Chapter 2
When I picked up my fallen phone again and checked, I saw a flood of comments from readers, who were just as shocked as I was.
[So it was a tragedy after all…….]
[Ha…….]
[……What the hell?!?]
[The pacing was dragging forever, only feeding us endless frustration, and now this……. It’s supposed to be a romance fantasy, but now the male lead is gone, so is this just a plain fantasy? I stuck around because the writing was good, but I don’t know anymore. I’m dropping this.]
[So Clements was a fake and Medif is the real male lead? Medif fans, raise your heads.]
[Author-nim, please bring the male lead back in the next chapter as if nothing happened. We’ll pretend not to notice.]
But what drove me the most insane was a single line of notice.
[‘Beauty and the Beast’ Part 1 has ended. After a period of rest, we’ll return with Part 2. Thank you.]
What? You’re going on hiatus after ending it like this?
Swallowing back tears, I flopped onto my bed and prayed desperately. If only I could faint and then wake up to find that Part 2 had already started.
And when I came to, I had possessed the body of Ophelia Leora, the twelve-year-old maidservant who would grow up alongside the heroine.
Acacia-honey golden hair. Golden eyes like sunlight. Her round face and big eyes were rather cute, but she would never grow up to be as stunningly beautiful as Bella.
Even in the novel, she wasn’t particularly noteworthy. She squealed when she heard the crown prince was visiting the count’s household, dressed and attended to Bella, ran errands, and gossiped about palace rumors. In short, she played the standard side-character role you could find in any story.
Her presence was so faint that I didn’t even realize I had possessed her until I heard the name of the young lady I was to serve.
“……I asked to be woken up when the hiatus was over, not to be possessed as a side character.”
“Ophelia, what are you talking about?”
That must be Ophelia’s mother. Her round golden eyes looked so much like her daughter’s. I forced a smile and answered.
“It’s nothing. I just want to sleep a little longer, Mother.”
“Oh, then do so. Once we go to the Monahan estate next month, you won’t be able to nap whenever you like…….”
What an unnecessarily detailed dream.
‘This time, please really wake me up when the hiatus ends.’
I closed my eyes, not even knowing who I was praying to. At the very least, I hoped I’d wake up in my own bed the next morning.
But nothing changed. No matter how many times I fell asleep and woke again, I was still Ophelia Leora.
By then, I cried in shock and even locked myself in my room, but—what could I do? The deed was done.
A few days later, after I calmed down, I thought carefully.
Maybe being inside the novel was actually an opportunity. A chance to prevent the tragedy at the end of Part 1, and to save the two characters I loved so dearly.
Sure, I knew the trope—love burns brighter in the face of hardship. But did the hardship really have to be murdering each other?
The more you lose while struggling against adversity, the more ruined even the truest love becomes. That was why readers had been crying out, asking if this novel had been a tragedy all along.
In such a case, the likelihood of a sad ending only increased. And a sad ending for my favorite novel, Beauty and the Beast? That was something I absolutely could not allow, not even if the heavens themselves split open.
So I had to start from the incident that triggered everything. Why did Bella kill Clements?
Part of it was the villainess Camille’s manipulations, which stoked their mutual resentment. But the deeper cause lay in Bella’s true identity.
Bella Lucia Reunis Monahan—she was the reincarnation of the Great Witch.
The setting of the novel, the Clatia Empire, was a country founded by a wizard who once drove out demons. Long ago, this land had been plagued by monsters, beasts, and demons to the point where humans couldn’t live as humans.
Demons were born from pure masses of magical energy.
Monsters were born from darker, murkier forces.
Together, they were called the Demonkind.
One day, a genius wizard sealed them all away using his own blood as a medium, and then ascended the throne. The power of that blood was passed down to his descendants, the Dusingen imperial family.
But even after the sealing, at the far western edge of the world—on the border with the Demon Realm—the beasts still roamed freely in Honwood.
Even ordinary animals would mutate into beasts after absorbing the thick magic rising from the land itself. Not even imperial blood could drive them away.
Instead, deep in the forest was an ancient witch whom the beasts obeyed like a mother. Originally human, she commanded the fearsome beasts at will and lived freely, ignoring the order of the human world.
After much deliberation, the emperor killed the Great Witch, hung her corpse, and subdued the beasts.
The terrified beasts retreated into the deep forest, but the witch’s resentful spirit lingered, and eventually possessed the body of a noble girl born in Honwood.
That girl was Bella.
When I discovered Bella’s identity in the latter half of Part 1, I shook with shock. From the very first moment they met, she and Clements had been enemies!
That instinct pushing her to spill Clements’s blood had been none other than the Great Witch’s soul.
I’d been so anxious that Bella might actually kill him—and then that horrifying event happened for real.
But……
When Bella finally drove a sword through Clements’s heart, the witch’s spirit let out a ghastly laugh that echoed across the sky before disappearing.
And Bella wept over Clements’s rapidly cooling body.
The one who laughed was the witch’s soul. The one who cried was Bella. Which meant they were different beings. Surely Bella regretted killing him with all her heart.
Then I’d just have to make sure she never did something she’d regret.
Bella had been plagued by loneliness and frustration since childhood.
She preferred the night to the day, and loved secretly running into the forest after dark. Out there, a “voice” became her friend.
Later, it would be revealed that the voice belonged to the beasts.
But as the daughter of a noble family, raised only to be married off with proper manners and etiquette, such a secret could never be tolerated.
Her older brother scolded her harshly. The servants whispered that she was strange.
After she came back cursed from sneaking out again, things grew worse.
“Well, well, the daughter of the beautiful night, daring to prowl here again. I’ll give you a form more fitting to you.”
The curse of the beast of the night, which let her transform into a black panther, was more a blessing to Bella than a curse. She had always wished to roam the forest more freely.
But her freedom didn’t last. For fear that her secret as the esteemed daughter of a count’s house might be exposed, everyone hushed it up and practically confined her. Bella shut her heart to most people. She couldn’t understand them, and they couldn’t understand her.
Could a girl who grew up so repressed ever accept true love, even if it found her?
Could she separate the witch’s whispers urging her to claw his white throat or tear his flesh from her own budding feelings of affection? Probably not.
But what if, from childhood, she’d had a friend who understood her heart and supported her? Someone she could confide her frustrations and pains to?
What if there were someone to tell her: the past and present are different, and no matter who you once were, you can live as yourself, however you want?
Then maybe she could accept her feelings as love. Maybe she could stop herself before tragedy struck.
All right, I’ve decided.
There were still eight years until the novel’s story began. More than enough time to positively influence a child as she grew.
When the novel began and Clements appeared, I would be their guardian angel of love, making sure nothing stood between them.
Then surely this story would end, not in ruin or sorrow, but in sweet happiness.
My dear ones, I’ll make sure you walk a flowery path!
In my much-younger twelve-year-old body, I clenched both fists with determination.
“Bella. Bella Lucia!”
Finally, the day came when I met twelve-year-old Bella for the first time. As I’d resolved beforehand, I smiled brightly and embraced the little lady of House Monahan.
“W-what are you doing.”
Don’t worry about anything. You can live as you wish. I’ll make sure of it.
The girl, her silky black hair cascading down, stiffened in my arms.
From then on, I stayed by Bella’s side every day. Though I was only a maid, Ophelia was still the daughter of a fallen noble, so I attended lessons with her and played together like childhood friends.
Watching the heroine of the novel grow up from such a young age only deepened my affection. I could exaggerate a bit and say I’d do anything for Bella.
“Bella, if you don’t want to embroider, then don’t. I’ll do it while you get some more sleep.”
“Count Monahan is walking around outside. I think he’s looking for you…… Here’s an idea: hide in the wardrobe, and I’ll say I haven’t seen you.”
“Whenever you want to talk about something, you can tell me. I’m on your side.”
I always said I’d listen, but usually it was Bella who listened while I chattered away.
Well, people don’t change their personalities easily. Even if she still seemed curt on the outside, I was sure she’d opened her heart to me, at least a little.
Eight years flew by like an arrow.
During that time, serving Bella, there was one thing I put the most effort into: helping her secretly enjoy as much freedom as possible without getting caught.
Of course, spending time with beasts could be dangerous. But in my view, suppressing her true nature was a hundred times more dangerous.
After all, in the original story, whenever she met Clements, Bella suffered because her repressed instincts exploded out uncontrollably.
