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CHAPTER 01
“I could kneel a hundred times, a thousand times, if that’s what it takes to have him. Pride? I can throw that away too. So give him to me. Otherwise…”
Lumiere continued, holding a sharp fruit knife to her own throat.
“I’ll kill myself.”
·
·
“Wow. I wrote it myself, but this is seriously pathetic.”
Kang Ye-rin muttered as she stared at her monitor.
Who was that woman waving a knife around and threatening to kill herself?
She was none other than the protagonist of her own novel.
Lumiere von Wizer.
The daughter of a dancer from a distant foreign land, she was an imperial princess in name only, with neither the emperor’s favor nor the support of her maternal family.
And yet, for a female protagonist, all she could do to her romantic rival was threaten her to break up with the man she loved.
In her own way, it was a desperate struggle to take the man she loved away from her rival and avoid being forced into a political marriage with a barbarian.
‘The problem is that none of it works.’
“Sob… I understand. I’ll break up with him, so please… stop.”
The romantic rival, who had tearfully promised to break up with him, would send a letter a short while later announcing her engagement.
[I’m sorry, Your Highness. I’m getting engaged to him. I tried to break up with him, but he wouldn’t let me go.]
After receiving that letter, the heroine would fall into despair and choose suicide.
Even that attempt would fail, and only after she was sold off in a political marriage to a barbarian would she finally succeed in dying.
That was what was ‘supposed’ to happen.
But ever since the scene where she received that letter, Ye-rin hadn’t been able to write a single word for several months.
‘Is it because both the protagonist and the ending are hopeless?’
If she didn’t like the ending, she could simply change it.
But no matter how hard she racked her brain, she couldn’t imagine a different ending.
As if there were no path other than tragedy.
‘At this rate, will I even be able to finish it?’
Even though she had started writing the novel as a hobby, she still wanted to give it a proper ending.
“Well, I guess it’ll come to me eventually.”
Rubbing her tired eyes, she turned off the computer.
It was already 11 p.m.
She had to get up early for work the next morning, so it was about time to go to bed.
She tidied up her desk and lay down on her bed.
But then…
‘What?’
When she opened her eyes after falling asleep, she saw a ceiling she had never seen before in her life.
The only thing that was the same as before she went to sleep was that she was lying in a bed.
“Ugh…”
She slowly sat up, and a dull ache spread through her body. Her stomach churned as if she were about to throw up.
‘Where am I?’
Ye-rin looked around in confusion.
The wallpaper on the walls was covered with mold in several places.
It was a medieval European-style bedroom containing nothing but a bed and a nightstand.
As she stared blankly at the unfamiliar surroundings, she suddenly felt someone watching her and turned her head.
Blue hair and blue eyes.
A man she had never seen before was looking at her with an incredulous smile.
“It would have been somewhat pitiful if you had actually died. But unfortunately, you’re still alive.”
“Ah…”
She had woken up in an unfamiliar place, and somehow she could naturally understand a language she had never heard before?
‘This is a dream.’
But wasn’t it far too vivid for a dream…?
The throbbing pain.
The nausea.
Even the damp, musty smell of the blankets somehow felt real.
“Did you really think that if Your Highness took that worthless life of yours, I would cancel my engagement?”
Your Highness?
Take her own life…?
The man clicked his tongue and threw a gold-embossed envelope at her.
[I wish to make a promise of unwavering love with one another, and therefore ask that you become a witness to our sacred vows.
Logan del Trovitan · Clora Edburd.]
“This is…”
It was an invitation to an engagement ceremony.
Logan del Trovitan.
Clora Edburd.
They were the man the heroine of her novel had been secretly in love with and her romantic rival.
And this was the exact moment when the heroine, overcome with despair after hearing about their engagement, attempted suicide.
Could it really be that?
“Your Highness will be getting married soon anyway, so don’t waste your energy on something pointless. Just stay quiet until then and leave.”
She absentmindedly stared at the man’s contemptuous eyes while running her fingers over the invitation.
But something was strange.
‘That can’t be right…’
Why did she feel as if she had experienced this situation herself?
The man soon clicked his tongue once more and turned around.
…Thump, thump, thump.
Her heart began to ache ominously.
The man was leaving without another word now that he had finished what he came for.
Ye-rin had seen that back before.
She knew it made no sense, but she was certain she had seen it somewhere before.
‘When have I ever seen this scene…?’
Just as a creeping sense of unease began to rise within her, making her feel that this might not simply be a dream…
Her eyes unconsciously turned toward the mirror hanging on the wall.
White hair flowing down to her waist.
Violet eyes.
A painfully thin body that looked as though it might break if touched, and sunken eye sockets.
The moment she met her own gaze in the mirror,
a sharp pain tore through her mind, and unfamiliar memories began pouring into her head.
“Wipe your tears. People are watching.”
The day her half-brother, who had just ascended to the imperial throne, had dragged her into a banquet hall.
She had stood there like a flower decorating the wall, crying, when a man had handed her his handkerchief.
“…Why are you giving this to me?”
“Her Highness is crying. Should a servant of the Empire really turn away?”
It was the first kindness she had ever received from a man.
The excitement and warmth she had felt at that moment.
“Please, don’t do this…”
“……”
“Duke, please… accept me. You know it too, don’t you? That you’re the only one I have.”
The three years she had spent clinging to him.
The memory of holding a knife to her own throat in front of his lover.
And finally, the last moment of her life, when she was sold to a foreign land and died in despair.
The memories flooded through her like a river, then gradually subsided after a long period of unbearable pain.
“……”
At last, she understood who she had been.
Lumiere von Wizer.
A foolish and pitiful princess who had been looked down upon by the Imperial Family her entire life before taking her own life.
She had been her own past life.
I’ve kept the meaning, sequence, emotional tone, and character details faithful to the original while making the English natural and easy to understand.
