WCMP 01

chapter 01

It had only been a few days since I possessed the body of Rieli Robert.

I was crossing the street when I got hit by a truck and lost consciousness. When I opened my eyes again, my head felt like it was splitting apart and nausea churned in my stomach.

And once my body finally settled down, I realized that I had entered someone else’s body.

At first, I couldn’t believe it, but I soon accepted reality.

I was probably dead.

And if I was already dead, what could I do about it now?

All I could do was continue living in this new body. I didn’t want to die again.

Life here wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.

At first, I stumbled around awkwardly, but humans adapt quickly. Before long, I had grown used to it.

Rieli Robert was the eldest daughter of the Duke Robert family, cherished dearly by her father, Duke Rufus Robert.

Up until a few days after possessing this body, when I sat alone in the enormous dining hall eating by myself, I had thought this family was cold and completely devoid of affection…

But from this moment onward, I decided to retract that opinion.

Even now, as I returned from my first dinner with the man who was now biologically my father—the Duke—the memory of the meal kept circling in my mind.

The moment I stepped into the dining room, an unfamiliar middle-aged man greeted me warmly and started saying something, but honestly, I was so flustered that I couldn’t understand a word.

Before I knew it, I was already seated at the table with him.

Then the Duke and I ate together, and throughout the entire meal he kept affectionately calling me “our Lili” so tenderly that I felt like I was going to choke on my food.

“Our Lili”…

For some reason, my throat tightened.

Listening to the Duke’s warm voice and hearing him call me that brought back memories I had long forgotten.

The Duke resembled my real father in a strange way, and that made me even more uncomfortable.

I forced myself to erase the familiar face overlapping with his and barely finished the meal before standing up.

It felt like adapting to the Duke’s attitude toward me would take a very, very long time.

While clutching my unsettled stomach and heading back to my room, I spotted a face I had never seen before.

Dark brown hair like melted chocolate and large violet eyes.

A little boy who looked no older than a kindergartener.

The moment he saw me, his already large eyes widened even further. But then he quickly composed himself and greeted me politely.

“Have you been well, Sister?”

The greeting was so flawless and elegant that it didn’t seem childlike at all.

And for me, it was an incredibly shocking encounter.

“…Sister? I had a younger brother?”

The thought slipped right out of my mouth in my confusion.

At my dumbfounded voice, the answer came from behind me.

It was Karen, Rieli’s personal maid.

“Yes, Miss. No matter what, Young Master Amon is still your younger brother.”

Karen answered in a heavily mocking tone, and the maid standing beside her, Amy, openly snickered in ridicule.

I couldn’t understand what was going on, so I stayed silent for a moment and tried to assess the situation.

But the boy named Amon simply smiled faintly and apologized to me.

“…I apologize, Sister. I will strive harder so that you will never feel ashamed to call someone as inadequate as me your younger brother. Then, I wish you a peaceful night.”

After bowing elegantly once more, Amon disappeared without making a sound.

Even then, I still didn’t understand the situation.

I was just endlessly bewildered.

‘What the hell was that?’

It felt like I was on the verge of remembering something, yet the answer wouldn’t come.

Only after returning to my room and lying down on the bed did it finally hit me.

Who Amon Robert was.

Amon Robert.

Amon was the male lead of the romance fantasy novel The Blue Bird in the Cage, which I had read before I died.

The important point here was that Amon Robert was the male lead of a hopelessly tragic and twisted story.

At the time, I’d grown tired of sweet, ordinary romance fantasy novels and went looking for something more stimulating.

That was how I stumbled upon The Blue Bird in the Cage, a frustrating angst-filled novel with absolutely no catharsis.

That polite and well-mannered child would eventually grow up to obsess over the heroine, Remiel, to the point of madness.

He would scheme to ruin Remiel’s family, force her into marrying him, and eventually imprison her in his mansion. That was the beginning of the novel.

Although I died before finishing it, I’d read spoilers beforehand, so I knew the general plot.

‘They said he’d become the perfect tragic male lead—starting in misery and ending in misery without even a drop of satisfaction…’

At first, I was dumbfounded.

Then irritation surged through me.

“Damn it! I can’t believe I only remembered the novel I read right before dying now! How stupid can I be?!”

Aaagh!

I buried my face into the pillow and screamed.

No wonder the surname Robert sounded so familiar. It was the male lead’s family name!

Honestly, until I heard the name Amon, I never even suspected this world was inside a novel.

That made sense, because Rieli was an insignificant extra villainess in the original story.

She only appeared briefly in flashbacks of Amon’s miserable childhood as the older sister and father who neglected and ignored him.

On top of that, Amon’s sister got married off overseas before the original story even began, and the Duke died at a relatively young age.

Neither of them were even mentioned by name in the novel.

So how was I supposed to realize I’d become some nameless side character in a story?

‘But it’s already been days since I possessed this body, and I didn’t even know I had a younger brother?’

And we lived in the same house!

It was absurd.

And seeing the maids, who had always been kind and polite to me these past few days, suddenly sneering at Amon was deeply shocking.

The memory alone made chills crawl across my skin.

I must have fallen asleep while lying there thinking about everything.

I woke up late and absentmindedly washed my face, sinking into thought once more.

To be honest, Amon was undeniably a terrible person to the heroine, but when you looked at his past, he wasn’t someone you could completely hate either.

He was what people called a villain with a tragic backstory.

The Robert Ducal House, where Amon was born, had been famous for the loving relationship between the Duke and Duchess.

But the Duchess had been frail since birth and died giving birth to Amon. From that moment onward, the harmony of the Robert family shattered completely.

The Duke, who had loved his wife as though she were his entire world, fell into overwhelming despair.

Drowning himself in alcohol and abandoning everything else, he could no longer even see the daughter he once cherished so dearly.

The child born in exchange for his beloved wife’s death became an object of hatred to him.

And eventually, he turned away from his own son.

When sober, he simply wasted away in grief.

When drunk, he became violent, smashing objects around him.

Then, one day, unable to endure his hatred and rage any longer, the Duke went to find Amon.

He intended to kill his own child.

But the moment he saw the infant’s eyes, he couldn’t do it.

Because Amon’s eyes were the same violet color as the late Duchess’s.

Amon was a child who remembered every moment of his life from the instant he was born.

He remembered that his mother died giving birth to him.

He remembered that his father had tried to kill him.

He remembered everything.

After that, Amon was left abandoned in a corner of the ducal estate, growing up alone.

On the surface, he looked perfectly fine, but inside, he rotted away little by little.

‘When I read the novel, it was just fiction. Just a tragic backstory that passed by…’

But now, realizing that this was the real life of someone who actually existed—and that he was now my younger brother—made my vision go dark.

The pitiful male lead’s past had become reality.

To begin with, I thought Amon turning twisted was entirely the fault of that unfit father who neglected him.

“Tsk.”

I clicked my tongue without realizing it.

The maid brushing my hair immediately flinched and apologized.

“I-I’m sorry, Miss… Did I hurt you?”

It was Amy, my personal maid, nervously watching my expression with an apologetic face.

Just yesterday, she had laughed at Amon without hesitation, yet now that she stood before me, her attitude was completely different.

All I’d done was click my tongue once, and she was trembling in fear.

I guess people who bully the weak and fear the strong exist here too.

‘No… in a society built on social status, it’s probably even worse.’

Without answering, I gestured for her to leave.

Amy stepped back with a smile, though anxiety flickered briefly across her face.

The stark difference in attitude left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Honestly, I wasn’t particularly fond of children, and there had never been kids around me before, so I had no experience dealing with them.

Maybe that was why children felt so distant and difficult to me.

But even so, I wasn’t so clueless that I couldn’t recognize how abnormal Amon’s behavior had been yesterday.

I couldn’t even tell whether I’d been greeted by a child or by an adult disguised as one.

Amon was astonishingly calm and mature.

‘…Does that even make sense for a child who isn’t even ten years old?’

The way he instantly hid his surprise upon seeing me was anything but normal.

And more than anything else, there were the maids who openly disrespected a young master.

I needed to know exactly how Amon was being treated in this household.

The novel had never gone into detail about every aspect of his childhood.

Since it was still morning, I thought it might not be a bad idea to have lunch with him and try talking to him.

I was about to call Amy but suddenly stopped.

Judging by the attitudes Amy and Karen had shown yesterday, neither of them seemed trustworthy enough to send with a message.

‘It’d be better if I just went myself.’