Chapter 1
The System gives me the green light: mission accomplished, leaving me with only seven days before I ditch this world for good.
I reach for my spear, blowing the dust off the steel.
I have one week left, and I'm spending it balancing the books and settling every last grudge.
Anyone who ever looked down on me or dared to make my life hell is about to pay the price, because before I go, I'm going to kill every single one of them.
*****
Everyone in Norton Manor whispered that Gunner Norton, the heir, was terrified of his wife. He was so completely under my thumb that if I said east, he wouldn't dare breathe a word about west.
But on the day I went into labor, his precious concubine, Clara Young, blocked the doctor and midwife from reaching me. Her excuse? She was "feeling unwell" and "wanted to learn about childbirth."
The baby was breech. I pushed with every last shred of my strength, but it wasn't enough.
My child died before ever taking a breath.
I was dying, too. My life was hanging by a thread.
It was The System, and The System alone, that dragged me back from the brink.
When my maid, Daisy Cook, ran to fetch me a finger of mandrake root to save my life, she returned with nothing but a few shriveled, dusty wisps.
"They said Lady Clara needed it for her health, so she took every last root from the storeroom!" Daisy yelled as her face was crimson with rage. "And these scraps? They said you could take them or leave them!"
That was the moment Gunner walked in.
He didn't even glance at the worthless roots in Daisy's hand. His eyes were only for me.
The second he saw me, lying there broken and pale, his own eyes welled with red. He rushed to my side, gathering my frail body into a tight, crushing embrace.
Regret poured off him in waves, his cold tears falling one by one onto the back of my hand.
"I never knew Clara was so spoiled by my mother," he choked out, his voice thick with a counterfeit anger. "How could she do something so monstrous?
"I swear, I will make her come here and beg for your forgiveness."
My body, already an orchestra of agony, screamed as he squeezed me.
But in that moment, I couldn't find the strength or the will to push him away.
Because I heard a voice I hadn't heard in a lifetime.
[Affection from target Gunner Norton has reached 100.]
[Mission complete. Do you wish to return to your original world?]
My hands hung limp at my sides. A bitter, hollow laugh almost escaped my lips.
My baby was dead.
And in that exact moment, his "love" for me had finally maxed out.
But was it love? Or was it just guilt, thinly veiled as affection?
I replied, letting out a silent scream in my own mind. [Take me back.]
The mechanical voice replied in my head: [Repairing your body. The return portal will open in seven days. Please prepare for departure.]
I had seven days.
My eyes, vacant and lifeless, drifted across the room and landed on the long spear hanging on the wall, shrouded in years of dust.
Oh, I wanted to. I wanted to kill Gunner right then and there.
But I was too weak.
I had just clawed my way back from a deathbed birth. My hands couldn't even lift the weapon that was once an extension of my soul.
Years ago, I had had the bones in my wrist and legs severed just to save him.
But now, the System was healing me.
Seven days should be enough time to kill every last person who ever wronged me, right?
I was the only daughter of the great general, Will Quinn.
After my mother died in the capital, my father planned to take me with him to the frontier.
He always praised my gift for command, even when I was young. He admired my iron will and my unflinching ability to make the hard calls.
"My daughter will be a general, not a lady!" he would boom with pride. "What man could possibly deserve her?"
But Gunner went to the king and returned with a royal marriage decree, chaining me to the capital.
He knelt before my father, his voice ringing with false sincerity. "General Quinn, I swear on my life, I will never fail your daughter, Vivian Quinn!
"I will never take another woman into my home. She will be the only one I ever love!
"If I break this vow, may lightning strike me down!"
Then, my father died in battle.
And with his death, every promise Gunner made to me dissolved into nothing.
I saved Gunner, and my reward was to have my bones shattered and my strength stolen from me. Only then did I learn it was all a set-up, a cruel plot orchestrated by the Nortons.
They didn't want a warrior for a lady of the house. They saw my strength as a threat to Gunner's fragile ego.
And Gunner knew. He was in on it the entire time.
I could never lift my spear again.
Back then, just like now, he held me in his arms and cried.
"I'm sorry, Vivian, I'm so sorry," he sobbed. "I didn't know it would hurt you this much.
"I was just so afraid you'd leave me, so I went along with it. They promised they would only neutralize your fighting skills, that's all.
"From now on, you can just be a wife. Give me a child.
"I'll be good to you.
"I'll protect you forever."
Only a weak man is threatened by a strong woman.
At least I knew better than to trust his promises again.
Not long after, he got "drunk" and slept with his distant cousin, Clara. His mother immediately pushed for Gunner to take her as a second, equal wife.
"Vivian, it was your fault," Gunner had said. "You were giving me the cold shoulder, and I was so miserable I drank too much.
"Clara took advantage of me.
"I love you, Vivian. I do. I respect you. I fought with my parents for you. I convinced them to only make her a noble concubine."
But I knew better. I was a doctor in my past life.
There's no such thing as "losing control" from alcohol.
What really happens is one person puts up a token fight, while the other knew exactly what they wanted from the start.