<38>

It was a passing remark. I looked up in confusion at the awkward silence that followed. The man was staring down at me as if trying to bore a hole through me.

“Indeed.”

And when the door behind me closed, the expression on his face, illuminated by the strangely bright light of the Mage Tower, was something I never forgot after that day.

“Because otherwise, there’s no way you could still be alive.”

As if he wished for my death, the man said this. A quiet but undeniable murderous intent crawled up my spine, one that couldn’t be compared to Carlix or Taylor. I clenched my teeth, guessing he probably wore an expression similar to my father’s.

“Honestly, it’s always the same, whether it’s this guy or that.”

You can’t get anything done unless someone is killed. It took a long time for that grumbling thought to fade from my mind.

The man didn’t seem interested in calming the tense atmosphere, but he still guided me to a room that appeared to be a sitting area. Following him in a daze, I sat down with some hesitation, noting the absence of anyone else in the space except for him. The man, as if reading my thoughts, smiled and moved his lips.

“You’re not that interesting to the people here.”

“…Ah, I see.”

“Let me ask you something. Do you believe you came from another world?”

“Yes.”

“Then what do you think this place is?”

“…A comedy.”

Silence filled the room. I had no intention of correcting my answer, so all I could do was quietly wait for the man’s response.

The man couldn’t hide his displeasure but didn’t voice any criticism. Instead, his reply was laced with a sense of self-deprecation, almost as if he agreed with me.

“You’re not wrong. So, do you want to go back?”

“I can’t. Not unless Beatrice marries the Crown Prince and my sister dies in the end.”

“A condition, huh?”

“I just want to think that way for now. There’s no place worth going back to, anyway.”

“Avoidance, I see.”

The man clicked his tongue as if pitying me. This was what cheap sympathy felt like.

Despite his unpleasant tone, the corner of his lips, visible beneath the robe, curved gently. Suddenly, I was afraid of him.

Although I’m a supporting character, I’m not the type to be submissive to anyone. Moreover, knowing that this world was ‘constructed’ made me even less likely to perceive its characters as real threats. I didn’t consider them real people.

But it seemed that this defiant boldness didn’t apply to the man in front of me.

“Actually, you’re right. This place revolves around Beatrice and the Crown Prince. So, I wanted to change that a bit.”

His crimson eyes flickered. The man stroked his chin with a nonchalant attitude, then suddenly began to laugh softly.

“Was it necessary for my sister to die?”

“No.”

The man answered immediately.

“Not anymore. It was before.”

Before. I rolled the word around in my mind. If it was before, when exactly?

“Florencia was indeed a good vessel. I thought if I gave her something better when she ‘returned,’ this story would change.”

It was a foolish thought. I should have realized that what Florencia truly wanted was not revenge against the Crown Prince.

I can’t understand why I granted her powers, even at the cost of my own life.

“You were the biggest variable. Yes, because of you, everything I gave her became useless. Florencia and even the Grand Duke.”

The man declared this, openly revealing his hostility.

You ruined it. As if that were some kind of magical spell, he said it like that.

And at that moment, I finally understood who he was.

The man had said my sister ‘returned.’ In this world where supernatural occurrences are frequent, I knew that magic and divine powers could genuinely influence reality.

Perhaps the idea of returning wasn’t as foolish as it sounded.

Romantic fantasy clichés are all the same. I couldn’t believe I had missed something so simple until now.

The possibilities of why the female protagonist in many reincarnation stories ended up in the novel were not that varied. The conclusions followed naturally.

Either the original owner of the body summoned them, or they were originally part of the story.

Since it was unlikely that the original Margaret Eilish had called for me—she was said to have been in a coma, unable to make any rational decisions before I possessed her—this assumption quickly solidified into certainty. I concluded that the man before me was clearly a separate entity from the characters within the story.

Based on his words, I could deduce three facts:

First, my sister had regressed, and the man in front of me was the one who facilitated it.

He had mentioned her return and expressed a desire to change something, particularly the ending. It wasn’t difficult to infer that he knew about the original story. Even though it seemed Florencia didn’t remember her regression, the words he used were clear.

Second, the man wanted Florencia to kill Beatrice in the end.

I had no way of knowing why he hated the female protagonist. I also didn’t know how this would affect me.

If he had heard that my sister had become more docile because of me, it was unlikely he would be friendly toward me.

But one thing was certain: he was ready to do whatever it took to twist the original ending so that Beatrice would die, even if it meant negative consequences for himself.

Lastly, third, he had to bear the consequences of the causal relationship tied to the ending he desired.

The fact that he provided powers at the cost of his own life indicated that he had significantly interfered with the story’s progression.

This meant that the man had considerable power but was also in a position where he had to take responsibility for his actions.

After explaining my conclusions to him, I asked in a quiet voice:

“Am I right?”

The constructed villainess, the intense rivalry between my sister and Beatrice, and the supernatural powers that were occasionally mentioned when Florencia was causing havoc.

Considering all these, the conclusion I reached wasn’t entirely far-fetched: that this man had been fueling the discord between the two.

The man remained silent, his lips pressed together in a tight line, which only made the growing silence more telling. It was clear that his silence leaned closer to an affirmation.

I blinked a few times at his crimson eyes before asking, without much thought:

“So, do you like the story that I’m ruining?”

It’s changed a lot, hasn’t it?

Apparently, my thoughts weren’t far off the mark.

The man stayed still for a long time, seemingly lost in thought, until he finally broke into a laugh when I began to shift in my seat out of boredom.

He made no effort to hide his mocking tone.

“You’d make a good villainess yourself.”

“…That’s nonsense.”

I frowned at his taunt and reached out to take back the emblem I had given him.

The man, watching my movements, suddenly grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him. His silver eyes, shining beneath the robe, were unmistakable.

He asked eagerly:

“You could take her place, couldn’t you?”

Me? I tilted my head, indicating that I didn’t understand what he was talking about. But he continued his persuasion.

It was almost like a negotiation, and surprisingly, he offered quite tempting conditions.

“You’re from another world, and yes, you said you didn’t want to go back. Fine, I’ll look into a way to make that happen.”

A way not to return. I looked him straight in the eye. The wizard who claimed not to study other worlds was smiling as he made this offer.

Not going back, huh.

‘…Would my father really have killed me?’

An ever-present question swirled more clearly in my mind.

I fixed my now-calm crimson eyes on him and, with a mixture of disillusionment and fear, I voiced my doubts.

What can you even do? Didn’t you believe that other worlds didn’t exist? Such questions bubbled up, tinged with an unconscious hope that I didn’t like.

‘Get a grip, Margaret.’

The place you’ll return to is already determined. Even if you change the ending, there’s no guarantee you won’t go back.

I spat out my words with a rough, almost broken tone.

“You have no idea what kind of place the world I came from is.”

“Of course not. But that doesn’t mean there’s no way.”

“No.”

I cut him off and looked down at my hand. That’s not the issue. I…

‘I’m scared.’

My father’s image flashed before my eyes. The wizard smiled brightly, noticing my hesitation and the fear that had crept into my demeanor, and whispered.

“Before you make a decision, tell me. How did you end up here?”

How, indeed. How did I…

“I.”

My voice began to tremble. The memory of that day replayed slowly in my mind. The day I was strangled.

And before that, the constant anxiety of living with a murderer began to surface from deep within my subconscious.

The nineteen-year-old girl trembling in a closet. The bloodstains on the white wallpaper, the smell of bleach, and the days spent crying while clutching a book—all these memories surfaced and then faded away one by one.

Yarn scattered on the floor, a broken smartphone….

And my father calling my name. I murmured.

“Didn’t I…die?”

The man stayed silent and removed his robe. He stared at me for a long time, and though I didn’t expect him to show any sympathy, I found myself revisiting that day’s memories in silence.

That evening, as always, I woke up inside the closet. By then, that cramped space was the only ‘safe’ place left, so whenever I came back home after wandering outside, I spent most of my time there.

It was a mundane routine in our house.

But that day…

‘Come out.’

My father’s voice scraped through my mind like a persistent ringing. I quietly covered my mouth. The hallucination was too vivid. Just like in the dreams I used to have.

The fact that the wizard’s eyes widened, followed by a faint smile, didn’t matter at all.

‘Come out, you X<Fcker>. I’ve got something to say, so come out.’

Bang. The sound of the closet door being kicked echoed rhythmically. It felt like I couldn’t keep my balance. Even when the banging softened, it was the same.

‘Dizzy.’

I couldn’t breathe. I could feel my father calling my name, and I shivered in terror, covering my ears.

Eunha. Jung Eunha? My daughter?

The voice calling my name echoed in my mind as a hallucination. The world seemed to be turning black and white.

“Margaret.”

The man called me, his tone gentle as if soothing a child. My legs gave out, and I felt like I couldn’t stand properly, as if I were really a patient.

“Damn.”

The man’s voice became faint. I could barely feel the hand supporting my waist.

I blinked and gasped at the familiar ceiling that faintly overlapped with my vision.

The blurry fluorescent light that flickered overhead—something I had never seen in this world.

“-ah.”

“Eunha?”

No.

I closed my eyes.

The simple fact that the familiar voice calling my name wasn’t just a hallucination turned my entire sense of calm upside down.

I barely managed to endure the increasing pain in my neck and desperately tried to speak. It didn’t come out well, but still, I tried.

“Why….”

The word scratched its way out of my throat, and the voice that emerged was not Margaret’s but Jung Eunha’s. My lips quivered helplessly under the suffocating weight of despair.

This is why I didn’t want to come here.

I gritted my teeth. I had to do something—anything. Under the brown ceiling, a shadowy figure staggered toward me.

I was horrified. The voice that had been buzzing in my head became a real sound that struck my eardrums.

“-Eunha.”

My father was there.

This was no longer inside a book. I completely crumbled inside the fleeting glimpse of my original home.

My father leaned closer to me with a surprised expression and called my name once more. The stench of alcohol was still thick.

The mere fact that the person who had strangled me was standing before me made it hard to breathe. Over the blurred face of the shadowy figure, his lifeless eyes rolled back as if he were looking at a corpse.

“You’re alive. Yeah, I knew it, I didn’t kill you, did I?”

Get up now, Eunha. It was all a misunderstanding. Your father just…

At the end of his voice, now trembling with convulsive emotion, there was a cough.

I looked up at the man who had once confessed his illness to me in a dream, my eyes completely sunken.

The eyes of the murderer I had once been curious about weren’t empty. They were filled with delight.

I didn’t know if he was happy because he didn’t have to feel guilty anymore, or if he was simply drunk and insane, but at least he was smiling.

“It’s okay now. I’ll take care of everything.”

His words made me burst into bitter laughter. My neck still hurt, the room reeked of a foul stench, and there was dried blood next to me as I glanced sideways.

All I could see were bottles, bottles, and more broken bottles.

The apartment, which couldn’t be said to have good lighting, was bathed in the crimson light of the sunset. With a voice trembling uncontrollably, I whispered.

“You bastard,”

I reached out my hand. My skinny, familiar hand touched one of the bottles rolling beside me, and I grabbed it, gritting my teeth.

My blood-soaked hand, holding the broken soju bottle, trembled like a spider’s web as I raised it. Just as my father had once done to me, I smiled wryly at his shadowy figure and moved my lips to form the words.

You made me this way.

The shattered glass plunged into the dark shadow.