lady.”
“We have to live too.”
The villagers all owed Jean something—big or small—and Ron held those debts like chains, forcing them to ignore the pitiful girl.
Jean had even appointed Ron as his representative before leaving, making legal action impossible.
If Vivian had had even one relative, things might have been different—but she had none.
No grandparents. No uncles. No aunts.
Her mother’s origins were unknown. She had supposedly fallen in love with Jean at first sight and ran away from her family, cutting all ties.
But Vivian didn’t understand any of that.
To her, her mother was simply someone who gave birth to her and then went to heaven.
Even in this situation, Vivian tried her best to live bravely—
“Hey! Ugly!”
—but the world refused to help her.
It was Peter, Ron and Mary’s son. Two years older than Vivian, he had made it his mission to torment her ever since Jean disappeared.
She pretended not to hear his voice.
“What, pretending you can’t hear me? Hey!”
“…Right, I still have laundry to do! I’m busy, busy. I’ve got to go wash clothes!”
“Oh, so you’re ignoring me now?”
“Ow!”
Peter grabbed her hair.
So hard that her body tilted sideways.
“Let go!”
“Who told you to ignore me? When I call you, you answer immediately!”
“When did you call me? My name isn’t ‘Ugly’!”
“If I say you’re ugly, then you’re ugly, idiot.”
“I’m not an idiot! Who do you think you are?!”
“Me?”
Grin.
Something about his smile made Vivian uneasy.
He was barely holding back laughter, his mouth twitching at one side, his cheeks even flushed red with excitement.
Whatever made Peter this happy could not possibly be good for her.
“Well… heh… kheheh… never mind. Kids don’t need to know yet.”
Still laughing to himself, Peter disappeared.
“What was that about?”
Vivian rubbed her arms, suddenly covered in goosebumps.
It felt deeply unpleasant—but she still had laundry to finish.
With a heavy bundle on her back, she went down to the stream and began washing clothes with practiced movements.
The freezing water numbed her fingers until they felt like they might fall off, but eventually, even the uneasy feeling was forgotten.
Growl…
Vivian held her empty stomach and opened the door.
The bread she had received in the morning was long gone. She planned to drink water just to fill herself.
Ron and Mary didn’t forbid her from even drinking water.
She stepped out from the small, corner room beneath the attic and descended one floor when voices drifted from below.
“…Vivian…”
“Huh? Me?”
Hearing her name from the room that once belonged to Jean—now occupied by Ron and Mary—she froze.
No way… are they going to kick me out?
Her heart dropped violently.
On tiptoe, she crept closer.
Through the slightly open door, she peeked inside with trembling blue eyes.
“Maybe we should arrange an engagement first?”
“She’s only seven. How would marriage even work?”
“We don’t need a formal ceremony anyway.”
Engagement? What’s that? I know marriage… that’s when two people promise to live happily forever if they love each other.
Vivian tilted her head.
Why was her name being mentioned?
“If Peter marries Vivian, then we won’t have to worry about anything anymore!”
“Ugh.”
She gasped.
Startled so badly she made a strange sound, Vivian clapped a hand over her mouth.
