Chapter 1

“XX.”

Baberi Rangs realized that she had been betrayed and instinctively swore.

She was the worst criminal in the Kingdom of Tiris, born into a family of traitors.

That didn’t mean she had plotted to kill the king while she was still in her mother’s womb or anything like that.

The rebellion had been started entirely by the Rangs men—her father and grandfather. When they failed in their rebellion, Baberi had simply become a traitor along with them.

The entire Rangs family, along with their in-laws and even distant relatives, had been killed, but Baberi had barely managed to survive.

But living as a traitor was no easy task. Baberi had spent a long time suffering from cold and hunger in a barren land.

Then, at the age of eighteen, she was given an opportunity that could change her life.

The King of Tiris, Glock, had promised her wealth and glory if she defeated the evil dragon that had appeared on the continent for the first time in a hundred years.

So Baberi killed the dragon.

‘The Hero of Tiris! Long live the Dragon Slayer!’

‘Long live!’

When the extermination party returned to the royal capital of Tatara, the cheers of the people directed at Baberi, who had led the vanguard, still echoed in her ears.

Before the excitement had even faded, a banquet was held at the royal palace to celebrate their safe return.

The star of the banquet was, of course, Baberi.

‘The bloodline really cannot be hidden. You are truly remarkable.’

‘Why bother saying such things until your mouth hurts? I knew you would defeat the evil dragon, of course.’

The nobles of Tiris competed with one another to pour wine for Baberi and flatter her.

It had only been a few months since they had looked down on her as the daughter of a filthy traitor.

Baberi happily drank the wine, treating their desperate attempts to bury the past as her appetizer.

Perhaps it was because she was eating delicious food she could never have dreamed of having as a child, and because she was looking forward to eating such things again tomorrow.

She drank too much.

So much that her memory was cut off.

“And when I opened my eyes, I ended up like this…”

Baberi clenched her teeth as she stared at the unfamiliar woman reflected in the mirror.

The black hair with a brownish tint belonged to the woman in the mirror, and she clenched her teeth in exactly the same way.

Despite her fragile appearance, her eyes burned with fury.

‘How can I wake up inside the body of a woman I’ve never seen before? Magic?’

She didn’t know what had happened, but there was one thing she was certain of.

Whoever had done this to her—

“That bald king…”

She had thought King Glock’s gaze had seemed strange during the banquet.

But she had assumed that, since a criminal who was supposed to be eaten by a dragon had returned alive and well, he simply regretted having to hand over the gold and treasures he had promised.

But what could he do about it? She had killed the dragon and returned alive. The king had no choice but to give her the wealth and glory he had promised.

At least, that was what she had thought.

She never imagined he would go this far.

“I’ll pluck out every last strand of your precious hair and hang that bald head of yours from the city gate.”

Baberi was the kind of person who always repaid what was done to her.

Her eyes blazed with a desire for revenge.

She needed to find King Glock immediately, demand her money and her body back, and turn the whole kingdom upside down.

But before that, there was one problem.

Baberi looked down at her hands, breathing heavily from anger.

She clenched and unclenched her fists several times before irritably rolling up her sleeve to inspect her arm.

Her anger had pushed the matter to the back of her mind for a moment, but the owner of this body had pitifully little muscle.

Forget swinging a sword—she didn’t think she could even hold one with one hand because it would be too heavy.

King Glock must have deliberately imprisoned her in such a weak body so that she could never even dream of revenge.

“Ah!”

Furious, Baberi punched the wall.

If it had been her original body, the wall should have cracked or even shattered.

But with the fist of this unfamiliar woman, all she accomplished was hurting her own hand.

“Yoo Chaeyoung.”

At the sound of a trembling woman’s voice, Baberi whipped around.

A woman was staring at Baberi with a shocked expression.

Judging by her striking resemblance to the owner of this body, she seemed to be a family member.

“Why are you suddenly punching the wall?”

Yoo Chaerin asked Baberi tearfully.

Of course, she couldn’t help being shocked.

It had been a week since her younger sister had fallen down the stairs and lost consciousness.

The hospital said there were no external injuries, but she simply wouldn’t wake up.

Then, when she finally opened her eyes, she started behaving strangely.

“Hey, are you hurt somewhere? Are you okay?”

Yoo Chaerin anxiously asked her to tell her if something was hurting.

“Yoo Chaeyoung, say something!”

Baberi was annoyed by the fact that this woman kept calling her by a strange name.

“Shut up.”

“Hey, what did you just—!”

“I’m in a terrible mood right now, so if you don’t want me to tear your mouth apart, shut up.”

Yoo Chaerin swallowed nervously.

She was frightened by a high school student six years younger than her—or rather, by the Dragon Slayer possessing her little sister’s body.

Three months after Baberi was exiled into the body of the Korean Yoo Chaeyoung—

“Yoo Chaeyoung, I told you not to leave the dishes piled up after you eat.”

The same Baberi who had once acted terrifyingly toward her older sister, threatening to tear her mouth apart, was now completely helpless against Yoo Chaerin.

“There aren’t that many. I just forgot after lunch.”

“You forgot after lunch? Even the cup I drank from this morning is still sitting there!”

At Yoo Chaerin’s scolding after returning from work, Baberi, who had been playing with the dog by shaking its toy, let out a sigh.

“If you drank from it, you should wash it yourself. Why do you always have to nag me?”

There were plenty of cups and bowls anyway. What was the big deal if a few piled up between breakfast and lunch?

Rich people were the same whether they were from Tiris or Korea. They all had terrible personalities.

Muttering complaints under her breath, Baberi pressed the dog’s toy, making it squeak.

“Did you take Kongtteok out for a walk and give him a bath today?”

As Yoo Chaerin’s interrogation became increasingly relentless, Baberi silently continued pressing the squeaky toy.

Thud, thud.

Baberi could sense Yoo Chaerin approaching from behind.

She decided to pretend she hadn’t heard anything until the very end.

“But if you keep doing that, I was going to buy you tteokbokki tonight, but I’m not going to anymore.”

But when faced with tteokbokki—the magical food Baberi had discovered after being exiled into Yoo Chaeyoung’s body—even a former Dragon Slayer was powerless.

Baberi glanced nervously at Yoo Chaerin before getting up and throwing the squeaky toy far away.

Kongtteok, the Pomeranian raised by the Yoo sisters, scampered after it with rapid little footsteps.

Leaving that sight behind, Baberi went into the kitchen and put on a pair of pink rubber gloves.

Then she sneaked a glance at Yoo Chaerin.

“Did you order tteokbokki?”

Baberi carefully watched Yoo Chaerin while wearing her rubber gloves, then raised the corners of her mouth into a sly grin.

“If you haven’t ordered it yet, add eggs.”

Yoo Chaerin frowned at the shameless demand, then laughed in disbelief.

Still, a laugh was a laugh.

Baberi could eat tteokbokki again today.

Relieved, she finished washing the dishes, took out the laundry she had forgotten in the dryer, and folded it.

Then the tteokbokki arrived.

“You didn’t add eggs!”

Baberi was horrified when she opened the lid.

Yoo Chaerin snorted and served the tteokbokki into bowls.

“Have some conscience. What have you done to deserve extra eggs? You don’t even wash the dishes, and you never listen to me.”

In response to her firm words, Baberi defiantly poked at the rice cakes with her fork and stuffed three into her mouth at once.

Should I secretly eat the portion that belongs to Yoo Chaerin too? If I eat it, she can’t take it back anyway.

Just as she was entertaining this spiteful thought, Yoo Chaerin placed the egg that had been meant for herself into Baberi’s bowl.

Baberi grinned when she saw the two eggs sitting in her bowl.

Unlike Glock, she has plenty of hair, so I guess she’s more generous.

“Eat, then give Kongtteok a bath. Got it?”

She might make Baberi work, but she was still better than a bastard who made her work to death and never kept his promises.

“Oh, right.”

Yoo Chaerin spoke as though she had suddenly remembered something.

“I asked the assistant manager on my team about it today. That Kingdom of Tiris thing. The place you’ve been looking for.”

Baberi, who had been about to put the entire egg into her mouth, froze.

Her eyes instantly transformed into the burning eyes of a vengeful spirit.

To be honest, living as the Korean Yoo Chaeyoung wasn’t bad.

Baberi had often gone hungry in her old life, so she had developed the habit of putting food into her mouth whenever she could.

Now she lived in such abundance that she could actually say she was too full to eat anymore.

In the middle of winter, she slept warmly on an electric heating pad, and in the middle of summer, she could stay under the air conditioner without shedding a single drop of sweat.

It was an extremely satisfying life.

But there was exactly one thing that bothered her.

Revenge.

Even now, whenever Baberi thought about King Glock peacefully sleeping with his legs stretched out, she trembled with rage.

Unless she returned and swung her sword at him at least once, she would never be able to let go of this grudge.

The problem was that she had no clue how to return.

All this time, she had repeatedly used the information guild that could be summoned twenty-four hours a day through her smartphone, searching for a way back.

But even using its route-finding function, she couldn’t find a destination she could set as her arrival point.

While walking Kongtteok, she had even stopped random passersby and asked if they knew the Kingdom of Tiris.

‘Where? Tiris? I don’t think I’ve heard of it.’

The people who kindly told her they didn’t know were the easy ones.

‘I’m busy.’

‘No, thank you.’

Most of the time, Baberi was mistaken for a member of some cult and failed.

Every time that happened, she imagined King Glock’s face as he happily exiled her to a place she could never return from.

It drove her crazy with frustration.

But apparently, Yoo Chaerin had brought back some kind of clue from work today.

Baberi’s eyes sparkled with both vengeance and anticipation.

“She said she reads a lot of fantasy novels, so I thought maybe she would know. But she said she didn’t.”

Baberi put down her fork.

She had gotten her hopes up for nothing, and now her appetite had completely disappeared.

“She said she might recognize it if she heard the title of the book, though. Don’t you remember the title?”

Yoo Chaerin still believed that her younger sister had suffered a head injury in the accident and was confusing the contents of a book she had read in the past.

The idea that someone else was inside her sister’s body was difficult to believe.

Yoo Chaerin understood that much.

But for Baberi, being treated as though her entire life was merely the confused memories of someone who had suffered an accident was suffocating.

One year after Baberi’s exile.

During that time, Baberi had increased her skeletal muscle mass—including her abdominal muscles—by ten kilograms, sharpening the blade of her revenge.

Her amnesia had not been cured, but her body had become incredibly healthy.

One day, Yoo Chaerin was looking at her sister with complicated feelings when an incident occurred.

Yoo Chaerin had worked overtime and was on her way home, while Baberi had gone out to meet her and take Kongtteok for a walk.

Because it was late, the streets were quiet.

Then Baberi felt someone’s gaze.

“……”

The owner of that gaze was a man wearing a black hoodie with a black cap pulled low over his head.

At first, Baberi thought it was a coincidence.

But when the man continued following her, she realized it wasn’t.

Baberi stopped in front of a building and watched to see what the man would do.

The man, who had his hands shoved into his pockets, stopped and looked directly at Baberi.

“Are you Baberi Rangs?”

Baberi’s eyes widened.

It had been a long time since she had heard her own name.

The man seemed certain that she was Baberi.

He pulled a kitchen knife from his pocket and charged toward her.

Baberi was surprised.

But she did not run.

Her body was different from what it had been a year ago.

Sweat.

Chicken breasts.

Bulking.

All for this very day.

A huge grin spread across Baberi’s face.