CHAPTER 01……………………………………………
Elian Schnirellia Felioten.
Age eighteen.
A young noblewoman of a count’s family who had just completed her coming-of-age ceremony.
Her beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes made anyone who saw her feel fond of her. Though she was merely the daughter of a count who had not even entered high society, her reputation was widely known even in the capital.
Elian’s specialty was business acumen. Every venture she touched became a massive success.
If she invested in mining, gold ore or diamonds would be unearthed. If she invested in real estate, land prices would inevitably skyrocket. When she managed farmland, three consecutive years of bumper harvests followed, leaving grain in surplus—while strangely, everywhere else suffered poor harvests, forcing the imperial family to buy all that grain at five times the usual price.
People lavished praise on this young lady who could see what others could not.
A dazzling appearance, immense wealth, foresight that could predict the future—and on top of that, the dignity and character expected of a noble. As the years passed, her reputation only grew higher.
Yes, of course it would.
But what if all of that were a lie?
“Rudia! Are you listening to me?”
A high-pitched voice rang in my ears, jolting me awake. When I lifted my gaze, I saw a gorgeously dressed girl whose outfit screamed ‘Wow, someone really threw money at that’. She was frowning, her brows knitted tightly.
She snapped her fan shut with a smack! and leaned forward.
“Why are you so spaced out today? Are you sick? Huh?”
Could you shut up for a second? I need to figure out what’s going on.
“Rudia?!”
At the urgent call as I rose from my seat, I turned my head slightly. Staring straight into the girl’s blue eyes, I muttered one word.
“…Emergency diarrhea.”
“Huh?!”
Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I stared blankly at my reflection. The mirror couldn’t be wrong, but I wondered if there was some kind of trick to it, so I rubbed the surface for a long time.
The sensation under my fingers felt perfectly real, and when I pinched my cheek, the pain was vivid. As if reflecting my own thoughts, the woman in the mirror wore an utterly unfamiliar expression.
Man, she looks really out of it.
Still, she was pretty. At least prettier than the me I knew.
Silver hair fell smoothly all the way to her waist, shimmering beautifully, and ruby-like red eyes were stunning. When I turned my head, the woman in the mirror followed; when I twisted my waist, she twisted as well.
Only after moving around for a while in front of the mirror did I finally realize that I was the owner of this body.
“…Is this a dream?”
The sensations were far too vivid for a dream. This was one hundred percent reality. I spread my palm and stared at it blankly. Then, suddenly, I remembered the name that had called me earlier.
‘Rudia.’
Right. Rudia. A familiar name. How could I forget it? It was the name of a character in the novel I had been reading before falling asleep. That was why I couldn’t believe this.
“…If this is a dream, it’s ridiculously realistic.”
I pinched my cheek once more and gave up. Even though I was fully aware that this should be a dream—aware enough that I should have woken up by now—I didn’t. Instead, my mind became even clearer.
“This makes no sense.”
When I was younger and deep in my middle-school cringe phase, I used to fantasize about being transported to another world, wearing dresses like a female lead and dancing at parties with a handsome prince. I even searched the internet for ways to travel between dimensions and looked up places people claimed gave them similar experiences.
That dark history haunted me as soon as that phase ended, but back then, it was what kept me going.
Yeah, that was true.
But not now! I literally got my university acceptance letter yesterday, jumped around celebrating, and had just started reading a novel I’d been putting off forever!
Ah, this is so unfair. It was insanely unfair. If I was going to be sent to another world, couldn’t it have been before the college entrance exam? Or at least after I’d enjoyed some college life? I suffered through everything, and now I’m told to enjoy another world? Does that make sense? Does it?!
“Rudia, what on earth are you doing in here?”
I turned toward the voice calling me. Elian stood there, still beautiful, wearing a displeased expression. Right—she’s the protagonist, isn’t she?
No, not exactly. To be precise, neither she nor I were the protagonist. The real female lead was someone else. She was probably being mistreated somewhere right now, waiting for the male lead she would someday meet.
In the novel, both Elian and I were supporting characters. If you had to be specific, I was the side character with great abilities but an awkward personality who gets used by a friend. And Elian was the side character who uses that friend to seduce the male lead—only to get stabbed to death.
You might think Elian was the pitiful one for getting stabbed, but because of that, Rudia also meets a tragic end at the execution grounds. How is that not a miserable character? And that character… is me.
Honestly, I wanted to say, “You and I are both just side characters—can’t we at least get along?”
But I swallowed the words. Maybe it was because her character setting was a rude, two-faced woman, but the way she treated me was downright unpleasant.
Elian was the daughter of a count, and I was the daughter of a viscount. We were said to be childhood friends, but why did it look more like a lady and her maid than friends?
“Are you really sick today? You’ve been out of it all day.”
As Elian stepped closer, I quietly stepped back. I hadn’t even sorted out the situation yet, and getting tangled up with her now felt like a bad idea. I scanned my surroundings, thinking I should avoid her—and then realized, oh right. This was the bathroom.
“Wait, El—i… an.”
Calling out Korean names like Jisoo or Heeyeon and suddenly speaking in strange pronunciation and language felt awkward, so I spoke slowly. Elian’s expression twisted.
“You’re not seriously sick, are you?”
“I’m not.”
“Then why can’t you pull yourself together? You’re always spaced out, but today you’re especially bad.”
Is she picking a fight?
“Let’s go. Today’s an important day—we need to hurry.”
“Important day? What for?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’?”
What do you mean, what do you mean, idiot. As I frowned, Elian pulled a sheet of paper from her bosom and unfolded it. I stared at it blankly. A contract?
“What is this?”
“…You forgot this too? Oh my god. Rudia, you really are sick, aren’t you?”
Hearing that over and over almost made me feel sick even if I wasn’t. If brainwashing was her goal, she was damn good at it.
“This! It’s the trade contract we prepared together with the knight order. We were going to decide the price of the ore we’d supply. You don’t remember?”
I don’t remember, you bastard.
Wait. Hold on.
Yeah—if this was part of the novel, then I must’ve read it.
Right… there was something like this early on. Elian and Rudia make a contract with the royal guard, meet the male lead in the process, and Elian turns into a full-blown stalker…
I frowned. Starting off on hard mode, huh.
Getting dragged there right now would be bad. Knowing the plot of a novel and actually dealing with it in real life were completely different things. I read the story from the female lead’s perspective—not from the perspective of a background extra among background extras!
I was at a loss. I needed to go home,整理 the situation, and then decide how to proceed.
“So… does it really have to be today? Let’s postpone it.”
“Did you forget the knight commander told us to come today no matter what? We have to finish the contract today if we want to start supplying ore next week.”
Why is everything so tightly scheduled? Couldn’t I at least get a moment to breathe? Are they trying to run people on a custom-fit schedule or what?
I needed time to figure out what kind of world this was, understand the novel’s details, see my family, recall Rudia’s relationships, and figure out how to survive without getting stabbed.
But the blonde girl in front of me just kept talking nonstop, driving me insane.
Her blond hair reminded me of an electric mouse, and for a moment I considered calling her “Pika—” before stopping myself. What was the point? I pressed my throbbing brow hard.
“Let’s just go.”
She grabbed my wrist and dragged me along. The moment we sat down in the carriage, Elian opened her mouth again.
“Oh! Right, Rudia. They say the Crown Prince sometimes trains with the royal guard—have you heard anything like that?”
“Yeah.”
I stared blankly out the window. Go on, keep talking. You’re going to fall for him soon and turn into a stalker anyway.
“They say His Highness has looks so good it’s unfair for the rest of the world! And he doesn’t even have a fiancée or a crown princess yet, so every woman has her eye on him… Do you think we might meet him today?”
Wow, are you a fortune teller or something? How’d you know?
“And then His Highness falls in love with me at first sight, and we fall into a fated romance!”
…Yeah, no. That’s just you.
“We get married dramatically, I become Empress, have two sons and two daughters, and live happily ever after as a wise and beautiful empress! What do you think?!”
“Bullshit comes in bumper harvests, too.”
“….”
“….”
Huh? What did I just say? I turned my head and saw Elian staring at me with a blank expression.
“…Oops. My mistake.”
Looks like I said my inside thoughts out loud.
