TNDM 01

Chapter : 01

A deep night, without even a sliver of moonlight.

A woman adjusted the shawl slipping from her shoulders and tightened her grip on an old lantern. Its faint beam was hardly enough to illuminate the darkened corridor, but that didn’t matter.

Her destination wasn’t far away.

Standing before the firmly locked door beside the man’s bedroom, the woman pressed a hand against her pounding chest.

Calm down.

She had confirmed that the man was deeply asleep. Hadn’t she even prepared some particularly strong liquor for that very purpose?

She wanted to find out what the “secret” her lover was so determined to hide until the very end was.

Yet now that the truth was right before her eyes, why was it that a fairy tale she had vaguely read as a child suddenly came to mind?

The wife of Bluebeard, who, unable to overcome her curiosity, had confronted a horrifying truth.

She distinctly remembered clicking her tongue at the woman’s foolishness. But only after finding herself in the same situation did she think she could understand why that woman had no choice but to open the forbidden door.

The faint bitterness that followed the sweetness the man gave her had accumulated in her mouth until it became unbearable to ignore and swallow, leaving her tongue aching…

Even though she knew that whatever lay behind the door could never be heaven or utopia, in the end, she had no choice but to open it.

And so, like Bluebeard’s foolish yet honest wife, the woman grasped the doorknob and finally stepped into the forbidden place.

Creeeak.

Beyond the door, which opened with an eerie sound, was an empty space.

It was a strange room with not a single piece of furniture, yet its walls were covered from top to bottom with palm-sized “something.”

As she walked farther inside, the lantern’s light finally reached the walls.

At that moment, the woman stopped breathing.

[It would be better if you didn’t enter this room. It’s rather untidy.]

Once, when she had grasped the doorknob of this firmly closed room, he had tried to dissuade her in an indifferent voice.

But she vividly remembered the look in his eyes, unable to completely conceal his uneasiness.

At the time, she had assumed the room contained some erotic books or traces of a former lover and hadn’t thought much of it…

Now, the woman stared blankly at the wall, forgetting even to blink.

There were photographs of Cecilia taken when she visited a temple, pictures of Cecilia as a child that had appeared in the local newspaper, biased articles praising Cecilia as the saint of this era, and even drawings depicting Cecilia going about her ordinary daily life—drawings whose very existence she couldn’t comprehend.

What in the world is all this…?

The moment Cecilia’s eyes met those of “herself” smiling brightly in a white dress, she instinctively stumbled backward.

Thud.

Her back struck something solid.

Her amber eyes, trembling like a lamp flickering in the wind, stiffly lifted upward.

“…What are you doing here?”

Dark, gloomy eyes quietly looked down at her.

“…Lien.”

Sweat dampened her tightly clenched fist.

Was it embarrassment? Anger? Betrayal?

Or perhaps fear?

When she finally managed to speak, her voice trembled miserably.

“What… exactly is all this?”

The reason she hadn’t screamed or hurled insults was because, despite having questionable judgment, she believed there had to be at least some explanation—even the tiniest one—that could make sense of this kind-hearted man.

The man, whose eyes reddened almost immediately as though he were the one who wanted to cry, struggled to part his lips.

“I-I told you not to come in here…”

At those words, Cecilia’s brow finally twisted sharply.

You should’ve said not to enter because this room is filled with photos of me—the product of your stalker behavior, you bastard.

The woman had, for the most part, been rather unfortunate.

It began with failing the college entrance exam and enrolling in an unfamiliar department through a lower-choice application.

Then, despite merely working hard at university in an attempt to make up for that failure, she somehow ended up becoming a graduate student.

And finally, just as she was about to graduate, she was possessed into another world.

When she first opened her eyes in this other world, she wondered whether she had somehow traveled back in time to Europe.

Then, realizing that such a thing was impossible according to modern science, she wondered if she had finally developed a mental illness.

After all, she was a graduate student.

It was an extremely plausible explanation.

However, no matter how long she waited, she neither regained consciousness thanks to some medication nor woke up from a ridiculously long dream.

If anything, the reality of her situation only became stronger.

Only then did she finally come up with a third hypothesis.

Could this be… one of those novel-possession situations?

She often read web novels where the protagonist was transported into an unfamiliar world.

Watching protagonists escape reality and become all-powerful in another world provided enormous catharsis for someone worn down by graduate school.

But…

I never once thought I wanted to become the protagonist of a possession story!

And it wasn’t even at the beginning of graduate school.

She had overcome all the hardships and difficulties, finished her graduation thesis, passed her graduation exam, and even completed her defense.

And then she got possessed into another world.

Fuck, give me my diploma back!

She hadn’t been hit by a reincarnation truck. She had never become obsessed with a particular character in a novel or left comments like, “I could do a better job than the protagonist!”

It was truly, unbelievably unfair.

For three whole months, she tried everything she could think of, desperately refusing to let go of the last five centimeters of her academic “leash” before it had abruptly snapped completely.

Finally, the woman—or rather, Cecilia Weberdin—declared defeat.

Whatever. It’ll work out somehow.

In the middle of a garden overflowing with the scent of flowers, Cecilia crumpled the sheets of paper labeled Failed Plan A, B, and C and tossed them away before slumping helplessly into an iron chair.

As she stared blankly up at the painfully clear sky, oblivious to her own troubles, a cautious voice came from across the table.

“Um, Miss. Shall I bring you some tea?”

A maid with curly hair tied high on her head, Melanie, was carefully watching her mistress’s mood.

“An iced Ameri—no. Peppermint tea would be nice.”

What a shitty world that doesn’t even have iced Americanos.

A wave of frustration rose within Cecilia at the miserable state of even the beverages in this world, but she still tried to think as positively as possible.

Well, at least she hadn’t ended up in some science-fiction novel filled with bizarre monsters.

There was only one sun, a day lasted twenty-four hours, and humans stood at the top of the food chain.

She couldn’t say for certain whether these people were the same Homo sapiens as her or merely bipedal species that happened to look identical to humans…

But who knew?

Perhaps if she simply muddled through life like this, one day some higher-dimensional being resembling a god might say, “Oops, my mistake!” and send her back to her original world.

Or perhaps a doctor might greet her in twenty-first-century society with, “You’ve finally awakened from your coma!”

More importantly, whether I graduated or got possessed, the fact remains that I’ve escaped graduate school!

Goodbye, shitty graduate school life.

Goodbye, even shittier professors.

Forget repetitive experiments and manually processed data.

From now on, I’m leaving for the world of worldly pleasures and freedom.

Cecilia let out a laugh like someone who had lost her mind and decided to completely shake off all the worries and anxieties that had been weighing on her.

Then I’ll go with Plan D from now on.

On the remaining blank sheet of paper, Cecilia firmly wrote:

<Since things have turned out this way, I’ll enjoy myself until I find a way to return.>

For example, romance.

Romance.

And, yes, romance.

If this really was a novel-possession situation, then regardless of what her role had originally been in the story, she had effectively become a protagonist-level character.

Even if Cecilia was merely Passing Character A, the moment someone possessed her body, she became important enough to be a protagonist.

Besides, judging from her background as the daughter of a marquis, there was a strong possibility that this was a romance-fantasy novel.

And if that was the case, wouldn’t the plot only move forward once she started dating someone?

That’s right. I’m going to date!

It absolutely wasn’t because she was lonely, wanted to indulge in selfish desires, or wanted to make up for the fact that she hadn’t met a man during her long years in graduate school.

However, even this final plan had one major obstacle.

I need someone to date first.

“There’s no way I’ll find a decent romantic encounter in this backwater…”

She was just about to crumple up Plan D and throw it away when she felt something tickling her ankle.

Cecilia flinched and looked down.

“A cat?”

A ball of pure white fur—or rather, a cat—was swishing its fluffy tail around her feet.

I never heard that they kept cats in the garden.

Besides, the marquis’s estate wasn’t exactly designed to allow stray cats to wander in easily.

From its well-groomed fur alone, not to mention the golden necklace around its neck, it didn’t even look like a stray in the first place.

“Where did you come from?”

More of a cat person than a dog person, Cecilia cautiously reached out her hand.

But before her fingers could even touch the necklace, the cat lowered its body slightly and leaped onto Cecilia’s arm as though it were hunting prey before landing gracefully.

“W-Wha—?!”

Before she could even react, it was all over.

Cecilia stared dumbfounded at the tiny thief who had stolen her sapphire bracelet.

The cat had narrowed its pupils to slits and was holding the sparkling bracelet between its teeth.

I’ve heard the term “thieving cat” before, but I never thought I’d actually meet a cat that literally steals things.

This really was a frightening otherworld.

Yet whether it understood her wounded feelings or not, the cat simply swished its tail and turned away.

“Wait!”

Cecilia awkwardly rose and followed the cat as it leisurely made its way away.

The cat moved at a pace that was neither particularly fast nor particularly slow, and Cecilia followed it without thinking.

Leaving the stone path behind, they crossed the garden haphazardly and passed a large broadleaf tree.

Soon, the wall surrounding the mansion came into view.

The cat stopped for a moment, seeming to glance back at its pursuer.

Then it slipped neatly through a round hole at the bottom of the wall.

Was there a little opening like this here?

The hole looked as though someone had deliberately made it, and it was large enough for a small person to squeeze through.

I feel like some strange girl from Wonderland chasing the rabbit with a pocket watch.

Even if she went through that hole, she probably wouldn’t fall endlessly downward or discover cakes that made her grow larger.

Lost in her silly imagination, Cecilia willingly lowered herself.

Putting aside her sense of adventure, the bracelet she’d been robbed of was expensive enough that she couldn’t simply give up and go back.

Well, it wasn’t as though that was the only expensive piece of jewelry “Cecilia” owned.

But she had never managed to abandon the memories and habits from her former life as an ordinary person who had been constantly pushed around by money.

With considerable difficulty, she squeezed herself through the hole.

“Wow. Good thing I didn’t eat any more macarons.”

She brushed the dirt and grass from the hem of her dress and straightened her back.

That was when she came face-to-face with someone enormous wearing a pitch-black robe.

Not a rabbit carrying a pocket watch.

Something much, much more ominous.