“…I don’t need treatment. Stop coming here.”

Whether time was running short or not, I had no intention of fixing this novel. I told the priest who was busily preparing treatment.

He was likely continuing the heresy investigation under the pretext of helping stabilize the Empress’s mind.

The Emperor had summoned priests to prove the Empress couldn’t remain in her position, since the temple forbade divorce.

Someone else might have shown the priests that the Empress wasn’t insane, displaying gentleness and kindness to argue her innocence.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t the type to put on such pretenses.

Either possess everything or destroy everything.

My broken mind made me live by such a simple formula.

“…Are you uncomfortable anywhere?”

“Didn’t you understand? Get out.”

“I’ll prepare a medicinal decoction that will help calm your mind.”

“Ha. If you’re worried about that d*mn Emperor, you should leave now. As soon as I get out of this sickbed, I’m going straight for the Emperor’s neck.”

“Not being able to tend to Your Majesty’s wounds would be a greater regret for me.”

The stubborn priest busily prepared treatment.

I stared at him intently.

He prepared the treatment with an expressionless face and unwavering resolve. His careful fingertips suggested he intended to be quite thorough.

Disgusted by the priest’s blatant disregard, I spotted a glass on the nightstand, picked it up, and threw it at the floor.

Crash!

The sharp sound of shattering glass echoed throughout the room. The priest, who had been preparing medicine before tending to my hand, turned to look at me in surprise. Before his startled gaze, I deliberately picked up one of the broken glass shards and gripped it in my hand.

“…Don’t do that.”

“You must think I’m joking.”

The pitiful Empress who threw everything away for the flimsy emotion called love was no longer here.

“You think I can’t stab myself twice?”

If reality were a place where slapping someone’s face would be a crime, this was just a novel.

Having already died once, I felt I could do anything, thinking it wouldn’t matter if I died again.

“…The Emperor would want Your Majesty to recover as well.”

But the priest tried to soothe me with such words. I couldn’t help but laugh. I let out an uncontrollable cackle.

The priest, his expression crumpled in confusion, was the temple’s messenger who had come to exorcise me, believing I was an evil spirit.

“Don’t be mistaken. That man means nothing to me.”

People said the Empress had gone mad from loving the Emperor too much.

But my protagonist should never have been someone who crumbled because of love.

Perhaps becoming an evil spirit would be more fitting.

Yet she asked me to help her obtain love.

Remembering Diana’s words, I gripped the sharp glass shard tighter, and soon hot blood began flowing down my wrist.

/”…Disgusting. You’re a monster.”/

“So think carefully. Helping me means contributing to rebellion.”

The priest stared at me with cold eyes, his expression completely hardened.

He and I maintained eye contact in silence for a while, as if competing to see who was more wary of the other, until the priest ended it by turning away first.

I, who could never be the protagonist, became a novelist who crushed others’ lives and killed souls.

Just as I could never be the protagonist, my protagonists could never shine brilliantly like those in other works.

So how could I possibly fix this life?

“…I’ll visit again when Your Majesty is more stable.”

I watched the back of the priest as he obediently turned to leave.

I wondered what he was thinking.

Perhaps he thought he’d encountered a terrible monster and was troubled.

“Don’t come.”

I gave him a sincere farewell.

※※※

Night came, and as I lay there like the dead, nightmares arrived as if they’d been waiting.

A dark corridor, music leaking from the practice room, and the eerie sound of a metronome ticking to the rhythm.

“Crazy b*tch.”

Incongruously with the elegant melody, the woman thrown roughly against the wall spat curses and struggled to push me away.

Watching her efforts with indifference, the woman soon closed her eyes tightly in fear and began screaming.

“I’m going to report you!”

“Report.”

When that word popped out of her mouth, I could only laugh.

“Then I’ll sue you and make some money.”

“What?”

“This is you, isn’t it?”

When I showed her the community post on my phone screen, her face turned deathly pale in the light.

[Fourth year Yoon Jane, sleeping with the director. That’s how she got the lead in the graduation performance and all her other roles.]

“Do you have proof?!”

To the woman who fiercely objected, I showed the next captured image.

“Your friends told me.”

“……”

“You should have chosen your friends more carefully.”

A friend who got illegal prescriptions for weight loss, a friend who secured roles with family money, and who else? Ah, this friend right in front of me—the real protagonist of a sordid drama who danced in bed rather than on stage.

Just a little pressure on each of their weaknesses, and those tight-knit relationships quickly tore apart.

Seeing how quiet she’d become, it seemed she was now willing to talk.

The woman, having her secrets exposed, bit her teeth in embarrassment and avoided my gaze.

“…Do you think I’ll sleep with you, or that I’ll stab you?”

When I smiled to ease her fear, the woman began trembling with an even paler expression.

“If you can’t perform on stage because of this, I’ll be very unhappy.”

Tick, tick. The metronome sound that had been counting opportunities suddenly stopped.

“I’ll give you a chance. Say it yourself. Before I break that precious ankle of yours.”

/”You’re a monster.”/

“…Have you decided?”

The kind voice of the attendant reached my ears as I stared blankly at the program booklet.

/”Useless girl.”/

I had given her a chance, but the woman ultimately refused my offer, and I was cut.

It was an important performance. This stage could have allowed me to join an overseas invitation team, so my father had staked everything on this performance.

But this was the result.

For the crime of not being able to stand on stage, I was sent to a mental hospital.

“It’s nice and quiet here.”

After looking around the hospital built in the outskirts for a while, I carelessly examined the program booklet given to me in the lobby before tossing it into the trash and turning away.

I immediately caught a taxi, and my destination was the front of the performance hall.

Having been there several times, even the security guards remembered my face.

Thanks to that, nothing blocked my path to the backstage area.

“Yoon Jane!”

When I opened the dressing room door and entered, the artistic director jumped up to block me, and everyone in the dressing room froze in tension. Brushing past them, I approached the woman who had shamelessly taken my place through slander and was now getting her makeup done.

“I promised, didn’t I? That I’d break your ankle.”

Slap!

I struck the dumbfounded woman’s cheek.

“What are you doing?!”

As the director and staff rushed to stop me, I shook them off and slapped her again.

“Stop!!”

I threw a photo of the director and the woman together at the face of the angry director who grabbed my wrist. Leaving the shocked director behind, I turned to the pale-faced woman and said:

“I’ll spare your ankle. It seems neither of us will ever return here anyway.”

“Aaah!!”

The woman screamed while clutching her severely swollen face, and I walked past the director, who no longer tried to stop me, toward the rack of costumes.

“I’ll be going on stage. It was my place originally.”

I had learned that the most perfect person takes the only position.

That was the only way I could have my existence acknowledged.

Only by proving my worth with applause at every moment could I finally exist.

That was the formula of life I believed in as someone born a monster.

What happened after that?

I was completely expelled as the crazy woman of that world, and while at it, I cut ties with my father and began standing on my own. With dancing behind me, I had nothing to do immediately, so I tried part-time jobs and got hired at a small company, but…

Each time, I confirmed the shackles I couldn’t escape.

/”Um, Jane… How should I put this, don’t you seem like a dangerous person?”/

The more I lived, the clearer it became that I was a monster who couldn’t be integrated into society.

So whether I was in a fantasy or reality…

Or even if I’d completely lost my mind and was imagining living in a novel…

As long as I remained the same, nothing would change.

So before the genre changed from transmigration to horror, I wished they would let me exit.

I gently opened my eyes after waking from sleep.

I could still see the canopy torn like a spiderweb. As night fell and darkness descended, the fresco on the ceiling had transformed from a beautiful paradise to a gloomy underworld.

“It’s nice and quiet.”

With everyone gone for the night, the darkness surrounding me made it difficult to distinguish between dream and reality even after waking.

The only light visible was the faint moonlight seeping through the closed window frame.

I wanted to wake from this dream but couldn’t.

So I needed to escape.

I slowly moved toward the moonlight.

The calm river’s surface reflected the moon, illuminating me like a spotlight.

/”Fly, my child.”/

My body sinking into the water felt so heavy.

As my breath became more constricted, I wished to rest forever without ever reaching the shore.

Yet someone, from this endless sinking, to pull me out…

I think I once wished for something like that.

“Please……”

An urgent voice came from somewhere, leaving warmth in my ear.

Then came a cold that made my whole body tremble.

After a while, when I gently opened my eyes, something white was hazily rippling.

The white figure wavering before my eyes was none other than the priest who had been arguing with me.

“…Are you conscious?”

Was that urgent voice the priest’s? Unlike the voice I heard in my hazy consciousness, the priest was looking straight ahead with a rigid expression. My body was soaking wet.

It seemed the priest had rescued me. As he carried me across the arch bridge, he felt my slight shivering from the cold and tightened the priestly robe he had draped over me.

The priest had removed the robe he had been wearing pulled down. His golden hair and olive-green eyes shone clearly even under the night sky, refusing to be tainted.

It was quite an impressive sight. Almost as if such a being shouldn’t exist in this wretched place.

To think this was a priest—he must have troubled many. Yet my interest went no further than that.

“Fortunately, it’s late at night. If news of Your Majesty’s accident had leaked out, it would have been a disaster.”

The priest moved quietly with an impassive expression, looking straight ahead. He seemed somewhat angry. I stared at him for a while before sighing. At the sound of my sigh, the priest who had been looking straight ahead lowered his gaze to me.

“Are you disappointed that your plan failed?”

“…A little.”

“Then I suppose you’re planning to do something like this again.”

The priest stopped walking with his dry remark.

Well. The pain of suffocation was more terrible than I thought.

But given the chance, I might try again to find eternal rest, even if it’s in flames rather than water.

“It’s cold.”

Instead of answering, I winced and curled up, which elicited a deflated laugh.

“That’s good news, it means you’re alive.”

“……”

“We’ll arrive soon, so please bear with it a little longer.”

Contrary to his words about bearing it, warmth soon spread throughout my body.

It seemed to come from the priest’s hands. This phenomenon was too strange to marvel at, considering all the absurd things that had happened to me. I accepted the warmth without much thought, and drowsiness soon overtook my comfortably warmed body.

I felt like I could fall asleep at any moment, but the nightmare that unfailingly found me even in this fantasy prevented me from easily drifting off.

“Rest.”

At those words, I opened my eyes wide, causing the priest to let out a small laugh.

“What exactly is the problem?”

“…I wonder.”

In the ensuing silence, the priest bit his lip with an apologetic expression, as if regretting his pointless question.

Why torment something so pretty? It made me want to torment him instead.

After staring at those lips for a while, he seemed uncomfortable with my gaze and turned his head, silently carrying me to the East Palace bedroom.

He waved his hand in the air to make the nodding guards sleep more deeply, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the security state where any passerby could stab me deeply and no one would know.

Hearing my laughter, he moved even more cautiously to avoid being discovered, and after safely reaching the bedroom, he placed me on the bed and finally relaxed his tense expression.

“This makes us look like we’re enjoying a secret rendezvous.”

“……”

That brief moment passed, and his expression hardened again as he put strength into his steps.

He seemed to view me as a completely insane woman, yet his intention to look after me until the end suggested he was quite stubborn too.

The priest confirmed that the items he had left earlier were still in place and began preparing to complete the unfinished treatment.

I surrendered to his sense of duty.

Half-resigned, I leaned back and watched him, when the priest, returning with bandages in hand, suddenly stopped and stared down at me.

“What?”

Watching him closely to see why he was acting that way, the priest abruptly sat down on the floor after finishing his contemplation.

“…What are you doing?”

The priest’s behavior became increasingly puzzling.

Kneeling on one knee, holding bandages in one hand, he continued to deliberate even after extending his empty hand toward me.

“I want to get closer to Your Majesty… I thought it might make you more comfortable with the treatment.”

“Ha.”

This is completely—

“A sinful priest.”

My head tilted involuntarily as I tried to see the priest’s expression hidden by his hand.

The priest, seemingly embarrassed, extended his hand further, requesting my hand that had been injured by the glass shard.

After debating whether to give it to him, a sudden thought ended my hesitation, and I extended my hand.

“This is the second time for you.”

One, the priest saved me while I was having a nightmare.

Two, the priest’s subsequent treatment was quite tender.

The priest, who had gently taken my fingertips, gave me an inscrutable look before focusing on the treatment.

He applied a tickling, sticky medicine to my palm and slowly and meticulously wrapped it with rough bandages.

“This is the last time. If you show me such tenderness again, you’ll have to take responsibility for me.”

I warned him while pulling on his hand that still lingered over my bandaged one.

“So if you can’t handle it, give up. Otherwise, I’m going to have fun playing with you.”

※※※

“Priest Clarvin.”

“……”

“Priest? High Priest?”

Angell, walking down the west wing corridor, was so deeply lost in thought that he didn’t notice the maids who had followed him until they appeared right in front of him with a box.

“Ah, I apologize.”

“What are you thinking about so intently? You might trip.”

Hahaha, cheerful laughter echoed loudly through the west wing corridor.

Angell stopped awkwardly and ended up receiving the box that was handed to him.

“…What is this?”

“It’s confectionery. A whole bunch arrived at the west wing, and we secretly set one aside for you, Priest.”

Angell returned the box with an uncomfortable expression as the maids confessed with broad smiles.

“You’d better put it back. It was likely purchased for distinguished guests, and it’s not right to take it like this.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Priest. The storeroom is overflowing with them, and they’ll just be thrown away without being eaten.”

“……”

The maids tried to persuade Angell to accept it with banter, but he firmly refused and returned the box, which the maids received with disappointed sounds.

“Put it back where it belongs.”

“Oh, Priest, really……”

Despite being scolded firmly, the maids blushed and turned away happily. Angell only resumed walking after confirming they were heading toward the pantry downstairs.

“…He’s truly irritating no matter where you put him.”

Priest Levin Sabiel, who had been watching the scene while leaning against a pillar, shook his head and criticized the excessively upright young man, Angell Clarvin.

“Every time a bribe comes in, he refuses it, so we can’t even report him.”

“Thanks to that, I can continue to be honest, for which I am grateful, Priest Sabiel.”

“What a shame. That was expensive.”

Levin, who had naturally joined Angell, walked with him down the corridor and freely expressed his jealousy of Angell’s beauty, which attracted attention wherever he went.

Of course, the man himself reportedly wore his robe pulled down due to the inconvenience of his natural beauty, but he couldn’t live his entire life with his robe pulled over his head.

That meticulous habit quickly became useless when he was caught by maids moving through the living quarters.

“Why on earth are you walking this path with that face? I’m angry, you know. You’re deceiving brothers like me just by existing!”

A priest’s tenderness was charity permitted to all.

They say that during relief activities or dispatches, many people confessed their love, swayed by that tenderness, but that was merely admiration for the helping hand extended in difficult circumstances—admiration for the priest himself was extremely rare.

But look at Angell Clarvin.

He was a man born with such blessed beauty that even if he removed his priest’s nameplate, he would never lack for women’s attention throughout his life. And then he had the added condition of being a priest?

This was something that couldn’t help but cause agitation.

Of course, a priest who had declared to love all creatures equally for life as a servant of the Holy Spirit was like a mirage before love as desire. Visible but unattainable. Existing but unpossessable.

Levin Sabiel declared that if he had been born a woman, he too would have been helpless before Angell Clarvin, and he was displeased as he made this declaration.

“Let’s walk a bit further apart. You’re annoying me.”

“You’re the one who attached yourself to me, Priest Sabiel.”

Levin rolled his eyes at Angell’s casual banter.

Then, belatedly recalling an unusual sight he had forgotten due to the maids’ flirtation, he looked at Angell with a suspicious expression.

“Ah, come to think of it, is something wrong? You’ve been staring blankly into space since this morning.”

At Levin’s surprise question, Angell seemed to recall his forgotten thoughts, briefly furrowing his brow before returning to his indifferent expression to answer.

“…Nothing’s wrong. I was just tired from a late bedtime.”

“…How can it be nothing when the High Priest had a late bedtime? You’ve never been late to a dawn prayer meeting in your life, and you even time your meals to exactly thirty minutes.”

For you to arrive late at your chambers—this must be a matter that will bring divine wrath and the continent’s end tomorrow, if not for something truly serious.

“…I’m considering requesting that the priests’ quarters be moved to the East Palace. It might be more convenient in many ways.”

“……”

Levin, having overheard Angell’s concern, stood frozen in place, thinking that perhaps the end of the world might be preferable.