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Chapter 1
‘This is a dream.’
For the first time since becoming a citizen of the Empire, I denied reality. I rubbed my eyes. But they didn’t disappear.
There was a clear distance between me and them, and yet it felt like they were right in front of me. Maybe it was because the shock was too severe.
“Whisler.”
Whisler Garth, the male lead of the novel and my current boyfriend. Descendant of the noble Grey family, and holder of the marquisate. He was standing on a balcony, locked in a passionate kiss with another woman.
There was no mistaking the angle.
I had just returned from a month-long trip, right before the party that appeared in the novel’s first chapter. I had no idea Whisler would be doing this in the meantime.
Because he liked surprise parties, I’d secretly come back to throw him one for the first time. That was all it was supposed to be.
‘I thought that since I’ve stayed quiet and low-key until now, I could at least do this much. I thought it would be polite.’
But Whisler and the woman clung to each other like they couldn’t breathe without it. His large hand swept across her body, his face softened into a kind and tender smile. It was unmistakable. He was cheating.
“What… is this…?”
They had tried to hide their little ‘affair scene’ with curtains, but the fabric only covered half the balcony, making it even more obvious.
‘Wait, why are you cheating?’
It wasn’t anger that struck me first. It was confusion.
Because Whisler was the male lead. And I was supposed to be the female lead. In this world, which was a novel, the male and female lead were meant to have a happy ending.
But the cliché had shattered.
‘I’m the heroine. So who is he meeting, why, and how—kissing her at a public party of all places?’
I stumbled back and hid behind the curtain. My pale face slowly regained color as my thoughts returned.
“Then… who is she?”
If you witness infidelity, you need proof. And right now, the best I could do was confirm who the woman was.
The woman pulled her hand off Whisler’s chest and stepped back. She bowed her head, embarrassed, not knowing what to do.
And in that moment, her face was revealed.
“…What?”
The realization that hit me was even more shocking than Whisler’s cheating.
Blonde hair. Bright yellow eyes. Dimples that formed when she smiled. A rounded nose tip that gleamed. Cute and striking features—an unfamiliar face, yet strangely recognizable.
‘…I’m not the heroine?’
She looked plain at first glance, but on closer inspection her beauty was radiant. The kind of looks that made you know she was important.
The author wouldn’t have wasted such a character on a side role. And above all, I recognized her.
Mille. The original heroine of the first version of the novel, before it was remade.
Cheating Whisler. A woman I’d never seen before. The two kissing. The puzzle pieces fit together.
‘I’ve possessed the pre-remake version of the novel. The one that was hated when it first serialized.’
That meant she was the heroine—and I was the supporting character.
The novel <The Man Overflowing with Desire> had been popular thanks to the author’s writing style. But before the remake, it was heavily criticized.
The problem was the male lead. In the beginning, Whisler was kind. But then he cheated on Filena, and readers couldn’t stand it. He was the kind of man who, no matter how gentle he acted, would do whatever he wanted once desire struck.
‘I couldn’t stand his lack of morality either. I dropped it early, annoyed at how I’d been fooled by his fake kindness. Even when I forced myself to read it for work, it grated on me.’
During serialization, readers sympathized with Filena, the girl he betrayed. But in the end, she didn’t even remain as a “side character who still lived on.”
The author, listening to readers’ voices, discontinued the ending of the old story and remade it.
In the remake, the male lead was no longer a cheater. And the heroine had been changed to Filena. Readers rejoiced at the fix and read it through to completion.
“…So.”
I couldn’t even finish my words.
The heroine of this world wasn’t me. It was Mille—the girl currently cheating with Whisler.
Why had I been possessed into the pre-remake world? If anything, shouldn’t I have been given the happy-ending version?
I released the curtain I was gripping and turned away. I needed time to process.
The next evening, after consulting <How to Relieve Stress After Betrayal: The Practical Edition>, I arrived at the temple.
“Holy Mother Cynthia, please guide me on the right path.”
In my past life, I never believed in gods. But after being possessed, I visited the temple diligently.
After all, once you’ve experienced possession, you can’t deny the existence of mysterious powers.
The temple was full of people dressed plainly, veils covering their faces. Regardless of gender or status, these were the rules for entry. Some even covered their mouths with cloth.
As I calmed my emotions, another problem became clear. Whisler not being my destined partner wasn’t the only crisis.
‘The wealth, power, and honor I was waiting for have all evaporated like a mirage.’
From the moment of possession until now, I hadn’t wanted to defy Filena’s fate. As the heroine, everything would work out once the story began.
If you just kept quiet and still when you didn’t know something, you could get halfway there. So I had stayed quiet. Truthfully, I even grew fond of Whisler, maybe because of the visual pleasure he provided.
But it had all been an illusion.
“Today, I’ve realized one truth about this novel.”
I admitted it cleanly.
“This story lost a major character today.”
Me. Filena Light. A side character. Practically an extra.
In the remake, Filena became a powerful saintess. But in the original, she was just a powerless, pitiful girl. She loved the male lead, clung to him even when he cheated, and that was the sum total of her existence.
“What path am I to walk now?”
I spoke in the most respectful tone I knew. Rare as it was, such a tone did exist in this world—I remembered reading it in <Polite Speech, Step by Step>.
The book had only been in print for a month before being discontinued. Its rarity made it all the more special.
“I was always a person of desire. But my wealth, my fame, my status—all gone in an instant.”
Because I wasn’t the saintess. Mille was.
This empire had no magicians, but it did acknowledge mysterious powers. The saintess was proof.
The divine occasionally possessed the saintess and delivered prophecies. That divine power, used to save souls in need, was known as holy power.
The saintess was the voice of the Holy Mother Cynthia, saving those with potential. She was a hero of her age. Her very existence symbolized Cynthia’s omnipotence and allowed women greater presence in society.
So in the temple, it was common to see women in high positions.
“As the present is most important, today again we pledge to devote our lives not to the past or the future, but to this present, to the Holy Mother.”
“Yes, we pledge.”
“We will live the present, as the Holy Mother teaches.”
“We will live the present.”
The priest’s soft voice echoed, trembling with sincerity as she prayed for the upcoming selection of the saintess.
“The time of the Saintess approaches. Let us pray earnestly to welcome her.”
It was natural they longed for her. The saintess had saved both nobles and commoners in history, all of whom went on to play crucial roles. One led the empire to victory in a war that once seemed hopeless. Another prevented the crown prince’s poisoning.
Such an indispensable figure received treatment worthy of her status.
‘The saintess earns the highest salary in the empire. And for that pay, the working conditions aren’t even that bad.’
In my previous life, I barely escaped a predatory company. Doesn’t that explain why I’d been so desperate to cling to the role of heroine?
“Holy Mother, I beg of you two things for the first time in my life. Please grant them.”
The priest continued praying for the saintess, but I stubbornly followed my own path. In the past I might have joined in, but those prayers weren’t for me.
Life is a solo play.
“Make Whisler—”
Killing him felt too cliché. I needed something more realistic, something bitter.
“…Make Whisler impotent.”
More importantly:
“And please, guide me from now on.”
If things went as they were, I’d surely die. Branded as a villainess, I’d end with the same tragic fate as pre-remake Filena.
At least I’d read up to the serialized part of the original novel. And many of the side and background characters from the remake still existed here. So being a transmigrator wasn’t entirely worthless.
I steadied my breathing and made my final plea.
“Holy Mother, I am without doubt an important person in this world. Please, grant me your grace.”
“Agh, agh! Please grant your grace to the important person, the saintess! For she is our salvation! Our… Ashishin!”
Ashishin? The old man had gotten so worked up he said Cynthia’s name backwards. I couldn’t even tell if it was blasphemy or just absurd.
“Ashishin, save us! When the saintess comes, our moment will come too—grant her grace first!!”
“Holy Ashishin, unlike before when you were too busy to care for us, now grant us grace through the saintess’s selection!!”
Grace to the saintess? Like hell I’d lose to this old man. Frowning, I prayed fiercely.
“No, Holy Mother. Me. Not the saintess—me. Cynthia, grant me your grace first.”
Forget the saintess. She was just trash, sneaking around with a man who already had a girlfriend.
—And with the exact same thought I once saw in the comments section, I ended my prayer to Cynthia.
