DYBA 01

DYBA

Chapter 01

A warm spring afternoon.

The daughter of the Duke of Eisen, Cierra Eisen, had passed away from an incurable disease.

During the quiet funeral, just before the priest of the Envi Church was to seal the coffin, he recited the final eulogy.

“May Cierra Eisen, who left this world at the young age of 20, rest peacefully in the embrace of Lord Envi.”

With those words, numerous nobles rose to their feet to pay their respects to Cierra. Yet, not a single one truly wept for her.

Only the Duke and Duchess were stealing tears for Cierra’s death.

It was right at that moment.

“Meow.”

Out of nowhere, a single black cat intruded upon the solemn funeral.

The cat passed indifferently by the people staring at it in bewilderment and approached Cierra’s coffin.

*Boing.*

The cat, having tapped the coffin with its front paw, promptly plopped down and sat on it, resting its chin.

In this sudden situation, the priests, who were about to move the coffin to the pre-dug grave, all halted their actions simultaneously.

They couldn’t just shoo this cat away.

“Uh, what should we do, Head Priest?”

“Grr… Of all things, a black cat with red eyes… We have no choice but to wait for it to leave.”

Black cats with red eyes had long been considered sacred animals by all four major religions.

And so, the funeral was temporarily interrupted by the untimely intrusion of the cat.

But this lasted for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour…

After a full two hours had passed, a voice tinged with concern finally erupted.

“The cat is sitting there as if guarding the coffin. Could this be the will of the gods?”
“Seeing the cat so steadfast surely means there’s some significance to this.”
“Hmm. Excuse me, young Duke. Perhaps we should postpone the funeral until tomorrow?”

*Buzz, buzz.*

The quiet funeral swiftly became noisy.

The Duke and Duchess and the temple priests hastily discussed what to do about the funeral in this unforeseen circumstance.

Only one person remained steadfastly staring at the coffin amidst the commotion: Lucien Eisen, Cierra’s half-brother.

‘……What was that?’

His eyebrows twitched upward in puzzlement. For some reason, it seemed like the coffin had shaken faintly.

‘Must be my imagination.’

If the coffin had moved, the cat wouldn’t be sitting there so peacefully, right?

Lucien decided to dismiss it as nothing important. But no sooner had the thought finished than—

*Clunk!*

A sound came from the coffin again. This time, it was loud enough for everyone at the funeral to hear.

“Wh-what was that?”
“Did the coffin just move? For real?”

The buzzing grew louder. Among them, some nobles had turned pale, staggering backward in fear.

“I shall take a look.”
The Head Priest shooed them away and took a step towards the coffin. At that moment, once again—

*CLUNK!!*

The coffin jolted as if lightning had struck from the sky.

“Gasp!”

As if his resolute expression from moments ago had never existed, he too scrambled backward in haste. Amidst the chaotic crowd, the only one remaining composed was the cat sitting on the coffin.

Only when the coffin began to creak and open properly did the black cat finally hop down to the ground.

The moment its two red eyes fully reflected the coffin—

*Swoosh—*
*Squeak—*
*Creeeak—!!!*

With an eerie sound, the coffin opened.

Simultaneously.

“Pwah! Hah, hah… Really, she’s really alive?!”

Cierra Eisen, who had unmistakably been a corpse just moments ago, abruptly sat upright in the coffin, her face perfectly fine.

Moreover.

“Now *this* is even more like a novel?!”

She was even spouting bizarre words while staring eerily into empty space!

Faced with this ghastly, yet somehow mystical scene, the nobles, and even the priests of the Envi Church, were utterly terrified and could only flee.

***

**The day before the incident occurred, Eisen Ducal Mansion.**

I, Cierra Eisen, was diligently in the process of dying.

They say when a person is on the verge of death, their life flashes before their eyes.

“Cierra, my child! Snap out of it! It can’t end like this!”

Along with my mother’s desperate voice, the pain that had once driven me mad had long since become hazy.

Now, what unfolded before my eyes was the life story of me, ‘Cierra Eisen’.

Me, who had always been sick since birth with an incurable disease of unknown origin.
Me, who was ultimately abandoned by the fiancé I loved with all my heart.
Me, who acted viciously towards his beloved, my only friend.
Me, who was briefly happy about a blockbuster novel’s offer for a screen adaptation, only to be hit by a truck and meet my end…?

‘……Huh?’

Wait a minute? Something’s wrong. Since when was there a novel? And what’s this ‘screen adaptation offer’?

Besides, I’m dying from an incurable disease, not from being hit by a truck or something.

Now that I think about it, the appearance of the woman in the life flashback was also strange somehow.

‘Black hair and black eyes.’

I’m a person with silver hair and purple eyes.

‘Is it allowed to show someone else’s life in a life flashback?’

What kind of situation is this?

Forgetting that I had been trembling in fear of death, I made a baffled face.

“Sob, merciful god Envi! Please save Cierra, I beg you!”

‘Mother. Far from saving me, you’re showing me strange things…’

I tried everything to escape this bizarre life flashback, but it all ended in failure.

In the end, I ended up watching the life of some strange woman, not the life of Cierra Eisen.

The woman’s life was somewhat pitiful. Having lost her parents young and shuffled between relatives’ homes, she was thrown into society as soon as she became an adult.

She got accepted into the university she wanted to attend but ultimately gave up on going and chose to get a job instead.

She couldn’t ask her relatives for help anymore, and she was busy finding a rental house to move into immediately.

‘It seems she was being harassed at work.’

Yet, she didn’t quit. Because if she wanted to achieve the dream she had nurtured since childhood, she needed to save money diligently now.

And that dream was…

‘To become a writer.’

She wrote in her spare time while working at the company, but her work never quite reached the point of getting a contract.
She was often rejected for reasons like cliché plot developments or a writing style unsuited for the genre.

But in the year she turned 26.

As if by divine revelation, she wrote a novel based on a dream she had.

The result was an absolute blockbuster! The novel’s success went without saying, and offers for webtoon adaptations poured in from everywhere.

“You did well, me! Who raised you so properly~? It was me! Hehe!”

‘Huh? What…?’

Seeing the woman’s happily laughing face, my heart swelled with emotion without me realizing it. Even though I was dying, the corners of my mouth crept upward.

But that too—

*Screech—*
*CRASH!*

On a bright, sunny afternoon, right after handing in her resignation and while heading home, the moment she clicked on the screen adaptation offer email, a truck that had ignored the traffic signal slammed into her, ending everything.

Seeing the woman’s body floating up amidst the vivid red liquid, I couldn’t help but think:

‘I was finally about to be happy!’

A life buried in hundreds of millions was right within reach, and the unfairness felt like it would kill me.

‘…What the.’

In that instant, I could realize a few things in a flash.

‘This woman was me before my rebirth?’

And.

‘This is the world inside <Eizel: The Saintess’s Men>, isn’t it?!’

The fact was, I had been reborn as a character in the novel I wrote.

And not just any character, but an early-game villainess who, obsessed with one of the sub-male leads, acts viciously towards the heroine and gets eliminated!

‘But what’s the use of remembering this now? I’m dying right now!’

I’ve committed every possible act of malice towards the heroine, and now all that’s left for me is death?

If I had at least lived well and died comfortably, I might not have regretted it.

‘Who dies at a mere 20 years old from an incurable disease?’

I never even set up a terminal illness setting, so why is this hardship happening?

No matter how much of a villainess she is, this is truly too much.

‘I can’t end like this! Is anyone there? Please, someone save me!’

No voice came out, but I pleaded more desperately than ever before in my heart.

Fortunately or unfortunately, gods actually existed in this world. Four of them, no less.

I didn’t care which one, I just hoped one of them would give me a chance.

‘My dream was just to live a long, healthy life as a humble writer!’

Did my desperate plea somehow reach the ears of the gods?