I've been reincarnated into another world as a witch

Chapter 58: The Story of Prince Alphonse

My name is Alphonse Ulric Tybalt Ambrose but my name was once Kim Si Woo.

I was born into a low-income family in Seoul, South Korea and despite being a bright pupil and hard worker in high school, I didn't have the money or connections to get into the university I wanted to go to or study the expensive science degree I had planned to.

After a few years working in my dead-end office job while part-timing at a take-out place after hours, I realised that no matter how hard I tried I would never escape my circumstances. I was drowning in my parent's debt, depression and loneliness from never meeting anybody. I was constantly plagued by a sense of helplessness and hopelessness.

It was when I got fired from my office job for someone else's mistake that I cracked. One night I woke up filled with resentment and hatred towards the world and slowly got out of my bed. In my crumpled pyjamas, I left my basement flat and caught a bus to the ocean. I didn't care about the stares I got from people, probably thinking I was some creep walking around in his pyjamas in the early morning hours.

Before I realized what I was doing I walked to the beach and kept walking toward the ocean. As the sun began to rise and the blinding light took over the horizon, I kept walking. The unpleasant feeling of salty water wetting my clothes and the sharp rocks beneath my bare feet didn't matter. I was walking the path of no return. A nameless faceless thirty-year-old man who had given up on life trudged through the ocean reef with the rising sun as a destination.

The blinding light of the sun was the last thing I remembered before the seas water reached the top of my head and a wave swallowed me whole, all the while cursing my life, cursing my circumstances, cursing the god who had forsaken me and handed out this disturbing fate. It is strange to think about that moment now because it seems that someone was listening to pathetic old Si Woo as he died. The gods must have heard me and took pity on me...

After all, they did end up reincarnating me.

I had been oblivious about my past life as Kim Si Woo until there had been an attempt on my life in the Royal palace. A woman who my eldest brother Geoffrey had fallen in love with had actually been an assassin from the Kingdom of Erithien. The Kingdom had apparently grown anxious of Girannon's ever-growing power and influence and had tried to weaken the Royal family by cutting down one of the princes. Since I was only six years old at the time, I was the easiest target.

That woman had taken meticulous time and effort to wriggle her way into Geoffrey's heart like a worm and make him feel it was safe to allow her to be alone with me. And had persuaded my brother to allow some of her 'friends' to stay in the palace with her.

My eldest brother had been so in love and so trusting in her. He would never have expected that she was just playing him. That he was just an obstacle to get to me. Since Geoffrey was so protective of me, his little brother, he always made sure I was close by and doted on me even more than my mother. His actions made Valda the worm, as I like to remember her, feel that it was necessary to go through Geoffrey to get to me.

The attack on my life was vicious, to say the least. That woman's friends were also assassins under her command and one day they all viciously came at me at once. A small defenceless little prince had to witness all the evil and viciousness his world had to offer. Even now, all I can remember was a painful slashing of my flesh as the assassins charged at me with all their weapons. Until suddenly, the visions of my past life rushed back into me.
I remembered that I was once Kim Si Woo and that I was once a fully grown man who had lived a depressing existence. Possibly the only noticeable thing about my life was how I had died. The beautiful but morbid act of walking into one's own light by trekking straight into the sun.