Warm sunlight filtered through the narrow gaps in the iron bars. I had been trying to sleep leaning against the cold wall, but the bright rays stabbed straight into my eyes, yanking me out of my shallow doze.
The sky beyond the window glowed orange; night would fall soon.
“Teacher Obert.”
At that moment the small boy in front of me gripped the hem of my ragged dress with all his strength. Even in clothes worn thin and torn, his sweetness had not faded in the slightest.
His platinum-blond hair was greasy and matted, yet it still held its beautiful shine. His wide, sparkling eyes were a clear, refreshing turquoise.
Teacher Obert.
That was my name now—Astrid Obert. A week had passed since I woke inside this wretched body, but the name still sounded foreign every single time I heard it.
“What is it, Rodant?” I asked the boy gently.
Rodant. Naming a child after a rodent—how cruel. Someone had apparently given the name to this street urchin who wandered the alleys like a sewer rat.
And the boy standing before me with that absurd name was none other than the male protagonist of the novel I had possessed: Liberator of the Underground City.
“……It’s nothing.”
Rodant’s lips moved as if he wanted to speak, then pressed together tightly. Whatever he had been about to say, hesitation won.
I closed my eyes again. The sight in front of me was too painful to keep looking at.
This place where Rodant and I were locked together was the infamous prison of the Regnumia Empire. The cell was so narrow that neither a young boy nor a petite adult woman could stretch out fully.
The moment my eyes shut, memories from my previous life rushed in like a flood.
“Patient! Patient! Can you hear me?”
“TA patient—twenty-seven-year-old female. Blood pressure is still dropping!”
“Patient, do you know where you are?”
“Doctor, it’s V-fib!”
That was my last memory. On my way to work, struck by a truck, rushed to the hospital. It felt exactly like a scene from the medical dramas I had watched since my school days.
Even after fifteen years of devouring countless medical shows, I had never imagined that such a moment would arrive for me. That I would actually die.
V-fib—ventricular fibrillation. And probably expire. I didn’t remember the pronouncement, but the doctor must have delivered it with solemn finality. My short twenty-seven years of life had ended just like that.
When I opened my eyes again, I was here, in this godforsaken prison. I had been thrown into the cell still carrying Astrid Obert’s memories. Those memories were hazy, as if wrapped in fog.
Astrid Obert had been called the Angel of Aub Street. In terms from my old world, she was like Mother Teresa.
An angel…
Just the title made my skin crawl with embarrassment, like a squid twisting on a hot plate. But whether I liked it or not, that was who I was now.
Astrid Obert had been twenty-seven—the same age as me. Yet twenty-seven in this world and twenty-seven in mine were two entirely different things.
Women here became adults at eighteen and were married off to partners chosen by their families, as if sold.
Past twenty, an unmarried woman was pointed at and called an old maid. In a society like that, a twenty-seven-year-old woman living alone without marriage…
And on top of that, she gathered poor children from the streets and treated their illnesses. She truly had been a saint.
Yes. The ten-year-old boy in front of me—Rodant—was one of the children Astrid had saved. The very last one. Because he had been captured and thrown into this prison with her.
“……Rodant, what’s wrong?”
My reverie lasted only a moment. I couldn’t focus with him fidgeting like that. Rodant looked unbearably restless and anxious.
“Teacher Obert……”
Tears welled in Rodant’s mint-green eyes. Tears in a young boy’s eyes were heartbreaking… yet unbearably adorable.
I had mainly been a medical-drama addict, but I hadn’t ignored every other genre. Among them, Liberator of the Underground City was one I had rewatched so many times it ranked among my absolute favorites.
And now my beloved character at age ten was right in front of me—looking up at me with tears in his eyes! Still, the Angel of Aub Street could not entertain such irreverent thoughts in front of a crying child.
Ahem. I cleared my throat and asked gently,
“Why are you crying, Rodant? Does something hurt?”
When I asked with concern, Rodant shook his head. Then he clutched my sleeve tightly. Ugh… so cute……
“Teacher… the guards said…… that you’re going to be hanged tomorrow…… Is it true?”
The child’s question left me speechless for a second. Those guard bastards had actually said that in front of a ten-year-old? Unforgivable.
Of course, what they said wasn’t wrong. Tomorrow morning at dawn I was scheduled to be dragged to the gallows and hanged.
The charge was “unlicensed medical practice.”
The Regnumia Empire did not allow women to hold professional occupations. Although Astrid had inherited the hospital from her physician father, she had never possessed a medical license.
Performing medical acts under those conditions was the official reason I was locked up. In truth, they simply couldn’t stand the woman who was worshipped as an angel for helping the oppressed and downtrodden.
But according to the original story I had read countless times, I would not die. Because tonight someone would come to rescue me.
“Don’t worry, Rodant. That won’t happen. It’s all right. Everything will be fine.”
I pulled the restless boy into a tight embrace and comforted him. His small shoulders grew damp against me—his tears had finally overflowed. His whole frame trembled.
For a boy with nowhere else to go, who had been taken in and treated kindly by Astrid, the news that she would die tomorrow must have been devastating. Those guards who had told him… they really deserved to die……
Hmph. Well, in a few hours they would all be dead anyway.
Soon the Liberators would storm this place.
The current emperor of the Regnumia Empire, Solter III, was a man who practiced tyranny without limit.
Laughter had vanished from the streets, and the imperial army had become an object of pure terror. Displeasing the troops often meant losing your life or being driven beyond the city walls into lands swarming with monsters.
In such a world, it was only natural that people rose against the empire one by one.
The Liberators were the rebel force formed by those very people—an organization of truly enormous scale.
According to the original work, tonight the Liberators would slaughter every guard in this prison and rescue both Astrid and Rodant.
Anticipating the rescue, I glared fiercely at the guard beyond the iron bars. The man flinched. His face clearly said, What the hell is wrong with this crazy woman?
While I soothed the sobbing Rodant, darkness settled outside the window. The time until the Liberators arrived was growing short.
I drew the edge of my hand slowly across my throat toward the guard who still stared at me as if I were strange. You’re all finished—understand?
Yet even as I did it, my heart was far from at ease.
True, I would escape the gallows, but Astrid’s future would not be peaceful.
The Liberators were attacking the prison to rescue her for one reason only: to save their dying leader.
The sovereign of the underground city—Jin. He would soon become my patient
