Deadline Is Raining in the Status Window - Chapter 3

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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#Episode 3

“Miss, pull yourself together and listen carefully.”
I woke after spending the night in the carriage with my back screaming in agony, and my Nanny spoke gravely as she changed my bandages. With her stern expression—she barely reached my chest in height—I naturally folded my hands and assumed a posture of attentive listening.
The Nanny opened her travel bag and produced an identification card registered with the Imperial government, along with a chip-shaped mana stone.
“You’re young and unfamiliar with the outside world. Without verified identification, you can’t take on part-time work or accept guild commissions.”
Well, the Nanny hardly knew me at all. I already understood that, and I could find work without going through official channels.
I’d read enough fanfiction created by café members to know the ropes. To take on those unspeakable dirty jobs you couldn’t mention publicly, you simply needed to find the Adventurer’s Guild in any town of decent size, tap the table twice at window number two, and ask if there was any leftover work available.
“You understand how I came to care for you, don’t you?”
Oh… was this going where I thought it was?
The Nanny’s child hadn’t lived past a hundred days before being buried in the ground. Having lost her child but still producing milk, the Nanny had originally worked at the Duke’s residence. It was through one thoughtless remark from Duchess Neftis—”How convenient”—that she became my Nanny.
The Duchess was terribly inconsiderate, but the Nanny raised me like a daughter in place of her lost child. That’s why she felt more like a mother to me than my birth mother ever did.
In this world, without vaccines or anything of the sort, newborns died easily. That’s why national registration only happened after a child’s first year. What the Nanny offered me was something she’d kept all this time—a registration that couldn’t be used for her dead child, yet she couldn’t bear to discard it either.
“You use it, Miss.”
“But still, this is…”
“It may be presumptuous of me to say, but I raised you thinking of you as my own child.”
I know that. Ugh, the Nanny’s going to make me cry again.
I pouted my lips and looked up at the ceiling, holding back tears, then wiped my eyes and accepted the identification card.
“Then I’m officially your daughter on the registry. I’m going to call you Mom.”
“How could someone as lowly as me become your mother?”
“Then I won’t accept it. Throw it away.”
“Oh my, this girl’s temperament. This wretched temperament.”
I could see the Nanny restraining the urge to strike me. Having raised Mitchell like her own child, she would occasionally hit me when I threw a tantrum—out of sight of others. She’d even smacked my back from time to time. Though she couldn’t do that now since I was injured.
“Very well. But I shall continue to call you Miss.”
“Yay! I have a mom now!”
It’s a strange thing to live long enough to see—getting a new mother at this age. I laughed with delight, and my mother inserted the chip into a stapler-like device, then pressed it firmly into my right forearm.
“Aaaahhh!”
Give me a warning! Give me a warning! I screamed as she did it, and my mother laughed wickedly, saying that it doesn’t hurt if you do it without warning.
“Check it. My child’s name was Evan Laef.”
So Eleanor’s child was Evan, a son. The Nanny’s biological child was a boy, it seems. The name is pretty enough, so I don’t mind. Following my mother’s instruction to verify it, I tapped my left index finger against the chip.

Mitchell Neftis
Status: Blessing of Ursh
Experience: 100
N) Freezing Lv.5 – 500 until next level
N) Throwing Lv.3 – 300 until next level
N) Robust Constitution Lv.5 – 122 until next level
R) Noble’s Dignity
UR) Fusion

Mitchell Neftis’s status window materialized before me.
“….”
“What’s wrong? Is something broken because it’s so old?”
Now that I thought about it, I’d never seen anyone in the setting compendium with two biochips implanted in one body. Even if I did implant one, the skills and stats would be identical anyway, so it would only cause pain.
Just to be sure, I deliberately bumped my right hand—the one Mother had been pinching.

Evan Laef
Status: Terminal Condition, Blessing of Ursh
Experience: 0
N) Training Lv.8 – 800 until next level
N) Horsemanship Lv.8 – 800 until next level
L) Expedient Evasion
EX) Will Do Anything to Survive

Mother, what is this? Aren’t I incredibly impressive? Evan is absolutely amazing. No offensive skills whatsoever, yet he had a Legendary skill and an Extra skill. Moreover, both weren’t just flashy names. Expedient Evasion increased the experience needed for leveling up at an accelerated rate, and Will Do Anything to Survive made it relatively easy to acquire new skills.
Though I couldn’t immediately gauge just how “relatively” easy that was.
“….”
But why do I have a terminal condition again?
“Miss? The magic stone still isn’t working?”
“No. Evan Laef appeared.”
Mother’s face brightened at my answer. If I could just register as an Imperial citizen and live, she said I could lead a normal life from now on. But then her expression darkened. A young lady who’d lived in luxury her entire life in the Duke’s household would have to bury herself in the Countryside, and she squeezed out tears once more….
I didn’t care whether it was the Countryside or the city, but that terminal condition terrified me.
Did I have some illness? Mitchell, or rather, Evan…, no, that’s not it either. Did my body have some disease? Is that why the terminal condition keeps appearing?

Twilight has been updated. Death upon non-enrollment at Imperial Crowell Academy. D-156.

Oh, so I’m going to die in 156 days.
“…Why?!”
“Miss, are you feeling unwell? Carriage sickness?”
I’ll die in 156 days. Upon learning this fact, my soul seemed to leave my body, and I could only cling to the carriage’s swaying while making incoherent sounds. Even if I wanted to spend the remaining time living peacefully with Mother, 156 days was far too short. Not even a full year.
I hadn’t even adapted to this place after leaving Korea. And now I’m supposed to live only 156 more days? The very thought was unbearable—I refused to accept such a fate. I wanted to live.
“Mother.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“I need to enroll in the Academy next year.”
“Yes, yes, of course! I’ll prepare everything! Please trust only Eleanor, Miss!”
The enrollment fee alone was a hundred million crowns—how could Mother possibly prepare that? She was thrilled, insisting that I wasn’t someone who would fail here, and that if I enrolled at the Imperial Crowell Academy under Evan Laef’s name, I would surely prosper and rise to prominence later.
But I was grimly realistic. Beyond the tuition itself, for a commoner to gain admission to Imperial Crowell Academy, one had to be extraordinarily brilliant, exceptionally skilled in combat, a prodigious mage—in short, genuinely exceptional in some way.
Moreover, next year would be the year the main couple enrolled. Academy life during that season was more dangerous than tap-dancing through a minefield. To facilitate the main couple’s growth, the Academy had been flooded with crises, monsters, conspiracies, schemes—essentially every conceivable threat designed to test them.
Even though “Twilight’s Repentance” was an ensemble novel, there were still main characters who received the most focus and appeared most frequently. They met at the Academy, fell in love at first sight, and through trials of love, justice, and camaraderie, succeeded in eliminating two of the four Demon Kings threatening humanity.
Afterward, the Ancient King’s Underground Tomb suddenly appeared and unleashed a plague targeting humans, and the Seian Crown Prince—my most beloved character—met an absurd and untimely death.
Lingering around their vicinity would be equivalent to wearing a sign that read “I am suicidal.”
“Ugh….”
Whether I didn’t enroll or did, I would die either way. So many catastrophes erupted during that cohort’s years that only a dozen or so graduates survived. Besides, if the princess had ever passed through the Imperial Capital, she might recognize me, and even if not, her attendants or guards could easily identify me….
“…That’s it!”
“Good heavens!”
As I continued my incoherent muttering and suddenly sprang to my feet, Mother urged me to sit down quickly for safety, and I proposed to the coachman that we stop at an inn in the next village we reached.
I had brought some jewelry with me—I would need to convert it to money, and I would need to extinguish the radiance of this devastatingly beautiful face.

◇ ◆ ◇

“Miss, are you really sure about this? You’re absolutely certain?”
“I told you to do it. Hurry, Mother.”
“Oh dear, how can I possibly prick a needle into such a precious, beautiful face!”
There was no choice. If I simply wandered about looking like this, I’d draw too much attention. How often did one encounter a silver-haired woman with eyes as deep and blue as a lake, possessing a face as delicate as porcelain?
I sold the gold brooch for a tidy sum and purchased spectacles, dye, and plain clothing. Even a properly sterilized needle. With Mother’s determination, my beauty could be utterly destroyed.
“It really will fade with time, won’t it? It won’t be permanent, will it?”
“It’s fine. The dye merchant said it’s harmless to the skin and fades quickly.”
That’s why it’s commonly used for semi-permanent tattoos rather than permanent ones. It should disappear in about ten years.
“Here goes!”
“Ahhhhh!”
So please give me a warning first! A warning! I meant to protest, but Mother, determined to finish the job, rapidly dabbed the dye onto my face with practiced precision.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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