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Chapter 1
A city disappeared from the map overnight.
At the hands of an eighteen-year-old archmage born a commoner.
“Sir Persson, do you think Lady Reina is still alive?”
It was a chilly day, with late autumn giving way to early winter.
A search party of eight from the Betuzhenia Empire was making its way toward the vanished city.
Persson, the knight riding at the head of the group, answered in a subdued voice.
“There’s no way she could still be alive.”
The Betuzhenia Empire and the Tuntera Empire.
The war between the two empires, which had begun with the goal of claiming an entire continent, had finally ended after seventy years.
The Betuzhenia Empire had emerged victorious.
All because the archmage, Reina Hart, had sacrificed herself.
“She said it was magic that consumed her life force. That was why it was so powerful.”
Powerful enough to enter the enemy’s territory alone and destroy both the enemy army and an entire city in one strike.
No matter how powerful an archmage was, there was no way she could survive after casting such a spell.
“I see…”
A heavy atmosphere settled among the silent knights.
The only sounds filling their surroundings were the pounding of hooves against the earth and the sharp, icy wind.
Far in the distance, they could see a dark speck meeting the horizon.
Until only three days ago, a city boasting a brilliant civilization had stood there.
Tunchara, the capital of the fallen Tuntera Empire.
Reina Hart must have perished along with the city.
The purpose of the search party was to determine whether she was alive or dead, but the knights expected Reina to be dead.
What they were going to confirm now was the noble sacrifice of a hero.
One that would be remembered throughout the history of the Betuzhenia Empire…
“Th-There! Look over there!”
After riding for quite some time, the voice of a knight with exceptional eyesight broke the silence.
The knights followed the direction of his pointing finger.
A gigantic crater, as large as the city that had disappeared.
And at its edge stood a single violet flower.
As they drew closer, the flower became clearer.
No.
It wasn’t a flower.
It was a person standing perfectly still.
And long, pale-violet hair that reached down to her waist.
“…Lady Reina.”
It was Persson, the knight who had always guarded Reina’s back on the battlefield.
Recognizing the familiar figure from behind, Persson was the first to spur his horse forward.
“Lady Reina!”
He shouted her name at the top of his lungs.
Reina Hart turned around.
Her large, elongated silver eyes shimmered like dewdrops. Her slightly drooping eyes were framed by thick lashes, and her fair, clear skin and well-balanced features remained unchanged.
Even her cold, expressionless face was the same.
She was completely uninjured.
Persson dismounted and stood before her.
The city had disappeared only two days ago.
Had she been standing here all this time?
“….”
Reina’s pupils trembled ever so slightly as she looked at Persson.
“A-Are you all right?”
Alarmed by the uneasiness in her expression, Persson asked in surprise.
The Reina he knew had always maintained the same expression, never allowing her emotions to show outwardly.
Reina slowly moved her lips.
As though hesitant to make a sound, she opened and closed them several times.
“I…”
A voice filled with resignation slipped from Reina’s lips, almost like a whisper to herself.
“Am I… really Reina?”
This is inside a novel?
An Do-hwa, who had possessed the body of Reina Hart, the eighteen-year-old archmage, could no longer deny the reality of the situation.
She had transmigrated into a novel.
The novel An Do-hwa had been reading right before she possessed its world.
Strangely enough, she remembered nothing except her own name and the contents of the novel.
She remembered trivial, fragmented things from her everyday life, like walking down the street or buying ice cream.
But anything important refused to come to mind, as though someone had deliberately blocked those memories.
The only other thing she could recall was this.
Just before entering the novel, she had agreed to fulfill someone’s request.
[Protect… her.]
That was a problem too, because even that memory was incomplete.
An Do-hwa stared at the piece of paper before her, pen in hand.
She had started a mind map in an attempt to organize the situation, but it had been stuck on the three characters of her own name, ‘An Do-hwa,’ for thirty minutes.
“I really don’t know anything. And of all people, why did it have to be Reina Hart?”
Reina Hart.
The war hero of the Betuzhenia Empire, whose name was mentioned only in passing throughout the novel.
During the war, the capital of the Tuntera Empire—the homeland of the male protagonist—had been erased by Reina’s magic.
Reina herself was supposed to have died at the same time.
‘Is the reason Reina’s body, which should have been dead, is still alive because I possessed it?’
An Do-hwa recalled the moment she first opened her eyes in this world.
She had been lying inside a gigantic sinkhole, staring up at the blue sky.
Then someone’s memories had forced their way into her mind.
It wasn’t until the sun had set and she had suffered from a splitting headache all day that the influx of memories finally stopped.
An Do-hwa realized that they were the eighteen years of Reina Hart’s memories.
“Are you telling me to live as Reina or something?”
Reina’s memories were clearer than her own.
Clear enough that she had no trouble using magic or even manipulating mana through those memories.
Because of that, after escaping the sinkhole with magic, An Do-hwa had seriously wondered whether she was An Do-hwa or Reina.
It wasn’t until a knight she had never met, yet somehow found strangely familiar, called out to her that she finally realized it.
She was inside the novel.
Knight Commander Persson visited the vanished city every year.
He placed a bouquet of pale-violet flowers resembling her before a massive memorial and mourned Reina Hart.
It had already been fourteen years.
As though introducing a character, a translucent window appeared beside the knight.
It was something An Do-hwa had read in .
“I never dreamed that ‘transmigrating into a novel’ would become a keyword in my life.”
An Do-hwa would now be living Reina Hart’s life, so it seemed more natural to call herself Reina.
Reina leaned her head back against the chair.
Her long, pale-violet hair flowed softly along the curves of the backrest.
The dazzling chandelier of the imperial palace reflected in her clear silver eyes.
She wondered absently how even the lighting looked like something out of a fantasy world as she contemplated what to do next.
What was she supposed to do in this novel?
“Was the thing I was asked to protect the ending? Since the novel was discontinued…”
The novel had gone on an indefinite hiatus right before its conclusion.
In the comments beneath the latest chapter, there had even been rumors that the author had died.
If someone had dragged her into a novel and asked her to protect something…
The most likely answer in this situation was something like, ‘Protect the ending.’
“I wonder what happened before the hiatus.”
Reina recalled the latter part of the novel she had read.
The main villain, the tyrant of the Betuzhenia Empire, was killed by the male protagonist, and the male and female protagonists confessed their feelings for each other.
“The dragon awakens, and the capital of the Tuntera Empire that Reina Hart sent flying is about to return to its original place… That’s where it stopped, I think.”
Reina shifted her gaze toward the blue sky beyond the window.
The capital of the Tuntera Empire, which everyone believed had been destroyed by the archmage, was actually floating high in the sky, frozen in time.
Reina Hart had lifted the entire Tuntera capital into the sky, sacrificing even her own life to do so.
The reason why Reina Hart, the archmage of the Betuzhenia Empire, had made such a choice—
The reason only she knew had been revealed in the latter part of the original novel.
Deep underground, there was a dragon’s lair unknown to humans.
The Tuntera Empire had built its capital directly above it.
Hundreds of years later, without ever imagining that the dragon inside the lair would awaken from its slumber—
The massive city crushed the dragon as it rose.
The dragon shook off the city, emerged into the outside world, and flew toward the vast sky.
Destroying half of the continent and bringing down the Tuntera capital with it.
That was the scene Reina Hart had foreseen the night before.
In other words, half the continent was going to be destroyed by a dragon simply shaking itself after waking up.
Reina Hart had tried to prevent that terrible catastrophe.
She had advised the Tunteran Emperor to abandon the capital, but there was no way the emperor would listen to an enemy.
Believing she had no other choice, Reina Hart lifted the city that was suppressing the dragon’s lair into the sky and died inside the sinkhole.
‘It was too early, though.’
Reina Hart had calculated that the dragon would awaken around this time.
But in reality, the dragon wasn’t supposed to awaken until fourteen years later, when the original story began.
Until then, the Tuntera capital would remain suspended in time, hidden high above in thick, dark clouds.
Imagining the enormous city floating in the sky, Reina once again thought about the ending of the original novel.
‘Once the Tuntera capital is returned to its original place, the male protagonist, Tiernan, will become emperor, right? He was the only member of the imperial family to escape Reina Hart’s magic.’
Tiernan Fargan.
The last surviving imperial of the fallen Tuntera Empire.
While fleeing under a false identity, he was captured by slave traders and spent several years as a slave.
In the end, however, he led an army of surviving Tunteran knights and defeated the Betuzhenia Empire.
The heroine, a duke’s daughter of Betuzhenia, also defeated her father, who had treated her solely as a political tool, and took her place as head of the family.
“Happy ending, happy ending.”
Reina muttered to herself.
Even if the novel had been discontinued, there was no way the story could end unhappily after progressing that far.
The protagonists had overcome every hardship and adversity.
All that remained was for the two of them to live happily ever after, laughing together.
It was obvious even without reading it.
Then what was she supposed to do to make sure that ending happened?
“…Is there anything I actually need to do in the novel right now?”
The original story was still a long way from beginning.
The protagonists were probably still building up their childhood backstories in their respective locations.
Since the original Reina was already dead, there was no reason for her to interfere with their stories.
If anything, the fact that she was alive in Reina Hart’s body was itself the variable.
“Hmm.”
After thinking for a long while, narrowing the space between her neatly drawn eyebrows, Reina finally reached a conclusion.
If her role was to protect the ending—or whatever it was she had been asked to protect—then it would be best to let the future unfold exactly as she remembered it.
So, until the original story began, she should interfere with this world as little as possible.
Especially when it came to the original novel’s established settings.
‘Then I’ll just make sure the story is progressing as it’s supposed to.’
If it looked like the ending was going to deviate from the original, she could step in and play the role of a helper then.
Fortunately, Reina owned a small rural territory called Hibei.
Although she had been born a commoner, the emperor had granted her the land along with the title of Viscount Hart in recognition of her past achievements.
‘I’ll hole up there until the original story begins.’
Reina hummed softly.
Regardless of her mission to protect the ending, she was feeling strangely excited.
For one week, she had been forced to attend lavish welcome banquets held in honor of the war hero who had returned alive.
Then came two weeks of imperial palace training for aspiring mages—a promise that the Reina Hart from before An Do-hwa’s possession had made to the emperor.
After spending a total of three weeks trapped in the imperial palace, she had come to one realization.
‘Being alone is the best.’
Thanks to Reina Hart’s memories, she had no trouble with aristocratic etiquette or conducting magic lessons.
But every time she had to deal with people, she could literally feel her energy being drained in real time.
“It was a month-long training course, so there are two weeks left.”
Reina lightly tapped the armrest.
Since she had decided to interfere as little as possible, she couldn’t let her guard down even inside the imperial palace.
There was a high chance she would encounter two of the novel’s major characters there.
One was the Duke Aspherada, the heroine’s father.
The other was the Fourth Prince.
‘The Fourth Prince needs to be handled even more carefully.’
After all, he was destined to become the main villain of the original story.
At present, he was probably somewhere in one of the imperial palace’s detached residences, enduring all sorts of misfortunes—the sort of miserable backstory commonly handed to future villains.
‘But whatever.’
What did any of that have to do with her?
That was simply how the original setting was.
At least, that was what Reina thought.
