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Chapter: 2
When she woke up, she wasn’t on a bed.
“By the great blood of Brienne, I, Alexis de Brienne, hereby appoint you as my knights at this very moment!”
The first thing that caught her eye was a pair of knees bent at different angles on a vivid crimson carpet.
The left leg was raised, bent at ninety degrees, while the right knee rested on the floor.
“Now, it is time to swear your oath of loyalty.”
The voice of someone elderly echoed from above her head.
“First, His Highness the Prince will touch both of your shoulders with the ceremonial sword. After that, the knights will kiss the back of His Highness’s hand.”
Instinctively, she knew some sort of ritual was taking place. The problem was that while everything around her flowed naturally, she alone was completely lost.
‘Wait—what is going on? A prince? Knights? Kiss… what, exactly?’
Maintaining her posture, she cautiously turned her head to look around. A high ceiling, walls embedded with brilliantly colored stained glass, and uniformed men observing the unfamiliar ceremony…
It was far too vivid to be a dream. She pressed her fingernails hard into her fingers to be sure.
It hurt. This was unmistakably reality.
Her head spun as she struggled to process the situation, when a pair of pristine white shoes entered her field of vision.
“Jeanne—no, Sir Jeanne.”
The moment the owner of those white shoes called her by the name Jeanne, all the information she had gathered snapped together like puzzle pieces.
A religious facility. A ceremony. Knights. Brienne. Alexis. Jeanne…
‘No way…’
Putting together everything she had seen and heard, she realized it was identical to the opening scene of the romance novel she had been reading before falling asleep—The Betrayed Knight Never Cries.
The protagonist, Jeanne Leclerc, was a commoner woman with a special power who dreamed of becoming a royal knight like her father.
But the Royal Order of Knights was no place a commoner woman could simply enter.
Crushed by that reality, Jeanne happened to save Alexis de Brienne, the First Prince of Brienne. Taken with her, Alexis sent her to the Royal Military Academy and supported her in every possible way so that she could become his knight.
After completing the five-year course, Jeanne became Alexis’s knight with absolute loyalty in her heart…
And this moment was the very first step of that journey.
In this scene, the Jeanne of the novel was overwhelmed with emotion and shed tears as she kissed the back of Alexis’s hand.
Gratitude toward her benefactor, loyalty to the lord she would serve, and feelings of love she herself did not yet recognize—the novel described her heart that way.
But right now, the only thought in her mind was that everything was ruined.
‘Of all things, why did I have to become the protagonist of a thousand-sweet-potato-level frustrating novel?!’
As Alexis’s knight, Jeanne spent ten years slaying monsters that threatened the continent, eventually even sealing the Demon King. Riding on her achievements, Alexis ascended the throne without incident.
During that time, Jeanne lost her family and comrades. Her body and mind grew steadily more exhausted. Knowing her love would never be returned, she still ran forward without rest, devoted solely to Alexis.
And then, once he became king, Alexis betrayed her.
The people revered Jeanne—who had personally sealed the Demon King—more than the king who had stood safely behind her.
Unable to bear his inferiority complex and jealousy, the king framed his most loyal knight as a witch.
Every time she read the vividly described torture scenes, she had shut off the screen. When the novel ended with Jeanne being burned at the stake, she had sat there in shock for a long while, as if struck on the back of the head.
She’d bought it because it was discounted to 990 won per volume—and this was the misery it delivered. Throughout the story, Jeanne being toyed with by Alexis had driven her mad.
This wasn’t kindness—it was stupidity, she’d cursed. And unable to hold back, she’d finally left this comment:
Author, are you seriously calling gaslighting the heroine a romance?
And then she’d fallen asleep.
Only to wake up inside the novel.
Was it because she’d bought it cheap? Or because she’d stubbornly finished a book she should’ve dropped? Or because she’d posted a comment that hurt the author?
In her confusion, the man standing before her extended his arm, presenting the back of his hand.
“From this moment on, you shall wield your sword for me.”
She lifted her head unconsciously and met his gaze.
Orange hair like a sunset sky, eyes of the same hue, a benevolent expression—he matched the description of Alexis de Brienne in the novel perfectly.
‘So this bastard is the one who uses the heroine and throws her away—’
She was about to curse him internally when—
Crackle.
‘Huh?’
In an instant, another man flashed before her eyes.
He looked just like Alexis, but older, with a thick beard, staring down at her with icy eyes.
Crackle.
[I am… innocent, Your Majesty.]
Crackle.
[I swear, I have never slandered Your Majesty, nor have I ever deceived the people with wicked sorcery!]
It was a scene not found in the novel. But it was far too vivid to be something her imagination had conjured on its own.
Like a memory.
[I know.]
[Then why…?!]
[A child of the goddess, greater even than the king. That’s how the citizens praise you.]
Not like a memory—this was one.
[You should have died with the Demon King.]
Memories poured out like water bursting from a shattered dam.
“My beautiful sword.”
[Jeanne Leclerc the witch is hereby sentenced to death by burning.]
The Alexis who desired Jeanne and the Alexis who discarded her overlapped. In that instant, the scattered puzzle pieces inside her clicked into place.
The scene she had just seen was Jeanne’s memory—and her own.
The novel was Jeanne’s story, and also the story of her past life.
‘I was Jeanne.’
The world she thought was fiction was her previous life.
The reality crashing down on her was too much to bear with a clear mind. Her head spun and her stomach churned, as if she were trapped on an endless roller coaster.
“Jeanne?”
Sensing something was wrong, Alexis knelt on one knee before her, lowering himself to meet her gaze.
But she couldn’t hear his voice. No matter how hard she tried to steady herself, the nausea only worsened.
“…Urk!”
“Urk?”
Jeanne’s back convulsed once, like a caterpillar.
“Uwaaaagh!”
A sound that should never echo through a temple—much less a knighting ceremony—rang out thunderously.
When she opened her eyes again, gasping for breath, she saw Alexis’s hand soaked in her vomit.
“Hiiiii! W-wipe it! No—water! No, no! Bring holy water!”
Alexis paled and scurried about the dais like a panicked fly, while an aide rushed over to wipe his hand clean.
The others witnessing the ceremony froze in disbelief, then began murmuring, unsure how to process the absurd situation.
Regardless, Jeanne continued dry heaving and coughing several more times before finally sucking in ragged breaths.
Her mouth was sour and bitter from the resurfaced trauma, and her stomach felt as though it were turning inside out.
[Kill her!]
The citizens’ cries as they hurled stones, calling her a witch.
[Jeanne Leclerc the witch is hereby sentenced to death by burning.]
The cold sound of the gavel echoed in her ears.
At her feet lay the ceremonial sword, discarded on the floor. Alexis was still making a fuss on the dais, and the security was lax.
‘Should I just kill him here?’
A murderous impulse crept up on her. Consumed by dark emotions, Jeanne reached toward the sword with unfocused eyes.
At that moment, a radiant, rainbow-colored light shone down on her from beyond the stained glass. Overwhelmed by the brilliance, she squeezed her eyes shut.
Her vision turned white.
And suddenly, she remembered the additional comment she had typed the night before falling asleep.
Author, no matter what, this is too much. I’ll pretend I never read it—so couldn’t you write an IF side story? Like, she regresses and lives a new life instead.
Jeanne lowered her hand.
The life she had lived in 21st-century Korea acted like a buffer, suppressing her violent impulse.
She didn’t know why she had returned to the past.
But if this was the fulfillment of a reader’s wish—if she had been granted a second life as Jeanne—then killing Alexis here would not be a wise choice.
The moment she did, the surrounding knights would kill her.
She couldn’t let a newly granted life end meaninglessly again because of someone like Alexis. She hadn’t even been knighted yet—there was no need to live as his sword.
‘This life… I can live it differently.’
As the murderous urge subsided and clarity returned to her eyes, Alexis suddenly shouted from the dais in a booming voice:
“Throw that insolent woman into the temple prison!”
