🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 3
A fantasy romance novel, of all things!
It kept serializing even after the heroine died!
And in the end, even the male lead died too!
Thanks to that utterly catastrophic ending, the series became infamous across every online community, and the final chapter was flooded with comments.
[Is this that novel? The one where the protagonist dies and then everyone dies? The one where you only need to read the last chapter?]
[┗ No, you don’t even need to read the last chapter. Refund every cent I spent on this garbage, you bastards!]
[No, seriously, is the author insane? Did they just give up on the story? Is this secretly the end of Part 1? Is there a Part 2 coming? Because honestly, this makes zero sense! Author! At least give us side stories! How can there not even be side stories?!]
[┗ LOL, you’d actually pay for side stories of this trainwreck? What a sucker.]
After swallowing frustration for 300 chapters while desperately rooting for the two leads to find happiness, I had joined the chaos and posted my own bitter complaint.
[What kind of ending is this?! What the hell is wrong with this author?!]
…Is that why I got transmigrated into this story?!
But I wasn’t the only one who left a comment like that, so why was I the one who ended up here?!
I stared blankly at the world before me, now my reality.
At my side stood the devastatingly handsome male lead.
The lingering heat of late summer wrapped around us, and the sweet fragrance of tropical fruit filled the air.
Facing the shopkeeper who was preparing my order, I spoke.
“Four mangoes, two bunches of grapes, four kiwis, and one bunch of bananas, please.”
The shopkeeper swiftly packed everything into paper bags, and then Dayvin pulled out a small glass vial from his coat—inside were dozens of silver needles.
Without hesitation, he began stabbing each fruit one by one.
Seeing perfectly good fruit being mercilessly pierced, the fruit vendor stared in alarm.
I quickly held out a silver coin.
“Please keep the change…”
The moment the shopkeeper accepted the coin, his expression changed completely. After that, he no longer cared whether Dayvin skewered every single fruit we bought.
Dayvin carefully tested each one with his silver needles.
When he moved on to individually stab every grape, I stopped him.
“Let’s do those later when we eat them. If the juice starts dripping now, carrying them will be a hassle.”
He accepted my reasoning and packed the grapes away.
Looking at the overflowing paper bags, I felt a slight pang of regret.
“Did I buy too much?”
“No, it’s fine. They aren’t heavy.”
Then, as naturally as breathing, Dayvin bent his right arm and offered it to me in escort.
I placed my hand on it, feeling the crisp texture of his perfectly pressed uniform beneath my fingers.
Being treated so carefully by him felt wonderful…
…but also strangely guilt-inducing.
His left hand carried the heavy fruit bags so his right hand remained free to escort me—yet if danger appeared, he would need to instantly draw his sword.
…No matter how I think about it, living like this forever is impossible.
A suffocating heaviness settled in my chest.
Dayvin had been managing to fend off the assassins targeting me and hand them over to the authorities each time, but nothing was improving.
Of course not. The reason they want me dead hasn’t been resolved…
In the original story, the one who murdered Anise was Duke Raphtan.
He wanted to place his daughter on the imperial throne, and Anise—being the Emperor’s fiancée—was in his way.
And I’m still alive.
A sigh escaped me before I realized it.
Dayvin glanced over.
“Is something troubling you?”
“Ah… I was just thinking about what we should do from here…”
My voice trailed off.
As if he had reached the same frustrating conclusion, Dayvin’s expression hardened slightly.
“We can’t keep living like this forever. Couldn’t we just run away?”
Unable to hide my anxiety, I pleaded with him.
I wanted to take the protagonists and flee this doomed empire as soon as possible.
If I didn’t die, then there’d be no revenge arc.
No tragedy.
No ruin.
And frankly, whether this empire burned to ashes or not was none of my concern.
Why should I preserve the original plotline that had enraged the entire internet?!
So yes—I firmly believed that escaping this empire immediately was the correct answer.
But as always…
“No. We should decide after we make contact with His Majesty the Emperor. Today’s trip into town was successful, so next time, we’ll find a way to reach the Imperial Palace safely.”
Dayvin refused with unwavering determination.
“…Wouldn’t it still be better to just run?”
Since I trusted the Emperor about as far as I could throw him, I muttered my objection.
Dayvin shook his head.
“First, we need to determine who is targeting you and why. Until then, no matter where we go, they will continue pursuing us.”
And there lay the problem.
I did know who wanted me dead.
I did know why.
But since everyone believed I had amnesia, I still hadn’t figured out a believable way to explain it.
Duke Raphtan is trying to kill me because I’m the Emperor’s fiancée, so if I just break off the engagement and run away, everything will be solved!!
I wanted to scream it.
The moment I broke off my engagement, the assassination attempts would likely stop.
But again… there was no plausible explanation for how I could possibly know that.
So instead, I bit my lip and stayed silent.
“If His Majesty assists us, our situation will improve.”
Dayvin spoke with such certainty that my feelings turned complicated.
As someone who had read the original novel, seeing the protagonists trust the Emperor this much was enough to make my brain short-circuit.
Then again… in the original story, they hadn’t distrusted him from the beginning either.
They had believed in him.
And that belief had made his betrayal all the more devastating.
Just thinking about the Emperor made me uneasy.
After all, in the original plot, he was one of the people who betrayed Anise.
“…What happened to all the people we sent to the palace?”
“…I don’t know.”
Even Dayvin couldn’t hide his grim expression.
Because I had transmigrated into Anise before her death, the story had already changed.
Since Anise survived, the enemy had become desperate to kill me as quickly as possible.
That urgency had tipped off the protagonists early, and they immediately tried contacting the Emperor.
But every messenger sent to the Imperial Palace vanished.
Later, even the count’s personal knights had gone themselves.
They disappeared too.
It hadn’t taken long for the servants of the Miller estate to panic and resign en masse.
Honestly… that was when I first began suspecting the Emperor himself.
In the original story, there had never been any indication that the Emperor and Duke Raphtan were allies.
Yes, the Emperor had destroyed the evidence Dayvin gathered proving Anise’s assassination—but that had been portrayed as him caving to aristocratic pressure.
And at Anise’s funeral, he had genuinely mourned her.
Much later, he even used her murder as grounds to expel Empress Raniere and destroy the Raphtan family.
Even the protagonists, who had burned with rage toward him, never believed he had actively conspired to kill Anise.
But now?
With everyone sent to the palace mysteriously disappearing?
A poisonous suspicion had begun to grow.
What if the Emperor knows Duke Raphtan is trying to kill Anise… and is helping him?
After all, he was still the final villain.
A man shameless enough to use cowardly tricks to inflict a fatal wound on Dayvin.
Would that really be beneath him?
As my distrust deepened, Dayvin’s gaze suddenly sharpened.
He possessed the ability to sense enemies from a distance.
“…Enemies. They’re tightening the encirclement. We need to move now.”
“Are we going to fight?”
It wasn’t his safety I was worried about.
We were standing in the middle of a crowded city.
If a battle broke out here, innocent civilians could be struck by poisoned arrows or tainted blades.
“No. We can avoid them.”
But… how?
Before I could ask, Dayvin turned to me.
“Lady Anise… may I carry you while I run?”
“Huh?”
Caught off guard, I blinked before nodding.
Dayvin handed me the fruit bag.
“Then please hold this.”
I hugged the bag tightly to my chest.
And in the very next second—
He swept me up into a bridal carry.
“—!”
His beautiful face suddenly felt far too close, and I instinctively stiffened.
Meanwhile, Dayvin remained perfectly composed.
“I’m going to run. If you feel like you’re falling, hold onto my neck.”
“Ah—o-okay.”
Then he ran.
As though my weight meant absolutely nothing, his steps were light—faster and faster.
He darted into an empty alleyway, accelerating like a sprinter.
No—
Not a sprinter.
His speed surpassed human limits almost instantly.
My eyes widened.
…There’s no way this is human running speed.
This is basically a car!!
Then, spotting a pile of crates stacked in the alley, he used them as a foothold—
And leapt.
Straight onto the rooftop.
I could only stare, utterly dumbfounded.
…Whoa.
