When she opened her eyes again, she found herself in an unfamiliar landscape. The difference was that this time, she could vividly feel her body.

Lying still, she wiggled her finger joints one by one like a protagonist in a drama who had just awakened from a coma. Though her fingers felt as heavy as steel rods with no strength at all, at least she could move them by her own will.

‘What’s happening?’

What she immediately saw was a high, rounded ceiling and an eerie golden chandelier. It had the shape of dry branches extending irregularly, with crystal balls emitting a yellowish light attached to the ends instead of candles or bulbs. It looked almost like a tree with eyes opening.

This was clearly not a hospital. A patient room meant to provide emotional stability would never be this grand and eerie.

‘Is this the afterlife? It’s so different from what I imagined.’

As she blinked her dry eyes, suddenly a girl popped her head out from the side. She had curly red hair and light freckles on her cheeks.

Their eyes met for about a second before the girl’s round eyes grew even wider. Her yellow eyes shone with an intensity that didn’t match her appearance.

“Oh? Wow!”

Just as an exclamation escaped her widely opened mouth, the girl sprang to her feet. Her freckled cheeks pushed up adorably.

“Lady Violetta has awakened!”

The girl shouted in a resonant voice and dashed off somewhere.

“Ah, no, I’m not Violetta… huh?!”

A strange voice escaped her along with severe thirst that felt like her throat was tearing. The language wasn’t Korean either. It wasn’t familiar English, and if asked whether it resembled European languages, it didn’t seem like that either. Not that she knew much about them.

The one thing that was clear was that it was almost identical to the language used by that silver-haired woman in her dream.

When she closed her mouth in shock, the voice stopped abruptly. She moved her parched lips several times before trying to speak again.

“Ah, ah.”

It was that voice again. She rustled about, pulling her hand out from under the blanket and bringing it before her eyes. Her arm was thinner than her original one, and her fingers were long and slender. Her skin was as white as paper.

‘Consider it a blessing to be reborn as a great witch.’

The dream woman’s words flashed through her mind. After struggling for a while, she finally managed to sit up and, leaning against the headboard in a posture that seemed terrible for her spine, looked around.

The room was rather dark. The wallpaper was purple, the furniture was deep wood-colored—everything was dim. The only white thing was the curtain draped over the large window on the left. Thanks to it, sunlight poured in, distinguishing day from night. Beside the bed were a small wardrobe that seemed meant only for clothes to be worn immediately and a vanity table, while a full-length mirror stood by the window.

‘Could it be.’

She staggered over to the mirror, supporting herself against the wall.

When she finally faced herself in the mirror, her legs gave out and she collapsed. The silver-haired woman from her dream was there, looking even more emaciated than in the dream.

“W-what? Is this not a mirror?”

When she spoke, the woman’s lips opposite her moved too. So, unless this was some sinister tool reflecting illusions, it must indeed be a mirror.

“Is this a dream? Am I alive?”

Could it be that she had miraculously survived and was now dreaming deeply on a hospital bed? She touched her cheeks here and there. But she could feel the touch and temperature of her dry hands wherever she touched. The stinging in her throat whenever she spoke remained the same as well.

“What is this? Why am I……”

Had she really died? Had she died and come not to the afterlife but to ‘another world’? If so, had she now become that Violetta Phantomwood? Why on earth?

As she stared blankly at the mirror, there was a stir outside. The girl’s urgent footsteps were now joined by the sound of shoes.

—Dasha, you shouldn’t run like that. Lady Violetta needs to rest.

A cavernous bass voice was heard from outside the door. Despite his words, his tone was quite excited.

‘A castle? Is this a castle? Who exactly is Violetta Phantomwood?’

The footsteps stopped in front of the door. She who had suddenly become Violetta Phantomwood turned her head sharply toward it. A slight dizziness hit her.

The door remained open as the girl had left it, and next to the girl, presumably named ‘Dasha,’ stood a long-haired man who looked as if he had just stepped out of a black and white photograph. He was holding a tray with a teacup and teapot in one hand.

“Lady Violetta!”

After scolding the girl not to run, the black and white man walked hurriedly into the room the moment he spotted Violetta collapsed in front of the mirror. After placing the tray on the bedside table, he approached her in one bound and knelt on one knee.

“Horns…?”

Violetta examined the man in astonishment. He had fine facial features, and thick, curved horns protruded from behind his temples. Something that absolutely should not exist on a human.

“Lady Violetta, do you recognize me? You’ve been asleep for a year.”

“Why are you in black and white?”

“Pardon?”

The man seemed considerably taken aback by the level of her question. But she couldn’t help her curiosity. Following talk of becoming a great witch, now there was a horned man in black and white. She felt trapped in a strange land seen only in fairy tales. She needed to know the identity of this being who was clearly not human.

“You’re the only one here in black and white. And those horns… are strange too.”

When she asked again, the man’s pitch-black eyes wavered.

“Your manner of speech has become oddly polite, and you ask such questions—it’s remarkably unfamiliar. Is it truly another soul that has taken residence in that body……”

“Huh? Y-yes! I opened my eyes and found myself like this!”

“I see……”

The man’s expression turned gloomy. Judging by his reaction of having lost his world, it seemed that the original owner of the body, though perhaps ill-mannered, had been dear to him.

“Um… is there any way to reverse this?”

“There won’t be. No, there isn’t. The fact that you’ve entered this body means that both of you have already disappeared from the worlds you originally belonged to.”

“Disappeared? So we can’t switch back?”

“Correct. Even if you left this body, your soul would simply cease to exist.”

The colorless man answered calmly as if he had foreseen this absurd situation. However, his expression was far from comfortable—it seemed much closer to resignation than composure.

“By ceasing to exist, you mean dying?”

“Technically, yes.”

“Ah, that’s a bit……”

She shook her head, recalling the moment her heart had stopped. It wasn’t something she wanted to experience twice in a row. And what about the original Violetta Phantomwood who had ‘ceased to exist’ before her? She shuddered, remembering the silver powder scattering in all directions.

‘I don’t want to end up like that.’

So the only option left was to live on in this body? In this world full of unfamiliar things? A deep sigh escaped her from a sense of helplessness.

“I’m confused. Where exactly is this place, and who are you? I’m sorry if it seems like I’ve stolen this body, but I don’t want to die… Yet I’m not sure if settling down here is the right thing either……”

As she voiced her complaints in fluent language of this world, the horned black and white man nodded with a solemn face.

“I’ve brought warm honey tea, please drink it first. I’ll explain while you moisten your throat.”

“Ah, yes. Th-thank you.”

The man effortlessly lifted her and set her on the bed, then poured hot tea into a gold-decorated teacup. She put the rim of the cup to the tip of her nose, sniffed the aroma, and carefully took a sip. Contrary to her worry that it might be strange, it was familiar honey tea, and just the right temperature for drinking.

“I am Sergius, the familiar who serves Lady Violetta. I was a lower demon king in the demon realm, but 249 years ago, I fled to the human world after being overwhelmed in a power struggle. I narrowly escaped death by making a contract with the first Phantomwood, and since then, I’ve been serving the Phantomwood successors. So now I must serve you.”

“Demon king… you say.”

She carefully chewed over the overwhelming title ‘demon king.’ A hollow laugh escaped at the end of her words. Surprisingly, she wasn’t as shocked as she might have expected. Perhaps she had already been shocked by everything when she saw a person who was entirely black and white.

“Witches, demon kings, next we’ll have werewolves too.”

At her casually thrown words, Dasha suddenly sparkled her eyes. It was a look as if she was eagerly demanding recognition of her existence.

“Yes, Miss Dasha is a werewolf! Could it be that you retain some of the original Violetta’s memories?”

“No? I just guessed.”

She answered awkwardly to the expectant question. Sergius nodded with a complicated expression. She felt somewhat self-deprecating for failing to meet expectations.

“Um… Is this really the human world?”

“Yes. This is Phantomwood Castle, built in the ‘Winter Forest’ at the northern gate of the capital of the Kingdom of Rwein. It’s a place where monsters occasionally cross over, so human presence is rare.”

“By Phantomwood Castle, do you mean the same Phantomwood as in Violetta Phantomwood? So it’s her own property?”

Violetta asked Sergius with the most animated expression she had shown so far. Suddenly seeing her show great interest in this world, Sergius tilted his head with a slightly puzzled face.

“Excuse me, but by ‘own property’……”

“I mean, is it purely owned by Violetta Phantomwood? Without any mortgage or such.”

“Of course. Everything in this castle is indeed property belonging to Lady Violetta, the successor of the great witch Pamela Phantomwood.”

“I see. So that’s it……”

Violetta murmured blankly. A huge castle, a familiar she could command, property in her name—Sergius casually mentioned things she had never possessed before dying.

‘This person is definitely rich, at least.’