IGHC 01

Chapter 1

“So, what do you want me to do for you?”
“Marry me?”

I already said it. Marriage.

I stared at him with determined eyes, but the man only looked dumbfounded, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.

“…?”

Marriage?

Yeah, marriage.

His eyes, full of confusion, turned toward me.

…Was that too out of nowhere? Thinking about it again, maybe it was.

No… maybe not “maybe.”

Whenever I got too stressed, I tended to do weird things—like a high school senior losing it right before the college entrance exam—and the more I thought about it, the more this definitely felt like one of those moments.

When I glanced back at those eyes silently waiting for an explanation, my mind rapidly cooled and cold sweat started pouring down my back.

Uh…

Did I mess up again?

The inside of the carriage fell silent, thick with awkwardness.

As the irreparable atmosphere settled in, my sanity slowly returned.

I carefully retraced my thoughts.
What exactly had I just said?

But the more I thought about it, the more hopeless I felt.

In the end, like someone confessing their sins, I clasped my hands together tightly, squeezed my eyes shut, and blurted out:

“It’s not—it’s not like I meant it that way…! Your curse doesn’t work on me, Your Grace, so I thought maybe I’d try seducing you…!”

The more I talked, the worse the situation seemed to become.

Yeah, there’s no fixing this. I’m doomed.

“I mean, um… it seemed like nobody else would marry you, Your Grace… so I approached you. And I wanted to sleep on piles of money at least once in my life…”

I rambled desperately, trying somehow to explain myself, but the more I spoke, the more I felt like I was exposing myself as complete trash.

“……”

No, but listen—if I had to defend myself a little, I at least expected some kind of “Oh my!” reaction, even if I wasn’t treated like the heroine.

But then you suddenly reacted weirdly, and before I knew it I’d blurted out, “Would you marry me?”
Sob.

I muttered excuses internally to absolutely no one.

The nonstop nonsense festival was making me dizzy.

Have you ever seen a romance fantasy where the heroine proposes to the guy she’s trying to seduce and then immediately starts confessing her sins?

No?
Yeah, me neither.

What am I even doing?

“I’m sorry. I think I temporarily lost my mind. Just forget I said anything—”

After desperately spilling words for what felt like forever, something suddenly felt strange.

Why wasn’t he reacting at all?

In a situation like this, shouldn’t he at least look disgusted? Or horrified? Anything?

But there wasn’t even the sound of breathing.

I narrowed my eyes.

“Your Grace?”

His eyes stared blankly ahead, unfocused. Seeing the completely motionless man suddenly made me anxious.

Excuse me, I just proposed and then confessed all my ulterior motives. Please say something…

With growing unease, I carefully placed a finger beneath his nose.

Oh no.

“Your Grace! Breathe! Your Grace!!”

Mom, he’s not breathing. Sob sob sob.

First the confession, then knocking the male lead unconscious—what kind of sitcom is this?

…Though honestly, I’d like to know that too. But to explain everything, we need to go back a few days earlier.

“Haa…”

A short sigh escaped my lips without me realizing it.

“Selly, what’s wrong?”

Hearing me sigh, Daisy set down the embroidery cloth she’d been working on and looked at me.

I met her bright, curious eyes and answered vaguely.

“I’m just wondering what I’m supposed to do to survive in the future, milady.”

At that, the lovely heroine smiled brightly.

“But I’m going to support you anyway, Selly. Why worry?”

“How many years do you plan to keep me working as a maid? My goal is to become a rich unemployed person.”

I repeated the worn-out dream that had practically become a catchphrase by now, and Daisy’s eyes sparkled as she sprang from her seat.

“Then put down the rag and come sit over here!”

“No thanks!”

“See? I offer to make you a rich freeloader and you still refuse.”

Her grumbling voice was full of sincerity and disappointment. I gave a bitter smile and sighed again.

“Enough, enough. Just focus on your romance life.”

“Romance is romance. Besides, you don’t even want to get married anyway. Why can’t you just live with me forever?”

Seriously, rich people! They say things like that so casually…!

I ignored the same old conversation we’d been having for years and changed the subject.

“Please finish that embroidery already, miss. How many days until the Crown Prince returns? Stop slacking off.”

At my words, Daisy’s eyes wavered.

After glancing at the clock, she quietly pushed the embroidery aside.

“…Ren would still love a plain white handkerchief if I gave it to him.”

“Oh really? Then where did the girl who demanded every thread in the store go?”

“Stop teasing me.”

Even when we both pouted the exact same way, she looked adorable while I looked annoying. Was it the face? Yeah, probably the face.

This is why heroines are…

“Well then, this pitiful maid will get back to work.”

“Where are you going now?!”

“I said I’m going to work.”

So long.

I saluted with two fingers against my forehead and gave her a wink before quickly escaping the room before she could stop me again.

Not that I actually had work to do.

But I couldn’t help the slight bitterness twisting inside me.

Haah… wouldn’t it be nice if money just fell from the sky?

So, where should I start?

My name is Selus.

And my original name was Min Ji-eun.

Anyone who’s read this far has probably figured it out already.

Yes. I got transmigrated.

Into an otome game, no less.

The heroine was also supposed to be a Korean girl who transmigrated into the fantasy world—but instead of becoming the heroine, I ended up possessing some unnamed extra character fighting for scraps beside her.

Seriously, how can someone be this unlucky? That someone is me…

The game was called Palace of the Sun.
A typical romance fantasy game where a Korean girl transmigrates into a fantasy world and steals the hearts of handsome male leads while juggling multiple love interests.

You think the story sounds cliché? Well, clichés are clichés because people love them. Why do you think people keep watching trashy soap operas while complaining about them?

But me? Of all things, I possessed a seven-year-old orphan kid.

Straw-colored hair. Moderately bluish eyes. The kind of face you could throw into any crowd and never notice again. Not ugly, but also not pretty enough for anyone to confidently call attractive. In a manga, I’d probably be one of those background extras walking behind the protagonist for a single panel.

Back in Korea, I couldn’t exactly say I lived comfortably, but I’d still managed to overcome my rough past and support myself well enough to enjoy my hobbies.

But when I opened my eyes, my cozy studio apartment was gone. Instead, I’d become a skinny orphan child living in some filthy, rundown orphanage.

Of course I thought it was a dream.

But even after sleeping and waking up again, nothing changed.

“Our house… is in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province,” I remember thinking. “Where am I? Who am I?”

Min Ji-eun’s childhood had already been miserable enough, so why was I being forced to relive another horrible childhood stuffed into some orphanage where I barely survived day to day? Could someone please explain?

I spent an entire week crying and denying reality, my mental state completely shattered. But no matter how many times I slept and woke up, nothing changed.

Eventually, I had no choice but to accept this as reality.

After pulling myself together and gathering information, I soon realized this world was the very game I used to play.

And my first thought was:

“If you were going to transmigrate me, you could’ve at least made me the heroine!”

Damn it.

“Selus, could you take this to Madam?”

“Yep yep.”

I’d been hiding in a corner of the kitchen chewing on leftover jerky when Head Cook Mae handed me an errand.

Since I didn’t have anything else to do, I tucked the pretty basket full of steaming food under my arm and left the kitchen.

“Selus, take this too.”

“Yep.”

Holding a small glass bottle in my other hand, I let out another deep sigh.

Anyway, the method I chose to survive after transmigrating into a non-heroine extra was simple:

Stick myself to the heroine.

Palace of the Sun—or Sun Palace for short—was surprisingly well-made for a niche otome game in Korea.

Amazing illustrations. A soundtrack overflowing with orchestral instruments. Even fully voiced male leads.

And yes, this is probably the time to confess something else:

I was a hardcore otaku. A real one.

I loved the main male lead, Lenox Alpenheim, so much that I replayed the game dozens of times purely to hear his voice.

I had the main story completely memorized. I could even recite the exact dates events occurred in the game.

You think I’m exaggerating?

Have you never obsessed over idols? Never binged web novels all day long? Otherwise, why are you even reading this?

This game didn’t even let you skip the opening movie! Of course I memorized it after watching it dozens of times!

Ah, I got sidetracked again.

Anyway, because of that, I knew everything—from the heroine’s backstory to the exact moment Lenox first met Daisy and the points where he started falling for her.

“Selly, where’s the young miss?”

“She was in her room thirty minutes ago.”

So what do you think I did after ending up inside the game?

Obviously, I chose the option that seemed most likely to keep me alive:

Watching my favorite male lead and second-favorite heroine fall in love in real time!

I gathered the tiny savings I’d been hoarding to buy candy, hid myself in the corner of a cargo wagon, and stubbornly headed toward the orphanage where the heroine used to live.

After starving for days and finally arriving there, I don’t even remember much of what happened next.

But apparently, the moment I found the heroine, I shouted, “I transmigrated too!” and then immediately collapsed.

Fortunately, the orphanage she lived in didn’t properly manage its list of children, so hiding one extra kid wasn’t difficult.

That was how I secured a place beside the heroine.

…Looking back, what kind of insane recklessness was that? I didn’t even have a plan.

Shoving the memory of my idiotic younger self out of my mind, I finally arrived at my destination.

I knocked on Madam’s door three times, silently counted to three, and opened it.

“Madam, Mae told me to bring these to you.”

“Oh my, thank you.”

“It’s nothing. It’s my job.”

Yeah.
My job.

My reflection in the window showed the blank face of an utterly ordinary maid without a single distinctive feature.

A bitter laugh escaped me.

No dreams. No hope. Not even a future.

Just an insignificant maid, struggling through life as a mediocre extra in a game world, with no idea how long I’d even survive here.

That was who I was now.