Prologue

“Where am I?”

Doyeon shivered in the suddenly cold air and looked around.

Inside a dimly lit barrack, women were huddled together, sobbing.

“What’s going on? I’m dead, right? I was trapped in a burning warehouse, and it was so hot. How can I still be alive?”

Is this a dream? Can people dream even after death?

Or is this the afterlife?

Confused, Doyeon looked for someone among the women who seemed to be in a relatively stable state.

“Um… where am I?”

The woman she approached responded with a weary face, “Did you get caught today?”

Caught? Brody nodded, not quite sure what to make of it.

“Wait, Brody?”

Doyeon was surprised. Somehow, she had come to recognize herself as ‘Brody.’

Perplexed, she looked down at her body. Instead of the familiar black hair, she saw light brown hair cascading down her shoulders.

Her stomach churned as she realized her body was trembling.

“What the hell is going on? I’m Brody? Why is that me?

As she was grappling with the situation, the concerned woman asked, “Are you okay?”

Despite her worn-out appearance, the woman seemed to have a decent figure. Brody felt a bit relieved by her caring voice.

“Oh… I think I might have hit my head. I feel disoriented.”

“Oh, no. What a bunch of bastards, hitting a skinny kid over the head for being disobedient.”

The woman spat out the harsh words, her face deeply scrunched up in concern for Brody. She shook her head, then answered Brody’s question.

“This is the prisoner barracks of the Northern Duke’s fortress. Do you remember the Northern Duke who rebelled?”

“Ah……?”

The Northern Duke’s Fortress? Rebellion? Prisoners? What does this all mean?

Once again, Brody wondered if she was dreaming.

‘Northern Duke? Is this an extra from that poorly written novel I read while trapped in the cold warehouse?’

It was the only novel I had downloaded on my phone with no Wi-Fi or signal, so I read it over and over again, even if I didn’t like the story. I needed something to distract me in the cold, and I was out of options.

“Come to think of it,……, Brody,……? Is that…?”

While Brody was trying to recall her memories, the woman explained.

“The Northern Duke is said to be a crazy person, just as the rumors say. Every night, he cruelly treats the women brought from the barracks, and when morning comes, he kills them. One woman every day, for the past fourteen nights… and no one… has come back.”

Brody, while picking up the kind explanation from the woman, was also busy rolling through her memories.

‘Damn, I guess. I must have been possessed by a fictionalized version of a villainess.’

“Mm-hmm.”

Brody shuddered, holding her head in her hands. The woman thought she was in shock and patted her shoulder worriedly.