Chapter 04
1. When the Family Collapses, Society Collapses, and the Empire Collapses (2)
The sound alone made her happy, and Selena rolled the Korean words over her tongue in return.
“I’m Korean. I was born here, so my body’s from this world, but my soul is Korean.”
The five years she had spent shut inside the Mage Tower, killing time by singing Flying Goose and Romantic Puppy whenever she got bored, hadn’t been for nothing. Korean flowed out of her naturally.
Reassured by Selena’s answer, the Empress’s eyes filled with tears.
“I’m Korean too. I woke up inside this body ten years ago.”
“Wait—then you’re a possessor too?”
“Yes. You said you were born here, so that means you reincarnated, right?”
Selena nodded happily.
A possessor from the original dimension!
Wasn’t that exactly the one thing her dimensional transfer magic circle had been missing? A person who could act as a coordinator. This was nothing short of a gift from the heavens.
Selena tightly clasped the Empress’s hands.
“Sorry to say this when we haven’t even known each other for ten minutes, but… don’t you want to go home? I have a dimensional transfer magic circle I made while shitting blood. If we use it, we can go back to Earth!”
“Gasp—really? I want to go!”
The instant agreement, without even three seconds of hesitation, left Selena both satisfied and puzzled.
Setting aside the emperor’s insane orders, as an empress and former noblewoman, she should’ve been living comfortably. And yet she agreed so readily.
And ten years wasn’t a short time.
Unless you were a special case like Selena, she must’ve formed attachments here.
Yet she wanted to leave this eagerly. Unexpected.
“Let’s go right now! Earth! Korea! Sweet home!”
Seeing the Empress bouncing with excitement and anticipation, Selena decided to shelve her questions for now and calm her down.
“We can’t go immediately. It’s hard to build a large-scale magic circle inside the Empire, so I made it in the Starry Desert. We’ll need to go there. And we’ll need some magic stones to reactivate it.”
“Ah…”
Disappointment spread across the face of the most beautiful woman in this world, making Selena feel guilty.
“It’s okay. We’ll teleport around while preparing. It won’t take long.”
“But we need magic stones… and because of me, the Empire will be chasing you. Buying them won’t be possible anymore.”
“Even without you, I was already planning to run because the Empire annoyed me. Don’t feel bad. And magic stones? I’ve got a hidden magic stone mine, so don’t worry.”
A mine in the northern Frost Mountains she’d discovered after struggling desperately to avoid suspicion of building war weapons.
She’d nearly died finding it, but success was what mattered.
As Selena reassured her with illegally obtained assets, the Empress looked impressed.
“You hid a magic stone mine? If that gets discovered, it’s a death sentence.”
“Haha. One illegal mine is nothing. Why do you think I became the youngest Archmage? I’ve got the skills.”
“That’s insane.”
“Anyway, let’s go inside. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
“Yes!”
The villa’s reception room showed signs of long disuse, but there was no dust. Whoever managed the place did their job well. Hiring them for good money had been the right call.
Satisfied, Selena sat at the tea table with the Empress.
“Want some tea?”
“Um… don’t you have alcohol?”
Oh, she knows what’s up. Beyond the joy of meeting someone from home, Selena felt a personal fondness growing as she took out two bottles of wine she’d kept carefully stored in a silver case.
Clinking large wine glasses cheerfully, the two finally began telling the stories they’d never been able to share with anyone.
“What’s your real name, Unni?”
“Kim Sena. ‘Selena Kim’ was taken from my Korean name. I was an orphan anyway, so I just named myself.”
“My name here was Aria Loderfel… Els—Elsaik…”
Trailing off, the Empress soon firmed her expression and corrected herself.
“Forget my name here. I’m Geum Gayeon. Please call me Gayeon.”
“Alright. Call me Selena. It came from my real name anyway, and I’m more used to it now.”
Geum Gayeon. Gayeon. A pretty name. Selena silently repeated it before asking—
“I had no idea you were a possessor. Our timelines overlap a bit, but not perfectly.”
If Selena remembered correctly, Geum Gayeon was currently twenty-three.
She said she’d possessed the body ten years ago, meaning the count’s daughter had been only thirteen at the time.
Selena had been twenty-three then, pouring everything into dimensional magic research.
By the time Gayeon was old enough to enroll in the academy and move around socially—about five years ago, when she turned eighteen—
That was when Selena had realized she lacked a coordinate for dimensional transfer and shut herself away in the Mage Tower.
Their timing had narrowly missed each other.
Even if Selena hadn’t gone into seclusion, she likely wouldn’t have met a duke’s daughter at the academy anyway. Unless it was the young duke himself, there was no overlap.
Even if they’d met at a party by chance, there’d be no way to know each other’s identities.
They wouldn’t exactly be wearing name tags saying “Reincarnator” and “Possessor.”
“Same here. I suspected something because of the card gacha, but I heard the creator was an archmage, so I brushed it off.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Well… you know. Archmages kind of have this image of being eccentric geniuses who do weird things.”
Gayeon scratched her head awkwardly.
Web novel influence. Selena immediately understood.
Honestly, it was thanks to web novels she’d read in her past life that Selena had accepted reincarnation and possession so quickly herself.
“Right. Archmages are overpowered, self-willed, eccentric beauties.”
They smiled at each other, instantly understanding.
This was what empathy was. A shared cultural background and mindset. Feeling something she’d long buried, Selena felt genuinely happy for the first time in a long while.
“When I first reincarnated, I thought it was kind of fascinating. But this world is such garbage that I couldn’t get attached. I had too many regrets. It’s also incredibly boring. So I tried to cross dimensions with magic.”
“So that’s why you wanted dimensional travel.”
“Yeah. But why do you want to go back so badly? I’m thrilled, but I thought you’d have at least some attachment here, especially since you’re married. I didn’t expect you to agree instantly.”
“The reason is… hmm. It’s probably better if I start from the beginning.”
Letting out a deep sigh, Geum Gayeon told her story.
“I was an orphan too, with no friends, just working part-time nonstop. I didn’t really want to go back. I felt sorry for this girl, but I didn’t choose to possess her, and I didn’t know how to undo it. So I decided to adapt and live properly.”
Selena didn’t blame her.
Gayeon hadn’t chosen to enter someone else’s body, and without a way to return it, deciding to live on was only natural.
At least she’d possessed a noble’s body, but that too was sheer luck.
If she’d possessed someone with no backing, wandering helplessly like Selena had as a child… She might have died or worse. The thought brought back uncomfortable memories, and Selena clicked her tongue.
All things considered, it was fortunate Gayeon had possessed a noble.
But even so, she’d clearly had her share of hardship.
“I really tried my best to live well at first… but her family turned out to be trash!”
“What? Really? I heard the Loderfel family was pretty upright by noble standards.”
Gayeon ground her teeth.
“They’re not upright, they’re just rude! You know how the Loderfel daughter was sickly as a child, right?”
Draining her wine in large gulps, Gayeon slammed the glass down with a clink.
“They hated her for being sick! I mean, if Aria had abused servants, that’d be one thing!”
The Empress of the Empire, Aria Elsaik.
Or formerly, Aria Loderfel.
Now discarding both names and returning to Geum Gayeon, she finally vented the anger she’d never been able to voice.
“I felt bad about taking her body, even unwillingly, so I planned to treat them as well as I could.”
Her vivid blue eyes trembled violently.
“But because she was sick and snapped sometimes while lying in bed, they met me and immediately said things like, ‘How long are you going to lie around?’ and ‘Why were you even born?’ Ha! I almost screamed at them to fuck off. Thank god I couldn’t speak Korean out loud yet, even if I understood the language automatically!”
The young Duke Loderfel. She wouldn’t have expected that. Guess all his character went into his looks and talent.
Once again reminded that appearances meant nothing, Selena shook her head.
Before going into seclusion, Selena had once met the young duke and his younger brother. Decent faces, whispers everywhere about the “fair and upright Ice Knight,” so she’d assumed they were rare nobles whose looks matched their character.
To think they’d mistreat someone precious—her fellow countrywoman, a Korean, and a walking coordinate back to Earth.
Selena vowed to punish them with magic if she ever met them again.
“You suffered a lot. They’re bastards.”
“Waaah… Unni, but those guys were the better ones…”
