Nothing Good Ever Happened

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/1/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

It was a life in which nothing good had ever happened.

My first life was, I think, privileged—at least in terms of the house I was born into.
I was born into the family of a successful doctor. That much, in itself, was true.

“Your only worth is to bring a husband into this house!”

My father was convinced that a woman could not inherit. He treated me coldly and pressed me to take a physician as a husband.
I was not even allowed to question it. And, inconveniently, I seemed to have inherited my parents’ genes all too well: the effort forced on me, whether I wanted it or not, gave me the grades to pass the entrance exams for medical school.
I could not, however, find anyone who met my father’s standards. I was told not to leave university until I did, and was pushed all the way into a doctoral program.
Between that and my father’s high-handedness in putting me there, the hostility directed at me was fierce.

“This paper of yours—did you actually collect this data?
Results this convenient don’t just happen.”

If anything, that accusation was the one with no logical basis.
In any case, my research was never given a fair evaluation.
Stress piled up as nothing went right, and I wasted away in body and mind—until one day I died in a traffic accident.

To my surprise, I opened my eyes again.
Unfamiliar walls. An unfamiliar ceiling. An unfamiliar town.
I had been reborn in a world different from the one I had died in.

I was named Asha. I had no special ability to speak of, but I had been given a rather adorable appearance—straight black hair of a sort I knew well, skin so pale it seemed translucent, and large, vivid blue eyes—and I still had the knowledge of my previous life.
In terms of civilization, this world was somewhere around the Middle Ages, or perhaps the early modern period.
A supernatural power called magic existed, but it was not something ordinary people could toss around at will.

“In this world, I can put my knowledge to use… I can be of help to people!”

And this time, I would be able to make a place for myself.
That was what I thought.

Reality, however, was cruel.

“You want to learn your letters? You want to study?
Don’t be stupid. Get to today’s work!”

That was what my father in this world said when I told him I wanted to learn to read.
I managed to ask the church priest to teach me, but my parents used it as one more reason to treat me coldly at every turn.
And if I ever let slip any of my inexplicable knowledge, I was not met with respect. I was looked at as something creepy.
Offer a suggestion, and I was treated as a nuisance.

Fleeing that daily life, I began visiting an apothecary who lived nearby, and she let me read her books.

“If my collection will do, you’re free to read as you like. Come whenever you want.”

The days I spent with her, after she took me in like that, were, I think, my one saving grace.
But then, with wretched timing, the church issued a decree that all healing not performed by magic was heresy. She left for somewhere far away, to flee.
And then, one day. I, who had been rumored to be a witch’s apprentice, was seized by soldiers of the local lord who arrived without warning, and hauled away with no chance to speak.
The look on this world’s parents’ faces in that moment—relief—has stuck in my head and will not come out.

I was taken straight to the manor of the viscount who ruled the land, and made to face a man with a vulgar face.

“By rights, a witch like you would be beheaded at once.
Rejoice. I shall grant you an honorable death. A meaningful one.”

Apparently I was no longer a witch’s apprentice. I was being treated as a witch myself.
The medicine I had made from the herbal knowledge I had worked so hard to learn had, it seemed, been the deciding blow.
Without my noticing, I had been producing medicines more effective than those of my teacher, the apothecary.
No one but a witch could make such things, the viscount declared, quite pleased with himself, as he laid out his wildly off-the-mark deductions.

In this world, the ruling noble was the law. I could not resist. I was sent to the royal capital, and there I was made to face yet another noble.
I remember thinking that the expression with which he peered at my face, frank and unreserved, was somehow base—like a crooked merchant.

“I see. With a face like this, there should be no problem.”
“Haha! That she should meet with Your Excellency’s approval—I am most exceedingly delighted!”

I watched the viscount and the man called Excellency play out their penny drama with thoroughly cold eyes.
I remember the violent disgust I felt at the looks on their faces when, after a round of farce, they turned toward me.

“Rejoice, girl. You have been chosen as an honorable offering to the Demon King.”

Ah. I see.
No wonder he had looked so much like a base merchant.

Their faces—their true natures—
were those of filthy slave traders.

 

And so I was to be sent to the island where the Demon King lived.
Island, I say, but it would be more accurate to call it an island nation.
From what I had heard, it was at least the size of Shikoku, and perhaps larger.
It might even be about as large as Great Britain, the main island of the UK.

The island had, they said, risen all at once from the sea south of the continent I had lived on, several decades ago.
Suddenly the skies over the entire continent had gone dark; thunder had rolled; a storm-like wind had raged; and some claimed to have heard the Demon King’s voice in that wind.
The phenomena, and the island’s location, matched the legends of the Demon King, and so people concluded that the Demon King had returned.
Debate upon debate followed over how to deal with that threat… and in the end, people chose to offer up gifts to stay in the Demon King’s good graces.
Offerings, in the form of beautiful young women.
And not at the rate of one or two a year. Nation after nation sent them, as if competing to see who could offer more.

“A Demon King who’d settle for that is quite the Demon King…”

I muttered it with a sigh, aboard the ship carrying me to the island.
Whether as a result of that or not, I could not say, but it was true that the Demon King had not invaded the continent.
It was also said that not a single one of the women sent there had ever returned.
They had been eaten, people said with knowing airs—whether in a sexual sense or a literal one, nobody knew.

Well. That was probably the case.
According to legend, the Demon King had swept across the continent with wind-attribute monsters in tow, calling up storms and raining down lightning, and had driven humanity to the brink of extinction.
The tale closed with a hero defeating the Demon King, who was then sealed away together with the island.

“Why bother with a half-baked seal? I mean, just stay asleep.”

As an offering being presented to a Demon King who had returned, I could not help but grumble.
If the Demon King had quietly stayed in bed, none of this would have happened.
Or then again.

“Maybe it’s better this way. At least I can give up…”

In the end, I had found no place for myself in this world either.
I had tried to make one. It had been a waste of effort.
I did not know if I would get to reincarnate again, but it still seemed preferable to a life of being slowly ground down.
I even found myself thinking that.

“…If you’re going to eat me, I wish you’d just get it over with.”

Whatever. I didn’t care anymore.
Leaning against the wall of a room that was less a cabin than a hold, my heart had gone completely cold.