Chapter 1: Sigrid Ankertna

Why? Why? Why?

Sigrid Ankertna looked down at the round barrel not far from her. Soon, when the guillotine blade came down, her head would fall into that barrel.

Sigrid raised her head looking at the people who gave her resentful look. She was bewildered. All of her life, she lived by the rules. She lived right. No matter what others did, she was as loyal as a dog to the empire. But why did she end up like that? Why should she kneel here like this? WHY? WHY? WHY? She bit her lips. 

“Execute!!”

Afterwards, Sigrid felt her vision swirling. The bottom of the approaching wooden barrel, and then dark.

***

“Ugh!”

Sigrid woke up from the bed, struggling in breathing.

“Hah.. hah.. Haahh…”

In a cold sweat, Sigrid touched her neck. It was detached. Properly.

“What is it..? The afterlife?”

Sigrid rolled in a rough blanket and got up from an old bed. It was a sixteen square meters room that was similar to what she used to have. Her hand groped around to turn the lamp on, then pushed the window open. The old wooden window rattled and opened heavily.

As the cold air flowed in, Sigrid took a deep breath. ‘Is the afterlife like this?’ She was at a similar place as she lived before. Even the surrounding scenery was also no different. 

Without closing the window, Sigrid took out the empty teacup and the teapot. Then, she lit a small stove to heat up water, took out the cheap tea leaves, and made hot tea. Then, she took a sip.

She frowned. The tea was really bad. She looked at her hot tea then she realized, even the stuff was the same. The tea tasted similarly awful. Furthemore, her habit also was the same. She subconsciously made tea when her mind was in chaos. She didn’t feel like she was in the afterlife. 

‘My neck was cut off and I opened my eyes in my room and I’m drinking tea that taste like this’

Sigrid kept drinking her tea while in daze. Her past life was like a funny joke. She had so many gold and silver treasures, but she lived too modestly as she thought the idea of a knight living a frugal life was the right thing. If she were to know her life ended like that, she would have lived in luxury. 

Sigrid slowly drank her tea and looked at the darkness outside the window.

Everything was unfair. There was no saying that a person would live in the afterlife as they lived before. Even so, If it were like that, when after the king died, he would still live in the palace? and if the people in the slums died, they would be still in the slum…. 

Thinking of the slums, Sigrid made a low groan. There were slums in the capital, but they were all wiped out. It was her military squad and herself who did that.

The emperor gave an order to ‘clean up’ the slums. It was the virtue of knights to follow the emperor’s orders, the orders of the master were absolute. She blocked the entrance and set the fire, then killed all those who ran away. She also killed all the knights and soldiers who protested about what they did. There was only death for disobedience. But wasn’t that natural? Knights were the tools of the King. 

So she thought, until the Emperor gave his tool the punishment.

Sigrid touched her neck again. Even now, she felt that her neck would roll around. 

After her tea was finished, Sigrid got up from her seat. She wanted to know how far the similarity of the afterlife world with her past life. No, since she was in the afterlife, she wanted to visit the God of the underworld and asked him, ‘have I really committed such a great sin?’

She opened the closet to change her clothes. The wardrobe was also worn out. There was a piece of wood stuck in one of the legs to make it balance. One of the doors was broken and if it wasn’t opened gently, it would fall out, but Sigrid had the trick to open it so it was opened well.

There were three sets of clothes in the closet. Uniform, two shirts and two pants. Come to think of it Morris told me to buy some clothes.

Sigrid let out a little chuckle at the thought of her friend. Morris was one of her friends who tried to get her out of prison until the end. She didn’t expect it since many of her friends left her after the slum incident, yet some of them came to visit her when she was in prison. They believed in her innocence. 

Changed into everyday clothes and put on her boots, Sigrid opened the door. Soon she was faced with the old and dark corridor that a multi-family residential area in one of the capital cities had. The wooden floor of the hall was worn out and creaking which made the people living there unable to stand when people walked on it. However, Sigrid walked skillfully through the floor without making any noise at all. This is also similar.

Everything was really the same. Nothing had changed from the past world. ‘You mean the afterlife was like this?’ Sigrid stood in front of the building, feeling the urge to beat the theologians in the back of their head. 

It’s curfew.

Could she go out since it was afterlife? Or perhaps not as it was curfew? After a moment of hesitation, Sigrid began to move. How did she know if it was curfew? If the guards from the underworld came, it would be a great welcome. 

Moving along, Sigrid began to walk towards the center of the capital city. She thought maybe the king of the underworld lived there.

After a moment of walking, suddenly there was a whistle.

“There! Stop!”

Sigrid stopped, then she turned around. She saw two guards with spears in their hand walking towards her. 

“It’s curfew. What are you doing?”

“Show me your identity card.”

Sigrid was puzzled by the words of the two guards. If it was the identity card, did they mean the identity card in the current world? Did they talk about the things of the underworld? If it belonged to the underworld, she had not yet received anything.

“Identity card?” When she tilted her head, the two guards’ expressions got more grim. 

”suspicious behavior!”

“let’s go to the guard station”

Sigrid nodded her head and obeyed passively at the order of the guards. If she was sent to the center of power, she didn’t mind.

However, when Sigrid arrived at the guard station, she was baffled.