Taming The Lady - Chapter 1

“Liliana! This girl! Seriously! Ack!”

I threw my phone away after reading the ending of the novel I was currently obsessed with.

‘Excuse me, ma’am! Are you really serious? Were you a bat in your previous life? Why are you jumping from one man to another?’

The heroine of the novel, Liliana, was still stuck between two men even at the last moment of the last chapter.

In the end, she chose her happily-ever-after with the guy who was to become the king.

And Raon, the one character who got all the praises and love of the readers, the Sword Master of the Abyss who was vying neck and neck with the prince till the end to be the main hero of the novel; my favorite character who shone brightly as the most popular character voted by the readers, died in the end for the sake of the heroine.

And, on top of that, the author in his postscript declared that there would be no epilogue for Raon!

It made me madder than ever.

I could not believe my eyes, so I read the postscript again and again for almost a hundred times, but nothing changed.

‘Can’t you at least give him an epilogue?!’

With an earnest heart, I wrote long reviews in the Comments dozens of times a day, demanding an epilogue, but in vain.

The author, who had already faced a whole lot of harsh reviews and curses because of the ending,  went off the radar and disappeared.

‘Damn it!’

‘Really? Seriously? Just like that? That’s all?’

I trembled with rage.

If it was going to be that way, the author should have just given Raon to me. Why did they have to go off and kill such a beloved character? Wasn’t he just living his life without causing harm to anyone? Did it make sense that a swordmaster would be killed so easily?

“Ack! So annoying!”

The horror and the shock of the ending drove me crazy and I frantically kept flipping through the pages of the novel innumerable times.

With great care, I read the part of the novel where Raon made his first appearance. And while reading it, I kept daydreaming, swinging my legs back and forth from my bed.

Goosebumps appeared all over my arms as I daydreamed about how Raon and I first looked into each other’s eyes, how we got married and had a kid, and how we lived happily ever after.

‘Hah, just by imagining it I became a sobbing mess…!’

My delusions began to run wild and before long, it grew bigger and bigger.

‘What if I could go directly inside the novel and meet Raon?’

If only I could do that, it would not matter whether I became the villain who harassed the heroine or a small supporting character.

I only wished that I would have a pretty face when I possessed someone else’s body.

I dragged my blanket up to my chest in my darkroom and continued conjuring up all kinds of imageries and delusional thoughts.

‘If I ever meet my Raon, I will treat him so well.’

‘I will pick the stars and the moon and everything else just for him and shower him with my love.’

‘I will take care of him, I will cherish and treat him as jade and gold.’

***

On that fateful day, I was having my daily delusional thoughts that would never come true when I suddenly noticed that it was quite late. The night had already deepened and had grown darker.

As a habit, I was reading Raon’s novel late into the night and I felt a little hungry. So, at that late hour, I decided to go outside and head to the convenience store.

It was unusually cold that day. The raindrops kept beating against the road with a soft pitter-patter.

The atmosphere felt darker and gloomier than usual. It was so gloomy that it felt like everything was wrapped in an eerie cloak of mist.

Obviously, this road was the one I had known all my life, but at that moment I could not feel any human presence nearby.

Should I say it felt like I had entered an unfamiliar space all of a sudden?

A strange, uncomfortable feeling tightened up my body. As I looked around, I felt a sense of urgency and right at that moment, something fell from the sky.

Just like that, I got struck by lightning and died. Dang it!

‘Why am I so unlucky? Why was it a thunderbolt out of all things?’

And I came to possess someone else’s body.

In the same novel where Raon was in. Inside the ‘Goddess of the Empire’.

At first, I thought I was in a dream. When I opened my eyes, I found myself in a room decorated in Western aristocratic style.

My last memory was the one in which I had died after getting struck by lightning, so how could I just believe that I had really popped up in such a place?

I quickly lowered my head and fell into deep thinking.

‘Maybe the part where I got hit by the thunderbolt was a dream?’

‘What if I actually dreamed of the part where I went to the convenience store?’

‘Whatever it is…seriously………’

“This is a vivid dream……….”

”Oh! My Lady……… You are finally awake……….!”

I heard an unfamiliar voice and realized that there was a person next to me.

As I looked around, I saw a young woman wearing an indigo blue dress with frills in front of the skirt.

No matter how carefully I looked at it, her dress looked like a typical maid outfit, so could it be that she was the typical maid who generally appeared in romantic fantasy novels?

‘But why is this woman shivering so much?’

At first glance, the woman’s expression looked as if she was overwhelmed with surprise but on second look, she seemed to be more terrified than surprised. Even if this was a dream, she was a pitiful thing.

My thoughts flowed back again. This was all out of the blue but if this was not a dream and if I really had come to possess someone, it would be so much fun!

Could it be that everything I had been wishing for had come true at last?

At that moment, I felt like I was hit on the head by something blunt.

‘Wa-wait a second!’

I had never been to Europe though.

I had never even traveled abroad, let alone Europe. The only Western landscape I knew was from the romantic fantasy novel ‘Goddess of the Empire’ which I was obsessed with and had been fangirling on.

The backdrop of the novel was definitely western but……….

”Huh……?”

After realizing the situation, I jumped up like a singed cat and ran toward the large mirror in front of me.

“M-my Lady! You haven’t fully recovered yet, so you can’t run like that!”

I saw the young woman standing near me trying to hold me back but I could not stop myself. My heart would not calm down easily even if I tried!

‘No way, no way!’

‘I don’t know if I am having a lot of delusions right now, but could I really be inside the same novel as my favorite character?’

‘Let’s just explore my delusions even more while they look real. Whose body did I go inside? What about my appearance?’

As I looked into the mirror with a heart trying to burst out of my chest, my eyes also widened and almost popped.

“Wow!”

“M-my Lady?”

“So pretty! My eyes are purple! They are like jewels! Awesome!”

“Aw-awesome?”

“Uh-huh! Awesome! Yes! Jackpot!”

My abnormal behavior seemed to have made the woman quite anxious. But I ignored her and kept humming and checking my figure in front of the mirror.

Round eyes, small, white nose, and cherry-like lips.

Overall, my face was quite round but it was really cute and pretty.

I touched and felt my body in every nook and cranny. I could feel the texture of my skin vividly.

‘It looks like I have really possessed someone else’s body. Yes!’

‘By the way……….isn’t there something creepily beautiful about this deep red hair color?’

‘Wait a minute!’

‘Who had scarlet hair in the novel?’

My eyes just got bigger on their own.

“You there. You are a maid, right?”

“Yes? Yes, I am a maid……….”

“I see. Miss maid, what is my name?”

“What?”

“I feel slightly dizzy, so please hurry up and tell me.”

“Right! My Lady! Your respectable name is Estina Drino von Lacia.”

In my daydreams, I had wanted to be just about anyone in the novel. I thought I wouldn’t care whose body I possessed.

But why in the world did I have to possess the body of the girl who bitterly tormented my Raon?

Chapter 1- The crazy Lady of this territory

I tied up my hair and began to recall the story of the novel.

The story of the novel titled ‘Goddess of the empire” went like this.

In the academy, there were four main handsome men.

Liliana, the heroine of the story who had arrived in this different dimension from Korea, went and conquered the hearts of the four men one by one.

Even though I just saw them being perfectly trapped in her net, in the novel they rose up in ranks and developed as characters after finding themselves attracted to her and she had supposedly breathed new life into them. In due course of time, they became the main figures of the empire.

And my favorite character was one of them, the Sword Master of the Abyss.

‘Raon Cania de Ryan.’

He was born as the eldest son to a dirt-poor Count.

He was abused since his childhood.

It seemed as if Raon’s whole existence was stained with the darkness of misery ever since his birth, but he came to meet an honest teacher who helped him become a master swordsman.

Later, he caught the eye of a great sage and learned all the advanced magic, and also managed to bring glory to his fallen family name. All these marked him as a truly distinct Munchkin.

In the end, this perfect Raon still could not manage to avoid the trap of the main girl.

Liliana and Raon met each other in a totally common cliche first encounter set-up. More accidental encounters followed and Liliana slowly managed to heal Raon’s wounds.

Raon, who did not know his own feelings got pulled in by Liliana and he became her guardian angel wherever and whenever she went.

In the end, he turned into a desperate character who crushed on Liliana one-sidedly.

As Raon’s popularity began to rise, the author started increasing Raon’s appearance scenes. So we all thought that he would be promoted as the main character but he failed to connect with the main girl.

It was already miserable that he had to be alone but in the end, even his existence got wiped away.

The author might have had his own creative intentions but to put it simply, Raon’s appeal to the readers was too high.

Thanks to that, my tender heart got broken.

So, for months I kept daydreaming about how nice it would be if I possessed some character in the novel as I earnestly wanted to meet Raon………

‘But why Estina? Why her……….’

She was the daughter of the Grand Duke, and she and the Count were the two people who tormented Raon the most throughout his entire childhood!

As I stood in front of the mirror trying to take everything in, I saw the maid staring at me like I had lost my mind. I did not care a bit. I just ran up to her and started throwing a bucket load of questions.

“Miss maid……how old am I?”

“What?”

“I am not out of my mind……….Could you please start answering me?”

“……….You turned twelve this year, My Lady.”

“Then why did you tell me that I hadn’t recovered yet?”

“What? It was because you fell down while riding a horse…you were unconscious for a while…

The maid kept trembling.

Indeed, it was nothing unexpected. After all, Estina’s personality really sucked.

It is said that she fell off a horse while riding because of her trash-like personality.

How nasty could a person be so that even a horse would throw them off?

According to the story, Estina took a few days to wake up after her accident. Ever since that, her hysteria seemed to increase a hundredfold and she started tormenting Raon more whenever she met him.

‘So…hmm…… how was the meeting between the two set-ups again?’

Raon’s father, who was an incompetent and powerless Count, had once visited Estina’s family estate with Raon. He used his limited resources in order to flatter the Duke and obtain his favor.

Although it was a shameful act, nobles were nobles, after all. The Duke did not turn the Count away.

A million exclamation points passed through my mind at that moment.

Falling from a horse. Having a coma. And, waking up.

‘Now that I think about it…’

I remembered that a month later Raon had definitely come to Estina’s house with the Count.

Even though Estina had already recovered enough to receive visitors, the Duke did not allow anyone to visit her room for a while.

Anyway, that meeting was the last one between Raon and Estina for quite a long time. The two met again at the academy exam two years later.

In the novel, it was just a brief sentence with little impact but it was still about Raon. There was no way I wouldn’t remember every little detail when I was such a die-hard fan of Raon. Instantly, my head lit up.

‘Good. Let’s do this!’

My brain started planning everything out slowly.

***

Time passed quickly, and in the meantime, I got used to this world.

In the past, there were countless times when I pretended to have possessed someone in a novel. Each day after coming back from school, I remained absorbed in novels until dawn. I was so obsessed with them that even on weekends I stayed at home and went through the stories again and again.

I also used to look in the full-length mirror inside my room and pretended that I was a person inside a novel.

Sometimes as a protagonist, sometimes as a villain…

There were no characters I did not act out; the nobility, the commoners, the supporting roles, the passing extras, and so on.

I often used to act like the characters in my favorite novel, aside from the four key characters.

They had special personality traits that could not be copied. They did not care for anyone’s opinion and they went on the paths carved out by their own hands. They were different and unique.

Anyway, my delusions did not end there. I drew the scenery from the novel in my mind. By drawing the structure of that world with a limitless paintbrush in my mind, I tried to figure out the characters’ habits and ways of life and steadily tried to incorporate them into my own life.

To Be Continued.