I'm Sorry I'm Not Qualified To Be Empress

Chapter 2: My Father’s Neck is Still There!

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[t/n  아버지 목이 붙어있어! literally means “Father’s neck is still stuck/attached (to his body)!” Because her dad had been decapitated in her past life. But I guess in hangul (Korean) it’s better to use neck instead of head, haha]

Splat!

Rosé’s felt as if her eardrums were torn at the sound of crashing onto the stone ground.

I’m really dying like this…

The sound as she landed at the bottom was tremendous but, strangely, it didn’t hurt at all.

Is it so painful that I don’t feel pain at all?

In the darkness, she felt a bizarre feeling of a hand pulling her downwards. She felt her body being dragged down into the abyss, into further darkness without air and noise.

“Miss. You really need to get up…The sun is already high in the sky…” 

A middle-aged woman’s voice. 

Whoosh.

The sound of the curtain opening.

“Miss! Seriously, how long are you going to sleep?” The voice sounded clearer than before.

Rosé felt her eyes were overwhelmed with light even before she opened them. The white sunlight from the window warmly enveloped her. She felt her eyes water as she felt like they were poked by needles from the sunlight as slowly opened her eyes. 

Tiny dust floating in the air glistened in the sunshine, and she watched them move from her lying position. 

Where am I? I definitely died. And why is it so bright? 

She slowly craned her neck downwards. 

Her body, which should be b.l.o.o.d.y and shattered, was clean and intact. She could see her chest and healthy skin beneath the silk pajamas that ran down to her shoulders.

A light breeze blowing in from the window carried the sweet rose scent of cotton candy.

This fragrance!

The Etoile house was covered with roses all summer.

The snow white buildings and the red rose bushes surrounded four spires, creating a captivating scene. Although the official name of the Count’s residence was Casa de Bella, people called it the Red Rose House. 

Clap!

Two large hands appeared in front of Rosé’s eyes, and Rosé instantly refocused. 

Natalie?

The one in front of her was Natalie, her wetnurse. She had always stayed by Rosé’s side from the moment she was born until she married and left the mansion.

Rosé bit her lips, wanting to say something. She was so happy to see Natalie, but her voice didn’t come out well.

What kind of happy dream is this?

“It’s useless even if you show me those puppy dog eyes. The dress has already been delivered and is downstairs. You’ve been waiting for it for days.”

Natalie placed her hands on her hips and looked at Rosé with a look that said she would show no mercy unless Rosé got up.

“Natalie…I…I must be dreaming right now.”

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Hearing what Rosé murmured, Natalie grinned.

“Do you like it that much? Then hurry and get ready to go downstairs, because it’s not a dream. The tailors arrived and have been waiting just for you long before you woke up, Miss.”

Natalie pulled on the strings of Rosé’s loose pajamas and lifted up Rosé’s upper body.

Rosé watched as Natalie’s thick hands skillfully tied a thin silk strap.

Oh!

Rosé grabbed one of Natalie’s hands and put it on her cheek, causing the wetnurse to look at her with rounded eyes.

“Miss? What are you doing?”

The hands were rough but warm. It was too vivid to be a dream. Rosé jumped out of her seat and ran to the mirror.

“Miss!”

She approached a mirror and leaned towards it until the tip of her nose touched the surface. She put both hands on her face and felt the skin, which was translucent and smooth.

Her long, straight, shining hair drooped down her back to the waist. She grabbed her chest with her two hands.

[t/n: cue spitting out water]

“Ah…”

Natalie was embarra.s.sed watching Rosé from behind. You only needed to tuck a flower next to Rosé’s ear and her miss would look like a bonafide crazy street girl.

“Uhh…Miss Rosé?”

Natalie called out to her, but Rosé continued to mutter to herself like a madwoman.

“This can’t be…How…how could this…? This. It’s really me.”

The Rosé she saw in the mirror was the lovely and innocent Rosé Etoile before marrying Ca.s.siax. 

“Oh My G.o.d! It’s me! It’s really me, Natalie!”

Rosé patted, no, slapped her cheeks so hard to the point it made a crisp sound. Natalie, who had stopped watching her miss and had been tidying up the room, was so surprised she dropped a bed pillow she had been holding.

“What about Father? Is he still alive? What year is it?” Rosé enthusiastically asked Natalie. 

“Tomorrow is your 17th birthday. Why are you acting in such a strange manner? Really, Miss.”

Natalie looked like she was going to cry out of exasperation. 

Confused, Rosé held her head with her hands and walked up and down the room. The situation did not make any sense. 

Is this a dream? Or did I go back in time? No way!

Suddenly, as if she had remembered something, Rosé searched the bed. She flipped over the blankets and pushed aside the pillows, scouring the floor, but she couldn’t find it. 

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Ah…then, maybe everything I experienced was a dream? But really? My death? Everything that happened was a dream?

As Rosé sat, confused, Natalie, who had noticed that Rosé had been searching for something, opened her mouth to ask.

“Perhaps…you were looking for this?”

Nataile held up a piece of black silk between her fingers.

“I found this when I was tidying up the pillows…”

Rosé’s felt gooseb.u.mps down her spine. She grabbed the silk piece from Natalie’s hand and inspected it with a terrified face.

This…

It was a piece of Ca.s.siax’s sleeve that she had teared off when she fell from the tower. Even when she had been falling, she had tightly clenched it in her fist. 

Throwing the piece of black cloth on the floor, she staggered and sat on the bed. She couldn’t believe this situation.

“Do…you want to call a doctor? Your face looks a little blue-”

Before Natalie finished speaking, Rosé ran out of the room.

“Ah..! Miss! Pajamas!”

[t/n: lol she still has pjs on.]

Rosé ran through a long elegant hallway covered with red carpet.

“Miss?”

“Oh my!”

Two maids walking down the hall saw Rosé and made way for her. They turned to each other with a “what is going on with Miss?” look on their faces as she ran past them. 

Small, white bare feet swept up the spiral golden staircase.

If she went down one floor, she would find the reception room where her father always drank tea at the end of the hallway. As she arrived at the first floor, and then approached the reception room, someone opened the door from the inside.

“Oh!”

Rosé bowed a bit and apologized to the one she almost ran into, a well-dressed middle-aged man who habitually took off his hat in response. 

As Rosé entered the room, the man looked back at her, disconcerted. 

Well, that…! For n.o.bles to run around their mansions in ugly pajamas…He clicked his tongue once, put on his hat, and quickly exited the room. 

In the reception room, Count Jared and Countess Audrey sat facing each other at a tea table. At the table, there was another teacup that appeared to be for the guest who had just left.

“Father!”

The Countess stared at her daughter with a dropped jaw as Rosé came running to them.

“What…! Oh. Good Heavens.”

Mrs. Audrey looked at her daughter wearing only…pajamas. She was so surprised that she almost lost her grip on her teacup, setting it down with a loud clack sound. 

Rosé ran to Count Jared and embraced his neck.

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“I think today’s morning greeting is a bit over the top, Rosé,” said the smiling Count Jared.

As if she had returned to being a young girl, Rosé rubbed her father’s beard on his jaw and chin. The smell of her father was mixed with the heavy scent of wood and ink.

“Rosé, you, seriously…”

Audrey placed her teacup on the table and began to scold her daughter. But Count Jared frowned at Audrey to stop.

“Really…It’s because of you that our daughter is still so childish.”

Audrey sighed and patted her mouth with a handkerchief.

Ignoring her mother’s comments, Rosé continued to touch her father’s thick, short neck.

“The neck is still attached. Father’s neck is still attached.” [t/n hence the chapter t.i.tle]

“Well, where else would my neck be? Did you run away with it last night? Haha.”

He stroked Rosé’s head. Rosé buried her face in his chest and burst into tears. The last time she had seen her father was his severed head hanging by a rope in the capital square, a puddle of his blood on the ground.

The kids had thrown stones and people had spat on it.

The most respected aristocrat of the imperial citizens and the hero who had helped economically develop the Solstern Empire. Jared Etowar met a miserable fate.

Feeling that the front of his chest was hot and wet, the Count looked at Rosé’s face, only to see daughter’s face was a teary mess.

“Rosé? Is there something wrong?”

Faced with his eyes that expressed panic and concern, Rosé shook her head violently instead of voicing a reply. She bit her lip so as not to cry.

“Rosé, how long will you hang onto your father like a child?” As Audrey scolded her daughter, the door of the reception room opened and Natalie appeared.

“Miss!”

She rushed over with a red dress for Rosé to wear in her hands.

“The ones who brought the dress for tomorrow have been waiting for a while, Miss Rosé.”

As she was in front of the count and countess, Natalie straightened her neck and politely spoke.

Count Jared glanced at Natalie and indicated for her to come forward. Natalie quickly approached him and handed the dress to the Count.

The count slowly pulled up Rosé, draping the dress on his daughter’s shoulder.

“My daughter, I wonder how beautiful you will be in your dress. Go ahead and dress up nicely and show me.”

“She’s already 17 years old, but I don’t know if she can get married. If she acts like this tomorrow at the ball, I’m just going to throw myself into the lake. Because I won’t be able to lift my face in front of all the other wives.”

Countess Audrey elegantly raised her chin and fanned herself, revealing her long, elegant swan-like neck. Rosé, who adored this appearance of her mother, embraced her.

“Oh Gosh! What is with her today?”

Audrey was surprised, but she didn’t push away her daughter. She merely looked at her husband, blinking her beautiful widened eyes.

“Come, let’s go, Miss.”

It wasn’t until Natalie pulled Rosé away from her mother that she could be dragged out of the room. The Countess shook her head, laughing at the ridiculous scene.

As Rosé was leaving the room, the couple resumed their previous conversation, and their watchful voices echoed in her ears.

“I didn’t think Muriel, Marquis Montenegro’s daughter, would be chosen. Is it because of their small resistance against the imperial family last year?”

“It’s a pity. To have to send a daughter to a place like that, after raising her for so long.”

“How heartbroken must the marquis be? The rumors about that young emperor…”

“Though one shouldn’t believe those rumours until witnessing such things, it is true that it’s a very dangerous place.”

“The marquis had pleaded so desperately to you, couldn’t you put in a few words for him to the imperial family?”

Count Jared firmly shook his head.

“I could plead. But if it’s not the marquis, someone else will be picked. Who would want to send their daughter to such a place.”

“But have you seen the sallow face of the marquis lately? There are no comforting words we can give to him.”

The Montenegro Family did not have a strong relationship with the Etoiles, but Count Jared had always respected the marquis’s upright character in his heart. 

It was a pity that the daughter of such a family was chosen to be sent to the north in the name of an alliance.

“And the marquis’s daughter is of a similar age as Rosé. How can we not know the feelings of the parents?”

“I’ll say this because it’s you, but I am a selfish person.” Count Jared opened his mouth with a bitter face.

“What do you mean by selfish?”

When Mrs Audrey asked for clarification, the count sighed, sweeping his dry face.

“When I heard the news, I was really relieved that the one sent to the north would not be our daughter Rosé.”

“Honey…what do you…!”

Countess Audrey then felt chills up her spine to what he said next. 

“I did. Because when the alliance was established, it could have been anyone, even our daughter Rosé.”

Hearing those words, Audrey did not speak again about Montenegro. She tried to erase the broken heart of the marquis who had come to plead from her mind. The tea in her cup shook.

Just imagining Rosé being sent to the north brought a terribly dizzy head.

Rosé looked at the gown with cold eyes. She didn’t approach the dress, and just stared at it.

The pale violet gown spread like small waves. The shoulder line was decorated with small shiny gems instead of colorful ruffles or laces. It was beautiful, like the starlight falling in the light purple night sky.

But it only reminded her of horrible memories.

If I’ve really gone back to the past.

Then on her 17th birthday tomorrow, she would meet Ca.s.siax while wearing this dress.

And then I’ll receive his marriage proposal.

Rosé’s body trembled at the thought.

That absolutely cannot happen!

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