Hello, Readers! I am celebrating my birthday with extra chapter updates, so please enjoy this special chapter release of 4 bonus chapters! 🥳

(Lurelia’s Birthday Bonus – Update 3/4 🎉)

♡ To all readers who purchased these chapters before my Birthday: I can’t express this enough – Thank you for your support. (*ˊᗜˋ*)/ᵗᑋᵃᐢᵏ ᵞᵒᵘ*

“The next day, and the day after that, the princess continued to visit the stable boy. She would laugh and cry as she shared her stories with him. But one day, she came to him with an unusually despairing expression.”

“The princess said, ‘The royal marriage has been arranged. I am to marry a prince from a neighboring kingdom, someone I’ve never even met.’

The stable boy felt as though a heavy lump of lead had settled in his chest. For the first time, he made a request to her.

‘Run away, Princess.’

At that, the princess gave him a sad smile.
‘You always say exactly what I want to hear.’

The princess kissed the stable boy on the lips.

‘Let’s go together. Let’s run away together.’

The princess and the stable boy decided to make plans to escape before the wedding.

How interesting.

It was undoubtedly an engaging story, yet why did it feel so sad?

“From that day on, the princess spent every night in the stable boy’s room. They planned their escape route, drawing maps and coming up with multiple options for where to go.”

The illustration of the princess holding a quill and drawing a map, leaning in to plant a soft kiss on the stable boy’s cheek, was utterly endearing.

“Everything seemed to be progressing smoothly.”

Ah, here it was.
The foreshadowing of tragedy.

When I started to fidget with Rory’s hair, he looked up from the book and gazed at me.
“Should I stop reading?”
“…No.”

Though I knew my heart would ache, I couldn’t help but want to know what happened next.
I leaned against Rory’s shoulder, closed my eyes, and listened again.

“One day, the princess’s maid discovered that the princess disappeared every night. She waited until nightfall and followed her secretly. When she saw the princess entering the stable boy’s room, she was so shocked that she ran straight to the king.”

Oh no.

“The king was furious. The next day, he locked the princess in her room and ordered the stable boy to be executed. Upon hearing of the stable boy’s death, the princess wept every day until the eve of her wedding.”

Why was my ominous feeling never wrong?
For a fairy tale, this was an unusually dark story.

Rory glanced at me, gauging my reaction, and hesitated before continuing.

“On the morning of the wedding, the princess suddenly disappeared.”

“She disappeared?”
“Yes.”

Rory pointed at the text and read the next part.

“The king sent out soldiers to search every corner of the kingdom. A few days later, they found the princess’s shoe on the path leading to the fearsome Dark Lord’s castle. The wicked Dark Lord had kidnapped the princess.”

“…?”
I stared blankly at the book.

“The king summoned brave men from across the land and declared, ‘Whoever rescues the princess will marry her and inherit the throne.’

The neighboring prince, who had come for the wedding, along with knights and warriors, all set out to find the princess. But none of them ever caught a glimpse of even a strand of her hair.

“That’s the end?”
“Yes, that’s the end.”

Rory flipped through the pages back and forth, running his fingers over them.
But there was nothing more. The remaining three or four pages were blank.

“Why did the Dark Lord suddenly appear?”
“I don’t know.”

“Why did the Dark Lord kidnap the princess?”
“I’m not sure either… Maybe he fell in love with her at first sight?”

Rory closed the book with a puzzled expression and set it aside.

While the sentimental boy offered his thoughts, I, burdened by worldly cynicism, voiced a different opinion.
“Was it for money?”

“…The Dark Lord kidnapped the princess for money?”

“Whether he’s a Dark Lord or not, people are all the same. Even fairies have to sell thread to make money these days.”

At my words, Rory chuckled softly.
“That’s true.”

“But your idea makes sense too. If it were about money, he would’ve demanded it from the king right away.”

Still…
How on earth was I supposed to come up with an ending for this?

The protagonist, the stable boy, is already dead, so there is no way for it to have a happy ending.

The stable boy, who had died so meaninglessly, and the princess, who had lost her love and been kidnapped…

My chest felt heavy.

It was like being trapped in a dark, damp well with no bottom, floundering helplessly.

“Mel.”

Lost in thought, I was startled when Rory called out to me, fidgeting with his fingers.

“The stable boy is so pitiful. Couldn’t it turn out that he’s actually alive, like in Snow White?”

“What…?”

“In Snow White, the queen ordered the huntsman to kill the princess, but he spared her, right? Maybe a kind-hearted huntsman saved the stable boy too?”

I slapped my knee at the pure and innocent idea of the child.

It felt as if I had suddenly been pulled out of the water.

“Thank you, Rory!”

I beamed and pulled the boy into a tight hug.

With this, I felt I could write a satisfying conclusion.

Letting Rory go, I started bouncing on the bed.

Like an innocent child.

There were many inconveniences that came with being a child again, but being able to express my emotions freely without worrying about others was truly wonderful.

Even about small, trivial things—if I was happy, I could laugh as if I owned the world, and if I was sad, I could cry as if the world was falling apart.

Raw emotions that 22-year-old Kim Ha-neul had long forgotten.

Perhaps the reason I had failed so often in auditions was that I had become an adult too used to suppressing things.

The devastating consequences of impulsive actions in my childhood had weighed on my shoulders and choked me, gradually making me wear a stranger’s mask.

How could I possibly act with honesty and sincerity when I was so focused on suppressing and hiding my emotions?

I finally realized that now.

A wave of joy and relief washed over me, like I had rediscovered something precious I had lost.

“What a brilliant idea!”

I raised my arms and let out a loud cheer.

Rory, clueless about what was going on, blinked at me in confusion.

***

Time flew by like an arrow, and three seasons had passed.

Rory, now eight years old, had become quite adept at handling a sword as if it were an extension of his own body.

As expected of my boy. I knew he’d be good at it.

I watched him wipe his sweat with pride.

He seemed to have grown taller too.

“Mel!”

As he ran toward me, I handed him some water and gave him a wide smile.

Behind Rory, Sprout strode toward us with long steps.

Sprout had recently come of age and had become… well, a bit creepy.

When he looked like a little kid, his childish behavior was tolerable, but now that he was an adult while still acting like a child, it was unsettling.

“Miss, give me some water too.”

“Oh, uh, sure.”

I handed a water bottle to Sprout as well.

At six years old, my pronunciation had improved completely.

My high, delicate voice still sounded like a baby’s, but at least I no longer lisped, which I found satisfying.