READ NOVEL ONLINE Ch. 1
“So, Your Highness, will you please marry me?”
I stared blankly at the person who had just spoken.
A man was kneeling on one knee before me.
He was a beautiful man. His pale skin was as smooth as porcelain, and his dark hair with a hint of blue shimmered like the night sky.
Beneath his black hair, his radiant golden eyes met mine.
His slightly gaunt face and shadowed eyes gave off a strangely decadent charm.
To be this handsome at eighteen—by the time he turned twenty, he would be a man so beautiful that he could shake the entire empire.
As I imagined his future, my feelings became complicated, and I bit my lip.
His name was Tristan.
He was a young duke, having recently been bestowed with his title.
And he was the male lead of this novel.
“Are you asking me to marry you?”
Even though I already knew the answer, my voice trembled slightly as I asked.
“Are you saying that to me?”
Tristan’s eyes narrowed as he detected the nervousness in my voice.
I tensed up like a cat cornered by a tiger.
Tristan occasionally looked at me with a very peculiar gaze. He furrowed his brow slightly and studied my face as if he was seeing me for the first time.
Usually, I interacted with him without hesitation, but whenever I received that gaze, I became strangely tense and restless.
“Of course. Who else would I propose to besides Your Highness?”
Tristan spoke. His tone was so firm that I wanted to run away.
Of course, I liked Tristan. I had liked him for longer than he could ever imagine. And more than anyone, I wished for his happiness.
Which was exactly why this couldn’t happen.
“Tristan, do you love me?”
Tristan’s brow furrowed a bit more.
Please don’t make that face. It’s scary.
It was clear that Tristan didn’t love me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t glare at me like this every time I said something foolish.
“How many nobles in this empire marry the person they love?”
Instead of answering my question, he asked me one in return.
He wasn’t wrong. In this world, where arranged marriages were the norm, it wouldn’t be easy for a duke like him to marry someone he loved.
But you were going to accomplish that difficult task. So, you couldn’t settle here.
“Why are you saying this?”
As I struggled to figure out how to persuade him, Tristan’s voice suddenly turned desperate. For a moment, I thought my heart might stop.
“You saved me.”
He reached out his hand to me. I hadn’t meant to, but when I saw the moisture glistening in his golden eyes, I couldn’t help but extend my hand to him.
He took my hand and pressed it to his cheek. Then he looked at me with earnest eyes.
“Are you going to abandon me after saving me?”
I couldn’t say a word.
I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t his destined partner, that there was someone else he would fall in love with, but I couldn’t.
So, I screamed internally.
What was gotten into him all of a sudden?!
You were not supposed to be this kind of character! And we were not even like that…!
When did things start going wrong?
This wasn’t supposed to happen; where did it all go wrong?
***
To explain from the beginning, it went like this.
One morning, I woke up to find myself inside a novel.
A romance novel called
“No way…”
I looked in the mirror, unable to believe what I was seeing, and slapped my cheek.
It hurt terribly. It was real.
I started to tear up, but I wasn’t sure if it was because my cheek hurt or because I was losing my mind.
Sniffling, I stared into the mirror.
A strange little girl was standing there. She looked incredibly pitiful.
With her long, wavy blonde hair and her wide, blinking eyes, the girl might have been cute, like a doll.
If she’d had about ten more kilograms of flesh on her bones, that was.
She was small, so thin it was pitiful, and her dress was slipping off her frail body. Her skin and hair were dry and rough, and there were even handprints on her cheeks.
The handprints were from when I slapped myself, but maybe because she had such a pitiful appearance, the marks seemed to suit her in a ridiculous way.
She looked like a little Cinderella, straight out of a fairy tale. Misery practically oozed from her.
But this girl wasn’t a kitchen maid, servant, or street urchin, despite what her appearance might suggest.
Her name was Lucilia El Esperusa.
The 17th princess of the Esperusa Empire.
“This is a dream!”
I clutched my head and tried to escape from reality again.
No, it couldn’t be, this couldn’t be happening! Why, out of all the romance novels, did it have to be
Her competitors, naturally, were her siblings. And not just a few of them—there were a total of 18.
Including Imelda, that made 19 siblings in all.
The problem was that, for a romance novel, this story was incredibly brutal.
The Esperusa imperial family was, in a word, a lineage of madmen. In the long history of the empire, not a single person had peacefully succeeded to the throne.
The tradition of the Esperusa Imperial family was for siblings to kill each other, with the last one standing becoming the emperor.
This family was a bloody mess, to say the least.
I ended up in the middle of such a household.
Not as the main character, but as a supporting role.
“Lucilia isn’t so bad, but…”
I sighed deeply and recalled the plot of the original story.
For some reason, I had not only knowledge of the original story but also Lucilia’s own memories in my head, so understanding the situation wasn’t difficult.
Lucilia was a rare case in the Esperusa imperial family, a child weak in both body and mind. Moreover, her mother came from a low-status family, so she had no relatives to support her.
A very weak and insignificant princess.
That fact saved Lucilia’s life.
The crazed princes and princesses of Esperusa were eager to eliminate their rivals, but Lucilia was too insignificant to even catch their attention.
Lucilia was weak but not stupid. She knew well that this was her only way to survive.
So, the 17th princess chose to live as if she were dead, in her small and shabby palace, rather than be involved in political battles.
After recalling up to this point, I took my eyes off the mirror and looked around.
This was Lucilia’s bedroom. Just like in the memories that weren’t mine, the room was small and shabby.
The bedroom had a bed, a dressing table, a tiny coffee table and chair, and a wardrobe. All of them were extremely old.
The blanket on the bed looked thin and cold, and the chair in front of the table seemed so worn out that I didn’t dare to sit on it.
Obviously, this room was small and shabby for an imperial princess.
But from my perspective…
“It’s bigger than my single room.”
I walked to the window and opened it.
“It even has a window.”
Sunlight poured into the room through the open window. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw sunlight in my room.
I muttered blankly.
“This room is nice…”
In my original world, I was born with a dirt spoon.
I couldn’t afford to go to college, so I started working right after high school, and after getting a job, I worked myself to the bone. I did earn some money.
But that money didn’t go into my pocket; it went to support my parents living in the countryside and to pay for my siblings’ tuition.
“You’re the eldest daughter.”
My parents consoled me with those words.
It wasn’t a word of gratitude or apology, but I took comfort in it. Because that was the only time my parents spoke kindly to me, when they received money.
So, I worked hard. I saved the money I could have spent on myself to give a little more to my family.
I even scrimped on rent, living in the cheapest room in a single apartment, and ate expired food from the convenience store where I worked.
I never got checked, but I couldn’t have been healthy living like that. My body must have been completely wrecked.
I remember being unusually tired before I fell asleep. Much more than usual, as if my whole body was chained down.
It seemed like I died from overwork.
“Haha…”
When I came to my senses, I found myself laughing. There was nothing to laugh about, but somehow it felt funny.
Looking back at my life, I realized how foolishly I had lived. Working myself to death to earn money for others, dying of overwork—was there any life more futile?
If I could go back, I’d live differently. No, I would definitely live differently.
But I probably died, and now I had to live a new life in a strange place filled with lunatics.
Living the life of a pitiful princess who pretended to be dead…
“No.”
I snapped my head up and muttered.
This was a novel. Lucilia was a pitiful supporting character. But her life wasn’t eternally miserable.
I knew Lucilia’s future.
“How old is Lucilia this year…”
I just muttered, but as if in response, a memory popped up in my head. This year was the imperial year 515. Lucilia was twelve years old this year.
“Twelve?”
I looked at my skinny arms and legs.
“I’d believe it if I said I was eight.”
She must have suffered so much that she couldn’t grow properly.
It was unfortunate, but the past was the past. What mattered now was the future.
Three years from now, Lucilia would meet the person who would change her life forever.
The protagonist of this novel, Imelda.
Imelda was originally a princess who lived quietly like Lucilia.
However, a major event happened when she turned eighteen, and because of that, Imelda jumped into the fight for the throne.
Determined to claim the emperor’s seat, Imelda chose a strategy quite different from other competitors.
She reached out to her weak and powerless siblings.
Many princes and princesses were terrified and rejected her or blindly suspected Imelda.
However, some were moved by Imelda’s attitude, opened their hearts, and were ultimately saved.
Lucilia was one of them.
When she was dying from illness, Imelda saved her life. Lucilia then vowed to live the rest of her life for her sister.
At that moment, Lucilia’s hidden talent blossomed. From then on, she used that talent to help Imelda.
On the day Imelda became the emperor, Lucilia clapped with a happy face for her sister. For her victorious sister and herself…
Recalling up to this point, I almost screamed in joy.
Wasn’t this a complete reversal of fortune?
After a tough childhood, everything went well after joining the protagonist’s line, and in the end, she defeated her nemesis and achieved victory.
Strictly speaking, the real victor would be Imelda, who became the emperor, but that was not the life I wanted to live.
The emperor’s seat was tiring, tough, and even dangerous, right?
Maybe because of my memories of dying from overwork, a life filled with practical happiness like Lucilia’s seemed much better than being an emperor who would work until death.
And now, I was Lucilia.
I stood in front of the dressing table again and looked at my reflection in the mirror.
I no longer felt pity for that figure.
The one in the mirror wasn’t a pitiful child.
It was a promised happy ending.
I smiled brightly at the mirror. Towards the new me, and for the true protagonist of this world.
“I’ll wait for you, sister.”
Three years until the original story began. Let’s endure for just three years. Quietly, as if I was dead, just like Lucilia had been.
Until my sister, the protagonist, came to find me.