<chapter 2>
Rowena Whitfield.
An orphan from Townsend Orphanage who had just turned exactly ten years old this Thanksgiving.
Until very recently, that had been the single sentence that described Rowena.
A completely ordinary orphan girl with absolutely nothing special about her. That was Rowena.
Other children might have had additional descriptions like having freckles or ginger hair, but those were all far from Rowena.
To begin with, even the name Rowena was simply the eighth in the sequence of names assigned to orphans at Townsend Orphanage, so what could possibly be special about it?
However, Rowena had one single secret she was hiding.
The fact that she had been reincarnated into a book!
‘Well, to be precise, I should say I possess memories from my previous life.’
Of course, Rowena had not known from the very beginning that she had reincarnated into a book.
In fact, it was a very recent realization.
It happened on Thanksgiving Day a few days ago.
The orphans of Townsend, whose exact birth dates were unknown, held their birthday parties on this day.
They roughly stuck candles into a large cake, five or six children sat around it, and blew out the candles while looking at each other’s faces through the bars of flame.
However, during that birthday party, Rowena suddenly collapsed without being able to blow out even a single one of her candles.
Was it because she had been exposed to too much cold wind?
Or perhaps it was the consequence of ignoring the teacher’s nagging not to roll around too much in the grass.
The exact reason was unknown, but due to a mysterious illness, Rowena collapsed abruptly.
After suffering continuously for three full days and nights, when she finally woke up.
‘I guess I really am terribly unlucky.’
Rowena thought this.
The reason such a thought suddenly came to her — even though she had never thought it when she was insulted and hit on the head for being a parentless child — was twofold.
The first was that this illness, which had made her suffer for three days and nights, was a serious, incurable disease.
The old village doctor, who had always been quite fond of Rowena, delivered a death sentence to her while her fever had not yet fully subsided.
“If it’s the disease I think it is, this child will live at most five more years. There is no hope for this illness. Since there is no cure… it would be best to prepare your heart in advance.”
Poor thing.
Saying this while clicking his tongue, the doctor gently stroked Rowena’s small head a couple of times.
In truth, up until that moment, Rowena had not thought about luck or anything like that.
‘Grandpa must have finally gone senile.’
With a head still burning with fever, she merely sent him a resentful glare.
And for good reason — Rowena was only ten years old.
‘What kind of nonsense is that? If I can only live five more years, that means I’ll die at fifteen. I’m perfectly healthy!’
Until the moment right before she suddenly collapsed, Rowena had been bursting with energy.
So once this fever went down, she would surely become lively again. Rowena inwardly pouted her lips.
Stupid old man who doesn’t know anything. Next time, even if I find two four-leaf clovers, I absolutely won’t give you one. I won’t even share my boiled egg.
‘Besides, my dreams have been so strange lately…’
Perhaps because of the fever, Rowena had truly bizarre dreams while she was sick.
Dreams of living in a completely unfamiliar world she had never seen before.
Somehow familiar and nostalgic, yet incredibly vivid dreams.
‘I can’t remember most of the details now…’
But one thing — only the very last scene of the dream — remained vividly in her memory.
While crossing the street reading her favorite novel on a small device called a smartphone, a truck came and… well.
Even the sensation of being hit by the car was so vivid that thinking about the dream still made her shudder.
‘It really was an incredibly vivid dream. I even remember the content of the book I was reading right before I died.’
It was definitely a book featuring a terminally ill female protagonist diagnosed with an incurable disease.
What was the name of that illness again?
Um…
“…Lily disease. This child’s illness is lily disease.”
Yes, it was definitely lily disease!
The symptoms began with a high fever severe enough to cause loss of consciousness, and after the fever subsided, there appeared to be no particular symptoms at first, but gradually…
“That’s right. It starts with a high fever strong enough to make one lose consciousness. After the fever goes down, there seem to be no symptoms, but gradually white spots appear on the body. Eventually, the entire body rots away until death.”
“…Huh?”
A dazed sound leaked faintly from Rowena’s cracked lips.
That day was exactly the third day since Rowena had turned ten, the day she received a terminal prognosis due to an incurable disease.
And it was the day she realized she had been reincarnated as an extra in the book she had been reading in her previous life.
‘I really wanted to cry back then.’
Recalling the past, Rowena gave a small nod to herself.
It took a little more time after that to completely match the present reality with the memories of her previous life that had surfaced.
The fact that Rowena had secretly cried herself to sleep every night during that period was a very grave secret.
‘Reincarnating as an orphan was already miserable enough, but an incurable disease on top of that!’
Even though a whole week had passed, thinking about it now still filled her with injustice and sorrow.
But it was too early to fall into despair over something like this.
Fortunately, Rowena knew the entire content of this book!
‘I even know what the cure for lily disease is.’
However, it was far too early to rejoice over that.
Because the cure for lily disease was not going to appear for another seven years!
The name of the book Rowena had reincarnated into was <Until the Lily Withers>. Abbreviated as <Lily Wither>.
A typical tragic romance story in which a beautiful terminally ill female lead, as lovely as a single lily, goes through all sorts of suffering among men who show her abnormal obsession.
‘Among them, the key point was especially that the female lead was terminally ill with very little time left.’
Suffering from lily disease, she comes up to the capital to find a cure, gets entangled with the villain male lead — the only person in the empire who possesses the cure — and her ordeal begins.
Especially because the villain male lead Seymour’s obsession with the female lead was far from ordinary, the protagonist suffers tremendously.
‘They said he went mad because she resembled his dead wife so strikingly.’
He clung to her, mistaking her for his wife returned to life.
And because of that, the female lead alone is put through hell.
In fact, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that almost all the suffering in <Lily Wither> was created by that villain .
‘In the end, she does receive salvation from the male lead…’
Anyway.
The important point is that the appearance of the cure for lily disease, seven years from now, is precisely the starting point of <Lily Wither>.
It is at that exact moment that the new medicine Seymour has just imported from abroad is revealed to be the cure for lily disease, and the female lead comes to meet him, beginning the entire story.
You might think, well, since the cure comes out eventually, isn’t that fortunate?
No!
‘By that time, I’ll already be dead!’
Whether fortunate or unfortunate, the old doctor who sometimes shared boiled eggs with Rowena was a former imperial physician who had retired to his hometown due to age.
Thanks to that, he was able to recognize lily disease.
‘His diagnosis that I’ll die in five years is probably accurate too.’
So what’s the use of a cure appearing? By then, the person named Rowena Whitfield will have been completely erased from this book forever.
Rowena simply happened to have the same disease as the female protagonist of <Lily Wither>; she was nothing more than an extra. Therefore, she could not expect the same miraculous cure that the female lead would receive.
Rowena stood in front of the mirror.
The girl in the mirror, with short wheat-colored hair, was looking back at Rowena with deep green eyes.
The girl’s cheeks, now completely free of the pallor of illness, were plump like a doll specially stuffed with extra cotton, and a healthy apricot-like color bloomed on her skin.
Seeing that sight, a lump rose in her throat again.
‘I don’t want to die.’
I’m still alive.
But to survive, she needed the cure.
‘And much earlier than in the original story.’
But how?
She had spent the entire week sobbing and agonizing, but no matter how much she racked her brain, no solution came to mind.
‘The villain Seymour is a duke. And I’m just an orphan child.’
Meeting him was difficult enough, let alone obtaining the cure.
First she had to look up at the sky to ,even dream of picking a star; she had to meet Seymour before she could do anything about the cure!
With this tiny body and not a single penny to her name as an orphan, approaching Seymour seemed impossibly distant.
‘Isn’t there any way?’
Rowena pressed her chubby cheeks firmly with both palms and sank deep into serious thought.
At that moment, the church bell rang outside the window, announcing noon on the weekend.
Dong—
And the door burst open as a girl of the same age poked her head into the room.
“Rowena! Are you ready?”
“Huh? Ready?”
She had been so lost in thought about what to do next that she might have forgotten something.
When Rowena blinked her big eyes, the girl burst into laughter.
“Silly, you were out of it because you were sick, right? Today is the day we go to do volunteer work at the mansion of the people who sponsor the orphanage!”
“…Ah.”
Only then did she remember. Townsend Orphanage periodically sent the children to the homes of their sponsors to sing songs, keep them company, and perform other volunteer activities — and today was exactly that day.
“You looked out of it since morning roll call. Hurry up and get ready! Today we’re going to the Hayworth mansion, so be extra careful!”
“…Hayworth?”
Rowena unconsciously murmured the name, and the girl nodded vigorously.
“Yes, Hayworth! If we don’t want to get scolded by the already very strict Madam, hurry up and get ready!”
Bang. The girl closed the door and left, but Rowena remained frozen in place as if rooted to the spot.
‘Hayworth.’
Hearing that word, a passage from the book suddenly came to mind.
[-The only person who could handle the arrogant Seymour even a little was his mother-in-law, Madam Hayworth, who was practically like his own mother.]
‘Madam Hayworth!’
A smile slowly began to spread across Rowena’s previously dejected little face.
‘Yes! I can meet him through Madam! Why didn’t I think of that?’
She had found a way to meet Seymour!
