Chapter 1
There was a favorite romance fantasy novel I used to read. Its title was Our Evil Dragon Doesn’t Bite.
Long ago, there was a crazed evil dragon.
The dragon would kill humans on a whim. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, the humans sent five heroes to subdue the dragon.
In its final moments, the dragon cursed the leader of the five heroes, who would later become the empire’s first emperor.
The curse was that he would lose his mind and rampage as a dragon whenever a red moon rose.
Several hundred years later, the crown prince, the male lead, inherited this curse more strongly than any in the empire’s history.
Starting from his coming-of-age ceremony, he slowly began transforming into a dragon. His appearance became hideous, and his personality grew worse.
He tried everything to delay the curse but eventually accepted his fate of becoming a dragon.
Then, at that moment, the female lead appeared.
Born as an illegitimate child of a noble family, the female lead was a descendant of one of the five heroes and had the power to quell the dragon’s curse.
It was as if, by fate, the two had fallen in love at first sight.
However, as with most novels, some antagonists interfere with their love.
One of them was Duval Essite.
-SiellaFlowerPathPlease: Author, will Duval regret his actions?
ᄂAuthor: Yes ><
Duval wasn’t the main antagonist.
He was a petty villain who would frequently pick fights with the female lead. Just a minor character who occasionally got a line or two of description—that was all.
But I was obsessed with that Duval.
-SiellaFlowerPathPlease: Author, can’t we throw Duval away? He’s non-recyclable.
ᄂAuthor: Yes, he’ll die anyway. I can’t throw him away, but I’ll make him regret it.
ᄂSiellaFlowerPathPlease: Ah, I’m not into regret stories. Even if he dies, please let Siella walk a flower path, and don’t let her take him back.
ᄂAuthor: Yes ><
More precisely, I was obsessed with Duval’s fiancée, Siella, who had even less presence than Duval.
Siella was a character who never had a dry eye because of Duval’s constant infidelity. The more I saw her, the more she reminded me of my foolish past.
I had broken up with my boyfriend of five years. The reason was his cheating.
My boyfriend had cheated three times. Or perhaps I had only discovered ‘just’ three instances.
It all started when I found an anonymous message he sent to a woman, saying, “I’m bored. Would you like to go for a drive with me if you have time?”
I should have broken up with him then.
Foolishly, his words deceived me, “I wouldn’t have done it if we hadn’t fought.”
The second time, I found a photo of him taken affectionately with a woman I didn’t know. The image was carefully crumpled and thrown in the trash can.
“Oppa, what is this?”
“Oh, that? We fought, and you weren’t answering my calls. I didn’t actually meet up with her; I just sent a message. If we hadn’t fought, I wouldn’t have done it.”
I was unbelievably foolish and let it slide again. I was uneasy because of his past actions, but he said he did it for me, and I didn’t want to press further, so I let it go.
However, even I needed to look into the third and final time.
“Why is my name saved under a man’s name?”
He tried to persuade me, saying it was a misunderstanding and that he saved my name as a man’s because his company was male-dominated, and he didn’t want to be teased.
Who did he think he was fooling?
Well, he did fool me.
And so, I broke up with my boyfriend. To relieve my stress, I turned to reading romance fantasy novels.
That’s when I came across Our Evil Dragon Doesn’t Bite and met Siella, who was in a situation similar to mine, at least in print.
Siella’s fiancé, Duval Essite, was an even bigger bastard than my ex.
Duval would replace his lover monthly, even maintaining two households after marrying Siella.
Siella knew Duval was cheating on her. She also knew he didn’t love her.
Her health was weak, and she had collapsed several times from the shock of seeing Duval kiss another woman.
However, her unrequited love for Duval was so deep and long-standing that she couldn’t let go of him until the latter part of the novel.
SiellaFlowerPathPlease: Author, can you do something about this bastard Duval, or whatever his name is? When will he regret his actions?
ᄂ Author: I’ll put him through hell and make him regret it. I even added a keyword to remind myself, so don’t worry ><
I talked so much about Duval and regret that Our Evil Dragon Doesn’t Bite, a healing novel, ended with a regretful man keyword.
Even though the male lead, the Crown Prince, wasn’t supposed to be the regretful one.
I believed the author would torment Duval mercilessly.
Until I saw the sentence:
[Thus, Siella Labyrinth and Duval Essite were executed for their crimes against Tirielle.]
-SiellaFlowerPathPlease: ???????
-SiellaFlowerPathPlease: Author?????
-SiellaFlowerPathPlease: You said he would regret it.
-SiellaFlowerPathPlease: Why isn’t he regretting anything?
– SiellaFlowerPathPlease: You said you would make him regret it even if he died.
-SiellaFlowerPathPlease: Why did Siella have to die?
-SiellaFlowerPathPlease: Seriously
-SiellaFlowerPathPlease: What is this
-SiellaFlowerPathPlease: I’m going crazy
I thought the female lead was dead.
ᄂStop spamming.
ᄂAuthor: I wanted to make him regret it, but there wasn’t enough time for that, so I left it out ㅠㅠ
ᄂSiellaFlowerPathPlease: What about the regretful man keyword?
ᄂAuthor: I’ll remove the regretful man keyword too ㅠㅠ
ᄂSiellaFlowerPathPlease: Unbelievable.
-I’m going to deal with that bastard Duval myself
ᄂ——-
ᄂ This person always does this whenever Duval is mentioned.
ᄂ They even changed their username.
ᄂSiella isn’t the main character, so there’s nothing we can do.
-SaveSiella ᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲ
-SaveSiella: Well, at least they should’ve told us from the start.
-SaveSiella: So we wouldn’t get our hopes up.
-SaveSiella: Oh, this is driving me crazy.
-SaveSiella: Poor Siella, what now?
– SaveSiella: Aaaaaaaaaaaaa, I’m going to deal with that bastard Duval myself
ᄂStop spamming.
ᄂDo you think you’re the only one using the comments?
ᄂSaveSiella: Siella died. Do comments even matter
ᄂ I’m reporting this person.
ᄂSaveSiella: Wait a minute.
[Due to excessive spamming, you cannot post comments. Let’s all strive for a cleaner internet. Time remaining until you can post again: 6 days 23 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds.]
-SaveSiella: ᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲᅲ
[Due to excessive spamming, you cannot post comments. Let’s all strive for a cleaner internet. Time remaining until you can post again: 6 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 50 seconds.]
That night, I drank beer to soothe my upset feelings. My favorite snack, spicy chicken skewers, was my choice of accompaniment.
I ate and drank all through the early morning, hoping the author would pull a surprise and reveal, “Ta-da! Siella was actually alive!” in the next chapter, and then I fell asleep.
When I woke up late in the afternoon…
“What the…”
For some reason, I had become Siella Labyrinth from Our Evil Dragon Doesn’t Bite.
*** *** *** *** ***
‘No, this isn’t right.’
I asked for Siella to be saved, not for me to become Siella!
I liked Siella, but I didn’t want to become her. I was already tired of dealing with my ex-boyfriend’s infidelity, and now I was the fiancée of a playboy?
But no matter how many nights I slept or how hard I slapped my cheeks to the point of tears, I couldn’t return to my original world. So, I had no choice but to adapt and live in this reality.
I had no lingering attachments to my previous life, where I struggled to survive doing part-time jobs after growing up as an orphan. Even my boyfriend, whom I thought I could trust, had betrayed me, so what did I have to lose?
Fortunately, I had been transmigrated to a point before the novel’s main events began.
In the latter part of the novel, I, as Siella, would die because of a business venture Duval was involved in.
Near the novel’s end, Duval tries to sabotage the female lead, but the male lead discovers it, and Duval is sent to the guillotine.
Naturally, Siella, who had married Duval, was also executed.
‘I need to twist the original story.’
The best option was to break off the engagement with Duval.
However, the relationship between our two families made it challenging to annul the engagement.
So, while seeking a way to break off the engagement, I decided to befriend the female lead, Tirielle.
‘If I become friends with the female lead, I won’t end up at the guillotine.’
It was easy to become friends with Tirielle.
I financially supported Tirielle, who was living a hard life in the slums, and helped her establish herself in a noble society.
At first, Tirielle seemed wary of me, but over time, she opened up and started to trust me.
Within a few months, we became inseparable friends.
Even in the tumultuous social scene, Tirielle and I were known as the best of friends.
I felt reassured, thinking I had successfully altered the original story.
“I’m sorry, Siella, but we’re still friends, right…?”
I never imagined that things would not just twist but entirely fall apart.
*** *** *** *** ***
“Heh.”
Thinking about earlier, when Tirielle announced her engagement to Duval, I couldn’t help but laugh dryly.
I was sitting alone in my office.
After making her explosive announcement, Tirielle had started crying and left when I just stared at her. Duval had glared at me as if he wanted to devour me and then followed her out.
“Heh heh heh.”
Staring into empty space and laughing to myself, I finally regained my senses.
What on earth is this situation?
Breaking off the engagement with that bastard was good, but my best friend had stabbed me in the back. It was a weird mix of relief and discomfort.
‘What sins did I commit in my past life to deserve this?’
Why are there only unfaithful people around me?
I wasn’t even angry anymore. I was chuckling at the absurdity when something on my desk caught my eye.
A few days ago, one of the Crown Prince’s aides had asked for my help to arrange a meeting between the Crown Prince and Tirielle, who had the power to quell the dragon’s curse. The request involved some documents.
It was well-known that Tirielle, born as an illegitimate child, possessed purification powers.
They wanted a romantic, natural encounter and asked for my cooperation.
‘How ridiculous.’
Well, given the situation, I had nothing to lose. Let them crash and burn, Tirielle.
I immediately picked up a quill and wrote a letter to the Crown Prince’s aide.
[Unfortunately, Tirielle is about to get engaged.]
A reply came almost immediately.
[What do you mean? We were told she wasn’t seeing anyone and were discussing an engagement with His Highness.]
Wait, what? They had already discussed it while asking for my help for a natural encounter.
I finally understood the situation after exchanging a few more letters with the aide.
And it was just as complicated as my own predicament.
‘Sigh…’
I picked up the quill again.
This time, I wrote directly to the Crown Prince.
[Hello, Your Highness. I apologize for the nature of this first contact.
Your prospective fiancée and my fiancé have become involved in a scandalous affair. I wish to meet with you to discuss this matter. When would be a convenient time for you?]
Of course, I didn’t write it like that. Writing in such a manner would get me charged with insulting the royal family.
I wrote a long, complex letter in formal court language, filling three pages. Just before folding and sealing it, I paused.
Why should I be the only one deprived of romance when everyone else is fooling around?
After contemplating for a moment, I impulsively added a few more words at the bottom of the letter.
[P.S. Would you like to have an affair with me since we’ve both been cheated on?]
Then, I carefully sealed the letter with wax and sent it to the Crown Prince.
I had no idea what kind of impact that letter would have.
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