RTTE 01

Chapter 1

“If getting that person means I have to kneel, then I can kneel a hundred times, a thousand times. Pride? I can throw something like that away without hesitation. So give him to me. Otherwise…”

Lumiere continued, pressing a sharp fruit knife against her own throat.

“I’ll kill myself.”

“…Wow. Even though I wrote it, this is truly a spectacle.”

Kang Yerim muttered as she stared at her monitor.

Wondering who that woman was, waving a knife around and threatening to kill herself?

She was none other than the protagonist of Yerim’s own novel.

Lumiere von Wizer.

The daughter of a dancer from a distant foreign land, a princess in name only—with neither the Emperor’s favor nor the backing of her maternal family.

And despite being the female lead, all she could do to her romantic rival was threaten her to break up with the man she loved.

It was, in her own way, a desperate struggle to steal back the man she loved and escape a political marriage to a barbarian.

The problem was that it didn’t do her any good at all.

“S-Sob… All right. I’ll break up with him, so please stop…”

The romantic rival, who had tearfully promised to break up with him, would send her a letter some time later announcing her engagement.

[I’m sorry, Your Highness. I’m getting engaged to him. I tried to break up with him, but he wouldn’t let me go.]

The female lead, devastated by this letter, chose suicide as her ending.

Even that attempt would fail, and only after being sold off in a political marriage to a barbarian would she finally succeed in leaving this world.

Or rather, that was how she was supposed to die.

But after writing the scene where she received that very letter, Yerim had been unable to write a single word for months.

Is it because both the protagonist and the ending are complete disasters?

If she didn’t like the ending, she could simply change it.

Yet no matter how hard she racked her brain, she couldn’t imagine a different conclusion.

As though there was no path for the story to take except one leading to tragedy.

At this rate, will I even be able to finish it?

Even though she had started writing the novel as a hobby, she still wanted to give it a proper ending.

“Well, I guess I’ll be able to write it someday.”

Rubbing her dry, tired eyes, she turned off her computer.

It was already eleven at night.

If she wanted to get to work early in the morning, she needed to go to bed soon.

So she tidied up her desk and lay down on her bed.

But then—

What is this?

When she woke up, she found herself staring at a ceiling she had never seen before.

The only thing that was the same as before she had fallen asleep was the fact that she was lying in a bed.

“Ugh…”

As she slowly raised herself, a stiff ache spread through her body, and nausea rose in her stomach as if she were about to vomit.

Where am I?

Yerim looked around in bewilderment.

Wallpaper spotted with mold here and there.

A medieval European-style bedroom containing nothing but a bed and a nightstand.

As she sat frozen, blankly taking in the unfamiliar surroundings, she felt someone watching her and turned her head.

Blue hair.

Blue eyes.

A man she had never seen before let out a hollow laugh, as though the situation were utterly ridiculous.

“It would have been easier to pity you if you had simply died. How truly unfortunate that you survived.”

“Ah…”

She woke up in an unfamiliar place, and on top of that, she could naturally understand a language she had never heard before?

It’s a dream.

But wasn’t this far too vivid for a dream…?

The throbbing pain.

The nausea.

Even the damp, musty smell of the blankets.

“Did you perhaps think that if Your Highness ended that pathetic life of yours, I would cancel the engagement?”

Your Highness?

Ended my life…?

Clicking his tongue, the man tossed her an envelope embossed with gold.

[As the two of us have pledged our hearts to one another and vowed that they shall never change, we ask that you bear witness to our sacred union.
Logan del Trovitan · Chlora Edverd]

“This is…”

It was an invitation to an engagement ceremony.

Logan del Trovitan.

Chlora Edverd.

The very man the female protagonist of her novel had loved unrequitedly—and her romantic rival.

Could this really be that moment?

The point in time when the female lead had attempted suicide after falling into despair upon learning of their engagement?

“Your Highness will be getting married soon anyway, so stop wasting your energy on pointless things. Stay quiet and leave when the time comes.”

She absentmindedly ran her fingers over the invitation as she stared into the man’s contempt-filled eyes.

But something was strange.

That can’t be possible…

Why did it feel as though she had experienced this situation herself?

The man clicked his tongue once more before turning away.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Her heart began to pound ominously.

The man’s back as he coldly walked away once his business was finished.

Yerim had seen that back somewhere before.

She knew it was impossible, but she clearly remembered seeing it.

When did I see this scene…?

Just as a creeping sense of unease began to rise within her—as though this might not be a simple dream after all—

She unconsciously turned toward the mirror hanging on the wall.

White hair cascading down to her waist.

Violet eyes.

A painfully thin body that looked as though it might snap with a single touch, and deeply sunken eyes.

The moment her gaze met her reflection in the mirror—

A searing pain tore through her head, and unfamiliar memories began flooding into her mind.

“Wipe your tears. People are watching.”

The man who had handed her a handkerchief when she had been dragged into a banquet hall by her half-brother, who had only recently ascended the throne, and left standing there crying like a decorative flower against the wall.