Chapter 1

Even when I first opened my eyes, I never thought a life like this would unfold.

A sudden death.

I was a student retaking my college entrance exams, and late at night, in order to fill my slightly hungry stomach, I went to a convenience store and got into a traffic accident.

It was also a secluded place, and the follow-up measures…

Judging by the fact that they didn’t even stop, it was probably a hit-and-run.

I watched the car drive away, leaving me behind, and felt my breathing become labored.

And so, I knew with absolute certainty that my life had ended.

It was only after I felt as though I was breathing once more that I intuitively realized a new life was about to unfold before me.

A pain so excruciating that I couldn’t even breathe…

Because it had gradually subsided.

Opening my eyes with the thought, Was I born as a newborn?, I wanted to deny reality.

The ceiling was a place riddled with cobwebs.

What I saw the moment I opened my eyes was a room so shabby that it was impossible to tell whether it was a prison cell or an actual room.

The old bed let out an eerie creak, as if it would collapse at any moment whenever I moved, and the mold made the room simply dreadful.

The dust floating thickly in the air, breathing…

Every time I breathed, it scraped deep inside my lungs.

Because of that, coughing fits were nothing out of the ordinary.

As expected, I really had been reborn.

To be precise, I had entered someone else’s body, though.

Regardless, the place I was now in was not the modern era.

So, I figured that it didn’t matter if the room was shabby.

After all, the place I had been reborn into was the Middle Ages.

Furthermore, the maid who scowled and snapped at me every time she saw me…

They called me a princess.

And not just any princess, but the youngest princess who was usually showered with affection.

Judging by the fact that no child was born after me, it was certain that I was the youngest princess.

I wasn’t sure how many older siblings I had, but usually, the youngest daughter is the one who gets all the love.

Therefore, I thought my circumstances would soon improve.

At the very least, just like in countless novels I had read, I firmly believed that I would soon catch the Emperor’s eye and suddenly become a beloved princess.

But whenever I moved, out of my mouth…

Blood spewed out, and whenever I tried to move my body too hastily, my head would spin; it was around then that I realized something was going severely wrong.

And on top of that, it was just one hurdle after another.

Even as I watched my body grow weaker by the day, the maid didn’t even pay me any mind.

Even my small hope that she might call a physician because I was a princess was shattered to pieces.

I was a princess, yet not a princess at all—that was the kind of existence I was.

As if to prove it, whether I coughed or ran a fever, the maids never called for a physician, or perhaps…

Or perhaps there was simply no such thing as anyone else coming to check on my body.

This was truly the worst.

As it turned out, I was starkly different from those princesses who might actually be loved.

I—this body I had been reborn into after dying—was a terminally ill princess whom no one cared about.

A princess with a ticking time bomb inside her, one whose death would come as no surprise at any moment.

The Emperor, let alone anyone else in the imperial palace, seemed completely unaware of my very existence.

Therefore, the fate of a neglected, backroom princess was obvious.

And out of everyone, the absolute worst was the maid assigned to me.

She didn’t even treat me like a human being.

She was literally wishing for my death day by day, claiming that she could only get a new post once I died quickly.

Sure, the attendants of beloved royals might be held accountable if something were to happen to their charge, but I was not one of them.

According to her, she was merely attached to my household and nothing more.

She insisted that there was absolutely nothing she could be held responsible for.

Even as a royal, if I were to die, they wouldn’t even hold a funeral, and where I would be buried…

Saying that no one would even know.

My gaze shifted toward Laveli.

Just thinking about her over and over made my throat burn with thirst.

I barely managed to move my hand, which I could hardly even feel, and reached out toward the maid, Laveli.

“Laveli. Some water, please.”

But Laveli, seemingly irritated by the mere fact that I had called her name, slammed the bowl she was holding onto the floor hard enough to make a loud thud.

“You are being truly troublesome. What water are you talking about? Just don’t drink it.”

“I said… water.”

“Even if you drink it, you’ll just throw it all up anyway, so there’s really no need for you to have any. From now on, you’ll only get water once a day.”

A curse naturally slipped from my mouth.

Wow.

Look at this crazy bitch.

She won’t even let me drink water.

In my heart, I wanted to slap that maid with absolutely no sense across the face, just like the main character of a makjang drama, but I was far too weak.

The other day, I had shouted at Laveli in a fit of rage and ended up fainting.

So, hitting her cheek or screaming at her was simply beyond what my stamina could handle.

I glared fiercely at her and raised my twig-like hand, only to let it drop. Cursing this damn body of mine.

‘If I’m not careful, it looks like it’ll just snap right off.’

The urge to slap the maid who was acting as if she would never give me water quickly faded away.

Even if I made a fuss demanding water, it was obvious I wouldn’t be allowed to drink any, so I decided it wasn’t worth wasting my energy.

Having ultimately given up on getting any water, I burrowed back under the covers.

My mouth was completely parched.

“Why is someone who’s been lying there like a doll this whole time suddenly getting up?”

I didn’t ask for anything else and quietly went back under the blanket, yet Laveli kept grumbling, apparently finding something to be dissatisfied about even then.

Those words kept grating on my nerves.

For an already frail body, my nerves were just…

Even a slight movement used to bring on a headache, and sure enough, as if it had been lying in wait, the pain began to creep in bit by bit.

*Sigh.* Clenching my jaw and biting my lip hard to endure the throbbing pain, I glanced at her.

I was so frail that merely biting my lip made me taste blood.

I prayed and prayed that when I die, I will make sure to cut that woman’s mouth off before I go.

I merely steeled my resolve.

But the more time passed, the less will I had to even live.

Even drinking water was a struggle, and having food enter my mouth was dreadful.

Because I couldn’t even digest anything I ate.

On top of that, it felt as though someone was tearing my entire body to shreds with a knife every single day.

It reached a point where even the breeze blowing through the open window felt painful.

I spent several days in agony without even knowing the name of my illness.

Thoughts that it might be better to die than to live in this body began to fill my head…

I vented my frustration to fill the empty void inside.

Because the pain had paralyzed my reason.

* * *

And then, one day.

Finding even the weight of the blanket covering me unbearably heavy, I fell asleep grumbling and had a bizarre dream.

In the middle of a vast plain stood a tree so enormous that its sheer scale was incomprehensible.

And perched atop it was a cat radiating a brilliant light…

There it sat.

The cat, having just let out a long, lazy yawn, looked down at me and clicked its tongue.

‘You have the least will among humans. The will to live. Therefore, I shall give you a gift.’

‘A gift…?’

That was where it ended.

The moment I opened my eyes, the world was once again filled with darkness.

And as I opened my eyes, the cobweb-ridden ceiling came into view, as if to remind me that the scenery from moments ago had merely been a dream.

But a gift, really?

The moment I returned to reality after such a vivid dream, I tried to lift my hand.

Yet even that remained a grueling struggle.

“I’m such a fool…”

I was pathetic.

To think I had been swayed by the mere word “gift” from a dream.

It was truly absurd that I was actually getting my hopes up.

After complaining about wanting to die like that, there I was, just like someone desperate to live, clinging to a vivid dream…

I couldn’t let go of that expectation for days.

The lingering hope that I might receive a gift like magic and have my body miraculously recover overnight.

But having that dream didn’t heal my body.

My health had only deteriorated further.

My health worsened to the point where I wondered if someone was feeding me poison every single day, and even breathing became a struggle.

Death had crept right up before my eyes without me even realizing it.

By then, I had given up even on opening my eyes, desperately waiting only for my breathing to cease. That was my state of being—until one day, right before something that should never have come found its way to me.

My death was remarkably smooth.

* * *

An existence I might have perhaps welcomed, had it only arrived sooner.

The Emperor.

The one who suddenly came looking for me was none other than this body’s father.

What good does it do to come now?

I didn’t even try to get up.

I simply lay in bed and stared at him.

This wasn’t a body that could rise just because I willed it; merely keeping my eyes open was the greatest courtesy I could afford.

Hair of silver with a faint reddish tint, bordering on pink, and a pair of shining violet eyes.

The Emperor’s face, which I was seeing for the first time, could be defined by exactly one thing.

He was handsome.

In the past, I would have been utterly captivated by the Emperor’s appearance—which was so handsome it hardly seemed human—but…

I might have admired it before, but now, it stirs nothing in me.

A tiny flicker of curiosity arose, wondering if my own face looked similar to his.

Since I hadn’t seen a mirror even once since becoming a princess, I did grow slightly curious as to whether I resembled him.

But that was it. Since I was a body destined to die soon, the curiosity quickly faded.

After all, curiosity was a luxury for someone like me.

As I stared at him with my moistureless eyes, they kept growing dry and gritty, blurring my vision.

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them, gazing at the Emperor through blurry vision.

“Sun of the Empire, please truly bestow your light upon this land…….”

“Enough.”

Meanwhile, Laveli—who had been sitting in the chair beside me, dozing off—noticed the guest’s presence belatedly. She hurriedly shot up from her seat and bowed her head deeply, offering her greetings to the Emperor.

I hadn’t known Laveli’s voice could sound so respectful, yet so loud.

He looked at me exactly as I was looking at him, hmph.

The Emperor, who had been staring at Laveli with cold, unsmiling eyes, gestured toward me with his chin.

“Is this the one?”

It was not Laveli who answered, but another person entirely.

“Yes, Your Majesty. This is none other than the Princess upon whom the sunlight has descended.”

A man standing behind the Emperor.

He looked urgent, as if something dreadful would happen if he failed to answer quickly.

The man with pure white hair and a thick, full beard respectfully raised both hands, gesturing toward me.

Perhaps only then realizing the gravity of the atmosphere, Laveli—who had been standing a step back—rushed over to me and hurriedly helped me sit up.

As a result, my vision spun wildly, and the world went dark before my eyes.

My stomach churned as if I were suffering from severe motion sickness.