I Dislike The Male Lead’s Child (Web Novel) - Chapter 1

‘Why am I here?’

The carriage went smoothly, and despite that, my expression was grave.

Fluttering dress, lace gloves, blue satin shoes, everything was unfamiliar, but that’s obvious. I wasn’t a person from this world. I was in a book.

I possessed the character of a wife whose death during childbirth inflicted trauma upon the male lead.

*******

I was an ordinary person. Growing up in a single-parent family, I had a hard time, but I turned out decent. I was a child brimming with optimism and confidence. Ever since I was young, I worked various part-time jobs and was independent enough to pay tuition. And even though I worked all night, I never let go of my studies and got accepted to a scholarship.

I saw the ray of the light coming at the end of the hard road I paved for myself, passing exams and entering a big company. But the happiness didn’t last long.

For the first time in my life, I bought neat clothes to wear at the company by shedding off some money from my tight living expenses. I never even wore the beige shoes I bought and kept them in the shoebox, afraid of ruining it. I only took them out to show my mom.

But I don’t know if my mom even heard me.

“Mom, you told me to make money quickly, so I got a job.”

My mom was very sick. She raised me alone after being kicked out of her family for giving birth to the child of someone her parents didn’t approve of. She said that Dad left us behind and ran away, but my sick mom also had little to do with me. Every night, she curses him out and drinks, even praying that for her own death.

Maybe God listened because as soon as I entered college, she had a stroke and couldn’t move again. The day she collapsed, the doctor said it would be hard for her to recover, but listening to the doctor’s words, I thought it was a relief that I was already an adult.

Taking care of her was not easy, but my tears were all shed for my mother, so after that, there was nothing left. I lived a busy life that never gave me time to be sad.

In the midst of my busy life, the novel ‘If I Tame a Warrior’ appeared.

It was the beginning of the day when I accidentally pressed on a link in my cell phone while fiddling with it before going to sleep. It was the story of a princess, who possessed a character in a book and fell in love with the male protagonist who was in despair. It had this overarching theme of overcoming hardship and striving for happiness.

However, there was one particular thing to this novel that caught my attention—the male protagonist’s dead wife.

Before meeting the princess, the male protagonist Asellus had a childhood friend named Avril. The two married at a young age when Asellus’s parents died abruptly and that was the beginning of his tragedy. Later, Asellus became the first wizard of the continent, a powerful archmage that awakens humanity’s potential magic power for the first time. On the other hand, Avril’s body did not develop resistance towards mana. It was a condition where the body gradually weakens whenever magic is within a certain distance of the patient.

Before Asellus’s awakening, she didn’t even know the existence of magic, so she was clueless about her maladjustment to magic. She never knew how deadly the situation could be.

No one knew why Avril was sick when in actuality, her body gradually withered due to Asellus’s magical power. Asellus’s baby was also conceived in her body and it was a child full of magical power. Her constitution caused her difficult childbirth, resulting in both the baby’s and the mother’s deaths.

Later on, Asellus learns of Avril’s condition, but by then, she was already dead. Out of despair, he meets Islet the Wise and becomes a wizard.

Because of that, he grew into a warrior by defeating the sea monsters that have plagued the kingdom for a long time. However, he couldn’t handle the overflowing mana in him and slowly spiralled down to insanity. That was when the story began.

The female lead, the princess, appears and helps him. She had a high affinity for mana, and so fully absorbed Asellus’s overflowing mana. Asellus fell in love with the princess at first sight, but he was still in despair over the guilt he would have to bear towards his deceased wife.

He was afraid.

But, the female lead saw right through him and went through all kinds of hardships with the male lead. In the end, the two had a happy ending.

Up to this point, it was nothing but an ordinary romance novel. My main problem with it was that the author continuously compared Avril, who was deceased, with the princess. The dead wife was not so bad, but the author persistently emphasised that Asellus’s heroine was the princess, not Avril, and every time she did that, I was overwhelmed with discomfort.

“What did Avril do to you?”

I stayed up all night and read through the novel thoroughly. I wonder why I was concerned about Avril. There was no mention of her even until the end, where she acted as the deceased supporting role that strengthens the love between the male and female leads. Even the readers who praise the love between the male and female leads feel sorry for Avril.

“What is this!” I was furious. This was why Asellus and Avril should have been divorced early, the tragic fate awaiting Avril and her unborn child would not have happened and there would have been no ‘dead Avril’ who served as an obstacle to the main characters’ love life.

I couldn’t sleep because my anger never cooled down, so I left a comment on the serial site for the first time, Poor Avril.

As soon as I posted that, I heard the notifications ring.

Are you Avril?

Lol immersion…

Don’t vomit, let’s just read.

“Ha… what have I done.” Since then, I completely forgot all about the novel. How many days have passed since the day I posted the comment? I heard the notification ring from my phone. A new reply was posted in the comment I posted.

‘What else are you going to say?’

Even though I hesitated, I checked, hoping that someone might have sympathised with me—and someone did. ’I agree with you. I felt like possessing Avril to save her.’ I immediately pressed the like button on the reply. At that moment, my eyes completely blurred and then I woke up to the sight of a carriage’s interior.

“I never thought I’d wake up in a carriage on my way to my marriage as soon as I arrived into this world.” I was on my way to marrying Asellus, who lost his parents in an avalanche. Sulking—I looked at the window while cupping my chin. “I wouldn’t have commented if I knew it would turn out like this.”

‘I guess one comment can literally change your life.’