I've Tried Going Back to Life After Dying - Chapter 1

“So God really does exist.”

The voice that came from her own lips sounded so different from her familiar tone that Hildegard instinctively covered her mouth.

“Ah, ah…”

Still different. Even though it was still her, the difference was staggering.

Hildegard Hastings Radmond. Probably.

“Probably” because until just a few hours ago, before dawn, she’d had a different name.

In her most recent memories, she was Hildegard Wall Longfall. The Marchioness of Longfall.

“So God really does exist.”

She said it aloud again, trying to accustom her ears to the sound. Then she slowly sat up.

No chronic dizziness.

She’d always risen slowly to avoid the unpleasant spinning of the ceiling upon waking. Yet even then, she’d always felt that slight vertigo.

“My joints move smoothly.”

Every little thing was a continuous surprise.

She hadn’t even been awake for five minutes. And both points of comparison were herself.

The difference must be between her forties and her teens.

Twenty-some years made a big difference.

And those twenty-some years had given Hildegard enough experience to make her resolve to return to death.

Through the window, she could see a peach-colored sky. The air touching her skin was soft.

“Is it spring?”

The sky’s hue was neither summer nor winter, the room’s air hazy like spring mist.

Was this a dream? What had happened to her after that?

Her still-cloudy mind pondered until it arrived at an answer:

“At any rate, I’ve parted with my husband.”

Hildegard recalled the man who had been her husband until last night—or more precisely, until three days ago.

Clifford Wall Longfall.

Until three days ago, he had been the head of the Longfall marquisate. And Hildegard’s husband.

Deceased at forty-one.

Yesterday had been his funeral.

As dirt was shoveled onto her husband’s coffin, the weeping that had been present since the ceremony’s start grew louder. Helen had been crying nonstop from the beginning. While Hildegard, the marchioness, stood firm as the chief mourner overseeing the proceedings, Helen wept uncontrollably beside her.

From her right came a whisper: “Could you keep it down a little?” It was her stepson, Austin.

“Shh, let her cry.”

When Hildegard whispered back, Austin retorted with clear displeasure, “You should know your place.”

The one sobbing uncontrollably to Hildegard’s left was her husband’s mistress.

Whenever Hildegard tried to recall when their affair had begun, she always subtracted four years from her own marriage.

Helen had become her husband’s mistress about four years after he married Hildegard.

Twenty-two years of marriage.

That meant Helen had been with him for eighteen years. Even parent and child didn’t stay together that long, noble daughters married soon after finishing school.

“Do you need another handkerchief?”

“No, this one’s already soaked.”

“You may use mine if you’d like.”

Having resolved not to let her composure slip until the funeral was over, Hildegard hadn’t shed a single tear. Her handkerchief, crisply ironed, remained completely dry.

“You should have it.”

The handkerchief was embroidered with the Longfall marquisate’s crest—full-sized, no shortcuts taken, a masterpiece commissioned from a skilled seamstress.

It was only fitting that Helen, the woman her husband had truly loved, should have it.

“And this, too.”

Hildegard removed her left glove and took off the ring from her finger.

Her wedding ring with Clifford was set with a large sapphire.

“I think Clifford would be happier in the afterlife knowing you have this. My role is finished now.”

“M-My lady…”

Helen pressed the newly received handkerchief to her eyes and burst into fresh sobs.

When Austin muttered, “How obnoxious,” Hildegard nudged him with her elbow in warning.

By the time the funeral ended, condolences were given, and she, Austin, and the estate manager had made the rounds to various offices, the western sky was beginning to blush faintly when they returned to the marquisate.

With no appetite for dinner, she shared brandy with Austin. Though they still had things to discuss, they agreed to call it a night.

“You were magnificent, my lady.”

Those words came from Arthur, the butler. Thinking back, he had supported her for over twenty years.

He would turn sixty this year.

When Hildegard had married into the marquisate, he had just become butler after assisting his predecessor, his own father and was nearing forty.

From the then-steward and Arthur, Hildegard had learned household management. The steward from back then was, in fact, still the steward now at the venerable age of sixty-nine. He had outlived her late husband by nearly thirty years.

“My husband was the one who rushed through life.”

What a fool he’d been.

Three days ago, he’d been perfectly healthy. Then he’d suddenly clutched his chest, crumpled to his knees, and collapsed. Without ever opening his eyes again, he’d departed alone for the afterlife.

Leaving behind a woman who wept so bitterly for him. How could you? Making Helen cry like that.

“Austin. Arthur.”

Hildegard called her stepson and the butler.

“Helen must receive an appropriate share of the estate.”

Neither responded. The ring she’d given today alone was worth a fortune.

More than that, the lawful wife before them had lived a life drained by her husband and his mistress for years.

“I’m counting on you.”

When she repeated her request, only the butler nodded.

Returning to her solitary bedroom, exhaustion crashed over her. Still in mourning clothes, she flopped onto the bed with a soft thud.

“If I died like this, they’d save the trouble of changing me into burial clothes.”

Muttering the dark joke, she stared at the shadowed ceiling.

There was no particular meaning to it. She just felt drained, as if she’d had enough.

“God, are you listening? I did my best, my own version of it. Today is the result. I have no regrets left. Austin has a wonderful fiancée, and thanks to my efforts, the house is reasonably secure. But there are two things I regret. First, becoming my husband’s wife. Because of that, the woman he loved could only be his mistress for so long. So, just in case, I’d like to ask…”

Gazing up at the dim ceiling, Hildegard whispered:

“May I return to death?”

The moment she closed her eyes, sleep took her.

Hildegard’s memories ended there.