Chapter 21
Princess Arines gulped down the fresh water her maid had just brought, wiped her mouth with her sleeve, and sprang to her feet.
“Jiana, you’re a mage, right? Perfect timing. I’m working on something these days, but it needs a power source to run. Could you feed it some magic? If the design’s wrong, I’ll have to rebuild it from scratch.”
She shoved the thing she had been fiddling with on the table into my hands.
“What is this?”
“A machine that blows wind, I guess? I really hate the heat, and summers in the Tian Kingdom are sweltering. So I made this.”
I took the object she handed me and examined it carefully.
‘Looks just like a pinwheel… but she says it needs a power source?’
While I was inspecting it closely—
“Ooh, is there a dragon inside?”
The princess, who had sidled up next to me, poked at the bag I was carrying.
From inside, Gari, who had been sleeping, stuck his head out irritably.
“Who dares disturb my precious nap?”
“Oh my, how adorable! And this little baby dragon was the one occupying the central seas and throwing its weight around?”
“Who are you to call the mighty me adorable, you insolent huma—mph!”
Princess Arines plucked Gari out of my bag in one swift motion, hugged him tight against her chest, and rubbed her cheek against him.
“If I had known you were this cute, I’d have gone hunting you myself!”
“Hah! Even a human I’ve never met recognizes my cuteness.”
“Of course. Oh my, and you talk so well too. Whoever dares say you’re not cute—bring them to me! I’ll punish them!”
“There is such a human, you know. Some duke-this-or-that, utterly detestable fellow.”
In no time at all, the princess and Gari hit it off.
While the two of them giggled and cuddled, I continued to examine the object she’d given me.
‘Hmm…? Isn’t this just a fan?’
The craftsmanship was a bit crude and flimsy due to lack of proper materials, but this was unmistakably a fan. The same kind of electric fan from the modern world.
How on earth did the princess know about this? Did she find some kind of blueprint?
‘Now that I think of it, there are other strange things.’
Princess Arines had spoken as if she knew dragons well.
She had asked who had told me about a dragon’s weakness, as though it was supposed to be a big secret.
But in this world, no one knows a dragon’s weakness—except me, the author of The Song of the Sad Sea.
And yet she knew?
What’s more…
‘I would have used coarser salt. That way the seasoning soaks in better and tastes nicer.’
She had even commented knowingly on grilled king prawns with salt.
But grilled king prawns with salt don’t exist in this world. Yet she had suggested an alternative cooking method, meaning she already knew the dish.
My eyes fell on the table strewn with blueprints. Amid the messy pile, one note in the corner caught my attention.
[Fan. Need a power source to replace electricity.]
My suspicion about Princess Arines was quickly solidifying into certainty.
I stood, and walked toward the princess—still happily playing with Gari.
“Princess Arines.”
“Hm? Already done looking? Can you infuse it with magic?”
Gari, clearly fond of her, had spread his wings and was fanning her.
“I just have one question. It may sound a little rude, but please bear with me.”
“What question?”
Sensing the tension, Gari stopped fanning.
The princess set him back on the table and looked at me seriously. Swallowing hard, I asked:
“You… you’re Choi Dahye, aren’t you?”
The air around us froze instantly. Princess Arines’ eyes widened as she stared at me, motionless, not even breathing.
Only the sound of Gari’s eyes rolling back and forth between us filled the silence.
Now sure of myself, I drove in the nail.
“Dahye. It’s really you.”
“…Who are you?”
Her voice dropped into a cold, wary tone.
“Who are you, to know me? How did you infiltrate all the way here?”
“No need to be so defensive. I’m Seo Hayun.”
“Seo… Hayun?”
“Yes. The co-author of The Song of the Sad Sea. The one who created this world with you—Seo Hayun.”
“Wait!”
The princess slammed her palms on the table and in an instant closed the distance between us.
“Where did we first meet?”
“In the humanities building study room at Korea University.”
“Favorite café?”
“The red-roofed one in the second alley behind the back gate. You always had an Americano, no matter how cold, and I had decaf chocolate latte.”
“T-Then… how does this novel end?”
“Originally, with the Tower Master sealing the dragon in the sea.”
“Y-you…”
Her face twisted briefly—then she burst into loud sobs.
“You really are Seo Hayun! You wretch, where the hell have you been hiding all this time? Do you know how scared I was?”
“You don’t look all that scared—you’ve been living pretty comfortably. Honestly, I didn’t expect you to be reincarnated here with me either.”
“You awful girl! Rotten girl!”
Princess Arines—no, Choi Dahye—ignored my words and pummeled my shoulder with her fists while bawling.
“Did you think it was fine to just eat well and live well on your own? While you were playing hero, slaying dragons, I was stuck in this cramped, gloomy palace, unable to do anything…”
“Hold on.”
I cut her off, utterly dumbfounded.
“You say I lived well on my own? Stuck, unable to do anything?”
“Hic. What… why?”
“From what I see, you’ve been eating whatever you want, doing whatever you please, and living in luxury!”
I snatched up one of the blueprints and thrust it in front of her face.
“Even here, you couldn’t give up your old habits—you’re trying to build a fan? How many times did I tell you, you’ve got no talent for science?!”
“B-but it’s fun…”
“While you’ve been hiding in a cool palace, eating food others brought you, and enjoying your hobbies, I was unlucky enough to cross paths with that damned duke—got stuck in an unfair contract, exploited for labor, forced to play dragon-slayer knight! Do you know how much I suffered?”
At my outburst, her tears dried up instantly.
We spent some time catching up.
Arines explained:
“When I came to, I was already in the palace. People kept calling me ‘Princess, Princess.’ I was so shocked, you know?”
“At least you had the luck to become a princess and live in comfort. I landed on some no-name island girl, stuck digging clams for survival!”
The whim of the gods—or maybe their bias.
Why did Choi Dahye get to possess the heroine, while I got shoved into a nobody?
“Not even a single mention of Jiana in the novel. I had never heard the name, didn’t know the place, and my so-called mother kept nagging me about not bringing home clams. I suffered so much!”
“But you know, Hayun, being an island girl suits you? Like, ‘Clam-queen of the shore’? Totally perfect!”
“Don’t mock me.”
I smacked Dahye—Princess Arines—on the back, but she only laughed.
Meanwhile, Gari, buzzing about in confusion at our conversation, eventually gave up and slipped back into my bag.
“But hey, Arines.”
“What, oh noble hero?”
“Why didn’t you follow the original plot?”
I meant: why hadn’t she shown up to meet the Duke?
Because The Song of the Sad Sea was supposed to begin with the princess and the duke meeting by chance. Without that, the story never even starts.
“Why didn’t you go to meet him? In the original, the princess sees the duke and falls for him at first sight.”
“Ugh… sorry, Jiana. Honestly, Duke Rupellen was your type, not mine. Totally not my cup of tea.”
Princess Arines scrunched her face and shook her head firmly.
