PROLOGUE: INCENSE SWEET, I’M SORRY
Part 001
Her eyes flashed open with her excruciating headache. When she tried to get up, she was thrown back onto the bed. Her body didn’t listen and her head was about to crack.
A headache that seemed to shake all her bones made her crouch down and groan for a while. As the two memories settle in, the headache fades little by little.
The night Mihyang Kim died, the headlights of an oncoming truck, the rough asphalt felt on her cheeks, screams and dizzying lights. And on the day Damian Etihad died, no, on the day she almost died, the dress was wrapped in terribly cold water, and the water entered the lungs, no matter how much she whined her wet body.
She got up and looked around her. Thick blankets, colorful canopies, tall windows and red carpets. It’s Damian. Mihyang Kim was really dead.
“Ha.”
Her sigh escaped.
“Fuck it, I’ll go home.”
She got out of bed and stood in front of the mirror. The light that began to shine dimly confirmed she was not her anymore. There, she saw a girl who was completely different from the she of yesterday, who was on the verge of being a normal woman.
So what is this? Regression? Rebirth? Possession? What did happen?
Was the development of the main character in the novel? After 24 years of living as a normal girl, what was that? Should she just seduce the king, or the prince, and become the empress? Was she the main character now?
Curly brown hair the color of milk caramel. A little pale, but clear blue eyes. White skin without blemishes, lively pink lips. The reflected silhouette was also voluptuous.
“I see. The main character’s buff is like this. It’s not bad.”
All the romance novels she had read so far pass through her mind like a kaleidoscope. From now on, she was taking over the social world, right? Would she fall in love with a fantastic male lead, wearing a long dress, and laughing like ‘oh-ho-ho-ho’?
After checking her appearance here and there, she dragged the chair that was in the room and brought it to the window. When she put both feet on the window sill and lengthen her hips, she sat in a comfortable position that Damia hadn’t done before and try to organize her thoughts.
Kim Mihyang… The thought of her parents made her cry. Her mom must have collapsed. She was an only child, now what about the two of them?
‘Oh, but what is this?’
She was obviously sad, very sad and her heart was breaking, but something was strange. Damia’s 17 years were also vividly hers, and as Kim Mihyang, she wondered if she, who was Damian, would be far-fetched to be sick.
Until yesterday, she was definitely Kim Mihyang, but in her head, she also had memories of being Damian until yesterday.
* * *
Her dad was the director of a small business. Her mom, a housewife, was blunt but friendly, and she grew up well-rounded and loved as the only child in a family that wasn’t lacking. However, she had to feel inferior in her relationship with a friend who grew up with her like a real sister.
Her friend Hong Siyeon’s father, whom her father had been friends with since they were young, was the president of her father’s company. The relationship between the fathers, who were close friends but could not completely escape the relationship between the boss man and his subordinate, had an effect on other relationships as well.
They lived in the same apartment, but whenever they went to school together, it was always her who had to go around several buildings in front of Siyeon’s apartment building, which had the largest average floor area.
When they gathered together to make kimchi, her mother was the one who sprinkled the seasoning everywhere, and even when they went camping together, it was her father who grilled the meat.
Her birthday happened to be on the same day as her friend, so she couldn’t have a separate party on her birthday. Since all of her friends overlapped, Siyeon couldn’t send another invitation to the friend who sent out the invitation. When I was in elementary school, they had a birthday party together at Siyeon’s house. However, since she was in middle school, her family went on a family trip every birthday.
It was little things like that, not too bad, but nothing good.
‘What’s the name of that ragance?’ No one told her anything in front of her, but she knew the nasty things they called her as a joke.
If Siyeon was an openly bad bitch, she would have hated her. Even though she sometimes got used to Kim’s consideration, she was always a smiling kid. Rather, it was her who was told to have a strong personality. She was criticized by her friends for saying only the right words because she was stubborn and acted on when her threads were pushed. And Siyeon’s father always said that he didn’t know if it was a compliment or a curse. They had been together for such a long time, so why was it so uncomfortable? She couldn’t pinpoint where, but the time they spent together always made her feel bad for no good reason.
Things that were too trivial and insignificant, even ambiguous to express in words, piled up, and the time they spent together decreased as they grew up. It’s to the point where she didn’t remember ever having a proper conversation with them since she entered high school.
They went to elementary, middle, and high school together, so she wanted to go to a different college, but somehow the target university was the same. Whereas Siyeon tutored for each subject and maintained her grades leisurely, she really studied while taking my shit to death. Like a literary girl, Siyeon went to major in Korean literature and she majored in accounting. They started to grow apart from each other in high school, and since they were different from each other and had big brains, they didn’t have anything to do together like before. Because they have very different personalities and tastes.
Sometimes, when she spotted Siyeon driving the boys around campus, she would turn around and walk away unnoticed.
Fall before graduation. It was a time when she was living on her own while rushing into the life of a blood-drying job seeker. They, who still lived in the same apartment, ran into each other on their way home. Her face brightened with joy, but Siyeon only gave an ambiguous greeting and turned around, perhaps knowing that she was avoiding her. She was the one who called Siyeon and made her feel sorry for nothing.
“Do you want to go eat tteokbokki after a long time?”
Siyeon, who had a surprised face for a moment, smiled and accepted the words.
“Grandma’s Tteokbokki?”
Saying their regards, a truck hit them as they were walking towards their favorite food store in high school. And, she opened her eyes there.
If you reincarnate after death, don’t you start as a child? Ambiguous, how old was she, seventeen?
Damien Etihad.
A young Count’s daughter. Her father, Colin Ethart, a high-ranking member of the royal faction, was a loving father, and his older brother, Rootban Ethart, who was the heir, petted his almost eighteen-year-old younger sister. Her mother passed away a few years ago, and after that she became a quiet person, living mostly inside the house, but she was a spirited child who smiled so as not to worry her father and brother.
How easy was it to have a background like that with such an appearance? The kingdom of Laurentian was not a country where women’s social advancement was not tightly blocked. However, it was not a utopia where men and women were equal. Like in a novel, she fell into an unknown place where women lived as family-slaves or lived in a town where women were not treated as human beings. Fortunately that was not her case.
There’s no fiancée like that, but a loving father who didn’t see his daughter as a tool.
When she was Mihyang, she studied to make sure that she could not have a single meeting, saying that she would try to find her way through life. Now, there must be plenty of candidates for male leads who would support her even if she decided to live making cookies for the rest of her life.
It took a little while for Damian to live a quiet life before, but after overcoming the crisis of death, the way she saw the world had changed. Come to think of it, she was calmly living at home, when she went out for no reason and was caught up in a love affair that almost killed her.
It was a picnic day that she participated in with great enthusiasm. Since she had mostly lived in the manor, she had no friends there, so he wandered by the pond alone and ran into a young lady. She was about to exchange a few words with Lady Sug when someone appeared behind her, and a shadow pushed her. As Lady Sug struggled, she grabbed her arm, and she got in with it.
Did the little girl live? By the way, did she wake up after a few days? There won’t be any aftereffects, right?
It was then. Jenny, her personal maid, was surprised to see the empty bed and even more surprised to find her sitting by the window, she dropped the towel and water tray she had brought.
“Jennie.”
She laughed and spoke, but Jenny shuddered at her, wiping away her tears, and she screamed and turned and ran away.
“My Lord!! It’s my lady!!!”
Not long after, her father and brother, dressed very disheveled, came in. Her father staggered over with a surprised face and hugged her carefully.
“Damian.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Baby… are you okay?”
‘My.’
“Yes, sorry for worrying you.”
She hugged her father and smiled at Rootban, who had a worried face. They said she woke up after three days. Leaving her unconscious, the doctor shook his head and left, and the house was like a house of mourning. It was a crisis, but she woke up dramatically.
The young lady she fell with was Ailene Nodoban of the Nodoban Duchy. The culprit who pushed them was never caught.
Her father told her that the culprit was not caught, but Rootban’s eyebrows furrowed. She would tell him later that she was involved in a messy love fight for no reason.
It looks like there is nothing more.
There was no way in her family to do anything because the Nodoban Duchy, who was the head of the same royal faction, kept their mouths shut.
Fortunately, Lady Ailene woke up after a day, and she sent an official consolation gift from the Duchy, but it was said that her father, who was ready to run to catch the duke’s neck if she was really dead, rejected it.
Her father in Korea was also a daughter-lover, and it felt good to know that the family there also cared for her well doing.
She thought she could enjoy her new life as Damian Ethart.
* * *
After recuperating for about 15 days, they allowed Lady Ailene to visit her, who had asked her to apologize in person. She was caught up in her issues, but it wasn’t her intention in that situation, so she said it was okay, but Lady Eliene said she wanted to see her face and apologize.
When she greeted her as she walked into her mansion just in time for her appointment…
‘Damn it.’
The impact, like a hammer slamming the back of her head, nearly threw her on the back.
They stood face-to-face for a long time with proud faces, and then they sat facing each other in her room after telling all the puzzled workers to leave them alone.
What the hell was that? Hasn’t there been a development like that in any novel?
“So…we died at the same time, and possessed the same place at the same time?”
Ailene was Siyeon Hong.
Their faces and everything were different, but they recognized each other at a glance. She didn’t know why.
Just after seeing each other Ailene, not Siyeon, nodded sadly with a pale face.
“I guess so.”
“Huh, what the…”
As she sprawled over the back of her sofa, Ailene wiped away her tears and sat down with her.
“You’re still Mihyang. I’m so relieved because you’re here. Oh, I’m so unfamiliar here. My house is a bit… scary. I feel very safe because you are there.”
She was like a super-beauty girl with tears in the corners of her eyes and a sorrowful face.
“No, well. Yes, I like it because you are there. It’s nice, but there are a lot of more things”
The big blue eyes wet with water were very pitiful. Her blonde hair, which seemed to have been pickled in honey, was flowing and she was filthy pretty even here. Come to think of it, did the Duke say that she was his daughter? Wasn’t he the head family of an aristocratic family faction like her father?
Really…
—————————————————————
Translator Note:
Hello there! This is RJR. Thank you very much for reading.
I really liked this story so I decided to pick it.
If you like my work please support me in Ko-fi or Patreon.
lol