002
‘Why am I here?’
Just five minutes ago, I was taking the CSAT.
It was the third period, during the English listening test, no less.
[Hello. This is the announcement for the English section listening test of the College Scholastic Ability Test. Starting shortly at 1:10……]
But when I came to my senses, the test paper was gone, and I was being held in the arms of my grandmother, who had passed away two years ago.
“Yeonseo. My adorable granddaughter.”
What on earth is going on?
I was happy and amazed to see my grandmother again after so long, but right now, I couldn’t simply be happy to see her.
“Yeonseo, my puppy. You remember how Grandma once told you an old story?”
Grandma, that’s not what’s important right now. I have to solve the questions. I’m taking the CSAT today.
I hurriedly opened my mouth, but I couldn’t say anything, as though my throat were completely blocked.
“The eldest daughters of our Lee family will inevitably enter a novel someday. Young people these days call it……. They call it transmigration.”
“Grandma, what do you mean by entering a novel?”
My mouth moved on its own and uttered the question. Apparently, I could only say predetermined lines.
“You become one of the characters, meet princes, meet princesses……. That’s what happens.”
“Really?”
“Grandma was like that when she was a young lady, too. When the people from the book I had read appeared right before my eyes, I simply couldn’t believe it.”
Grandmother stared into empty space with the hazy eyes of someone dreaming.
“Still, child, no matter how much you like it, you must never stay there for too long!”
Grandmother suddenly grabbed my wrist.
She was gripping it so tightly that her frail fingers trembled.
“If you stay there too long, you’ll forget everything. To return, you must see the predetermined ending. No matter what happens along the way, you must see the ending.”
“Aah!”
“Otherwise, you’ll never be able to return! Child, do you understand?”
It hurts! My captured wrist hurt so badly.
Even in the middle of this, Grandmother urged me to give her an unspoken answer.
“Promise me. No matter what happens, you’ll see the ending and return to reality!”
Without even knowing what she was talking about, I desperately nodded.
Both of my captured hands were beginning to go numb.
At this rate, I felt like my wrists were going to break.
“All right, I’m sorry for everything I did, whatever it was!”
“Gretchen.”
“My wrists are going to break! Please!”
“Gretchen!!”
Smack. Someone slapped me hard across the cheek.
I was hit even though I hadn’t done anything wrong.
I opened my eyes wide in indignation, only to find myself…….
On a moving carriage.
The person holding my wrist was not my grandmother, but a girl wearing a black wool dress.
When I finally calmed down, the girl released the hand she had been holding, apparently relieved.
The carriage continued to jolt even amid all this.
“Gretchen, were you dreaming? I think it was a nightmare. You were completely limp earlier, as if you were dead! Goodness, look at all this sweat.”
The girl busily pulled a handkerchief from her pocket.
The material was rough, but it was still enough to wipe away the sweat.
“Thank you…… But, who are you?”
“Who am I? Jokes aren’t funny, Gretchen.”
Perhaps Gretchen had been quite fond of playing pranks, because Marie pouted as if she were used to it.
“No, I really mean it. Who are you?”
“It’s Marie. Marie Celly.”
There was no way I could have a foreign friend when I hadn’t left Korea even once in nineteen years.
I was about to say, ‘Thank you for waking me up, but you’ve mistaken me for someone else.‘ when I noticed that something was strange about my clothes.
I was wearing clothes similar to Marie’s.
The gray dress made of scratchy fabric and the dark-gray coat were not mine.
What on earth had been happening since earlier?
As I wondered whether I was still dreaming, Marie abruptly placed her hand on my forehead.
“Do you have a fever? Is something hurting?”
“It doesn’t hurt, but…….”
“If you are sick, try to bear with it for a little while. We’ll arrive at the Grand Duchy of Francis soon. No matter how cold-hearted they are, it’s still a Grand Ducal household, so they won’t harshly cast out a sick maid. They should have an official physician, too. I’ll ask the head maid.”
Francis? Why did that name sound familiar?
“Which Francis?”
“Don’t tell me you forgot? He’s the person we’ll be serving from now on, so you should at least remember his name. The Marquess’s wife personally wrote us a letter of recommendation, so it wouldn’t be proper to forget.”
“Sorry. So which Francis was it again?”
“His Highness, Grand Duke Adolph Lindal Francis.”
“Lindal Francis……?”
The chattering voice of my little sister and Marie’s voice overlapped perfectly.
“This novel is about a handsome young nobleman who marries a fairy in the Imperial Palace and lives happily ever after, Sister.”
A fairy, huh. It was such an adorable explanation that I remembered it.
A cute kid reading something cute.
I chuckled and patted my little sister’s head.
“Wow, a fairy? Then what’s the name of this handsome young master?”
“Theodore, Theodore Lindal Francis. He’s a grand duke.”
I wondered where I had heard it before, only to realize that it was exactly the same surname as the male protagonist of the novel my little sister had mentioned.
Wait, a novel?
Then, were the things Grandma had said in my dream actually true?
Did that ridiculous claim that the eldest daughters of our family transmigrated into novels generation after generation…… really turn out to be true?
So I had entered a novel I hadn’t even read, and had even transmigrated into a character whose identity I didn’t know.
And on the day of the CSAT, no less?
＊＊＊
The owner of the body I had transmigrated into was Gretchen Miller.
By the Empire’s age reckoning, she was fifteen years old this year.
Like Marie, Gretchen had received a letter of recommendation from the Marquess’s wife and transferred to the Grand Ducal household.
The reason we were riding the carriage was, of course, to go to our new workplace.
And naturally, this was not the Republic of Korea.
This was the territory of the Oder Empire, and it was currently the year 337 AD.
Just in case, I asked Marie, but she said she had never even heard of a country called Korea.
The more details I heard, the more I felt that the CSAT was completely out of reach.
I had studied solely for the CSAT, solving the Special Supplementary Textbook, CSAT Complete, and mock exams until I was sick of them, only for everything to become meaningless.
Even though I thought there was nothing I could do about something that had already happened, I couldn’t help thinking that this was just too much.
‘No. Still, according to Grandma’s words, it’s not as though there’s absolutely no way for me to return home.’
Grandma said she had returned to reality after being in a novel, too.
I just had to return as well.
As for the CSAT, I could take it again.
Let’s try adapting using my experience of transferring schools when I was young.
I had simply transferred to a new school.
Except this time, the world was a little…… different.
“Ah! How am I supposed to do that?!”
Did this even make sense from a common-sense perspective?
Transmigrating into a book?
That was the kind of thing that only happened in the second chapter of a romance-fantasy web novel.
“Are you really saying there’s no country called Korea or the Republic of Korea?”
“I told you there isn’t. Dae-han……? What country? If there were such a strange country on the map, I would have remembered it long ago.”
“You can just tell me. If you’re filming a YouTube video right now, at least wave a carrot. I can understand everything.”
I was still holding onto the hope that this might be a filming set or some kind of hidden-camera prank.
After all, weren’t skits involving ordinary people popular on YouTube?
It could be something like that.
When I desperately shook Marie by the shoulders, Marie lamented that her friend had finally gone crazy.
“You were acting strange from the moment you started muttering that there must be a chimera on the ceiling!”
For the record, I wasn’t looking for a chimera, but a camera.
“Now you’re asking me to wave a carrot. You must have really hit your head.”
“If it’s not allowed according to the script, at least lend me your phone.”
But Marie didn’t know about smartphones, the essential item of modern people, nor did she know about Wi-Fi.
Marie began looking at me with pity.
“You’re speaking in an alien language, so you must have hit your head pretty badly.
When we arrive, let’s make sure you get examined by a doctor first. All right?”
“…….”
After Marie’s reaction and countless attempts to deny reality, I finally realized it.
That’s right. This was damn reality.
No matter how much I slapped my own cheeks or coaxed and comforted Marie, the situation did not change, so this wasn’t a dream either.
‘No, if people have any conscience, shouldn’t they at least transmigrate me into a book I’ve read?’
If I couldn’t avoid it, I had to adapt.
After several setbacks, my mind finally began functioning rationally again.
I asked Marie to understand the situation I had found myself in.
“Then, Marie, where are we going right now?”
“We’re heading to the northern part of the Empire. The Grand Duchy is at the very northern end.”
“So he’s the Grand Duke of the North.”
This man was definitely going to have black hair.
Wasn’t a Grand Duke of the North supposed to have black hair?
Yeah.
Just from hearing his name, I could already imagine him with gray eyes and a muscular body.
He probably had never known love because he had conquered the North at a young age with his cold and strong personality, but he would surely be gentle toward his woman.
That was simply how romance fantasy usually worked.
I already felt as though I had finished reading an amazing novel.
I could practically picture the cold, handsome man holding an enormous greatsword.
“He must be handsome, right? With bl
ack hair…… He sounds like he’d have a dignified appearance. Am I right?”
When I asked with anticipation, Marie made a reluctant expression.
“According to the rumors going around, the Grand Duke does have an impressive build, but apparently he’s bald.”
“……Bald?”
