“This life will be over in just two months.”
I stretched my arms and flopped onto the lawn.
My body was exhausted from wrestling with laundry all day, but my mind felt fresh.
It had been a full four years and ten months.
I had entered as a maid in Seongnae at the age of thirteen, and now I was seventeen.
And of all things, the timing was terrible. Why did I have to be possessed right after starting as a maid?
If it had happened just one day earlier, I would never have made this choice.
With no formal education or special skills, the fastest way for me to earn money in a short time was this path—but nothing in the world is more important than one’s life.
The thought that my original body’s owner would consider working in such a den of trouble was either fearless recklessness or sheer stupidity.
What should I do once I leave?
Even though there were still two months left, I was already imagining a radiant future.
I had saved a fair amount of money through diligence and frugality, so perhaps I could go on a scenic trip with my grandmother.
“Hey, you careless thing! Noodle shop, my foot! Stop daydreaming and make some dumplings already!”
I could already picture my grandmother’s fuming expression.
While others occasionally closed their shops for holidays, Lady Sin-geum never took a single day off.
To drag my grandmother out of this den, I would need an incredible amount of effort.
If persuasion didn’t work, I would have to leave alone—but for some reason, my sense of loyalty made it difficult to take that step.
After all, it was thanks to Lady Sin-geum that I was living in one piece today.
I, an ordinary office worker from South Korea, had suddenly been thrown into a martial arts novel.
I had simply fallen asleep reading the book, and when I opened my eyes, I had become someone else.
To go from a twenty-five-year-old adult to a thirteen-year-old girl… imagine that feeling.
Now I knew this world was the universe of the novel I had read, but at first, I had no idea.
Because I had never been mentioned in the story—not even as a minor character or extra.
I only came to understand the reality of this world thanks to Lady Sin-geum.
Thrown into a completely foreign environment, I was, to put it mildly, nearly panicked.
Amidst this, I somehow managed the maid work, which in retrospect seems almost commendable.
Even though my mind was elsewhere, someone assigned me tasks, and my instincts whispered that I should not make a fuss but quietly do my job.
Fortunately, since I had just started, I could fumble without being severely scolded.
About a week later, Lady Sin-geum came to see me. The moment she saw me, she smacked my back with her toad-like hands.
“Hey! Didn’t I tell you to visit home every five days? You’ve become a maid in Seongnae and already ignoring your grandmother’s orders? Is this how I raised you?!”
“…Grandmother?”
“What’s with that look? Have you forgotten my face already?”
Seeing my shock, Lady Sin-geum grabbed the back of my neck in disbelief. She dragged me along, holding my earlobes.
Whether there had been prior arrangements or not, no one stopped us.
When we got home, my grandmother, who had appeared terrifyingly ready to punish me, had a face that had lost some of its severity, and she prepared meat for me.
She asked if I truly needed to work as a maid, insisting that my body was still strong and that feeding me alone would be enough. She tried to convince me to quit.
I got the gist.
That I had taken on the maid job to help the grandmother who raised me.
That I had broken the promise to come home because of my possession.
“Alright, I can’t quit immediately. Since I signed a contract, I have to honor it.”
Having just been possessed, I had no words, so I simply lowered my head. My grandmother spoke with emphasis, as if to make sure I remembered.
“But be careful, very careful. Meeting the Patriarch is almost impossible, but there’s always a ‘what if.’ And you must never encounter the others—especially Il-gongja Jeok Wi-baek. If you get noticed, even a scratch could mean death. Understood?”
Before I could even wonder what “getting hurt” meant, my mouth asked another question.
“Jeok Wi-baek?”
The name sounded familiar. It belonged to one of the characters I had read about in the martial arts novel the night before waking up in this world.
“Could it be that you’ve already seen him?”
“Ah, no.”
I shook my head reflexively, and my grandmother emphasized again.
“He is infamous for his cruelty. He hasn’t officially become the heir yet, but for now, he’s the strongest candidate for the junior sect leader. Ordinary people like us should never catch his attention. If you do, you must lower yourself completely. Did you understand me?”
It wasn’t hard to understand, but my mind went blank for a moment.
Il-gongja Jeok Wi-baek.
Junior sect leader candidate.
Next Great Cheonma (Heavenly Demon).
Even just these few facts gave me a sense of where I had landed.
But faced with a reality I wanted to deny, I clasped my hands and asked.
“Do you know the names of the other Gongjas too?”
“Are you asking about Jeok?”
Damn.
I couldn’t help but curse under my breath.
“…Then Sam-gongja must be Jeok Hwi-gyeom…”
“So you’ve memorized all the Gongjas’ names just because you became a maid in Seongnae?”
No, I hadn’t. I had just recalled it from the book I read last week. I had enjoyed it very much…
The sky seemed to darken as though reflecting my mood.
Even waking up in a young girl’s body had not terrified me this much.
Of all the novels, why this one?!
I had to summon superhuman strength just to avoid collapsing.
Could it be a dream?
I tried to hope so, but everything around me was too real.
The clean but old shop, the faint scent of meat in the air, the pork I chewed and swallowed.
After all, humans need to eat well, and my grandmother kept shoving pieces of meat into my mouth.
I couldn’t spit them out and chewed them obediently while recalling the novel’s title.
Cheonma Gangrimrok (天魔降臨錄)
In short, the story was simple.
The birth of the strongest Cheonma in the history of the Demon Sect.
As usual for the Demon Sect, the new Cheonma sought dominion over Central Plains and surprisingly succeeded in unifying the martial world.
The righteous, the heretical, and the Demon Sect—these forces had always clashed, but none had been united under one banner… until Jeok Igeon appeared.
The original novel’s protagonist, Jeok Igeon, was a devil incarnate.
Though Jeok Wi-baek, whom my grandmother warned me about, was evil too, he was tame compared to Jeok Igeon.
When displeased, Jeok Igeon killed subordinates for merely noticing him, strangled a woman who bore his child for insolence—an insane psychopath.
The story began with him slaughtering his father and brothers to ascend as Cheonma.
Until then, he had hidden his true nature and waited.
Minions naturally obey the strong.
Though he committed atrocious acts, no one opposed the Cheonma. Many even praised his choices.
Thus, the novel’s opening chapter targeted the Kunlun Sect as the first victim and advanced into the Central Plains.
With innate talent and effort surpassing human limits, Jeok Igeon swept through the martial world.
Cheonma Gangrimrok captivated readers with the protagonist’s overwhelming martial prowess and exhilarating, fast-paced story.
It showed that even the story of an evil character could be fascinating.
But that was fiction. If it became reality, everything would be different. Fear would rule.
‘I must remain as invisible as possible.’
Fortunately, I had been possessed long before the novel began.
A maid contract in Seongnae lasted five years. My goal was to endure and eventually leave the Demon Sect.
Without a way to return home, I had to survive here. I must avoid Jeok Igeon at all costs.
I would not die needlessly.
Just two months left.
‘Two months, and I can get out!’
I looked up at the blue sky and resolutely steeled my mind once again.
Then came So-ok’s voice.
“Seol-ha! What are you doing here? Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you?”
“Why? Is something wrong?”
So-ok was a friend my age, a bit clumsy and high-maintenance, but kind-hearted and gentle.
“You’re really lucky, you know? I just heard that you’ve been assigned as the personal maid for Il-gongja! Everyone is so jealous, it’s chaos!”
“What…? That can’t be! Why me?”
I leapt up in shock. My heart pounded like a hammer. The news was so sudden that my mind went blank.
“Well, maybe it’s because you do your job meticulously. At our experience level, it’s possible. But why do you look so unhappy?”
Of course I was unhappy!
I had been struggling to avoid that place!
The cleaning duties in Seongnae rotated periodically. Naturally, I had to serve in Il-gongja’s quarters eventually, but I had dodged it each time, swapping shifts with other maids to avoid any chance of being seen.
At that time, Jeok Igeon was still hiding his true nature, so many maids were willing to swap.
He was said to be extremely handsome—the top beauty of the school. Though I hadn’t seen him, other maids’ stories confirmed it.
No one had ever refused to swap, especially since I took on their grueling laundry in exchange.
I had managed to slip by like a slippery fish, and yet now they were calling me his personal maid?
I would rather die than allow it.
“I need to see Lady Gwak!”
Lady Gwak was the equivalent of the head maid.
I ran madly toward her quarters.
The sky, which had been bright and sunny moments ago, now poured rain.
The raindrops felt like an ominous premonition of the misfortune to come, and a sense of foreboding wrapped around me.
