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Chapter 1
“Consider this your final indulgence.”
The woman’s expression was sharp with irritation.
“Then proceed with the preparation.”
“Yes, Head Maid!”
Even her departing glance was closer to contempt.
Bang! The door slammed shut, and the woman called the head maid disappeared. At the same time, the two women who had remained lunged toward me and began hurriedly dressing me.
“W-wait a moment!”
I couldn’t understand what was happening.
After a blinding headache as if struck by lightning, I opened my eyes to find myself completely naked. An unfamiliar place, unfamiliar people. Countless thoughts flashed through my mind like sparks.
Heaven? Hell?
I remember falling asleep in a tiny studio room.
Was I kidnapped? Do I know these people? Did I have some old enemy?
“Hey! Stay still! Stop flailing your hands!”
“Please tell me where this is! Why am I here? Somebody—mmph! Mmph!”
“Stop screaming. You’re ruining my ears.”
I shouted in panic, half out of my mind with fear, but the women ignored me completely.
“Mmph! Mmph!”
“Eek! This—!”
A woman with a sharp chin struggled as she tried to call for help, but they forced a gag into her mouth.
“Shut up and behave! We can’t even beat you because you’re a tribute to His Majesty!”
In that moment, my vision spun, and a faint floral scent brushed my nose. My consciousness began to fade. My body grew heavy, like cotton soaked in water.
“Move her arms so we can clean her. What’s with the sudden formal speech? Don’t try to act crazy—it won’t work. Well, some of them actually were crazy… but it never helped.”
“What are you talking about? She’s a slave now. Just dress her quietly. What if she has flaws? If His Majesty gets angry, our heads will roll.”
“Tsk tsk. It’s pitiful. Who would’ve thought the Lethe Kingdom would fall like this?”
“Pitiful? Remember yesterday? She’s the one who tore my hair out.”
She turned, showing the back of her head as she snapped angrily.
The Kingdom of Lethe? Some kind of slang?
My hands trembled violently as I began to suspect this might be a human trafficking scene. Fear surged through me.
“This hair color is really strange. Like soft starlight… or moonlight?”
“I heard women of Lethe have skin and hair soft as silk.”
“They’re infamous for their bewitching beauty. Royalty especially. But it doesn’t matter now—there’s only this one left. No, tomorrow there won’t be any left at all.”
Their hands grew faster as time passed. They wiped my entire body with soft cloth soaked in rosewater, then applied a scented gel and massaged it repeatedly. Even sensitive areas like my back, abdomen, and more intimate places were handled without hesitation. I tried to stand in shock, but my body wouldn’t move, as if glued to the bed.
“Ugh…”
Once my body was completely loosened into a dazed state, everything moved quickly.
They began applying makeup to my face with precision. They coated my eyelashes with a slick substance to shape them. Once my feeble resistance stopped, they finally removed the gag and placed a few flower petals between my lips. They sprayed perfume over my body and carefully filed even my fingernails and toenails until everything was neat.
“She’d be better off not styling her hair. Look at this! It’s flowing like a waterfall. She doesn’t even need a wig.”
“True. Even our finest silk wig looks out of place next to her hair.”
“What about the dress? Should we go with a deeply decollete nightgown?”
“Bring the one from Del’s atelier! The fabric clings to the body like clouds—perfect for emphasizing sensuality. Ah! The head maid was right. This really is her final indulgence.”
They combed my hair again and again.
Wait. Has my hair always been this long? I used to have a bob cut.
They forced me, who was lying sideways, upright. Women who had been standing nearby rushed in. After a brief struggle, they dressed me in a thin, nearly transparent gown that looked like it would slide off at any moment.
As I trembled and swayed, one of the women who had earlier gagged me stepped close. She opened a small glass bottle and held it under my nose. As I inhaled involuntarily, the haze in my mind cleared slightly.
While I was holding my forehead in pain, another woman tightened the dress strings around my waist. The moment I lifted my head and looked into the full-length mirror, I let out a scream.
“Hah!”
It wasn’t because of the tightness.
I barely managed not to faint. The woman in the mirror looked otherworldly. Even in terror, I couldn’t deny that impression.
Who is this woman?
Lush, wavy silver hair flowed as if caught in the wind. Her skin glowed with a polished sheen. A straight forehead, a smooth nose, and lips like they were painted by hand came together in perfect harmony.
I touched my neck, my slender wrists, staring at the reflection for a long time.
What I couldn’t take my eyes off were the eyes.
Whenever the lamp above the mirror swayed, her irises shimmered with a cherry-blossom pink hue. It was surreal.
Strange. A sense of déjà vu.
This cascading silver hair, those cherry-pink eyes… I had seen this description somewhere before.
“Are you done yet? We don’t have time. Why are you so slow?”
The woman who had earlier given me a contemptuous look entered the room.
“My apologies, Head Maid! The grooming is complete.”
“Vivianne Lethe.”
At that moment, something in my mind snapped into place.
“Don’t try anything foolish. Though you don’t look like someone who even has the courage to bite her own tongue.”
Vivianne Lethe.
The moment I heard that name, I finally understood the source of my déjà vu.
“Get a grip.”
For an ordinary South Korean civil service exam student, Yoon Byeol, the popular fantasy romance novel “The Flower That Bloomed in the Ice Castle” had been a guilty pleasure. Something she secretly enjoyed while lying under a thin blanket before sleep.
As if something like that world could ever exist. Ridiculous.
She scoffed, yet waited for new chapters every day. The dazzling, intense, almost insane scenes made real-life worries feel like dust. When the novel ended, she even left a regretful comment without realizing it.
But then—
The author soon began publishing side stories.
But the protagonist wasn’t the male lead—it was the villain emperor.
Readers surprisingly welcomed it. He had been a wildly popular antagonist, just as beloved as the male lead. Perhaps because the author had poured even more effort into describing his beauty and charisma than the hero’s.
That day, she was reading the side story as usual.
She had failed the civil service exam again. Her chest ached. After drowning her frustration in alcohol and cursing her fate through tear-blurred eyes, she read on, whispering curses at the world.
Just die already.
Then she fell asleep without even wiping her tear-stained cheeks.
That was all.
She never expected she had actually died.
Had someone taken pity on her miserable existence and granted her a new life?
Forcing her into the body of a beautiful, radiant woman?
If so—why!
Why this woman…?
This felt like a curse. Either a divine mistake or punishment.
She looked around slowly. Strange women had practically thrown her into this place and bound her to a chair. She struggled, but her feet couldn’t even touch the floor.
A bedroom?
Dark, ornate wallpaper. A massive tapestry exuding an ominous aura. Expensive wooden furniture filling the space. Everything was excessively luxurious.
A suffocating fragrance filled the air. When she met her own eyes in the mirror across from her, she startled again at the unfamiliar sight.
“Vivianne Lethe.”
That was what she was called.
Yoon Byeol knew exactly who she was.
Vivianne Lethe was the first extra to appear in the side story of “The Flower That Bloomed in the Ice Castle.”
The woman who made a striking appearance in the very first scene, even receiving an illustration.
What had happened to her?
Vivianne was a princess of a fallen kingdom, and her fate was not a good one. She was offered as a one-night war tribute to the tyrant emperor of the Balder Empire—and died.
The reason her appearance was so memorable was because her ending was brutally cruel.
A typical cliché extra who had nothing but beauty and charm… nothing she could do on her own…
A faint metallic taste seemed to rise in her mouth. She slowly lifted her head. Once she recognized her situation, she became surprisingly calm. Her mind turned cold.
…How did she die again?
She had flattered the tyrant emperor with pathetic, excessive charm—and lost her life in a pitiful way. She remembered thinking what an idiot that woman was while reading it.
Then she remembered the emperor’s line.
“How boring.”
Ah.
She did not want to die like that. There was still so much she needed to do. She had exams to pass. Rent to pay. She had no intention of dying just because of some half-hearted curse.
If God had even a shred of pity for her previous miserable life, this couldn’t be happening.
Bound to a chair, trembling pale as snow, dressed in an indecent outfit utterly unfitting for the cold, eerie atmosphere.
Nothing about this situation was acceptable.
She could finally define it.
I have possessed Vivianne Lethe.
Right before she was to serve as a war tribute to the tyrant emperor.
At that moment, the massive door opened, a wave of cold air rushing in.
A chill ran down her spine.
“How interesting.”
The man who appeared amid the oppressive atmosphere did not look amused at all.
His piercing gaze clearly assessed her.
…Whether to kill her, or not.
