A Handmaid’s Guide for Revenge

Isabel knew her subject well.

She was an earl’s maid, the lowliest of the low. She was born that way.

Isabel was born in the slums of the capital. Throughout her childhood, her parents taught her how to beg. If she couldn’t come up with the money, she would starve, and sometimes she would be thrown out of the house and spend the night alone.

The hand she held out for mercy was always trampled on.

This was true even after she was fortunate enough to become a maid to the Grey Countess.

Most of the Countess’ recent maids were either maids themselves, or had some sort of connection to the house. All the way down to the Count’s dog, there was some connection. But Isabel had none.

A maid who worked for the Grey Countess managed to get her a job by saying they were related, but no one really believed her. They just said that no matter how well she washed, the entanglements wouldn’t go away.

Still, she gave a small laugh.

Even at that young age, she knew she should.

They were above her, the ones who could take her down at any moment.

Instead of rebelling against the unfair treatment, she worked herself to death. After a few years, no one looked down on Isabel because she was from the slums.

One day, a maid she worked with asked me,

— Why do you do that?

I’ve been up all night every night for a week getting ready for the ball. Isabel replied, earning a glare from the maid, who thought she was jingling.

— Just, because I’m alive.

There was no place I wanted to climb, nothing I wanted to keep, nothing I wanted to have. She was just trying to make her life a little better while she still breathes.

So there was no goal to Isabel’s efforts. There was only blindness.

She’s just trying to stay alive.

She kept going, not knowing where she was going. If she kept going, something would happen.

Yes, it wasn’t without achievement.

Isabel’s abilities were recognised and she became Countess Diana’s only full-time maid. But even at the top of her game as a maid, she didn’t feel fulfilled. The meaning of life remained elusive, and her emptiness grew.

One day, while she was running ahead, Isabel gave birth to Margarita.

The child came to her unexpectedly and she burst into tears, with eyes just like hers. When she first saw the blue tears, Isabel doesn’t remember what she was thinking.

Before she knew it, she was hugging her, and when she came to, she was crying louder than she was.

It was the moment colour began to sparkle in her ashen life.

From then on, Isabel was much more low-key than before. She thought she could keep her safe if she lived quietly without forgetting her subject and kept quiet.

But if there was one thing Isabel didn’t know… it was that an untimely death for a maid was like a natural disaster that could strike at any moment.

Whether the tree was bowing up and down, was none of the storm’s business.

It knew too late, and that was Isabel’s sin.

* * *

“…Humph.”

Isabel Gemnin’s eyes snapped open.

The whip was gone. She had obviously been beaten to death in the square, but there was no blood on her body.

Isabel looked around the room in disbelief. She looked around the room in disbelief: faded wallpaper, an old ticking clock, a dirty wall mirror, and the frames of strange paintings on the walls.

Unbelievably, she was now on a bed in a strange room.

‘Who rescued me and brought me here?’

Isabel thought back to her near-death experience.

She had been taken to the capital’s square, accused of murdering a countess, and flogged. The flogging continued until she was dead, and Isabel died in agony.

Yes, she was definitely dead. She vividly remembered the moment her breath caught in her throat.

‘But how am I alive now?’

No matter how she thought about it, there was no way she could survive.

Isabel stared down at her hands and frowned. Something wasn’t right. Something about her hands didn’t feel right.

After a moment of staring at them, she realised. The skin was too white. She couldn’t whiten just by being indoors for a few days.

‘What the…’

Isabel jumped to her feet, unable to hide her embarrassment.

“Ouch…!”

A stabbing pain shot through her lower body as soon as she put any effort into it. Sitting back on the bed, she looked down at her leg. There were several medical bandages wrapped around her thighs, red and oozing blood.

It was strange. Even thinking about the situation just before she died, there was no reason for a wound to appear only on her thigh and not on her whole body.

Isabel pushed through the nagging pain and moved her leg. She moved towards the mirror on the wall. The moment she caught sight of her face in the mirror, she stopped breathing.

“Ah.”

In the mirror was a woman with a completely unfamiliar face.

A plain-looking face with shoulder-length brown hair, green eyes, and fair skin. Her silhouette was slender, but her finely defined muscles stood out.

But that’s not the point. The woman in the mirror bore no resemblance to Isabel, except for the green eyes.

“… Am I crazy?”

Isabel raised her hand, and the woman in the mirror did the same.

So, there were only two conclusions she could draw at this point.

Either she was crazy and hallucinating, or her soul had entered another body.

It was at that time that the door suddenly opened. The moment the intruder’s foot crossed the threshold, her hand shot forward and grabbed him by the throat.

“You’re awake… gasp…”

The man whose throat Isabel had grabbed upon entering the room struggled desperately.

He was choking on his breath, unable to properly plead. With a thud, the man’s struggles finally gave way to tears.

With a pop, the man’s tears hit the back of her hand, and Isabel came to her senses with a startled gasp.

“Why would I…”

Releasing her grip on his throat, Isabel took a step back. It was her fault for reaching out and squeezing, but she didn’t feel like it.

Her body moved instinctively. Like a long-trained fighter.

Isabel stared at her hands with unfamiliar eyes, then looked up. The man was still on the ground, coughing violently. Isabel walked over to the wobbly man and helped him to his feet.

The man gasped and struggled to his feet. Even though he could barely hold himself up, he held out his arms with all his might, rejecting Isabel’s approach.

“Are you all right?”

“Off, huh, ugh…”

He stood pinned to the wall, his breathing ragged as he eyed Isabel warily. The look of fear on his face made her feel very uncomfortable.

There was a thin silence.

Isabel had a hard time figuring out what to say. I’m sorry I strangled you by mistake, or it was because this body wasn’t mine.

Either way, it sounded like a ridiculous excuse, and one that deserved a slap on the wrist.

As Isabel deliberated, the first to speak was the man, who closed his eyes and snapped.

“I’m, I’m just a doctor, I found you lying in a back alley and brought you here two days ago to treat you!”

‘A doctor? A back alley?’

Isabel nodded slowly.

The way her body reacted to the suddenness of the situation, reaching out and grabbing her opponent by the throat, and his explanation of her being passed out in a back alley, it all fits.

The owner of this body seemed to be in a pretty dangerous line of work.

Isabel bowed her head, grateful to the physician for explaining the situation first.

“…I apologise. I couldn’t let my guard down.”

“You won’t now, will you?”

“Of course.”

The doctor, who had been eyeing Isabel’s face and hands with suspicion for a few moments, stepped forward, then bravely said, ‘Scary is scary, and work is work.’

“Then give me a moment… to take your vein…”

She held out her hand, and the doctor grabbed her wrist from a distance.

The doctor, who was as serious in person as he was in posture, began to take Isabel’s pulse, but his face crumpled as he checked her condition.

“Mmmm… mmmm… Mmmm…”

He withdrew his hand and asked, hesitantly.

“Do you, uh, do you know anything about your symptoms?”

“No, nothing.”

“Heh… I see.”

The doctor dried his face.

“First of all, you can see that you were shot in the thigh, right?”

“I did.”

“Well, it’s only a graze wound, so it shouldn’t leave a mark.”

“I see, thank you.”

The doctor’s frown deepened as he replied. Isabel tilted her head, knowing it was an anguished ‘this isn’t right’ look. She wasn’t sure if she should be so relieved or jumping up and down with gratitude.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, I mean.”

“Yes.”

The doctor paused for a moment, then spoke.

“So… you’re poisoned, and judging by the way the poison seeped through your bullet wound, the bullet must have been specially treated with poison.”

“…Is that right?”

“Yes, it’s poison, poison!”

Isabel nodded.

Everything that happened after she opened her eyes was bizarre. She was supposed to be dead, but her eyes wouldn’t open, she looked in the mirror and saw her body had changed, and now it was poisoned.

I’ve had an eventful life so far, but at least not as eventful as what I’ve experienced today.

After talking to the doctor and weighing the possibility of this being real, Isabel put her weight on the other side again.

‘I wonder if I went crazy from getting hit by the whip too much.’

For now, though, Isabel decided to stick to her current role. With the doctor in front of her, the best she could do now was to say the right things.

“What kind of poison is it?”

Isabel asked, and the doctor stammered.

“I’m sorry. It’s a very rare poison, and I’ve never seen it before. But there is one thing I can tell you…”

“Yes, please.”

The doctor looked at Isabel, then averted his gaze as if he couldn’t get the words out, and only after a long pause did he speak.

What he said next was, indeed, worth the pause.

“About a year left. That’s how long you’re going to live.”

Isabel’s eyes widened. Even if she dismiss it as a vision of a madman, it was still quite shocking. Even more so if it was real. The unreality of the words made her head spin.

“A year.”

Isabel rubbed her thigh absentmindedly.

The wound on her thigh felt nothing but a dull ache, but the idea of poison seeping through it and killing her in a year didn’t seem all that real.

In fact, from the moment she woke up until now, she felt like she’s been dreaming, so even the time limit seemed like someone else’s business, not hers. Isabel just blinked.

It was the doctor’s response that made her stomach turn.

“It’s not a lie! We drew your blood last night, and it showed a poisoning reaction similar to the Epinia venom. Just to be sure, we tested it again just now, and it’s positive for the poison.”

“…”

“I’m guessing they added something to the Epinia venom, but if the effects are similar… you’ll probably have a persistent headache or stomach ache. The pain will get worse and worse, and then you’ll start to bleed.”

“Hemoptysis1.”

Isabel pondered silently. She thought of all the romance novels she’d read about bloody handkerchiefs and sickly aristocratic damsels, and instead of being frightened, she felt somehow amused.

The thought of herself in the body of a dying woman, coughing up blood, could not have been more fitting for a maid like Isabel.

Isabel turned to the doctor and asked.

“When will the symptoms start?”

“I can’t say for sure, but you’ll probably start to see symptoms after nine months.”

“I see.”

Isabel nodded. That meant she could hide her condition for nine months.

“I… see if you have any other questions…”

“No, I don’t, thank you.”

“Well, then I’m going to go get your luggage, so you can get some rest…”

Seeing Isabel being overly adamant even in the face of her death, the doctor got up from his seat with a fed up look on his face. It was obvious that he couldn’t wait to get out of here.

“Yes, thank you.”

As soon as she nodded, he quickly left the room, and the room fell silent around her again.

Isabel rubbed her forehead with a tired look. The floaty feeling in her head refused to go away, and her vision was hazy, as if she were dreaming. She couldn’t tell if it was because she was tired or because she was really dreaming.

She decided to consider the most pressing issue first. She had to determine if this was reality or fantasy.

First, she tried moving her limbs one by one. Finding herself overly receptive, Isabel placed a weight on the side of reality. The scale, which had been tilting towards the dream side due to the doctor’s unrealistic remarks, barely returned to neutrality.

‘I wonder if it can be distinguished by pain.’

Isabel pressed her palm against her scarred thigh. As she pressed her fingers into the wound, a searing pain surged through her. It was a sharp sensation, like dozens of needles piercing her skin.

But Isabel didn’t stop prodding the wound. As the pain intensified, she felt the fog in her head lift, and at the same time, the scales in her head tipped completely to one side.

This wasn’t a dream. I didn’t seem to be crazy.

Isabel Gemnin’s soul was indeed in another woman’s body.

“That means… I’m alive, for real.”

Isabel was alive.

Not in her original body, the one who’s been accused of murdering the Countess, but in the body of a complete stranger.1

Hemoptysis is when you cough up blood from your lungs