𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏
‘I wish I could wake up inside a romance fantasy novel……’
That was the last wish of Ryu Lee Ji, a terminally ill cancer patient in South Korea, living on borrowed time.
After wishing for it a hundred, two hundred, three hundred times, it seems that dream finally came true.
‘God, Buddha, Author-nim, thank you!’
Instead of the smell of hospital alcohol, the fluffy bed and blankets smelled of dry sunshine, and the thin pajamas felt so soft I hardly noticed I was wearing them.
A large glass chandelier hung in the center of the luxuriously gold-rimmed ceiling.
The headache that had felt like someone was sitting on the back of my neck was gone, and my limbs, which had felt like they didn’t belong to me, were now light.
“Ahahahahahaha!”
I must have laughed a little too wildly out of sheer joy.
The bed curtains, decorated with red chiffon, quietly parted, and a demure-looking maid appeared and asked,
“Are you alright, Your Highness?”
Oh my god, this is a true success.
‘That girl over there is speaking a language I’ve never heard before, but I understand it perfectly!’
Ryu Lee Ji, I am!
The three years I spent in a hospital bed immersed in romance fantasy novels were not in vain.
‘But, “Your Highness”?’
It’s not that I’m being picky when my death was just around the corner, but if possible, I’d rather not be the protagonist.
Wouldn’t the protagonist’s life be too difficult……?
‘So, which country’s princess am I?’
I pretended not to hear the maid’s words and didn’t answer, and as expected, the next words followed,
“Louise…… Your Highness?”
Louise?
It’s similar to my name, and I like it!
No, that’s not the point……
‘Louise……’
Where does she appear?
Louise, it’s a pretty but common name.
‘Please, let me be an extra with no known abilities……!’
To properly understand the identity of this body, it seemed I needed to look in a mirror.
So, the moment I sat up……
“Ugh.”
A very familiar nausea welled up.
‘Oh my god, am I a terminally ill transmigrator?’
My heart pounded at the sudden thought.
‘No, not that……’
I finally escaped that dreadful hospital ward!
Tears welled up in my eyes from the sheer frustration, and the maid in front of me stepped into the bed and tightly closed the curtains.
Then, she lowered her voice and sobbed,
“You’ve been sleeping every chance you get for days, and now you’re even nauseous! I really can’t live because of you, Your Highness!”
Suddenly……?
“You must be pregnant, right?! What are you going to do about this now?!”
What? Pregnant?
The maid continued without waiting for a response, as if there was nothing more to hear.
“They say three people come out of the academy when two go in, but how could that happen to Your Highness! What will His Majesty the Emperor or His Highness Lurik do if they find out?!”
His Highness Lurik……
Amidst the confusion, that name struck me like lightning.
‘Lurik Cideric Friesland Brentania.’
It was a name I knew well enough to remember his full name.
I opened the tightly closed bed curtains, passed the crying maid, and went to find a mirror.
My reflection, carefully examined……
‘Wow, she’s beautiful.’
Oh, of course, that’s not important right now.
‘Pink hair, blood-red eyes……!’
My reflection in the mirror and the name Lurik were enough to grasp the situation.
I had failed to transmigrate into a proper romance fantasy novel.
This was the world of the draft novel “I Became the Mad Dog’s Cure,” which I had scribbled down on a whim after growing tired of reading all sorts of works.
‘No, why, how……!’
There are plenty of decent romance fantasy novels in the world to transmigrate into!
Amidst the shocking reality, I barely managed to pull myself together.
‘It’s okay. “Mad Dog’s Cure” is a villain redemption story, in its own way.’
Even though my older brother, Lurik, is the ‘Mad Dog’ in the novel, it’s not that big of a problem.
Lurik lived his entire life as the Emperor’s dog, doing all sorts of dirty deeds, but he was actually a pitiful character controlled by a magic sword, as I had written him.
‘He’ll soon meet the female lead with divine power and be saved, becoming a new person.’
Taking revenge on the Emperor who used him was just a bonus.
The problem is myself, Louise.
‘Louise is a character who dies right at the beginning of the novel!’
I quickly recalled the beginning of “Mad Dog’s Cure” in my mind.
‘I remember it clearly. It’s a story I wrote, however mediocre it may be.’
Louise dies in a carriage accident right before returning to the Imperial Palace after graduating from the academy.
‘But according to the maid, I’ve already graduated and am at the Imperial Palace……?’
And pregnant, no less.
🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹
“P, pregnant? What pregnancy!”
I don’t know the cause, but the story has already changed.
‘The time for Louise to die has passed, and as someone who was terminally ill, shouldn’t I be grateful just to be alive?’
Where am I, who am I……?
Those are worries you can only have if you’re alive.
‘Yes, as long as I survive, I can do anything.’
It’s not even certain if I’m, I’m pregnant or not yet.
“I, I’m just feeling a little under the weather!”
As I insisted, the maid wiped away her tears, which were like chicken droppings, and asked,
“Really? But you haven’t had your period this month……”
Oh dear, is that so?
I was greatly affected by the maid’s critical hit, but I stubbornly retorted,
“O, of course! Sometimes that can happen when you’re not feeling well!”
For example, as a terminally ill patient, I was like that.
Fortunately, irregular periods weren’t just my misfortune.
“Sob, of course, there were times when it was late……”
I seized the opportunity of the maid’s confusion and argued more forcefully,
“Of course! If I, I were pregnant, my brother would kill me!”
This time, the maid retorted,
“Your mouth isn’t crooked, so you should speak properly, Your Highness. If you’re pregnant, you’ll be the only one to survive, and everyone else will die. That includes me, Phoebe Nillo.”
Phoebe Nillo.
‘Phew.’
I just learned the name of the maid of my younger sister, who would never appear in a novel where Lurik is the protagonist.
And Phoebe, who had stopped crying, was a very helpful maid.
“Besides, His Highness Lurik is on his way back right now.”
Yes, the story begins with Lurik going mad after hearing the news of his sister’s death upon his return.
“If something happens to you at this point, how will I survive? I’m your shadow, who even followed you to the academy!”
Therefore, Phoebe’s words were only half true.
‘Since Louise survived, Lurik won’t go berserk.’
Maybe this story won’t even be able to start?
‘Ugh!’
At that moment, nausea welled up again.
‘No. Lurik, that guy, he has a bad temper even before he goes berserk……’
His nickname was originally set as ‘Mad Dog,’ after all.
The mere fact that his beloved younger sister is pregnant out of wedlock would be enough to make him go berserk.
‘What if I’m really pregnant? I should have written him with a milder personality……’
As I regretted it belatedly, Phoebe looked at my face suspiciously and said,
“Even though you traveled in an unfamiliar way, it’s clear that you’re not looking well, Your Highness. That could also shorten my lifespan, so I’ll have to call the palace physician.”
I was startled by the mention of the palace physician and retorted,
“What will I tell the palace physician?”
If I’m really pregnant, it wouldn’t be good for the palace physician to find out.
“If strange rumors spread, it’ll only bring dark clouds to your marriage prospects.”
Phoebe tilted her head for a moment, as if she found it hard to agree with my thoughts, but she didn’t refute me and just sighed softly.
“Anyway, you need to take good care of yourself until His Highness Lurik returns. He’s very sharp, you know.”
But right now, there’s a bigger problem than Lurik.
‘I need to find out if I (she) had a boyfriend and if there’s really a possibility of being pregnant……!’
🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹
“This is crazy!”
After Phoebe left the room, it didn’t take much effort to find traces of the ‘real’ Louise.
The drawers were full of letters.
Louise had that many letter correspondents, and I recognized exactly three of the names.
‘The first is Crown Prince Ernst of the Kingdom of Flavi.’
He was an extra who was killed simply for being with Louise when she had the accident.
‘Of course, the setting is that Lurik went mad and did it.’
The Crown Prince in the letters was kind and friendly, to the point where it was almost heartbreaking to recall that thought.
I heard you’re not returning to the Imperial Palace this vacation?
If you had told me sooner, I would have adjusted my schedule.
Now that I can’t cancel my trip to Flavi, I’ll be back as soon as possible.
I’m sorry to leave you alone, Lou.
To think that an extra I had only given a name to had such a backstory!
I was surprised and pondered.
‘It’s a small country, but the fact that the Crown Prince of another country came all the way to the capital to attend the academy must have been influenced by the Emperor.’
But he wouldn’t have bothered to flatter even the powerless youngest princess, so his friendship must have been genuine.
‘The second name I know is Callisto Veil Babenberg, known as the “Snake of Babenberg.”‘
Babenberg, the setting is that it’s the Empire’s shield, which has protected against the invasion of northern barbarians for generations.
‘But Lurik even swept away Babenberg without hesitation.’
Later, the female lead, Helena, steps in and concludes a peace treaty with the northern barbarians, but if Lurik had left Babenberg alone, there wouldn’t have been a need for that.
But it seems that this Callisto was also close to Louise.
About the desk I saw at the furniture store the other day, I heard it’s the work of Mayolo Tob, a craftsman from Flavi.
However, the width of that desk is wider than others, so you might be short on space.
As your senior, I’ll inform the dormitory to empty the room next to yours so that you can expand your room……
As her senior?
‘No, how can there be such a good senior……?’
Ugh, I gagged and thought of the next name.
‘The third is Ren, the Tower Master……’
Ren, with a name as simple as his role, had so little significance that he made both his entrance and exit in a single line.
Even Ren, the Tower Master, who was called a genius of his time, perished by Lurik’s sword.
Well, was that the sentence?
I took out one of Ren’s letters and read it again.
It looked more like a crumpled note than a letter.
If the Imperial Palace finds out that I woke up in your room, I’ll be beheaded by today.
Where did you go, leaving me alone, Lou? Aren’t you lonely?
You, you woke up in my room?
Then, that night, did this and that happen?
‘So, are you the baby daddy?’
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