TNMN 03

Chapter : 3

“Ah? The boyfriend of the first murder victim. He was found at every scene where an incident occurred, so I think he’s looking for the murderer who killed his girlfriend.”

“Are you sure this person really was her boyfriend?”

“He knew the layout of the first victim’s house, and a gift he had sent her was found inside the house. There was also information that a man was often seen near the victim, so I suppose he probably was.”

Alosha kept her mouth shut when she realized that Alexis had failed to notice the unsettling feeling that even she could clearly sense. Since this was not exactly a professional mystery genre, it felt as though the author’s limitations were painfully obvious.

That’s why you should have just stuck to romance in the first place. Why did you have to force a mystery genre into it?

“What about the victim’s best friend? Didn’t she say anything about this person?”

“It seems they were secretly dating. Her friend didn’t seem to know anything about it.”

At Alexis’s words, the familiar background music that played whenever a case was solved began ringing in Alosha’s ears.

“What? That makes no sense. She kept her relationship secret even from her best friend? Isn’t it natural to feel all excited and fluttery, wanting to shout, ‘This person is mine!’ and show them off? Romance is about unconsciously wanting to reveal that you’re a couple. But she hid it even from her closest friend?”

“…Is that so?”

“And besides, you said that person is also a suspect candidate. Aren’t you trusting his word too much?”

At Alosha’s words, Alexis opened his notebook with a shocked expression, as if he had just been hit in the back of the head.

“And out of the five suspects, he’s the only one who was found at every murder scene. Of course you should suspect that he’s the culprit.”

“…Now that you mention it, that is true.”

They said that the thought processes of characters in novels were often simplified to make the protagonist stand out more, but Alosha simply could not understand how anyone could blindly believe the words of someone so suspicious and dubious.

‘Is this some kind of force imposed by the original story?’

Whatever the reason, the case had been solved, so Alosha was just smiling contentedly at the thought that all that remained was to enjoy the romance.

That was when—

“Alosha!”

Alosha was startled by her name echoing loudly throughout the knights’ order and turned her head toward the source of the voice.

Alexis, looking as though he had rolled around somewhere and gotten completely disheveled, was approaching together with an unfamiliar red-haired, golden-eyed, sharp-featured handsome man.

‘Who is that handsome guy?’

Despite being 186 cm tall with broad shoulders, his face was incredibly small.

The striking features arranged perfectly on that small face were so handsome that he looked like an idol who had stepped straight out of a magazine photoshoot.

As proof, Alosha’s heart began beating a little faster, and she found herself constantly smiling.

He definitely had an appearance far too remarkable for a mere extra.

‘Is he the protagonist?’

Alosha could not take her eyes off the red-haired handsome man. The man was also looking at Alosha with a gaze filled with longing and sadness.

‘What is this? Why is he looking at me like that?’

Noticing the strange atmosphere between the two of them, Alexis gave a sly grin and lightly nudged Alosha with his elbow.

“What’s going on with you two? Why are you staring at each other like that?”

“Ah….”

Alexis spoke with a mischievous expression before turning his head toward Alosha.

“Have you… been well?”

“Yeees….”

But who are you…?

“You were probably in the middle of training, but I guess Dane heard that you had come to the knights’ order and rushed all the way here from far away.”

So that handsome man’s name was Dane.

The moment Alosha realized this, the neurons in her frontal lobe exchanged electrical signals faster than anyone could imagine and detected the information in less than five seconds.

‘Wait. Dane?’

Red hair, golden eyes, a striking appearance, and the name Dane.

Suddenly, the titles of countless works flashed through her mind like a film reel before stopping abruptly.

‘No way? No, right? Yes. It can’t be! He must simply be someone with the same name. T-There’s no way.’

In any dimension, No way, right? was always a magical phrase people used to deny a reality they desperately wished not to confirm.

Whether Alosha strongly denied it or not, the sentences she had once read began replaying themselves in her mind without permission.

[The first person Dane, who had traveled back through time, sought out was the Nocturne family, where the siblings Alexis and Alosha had been killed by the hands of the villain Whistler.]

‘Stop! Don’t continue the story in my head on your own!’

Despite her thoughts, which were nearly screams of despair, the neural system inside her head continued pulling out sentences from Alosha’s memories and bringing them back to the surface.

[‘I need the help of the Nocturne family to build the forces necessary to oppose Whistler!’

He had to gather allies and eliminate Whistler. He could not die such a meaningless death again, as he had in his previous life.

When Dane visited Alexis and the Nocturne family to discuss the future, he saw Alosha coming out to greet him, wearing a blue dress with her hair neatly braided and hanging down.]

‘Ah, I said don’t think about it!’

There was no pause button inside her head, so shouting at herself not to think about it could not possibly stop the sentences from turning into vivid scenes.

[Alexis looked back and forth between Dane and his younger sister and said something teasing, but Dane could not hear him. Remembering the last moments of Alosha, when her head had been severed, Dane’s eyes grew moist with joy and guilt at seeing Alosha alive.]

After that paragraph appeared in her mind without permission, Alosha despaired like someone watching helplessly as 20,000 characters of work vanished after a power outage.

‘I’m screwed. This wasn’t a romance fantasy!’

This novel was none other than The Regressed Count’s Family’s Scoundrel Saves the World from the Villain, a grim fantasy novel that Alosha’s—no, the close writer friend of Hyoju had written all the way to 560 chapters.

She had hoped it wasn’t true, but the moment she realized that there was no way it could be anything else, Alosha bit down hard on her lower lip.

So this was what it felt like when the sky came crashing down.

And soon, Alosha’s despair became filled with anger toward one particular person.

‘You damn girl! How could you ruin my romance-fantasy life like this?’

As was the natural progression in stories about people possessing another person’s body, Alosha began recalling what had happened with her enemy-like friend the day before she came to this world.

“This time, too, I got nothing but criticism because of the setting and the lack of plausibility.”

“That’s why I keep telling you not to write complicated stories for no reason. Just write romance fantasy like me!”

“No! That kind of cringey content doesn’t suit me. I want to become a hugely successful author of fantasy novels!”

Hyoju shook her head as she watched her friend Sea, who was resting her forehead against the dining table, and took a sip of cola.

From Hyoju’s perspective, the ecosystem of romance fantasy was not exactly peaceful either, but she thought that fantasy—a genre read by people of all ages and genders—had a much rawer feel to it.

Even though it could not be easy to endure industry veterans who appeared out of nowhere and scrutinized the historical accuracy of every single setting, along with keyboard warriors who practically lived in the comments section, Hyoju thought her friend was truly impressive for stubbornly insisting on walking the path of traditional fantasy.

“But you finished it, so isn’t that a good thing? What did you say the title was again?”

She had genuinely forgotten, but Sea, who had been pressing her forehead against the table, lifted her head and looked at Hyoju with a shocked expression.

“Wow! It’s your friend’s novel, and you’re this uninterested in it? That’s too much.”

“I only read up to Chapter 50 because it was your novel. You know I don’t really read anything that isn’t romance. You didn’t read my novel either because you said it gave you goosebumps!”

Sea looked hurt, but then nodded in understanding.

“Yeah, I suppose that’s true.”

“So what was the title?”

“The Regressed Count’s Family’s Scoundrel Saves the World from the Villain.”

Sea answered while putting the chicken bones she had finished eating into a bag.

Judging only by the title, it sounded like a typical mass-produced fantasy novel. But Hyoju knew that most of Sea’s works were heavy and serious traditional fantasy novels, so she shook her head vigorously.

‘In my opinion, it sounds like the people who criticized it were probably tricked by the title….’

People said that light novels were popular, but there were surely people for whom Sea’s writing was a staple.

Hyoju did not particularly like Sea’s genre, but wasn’t one of the basic virtues of being a fan learning to embrace someone even if they did not walk the same genre path as you?

Wanting to empathize with her suffering friend, Hyoju revived what she remembered from the first 50 chapters and started talking to her.

“So, was it the Nocturne family? There was that one younger sister who was the male lead’s friend, right? Do she and the male lead eventually end up together?”

“Ah! Alosha? Of course I killed her. Around Chapter 60, I think. She was caught helping the male lead by Duke Whistler, so the entire family was wiped out as an example—slash!”

Sea drew a finger across her own throat with two fingers.

Hyoju was left speechless.

“Seriously? Why? That was one of the only elements in your novel that I found interesting!”

“There was no other way if I wanted to awaken the male lead.”

For 50 chapters, Alosha had been the only woman who appeared frequently by Dane’s side. Hyoju could not understand how her friend could simply kill her off as a device to awaken the male protagonist.

“You killed her that quickly? The male lead was so affectionate toward that girl that I thought they were going to get married!”

In romance fantasy, 50 chapters was enough time for a man and woman to progress to a kiss—or something more.

If that did not happen, readers would revolt so fiercely that the author could be hanged on the guillotine of the comments section twelve more times and burned at the stake, and no one could blame them.

“Fantasy is different from romance fantasy. There may be people who fall for the male lead, but it’s not common for things to end in romance.”

“Still, that’s such a shame. They suited each other so well. Then who does the male lead marry?”

“Hey, you don’t date either, so why are you trying to make innocent characters experience romance vicariously for you? If you’re so desperate for romance, you could just date someone yourself.”

Upon hearing Sea’s words, Hyoju was so shocked that she opened her mouth wide and stopped breathing.

“Gasp! Isn’t that a little too harsh? Telling a pure-blooded otaku like me to date in real life? What kind of horrifying thing is that? I’m not interested in anyone except the men inside my monitor.”

When Hyoju glared at her with a completely serious expression, Sea clicked her tongue.