Episode 1
‘I wish I’d wake up in the world of a romance fantasy novel…’
That was the final wish of Ruy ji-ji, a terminal cancer patient from South Korea, living on borrowed time.
I wished for it a hundred, two hundred, three hundred times, and it seems that dream has finally come true.
‘Thank you, God, Buddha, and God the Writer!’
The soft bed and blankets smelled of dry sunlight instead of hospital alcohol, and the thin nightgown was so comfortable I could barely feel I was wearing it. A large crystal chandelier hung right in the center of the luxurious, gold-trimmed ceiling. The headache that felt like someone was sitting on my neck was gone, and my limbs, which had felt damp and limp as if they weren’t mine, now felt light.
“Kyahahahaha!”
I must have laughed a bit too wildly in my joy.
The red chiffon bed curtains were quietly drawn aside, and a prim-looking maid appeared and asked.
“Are you alright, Your Highness?”
Good heavens, this is true success.
‘She’s speaking a language I’ve never heard before, yet I understand everything perfectly!’
Me, Ruy ji!
Those three years I spent lying in bed reading romance fantasies weren’t wasted after all, I tell you.
‘But she said ‘Your Highness’…’
I know I was at death’s door, but it’s not like I’m in a position to be picky. Still, I’d really prefer not to be the protagonist.
Wouldn’t the protagonist’s life be too hard…?
‘So, which country’s princess am I?’
I deliberately didn’t answer, pretending not to have heard the maid’s question, and sure enough, her next words reached my ears.
“Louise… Your Highness?”
Louise?
It’s similar to my name, and I like it!
No, that’s not the point…
‘Louise…’
Who is that? Where have I heard that?
Louise is a pretty but common name.
‘Please, let me be a known extra with no special abilities…!’
To properly figure out this body’s identity, I really needed to look in a mirror.
And the moment I tried to sit up, it happened.
“Ugh.”
A terribly familiar wave of nausea surged up.
‘Good grief, did I possess a terminal patient again?’
My heart raced at the assumption that flashed through my mind.
‘No, not that…!’
I barely escaped that dreadful hospital ward!
I was so overwhelmed that tears welled up in my eyes. The maid in front of me stepped inside the bed and firmly closed the curtains.
Then, lowering her voice to a whisper, she sniffled.
“You’ve been sleeping whenever you could for days, and now even nausea! I swear, Your Highness, you’ll be the death of me!”
Suddenly…?
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?! What are you going to do about this?!”
What? Pregnant?
The maid didn’t seem to need any further confirmation and rapidly fired off more words.
“They say two people go into the academy and three come out, but how could this happen to you, Your Highness! What if His Majesty the Emperor or His Highness Rurik finds out?!”
His Highness Rurik…
Amidst the chaos, that name struck my ears.
‘Rurik Sylderic Frisland Brentania.’
It was a name I knew well enough to remember the full name.
I reopened the firmly closed bed curtains, stepped past the crying maid, and went to find a mirror.
My carefully examined reflection was…
‘Wow, I’m pretty.’
Ah, of course that’s not the important thing right now.
‘Pink hair, blood-red eyes…!’
My reflection in the mirror and the name Rurik were enough to figure out the situation.
I hadn’t possessed a proper romance fantasy novel.
This was inside “The Mad Dog’s Cure,” a draft novel I had scribbled randomly when I was tired from reading all sorts of works.
‘No, why, how…?!’
There are so many decent romance fantasies out there fit for possession!
In the face of this shocking reality, I barely managed to pull myself together.
‘It’s okay. “Mad Dog” is, in its own way, a blackened male lead redemption story.’
Even if Rurik, who is supposedly my biological older brother, is the ‘Mad Dog’ from the novel, it’s not that big of a problem.
Rurik lived his whole life as the Emperor’s dog, handling all sorts of dirty work, but the setting was that he was actually a pitiful character being controlled by a demonic sword.
‘He will soon meet the female lead with divine powers, be saved, and become a new person.’
Him taking revenge on the Emperor who used him was just a bonus.
The problem was me, Louise.
‘Louise is a character who dies right at the start of the novel!’
I quickly recalled the beginning of “Mad Dog” in my head.
‘I remember clearly. No matter how poorly written, it’s a story I wrote myself.’
Louise gets into a carriage accident right after graduating from the academy, just before returning to the imperial capital.
‘But according to the maid, I’ve already graduated and am at the imperial palace…?’
And pregnant, at that.
“W-what do you mean, pregnant?!”
For reasons unknown, the story had already changed.
‘The time for Louise to die has passed, and for me, a terminal patient, shouldn’t I just be grateful to be alive?’
Questions like ‘Where am I, who am I…’ are only possible if you’re alive.
‘Right, if I just survive, I can do anything.’
And it’s not even certain if I really am p-pregnant or not.
“I-I just have a bit of an upset stomach!”
As I vehemently insisted, the maid shed tears like chicken droppings and asked.
“Really? But you haven’t had your monthly courses this month either……”
Darn, is that so?
I was deeply struck by the maid’s pointed remark, but I stubbornly refuted it.
“W-well, if your body isn’t well, it can sometimes happen!”
For example, that’s how it was for me, a terminal patient.
Fortunately, irregular periods seemed not to be my misfortune alone.
“Sob, it’s true they were sometimes late before……”
Seizing the maid’s moment of confusion, I asserted more strongly.
“Of course! If I were p-pregnant, wouldn’t my brother kill me?”
This time, the maid retorted.
“Your mouth isn’t twisted, so you should speak properly, Your Highness. If you get pregnant, you’ll be the only one left alive, and everyone else will die. That includes me, Phoebe Nilo.”
Phoebe Nilo.
‘Whew.’
I just learned the name of the maid who would absolutely never appear in a novel where Rurik is the protagonist.
And Phoebe, who had stopped crying, was a very helpful maid.
“Besides, His Highness Rurik is on his way back right now.”
Right, the story begins with Rurik returning, immediately hearing news of his sister’s death, and going mad.
“If something happens to you at this point, how am I supposed to survive? I’m your shadow who even followed you to the academy!”
Therefore, Phoebe’s words were only half valid.
‘Since Louise is alive, Rurik won’t go on a rampage.’
Maybe this story can’t even start?
‘Ugh!’
At that moment, the nausea tried to surge up again.
‘No, wait. That Rurik guy, even before going mad, had a terrible personality…’
His nickname was ‘Mad Dog’ from the very beginning, according to the setting.
He’s the kind of human who would go completely berserk just from his beloved younger sister being pregnant out of wedlock.
‘What if I really am pregnant? I should have written him to be a bit milder…’
As I regretted it belatedly, Phoebe examined my face suspiciously and said.
“No matter how unfamiliar the mode of travel was, it’s clear your complexion is poor right now, Your Highness. That might also shorten my lifeline, so I think we should call the court physician first.”
Startled by the mention of the court physician, I retorted.
“What would you tell the court physician?”
If I really were pregnant, getting caught by the court physician would lead to no good.
“If strange rumors spread for no reason, it’ll just cast a dark cloud over my marriage prospects.”
Phoebe tilted her head for a moment, as if she found my thinking hard to agree with, but didn’t explicitly refute it and just sighed softly.
“Anyway, you must take good care of your health until His Highness Rurik returns. You know how sharp he is.”
But there’s a bigger problem than Rurik right now.
‘I need to find out if I/she had a boyfriend, and if there’s really a possibility I’m pregnant…!’
“This is driving me crazy!”
After Phoebe left the room, it didn’t take much effort to find traces of the ‘real’ Louise.
Because the drawers were full of letters.
Louise had that many correspondents, and among them, I could clearly identify exactly three names.
‘The first is Crown Prince Ernst of the Kingdom of Flavi.’
He was an extra who was killed simply for having been with Louise when she had her accident.
‘Of course, the setting was that Rurik, having gone mad, was the one who did it.’
As heartbreaking as it was to recall that, the Crown Prince in the letters was affectionate and friendly.
You said you weren’t returning to the imperial capital this break?
If you had told me sooner, I would have adjusted my schedule to match yours.
Now I can’t cancel my trip to Flavi, so I’ll be back as soon as possible.
Sorry for leaving you behind, Lu.
To think a mere extra I just gave a name to had this kind of narrative!
Marveling, I pondered deeply.
‘Even if it’s a small country, the Emperor’s influence must have been at work for the crown prince of another nation to come all the way to the capital to attend the academy.’
But he probably didn’t need to flatter a powerless youngest princess, so his friendship was likely genuine.
‘The second name I know is Callisteon, the Grand Duke of the North, nicknamed ‘the Serpent of Babenberg’.’
Babenberg was set up as the empire’s shield, having blocked invasions from northern barbarians for generations.
‘But Rurik mercilessly wiped out even that Babenberg.’
Although later, the female lead Helena steps in and brokers a peace negotiation with the northern barbarians, if Rurik had left Babenberg alone, it wouldn’t have even been necessary.
But it seems this Callisteon was also close to Louise.
About that desk you saw at the furniture store the other day, I heard it’s the work of Mayolo Tov, a craftsman from Flavi.
However, the width of that desk is broader than others, so space might be an issue.
As your senior, I will notify the dormitory to vacate the adjacent room to expand your room…
As a senior?
‘My, what a wonderful senior he is…’
Ugh. Feeling a wave of nausea, I recalled the next name.
‘The third is the Tower Master, Ren…’
Ren had as little importance as his simple name, making his entrance and exit in a mere single line.
It is said that even the genius of the age, the Tower Master Ren, left this world by Rurik’s sword.
Or something like that?
I took out one of Len’s letters and read it again.
Although it looked more like a crumpled note than a letter.
If the imperial capital finds out I woke up in your room, I’ll be beheaded by the end of the day.
Where did you go without me, Lou? I’m lonely.
Y-you woke up in my room?
Does that mean that night, that, you know, that happened?
‘So, are you the father?
