Chapter 1

To set the record straight, I have always been a nerd. Someone who likes cartoons, games and novels. But that didn't mean I was alone. I had quite a lot of friends because I have a cheerful personality. "Let's live without regret as though today is the last day of our lives," is what I yell happily when I went out drinking with friends. I always returned home satisfactorily socialized.

What I didn't know was that it was really the last day for me. Dying like this is definitely not done. Even though I lived my days like they were my last, it didn't mean that I had no feelings or ambitions for my life. It didn't mean I didn't want to live.

My regrets weren't really as dramatic and huge as accomplishing something significant or a longing for someone. I am an orphan, and I did live my life without regrets, although there is this lingering feeling of wanting to know the end of the novel I was reading.

I died, thus, in vain. But... I opened my eyes again. I saw a strange scene in front of me and I belatedly realized I was in the body of a strange woman. After pondering for a while, I understood this is what it meant to be 'transmigrated'. It was very common in novels these days.

While reading about it, I had imagined something like that happening to me. But that was it, an imagination, nothing more. It was just wishful thinking when life became tough. I had only wished for it when I was young and naïve and innocent. I never believed it could actually come true.

I used to imagine having a strange creature as my imaginary friend, or a magical fae as my partner, or being chosen to save the world or jumping into a virtual reality to be some sort of a hero. But I am 30 years old. I am too old to wish for things like that.

I sighed. I tried to focus on what was in front of me. Accepting my death and taking in my environment, acknowledging that my poor house was the victim of my anger, I laid myself down on a smelly sofa and closed my eyes.

I had to accept that I was inside a novel. I needed to think and focus. First, I am now Dalia Alshine. I knew this character. She was a character in the novel I had read before I died in a car accident.

That is correct. That novel that I was lamenting about on not knowing the ending? I was in it! That was bad news. Dalia was a severe alcoholic. She was a drunk Count who was also addicted to gambling.

In the corner of the room, I could see a pile of bottles and knew even before looking that the lobby, the corridor and the whole mansion would be full of empty bottles rolling around. It is a very dangerous novel even when I wasn't in it. Why in the world did I have to be possessed in this shabby and worthless body?

This novel was about the protagonist becoming an emperor after going through all kinds of trials and adversities. It was also a male-dominated novel. There were rarely women who were happy in this world.

"Shoot!" I cursed. I wish I had become one of the emperor's many concubines instead. I would have enjoyed all the riches and a very luxurious life. A quiet, comfortable life...

I guess the in-palace fights were also quite fierce though... It was better to get close with the male lead instead. The novels I had read before that focused on people being transmigrated always seemed to end up in a mess when they got into close contact with the male protagonist. On the other hand, if the character tries consciously to avoid being part of the novel, they end up pretty bad too.

Additionally, protecting one's favorite character or trying to save someone in the novel ended up destroying the novel and messing it up where the character could turn the tables and become the main lead.

I, for one, just want to live a quiet life in a rural village without complicating anything. Preferably, without encountering any of the main characters. Safety First! Health and longevity! That is what I have always believed in.

In that sense, Dalia was a pretty convenient person. She didn't meet any main or important characters and didn't really have much of an involvement in the novel as a whole. That was true at least for the parts I had read. There was always a possibility that Dalia could end up becoming more involved afterwards in the novel, but Dalia had died at the end of the second part of the novel. So, that was very unlikely to happen.

A chill went through me and I shook my head, brushing my thoughts away. I tried to remember Dalia and her first appearance in the novel. Oh... she was there in one of the many trials the male protagonist had to go through. The episode was titled, 'Expression of Prohibited Magic, Time of Acrab.'

Dalia was Count Alshine, the lord of "Acrab,"and she only had a supporting role in that part. Great! I only appear once as a small supporting role. That's it! Dalia did not appear throughout the novel after that. Her role would be done in this episode and she would never appear again. That episode had been very ambiguous regarding the main character's hardships.

When the main protagonist couldn't solve a problem by himself, he had sought the wizard's help. 'Kaichen Tenebre' was a friend to the protagonist and the grand wizard. Nobody was as knowledgeable and powerful in magic as him. It was a plan to keep the grand wizard as his friend who was so accomplished in magic because he had no other interest.