Chapter 1
They say hardship is followed by joy—but what a ridiculous lie.
The life of a K-daughter, especially the eldest, doesn’t lead to light at the end of the tunnel. It only promises deeper darkness, heavier burdens. Just like my life.
I was born the eldest daughter in a household far from ordinary in South Korea.
There are many kinds of eldest daughters, sure, but I was the kind loaded with the “head of household” option. The highest difficulty setting. Hardcore mode.
My mother’s death. My father’s unemployment and descent into alcoholism.
At the prime age of twenty, life hit us with the predictable but devastating triple combo of misfortune.
My father drowned himself in alcohol and gave up on everything. My younger siblings cried every night in fear and confusion.
I had to stay sane. There was no time to blame others or wallow in resentment. If we wanted even the barest scrap of food, I had to do whatever it took.
I took a leave of absence from university and got a job at a factory. The paycheck was barely enough to feed a four-person family.
I couldn’t afford a 2,000-won Americano, so I drank instant coffee. I spent days agonizing over buying a single pair of 20,000-won pants. I counted every penny to buy school uniforms, backpacks, and sneakers for my siblings.
Was that life unfair? Of course it was. I burned with silent rage every time I looked at those money-eating monsters.
I was human too. I wanted to eat delicious food with my money, wear pretty clothes bought with my effort.
I endured desperately, hoping that one day my siblings and father would become proper people again.
But my father never came to his senses. Years passed, and he only grew worse—like a caricature of a degenerate, as if he’d taken a course titled Introduction to Being a Bastard.
He flipped dinner tables, broke things, tried to raise a hand against the kids.
And at that moment—calmly but utterly—I snapped. The eldest daughter’s true nature awakened.
“Father, sit still. Struggle and it’ll hurt more.”
I leapt smoothly into the air and landed a side-kick right into his ribs.
You see, Father, you shouldn’t forget that I hold a third-degree black belt in Taekwondo. I can subdue a drunken man who’s lost the ability to distinguish friend from foe in a heartbeat.
That day, Father was admitted to the white house on the hill—the psychiatric facility. And peace returned to our home.
But as if the gods could not tolerate my newfound peace, they sent me a fresh disaster.
“Stay out of my life, you’re not even our mom!”
“I told you I wanted Golden Goose, not these cheap sneakers!”
My siblings, as if guzzling down a whole bowl of teenage angst, began their rampage.
For the first time in my life, I cursed the heavens. They say raising children is a thankless task. I now understood that viscerally. After years of giving up my food, my clothes, and my youth for them, what I got in return was a triple combo of public humiliation.
Summoned by the school. Summoned by the police. Summoned by the court.
When I was called to the school, my heart shattered. I couldn’t lift my head, feeling too guilty toward the victim.
“I’m sorry… I failed to raise them right…”
When I was summoned to the police station, my mind went blank. I wanted to drop everything and run away. But I clenched my teeth and endured—for fear that if I left, the kids would spiral even further out of control.
And then, the day I stood in court and watched my siblings cry crocodile tears in front of the judge—something clicked in my mind.
Those things aren’t humans. They’re demons.
I made a decision: before those demons could do more harm to society, I would rehabilitate them myself.
First, I quit the factory and re-enrolled in the Taekwondo studio. If I was going to carry out this rehabilitation project, I needed strength.
Tears and love had only ever brought betrayal. Only force could redeem self-made monsters.
I remodeled the house to isolate them from society.
I reversed the doorknobs on their rooms, blocked the windows, and soundproofed the walls. That way, no matter how much of a racket they made, the neighbors wouldn’t hear a thing.
Once preparations were complete, all that remained was to wait for my siblings to show up.
They came home once a week to steal money. That was my golden opportunity.
A few days later, my younger sister came home first, and my brother the day after.
The sister obediently locked herself into her room the moment she returned. Seems she felt the difference in weight class from my well-trained thighs.
Indeed, the logic of strength was the light, the truth, and the way.
But my brother didn’t fold so easily. So I struck first, with a righteous side-kick.
Words can’t describe the satisfaction I felt when I smashed the mouth of that brat who never shut up about survival of the fittest.
After a fierce battle, I emerged victorious. There aren’t many brothers in this world who can win against a Taekwondo-trained sister armed with the rod of love.
“Alright. You go quietly to your room now.”
Caging the defeated beast brought peace to the world. It was the most peaceful day I’d had since Mother passed away.
About ten days later, both siblings knelt, tears streaming down their faces, begging for forgiveness.
It seemed they finally realized that they, too, might end up like Father if they kept going.
I knew it was all crocodile tears, but I forgave them anyway. I even returned the phones I’d confiscated.
Of course, I had secretly installed location tracking apps for their “safety.”
I gave them a list of Ten Commandments for becoming decent people—simple stuff like “don’t hit others,” “don’t steal,” “sleep at home.”
“Stick out your finger. Time to stamp your oath.”
They wrote out a pledge promising to return to their rooms if they ever broke the commandments. Their expressions while stamping their thumbprints were… interesting, but I paid no mind.
I never expected devils to keep promises in the first place.
And sure enough, they broke their vows in the most dramatic fashion, going back to their delinquent ways.
I calmly tracked their locations via GPS and launched recovery operations.
“You can run, but you’ll never escape my grasp.”
From then on, the cycle was simple: they got caught, they cried, I forgave them, they ran again, I caught them again.
After about seven rounds each, they finally surrendered. Their will to rebel had been thoroughly broken.
Thus, my siblings’ puberty ended, and the two black dragons were finally wrapped in human skin.
All my savings, my retirement funds, my twenties—everything I’d poured into the rehabilitation project—were gone.
It’d be a lie to say I didn’t regret it at all. But I had no real complaints. It was the most meaningful money I had ever spent in my life.
Just as I was looking into jobs while forcing the siblings to attend GED prep courses, news arrived: Father had recovered.
For the first time in years, I sat across from him and had a normal conversation.
There was a light in his eyes. That alone was a monumental step forward.
I summarized the saga of my siblings’ delinquency, their trials, and their eventual rehabilitation.
My father’s fingertips trembled from the lingering effects of alcoholism.
“B-Big girl… I think I’ll just stay here and live out the rest of my life…”
“But you said you wanted to be discharged. You seem perfectly fine now, so come out and provide for us.”
Dragging my father—who kept whining about how he couldn’t do it—I took him up the mountain every day.
A sound body is the home of a sound mind. Once he managed to hold a plank for a full minute, he stopped spouting weak nonsense.
Not long after, both of us found jobs. I started working as a bookkeeper at a small company, and my father began working as a security guard at an apartment complex.
My younger brother balanced studying with a part-time job. He did end up at the police station after getting into an argument with a customer, but thankfully, he walked away with a hefty settlement.
My sister got entangled in a reckless fling with a boy she met at the study hall. She nearly shaved her head and locked herself up, but fortunately, she came to her senses before taking action.
That year’s birthday was the best I’d had since our mother passed.
With a cake and a handful of gifts, my family gave me the words I’d waited ten years to hear:
“Uh… unni. I talked it over with oppa, and once we pass our GEDs… would you like to go back to college?”
“Noona. We’ll cover your tuition. You can stop working now.”
“B-Big girl. I’ll take on two jobs if I have to, so don’t worry about living expenses!”
It was the first day I truly felt that turning beasts into people had been worth it.
That very day, I quit my job, took an allowance, and dedicated myself to studying.
Only at twenty-nine did I discover how comfortable life could be when you’re living off someone else’s money.
Thanks to the phone my brother paid for, I binged on webtoons and webnovels without guilt. Even when he nagged me about the phone bill exceeding 100,000 won, I couldn’t stop smiling.
Life’s not so bad.
Maybe from now on, things will only get better.
It was the first time I’d ever thought that.
And that same day… I died.
A damn dump truck—let’s skip the details.
I’m already dead, but I still feel so unfairly wronged I could die again.
***
I thought I was dead—but I woke up.
The ceiling I saw the moment I opened my eyes was painfully Rococo. So much so that I couldn’t imagine it belonged anywhere in South Korea.
My ears were ringing, my body stiff. I couldn’t move a single finger.
I stared for a long time at a ceiling mural depicting a baby angel hunting demons.
Then, the mural began to warp, and unfamiliar memories poured into my mind.
They were the memories of someone named Ariel Valienor.
While the memories were being forcibly shoved into me, a sharp beep pierced through my ears.
Convulsions rippled from my fingertips and toes. My back arched off the bed as violent tremors shook my body. Then, as if someone had yanked out the earplugs, the world snapped into sound.
Unfamiliar language. Unfamiliar voices.
Everything was foreign, and yet strangely familiar.
The most alien part of all was me—understanding a language I’d never heard before.
“Magician… is my… is my daughter alive again?”
“W-We need to stop the convulsions first!”
“Ariel, can you hear my—”
BEEEEEE—
The memories of Ariel Valienor, which had dominated my mind, were sucked into a void of pitch-black darkness. It felt like those memories had fully fused with my body.
Who knows how much time passed after that.
When I finally opened my eyes again, I realized exactly where I was: inside the novel I’d read just recently—I Saved a Cat, and Now He’s Obsessed.
I had been transmigrated into the eldest daughter of the dark villainous family, Valienor.
According to the original story, the eldest daughter of Valienor was supposed to die yesterday.
“…Damn it. Another eldest daughter.”
The day I began life not just as a K-eldest daughter, but as a fantasy novel’s tragic heroine.
***
Notes:
“큰딸” / “Big girl”: A Korean parental term of endearment often used for the eldest daughter. Retained in a way that mirrors its affectionate but burdensome weight.
K-장녀 / “K-eldest daughter”: Refers to the archetype of a Korean eldest daughter expected to sacrifice everything for the family. The tone carries cultural weight and was preserved as “K-eldest daughter” to retain its satirical tone.
