IBDEML 03

Chapter 03

When I slightly leaned my ear toward the door, I could catch faint voices from inside.

“Losing her memory is actually a good thing. We’ve been struggling to find adoptive parents because she’s afraid of adults. This might be better.”

“Then…”

“Before her memories return and the problem comes back, we should quickly find an adoption placement. Since she’s pretty, there will be plenty of people willing to take her just for her face.”

From the director’s words, it sounded like they didn’t even check what kind of people the adoptive parents were before sending the children away.

And what kind of treatment the child received afterward clearly wasn’t the director’s concern.

‘Then what Lisa said about Class 1, Class 2, and Class 3…’

‘Is it some kind of ranking system? And depending on the class, the adoption parents are different?’

Just then the door opened and Anna came out.

She looked down at me coldly and jerked her chin.

“Follow me.”

I silently walked behind her.

Anna gave me some basic information since I supposedly remembered nothing.

“This is Sunflower Orphanage. You are twelve years old, and your name is Lopez. The orphanage is divided into classes, and those classes are…”

She suddenly stopped speaking halfway.

When I looked up at her curiously, she continued as if nothing had happened.

“No… you don’t need to know that in detail. You’re currently a Class 1 student. The dormitory is over there.”

It looked like she wanted to get rid of me quickly.

But judging by the director’s attitude, they weren’t planning to send me to good adoptive parents.

‘Looks like I need to figure out an escape route before I even understand this place.’

Anna stopped in front of the Class 1 classroom.

When she opened the door, the noisy chatter of children suddenly went quiet.

As I followed Anna inside, I could feel hostile gazes directed at me.

It seemed the previous owner of this body was quite hated among the children.

I calmly stood next to the teacher.

Anna glanced down at me and briefly explained the situation.

“Because of an unfortunate incident, Lopez has lost her memory.”

The children murmured among themselves.

Then a sharp voice from a boy cut through the noise.

“She’s just pretending! Teacher, you actually believe her? After everything she’s done!”

“Whether it’s a lie or not has already been checked. Sit properly, Klein.”

My fingers twitched slightly.

For the first time, I heard a familiar name.

Only then did I properly notice the boy sitting crookedly.

His silver hair, shining brightly in the sunlight from the window, immediately drew attention.

Under his long eyelashes were golden eyes, like melted honey.

He was so pretty that at first glance he could almost be mistaken for a girl.

When our eyes met, he smirked.

“She’ll reveal her true colors soon enough.”

“Stop it, Klein. Lopez must already be confused enough…”

When I heard that voice and instinctively looked beside Klein, my lips parted slightly.

There was a girl looking at me with fluffy pink hair like cotton candy and large pink eyes.

Her peach-colored cheeks were full and rosy, making me want to poke them.

Seeing such an adorable child—exactly my type—made my cloudy mind feel clearer.

Something felt like it was about to come back to me.

I kept staring at those children.

“If you say so…”

Meanwhile, Klein—who never listened to Anna—quietly nodded at the girl’s words.

‘My cheek feels prickly.’

When I turned my head because of the stinging gaze, I saw another boy glaring at me beside the girl.

He had black hair like a dark night, sharp eyes, and cold blue pupils.

Another handsome boy who rivaled Klein’s beauty.

The expressionless boy soon looked away from me and smiled gently at the girl.

“Medina is too kind for her own good.”

When I heard the girl’s name again, my eyes sparkled.

The scattered pieces in my mind suddenly connected together.

Finally, a novel appeared in my memory.

‘I found it!’

‘I didn’t transmigrate into just any world!’

‘I transmigrated into a novel!’

Especially because Medina was the main heroine of that story.

It was a novel I knew very well.

Among all the romance fantasy novels I had read, it had left the strongest impression on me.

Unable to hide my excitement after remembering the novel, I quietly smiled.

‘If it had been a completely unknown world, I would’ve been in trouble…’

Luckily, that wasn’t the case.

My quiet laughter made the class murmur again as the children glared at me sharply.

If I were truly just a child, those looks might have made me shrink and cry.

But I was an adult.

The glares of children couldn’t intimidate me.

“Why are you suddenly smiling?”

Anna still seemed displeased with me because of what happened in the discipline room.

Her face was still frowning at me.

Since I had already expected her hostility, I nodded with an innocent expression.

“I just remembered something funny.”

“See, teacher?! She says she lost her memory but still remembers something funny! That’s weird!”

Klein immediately reacted.

Anna looked down at me coldly.

I calmly opened my mouth.

“When I screamed and the teacher fell over—mmph!”

Anna hurriedly covered my mouth, clearly panicking, then snapped at Klein.

“Be quiet, Klein! Lopez definitely lost her memory!”

Anna crouched down and whispered a warning to me.

“If you ever mention that again, it won’t end with just the switch. Understand?”

Looking at Anna threatening me with sharp eyes, I nodded.

“Then Lopez, go back to your seat.”

“Where is my seat?”

“Ah, next to the green-haired…”

The green-haired child suddenly jumped in shock.

When our eyes met, tears quickly filled the child’s big eyes and began falling.

“Waaaah! I don’t want to sit with Lopez!”

“Teacher, poor Bill!”

Klein snickered.

I quietly looked at Klein and the child crying loudly.

Even though Klein was acting annoying, I didn’t really hate him.

Maybe it was because remembering the novel made my mind calmer.

‘Funny… I couldn’t remember anything earlier, but now everything is crystal clear.’

Where this place was.

Which novel this world belonged to.

And my own situation.

As I organized the information in my head, I suddenly stiffened.

‘…Wait. If I really transmigrated into that story, then I can’t relax like this.’

Because I was nothing more than a disposable extra sacrificed by the male leads Klein and Chester to gain the heroine’s attention.

If that was all, I wouldn’t be worried.

But like a true disposable character…

I was destined to be used up and live a miserable life.

02. Denial Phase of Falling for Someone (1): What’s with that kid?

The reverse-harem romance fantasy novel I had read—

—wasn’t a particularly popular work.

It didn’t have extraordinary fun or a unique concept.

But the reason I remembered this novel wasn’t because of the cute heroine or the obsessive male leads.

It was because the story ended in a surprisingly tragic way, something rarely seen in childcare-themed romance fantasy novels.

In the ending, all the male leads die together while trying to protect the heroine.

After seeing that shocking ending, I could never forget the story.

Maybe the author suddenly won the lottery while writing.

Maybe they grew dissatisfied with the heroine.

Maybe they started hating the male leads.

Who knows…

But because the ending was so intense, it wasn’t strange that I remembered the characters the moment I heard their names.

‘Hmm? But why do I even remember the dialogue almost exactly?’

I definitely didn’t read the novel carefully enough to memorize every sentence.

Maybe this was the famous “perfect memory of the original novel” buff that transmigrators supposedly get.

Honestly, it was extremely lucky for someone like me who suddenly transmigrated.

“Hey. You’re lying about losing your memory, right?”

The boy spoke rudely.

“No, it’s real.”

I answered as sincerely as possible.

The boy with the rude attitude but beautiful face—

The one who had been picking fights with me since earlier—

Klein.

He was one of the male leads of the novel.

And he was also the boy Lopez had a crush on.

‘Klein knew that and used Lopez.’

All to get closer to Medina.

Even as a child, his obsession was intense.

‘As expected of a male lead… the signs appear early.’

Anyway, Lopez was just someone Klein could easily use.

Because to him, Lopez was a very convenient person.

In the original story, Lopez suffered from severe lack of affection and took out her frustration on other children.

Naturally, no one wanted to approach her.

‘Who would like a kid that only acts nasty?’

Because of that, lonely Lopez easily fell for even Klein’s small kindness and ended up being used by him.

Her reputation was already bad.

When it was revealed that she falsely accused Medina, no child wanted to deal with her anymore.

Instead, she began getting bullied.

When Lopez finally couldn’t endure it and confronted him, Klein threatened her instead.

“If you don’t want to be kicked out of the orphanage, you’d better keep your mouth shut.”

After that, things only got worse.

Lopez eventually angered Chester as well and was used by him too.

In the end, she was practically sold off through adoption and forced to leave the orphanage.

The story later briefly mentioned that she lived a miserable life after meeting terrible adoptive parents.

And now—

I had transmigrated into that very child’s body