“I found you.”
A large man pressed one hand against the wall, boxing me in as he leaned closer. His golden eyes flashed darkly.
“I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Teacher.”
“W-why…? Is there, um… somewhere uncomfortable…?”
I tried my best to smile, but the corners of my lips trembled too much to hold. I was too scared.
“What?”
He looked at me as if my answer was absurd.
A handsome yet overwhelmingly intimidating man, the villain of this world—the Grand Duke Servil Berriot. His hot breath spilled over the top of my head.
“Somewhere uncomfortable?”
He sneered.
That sneer was so cold and chilling that goosebumps rose on my skin. It wasn’t like the ‘him’ I knew at all—it was truly villainous.
What on earth is his problem with me?!
I wanted to protest fiercely, but the atmosphere made it impossible.
“My heart.”
The man, who had been silently staring down at me for a long time, finally spoke.
“Your heart?”
“My heart hurts, Teacher Aillet.”
“Excuse me?”
I blinked in confusion, eyes wide, but he was completely serious.
His heart hurts? Why would a young man’s heart hurt?
As I stared at him in bewilderment, he bit his lower lip and looked down at me with wounded eyes.
“You saved me, took me in, raised me… and then you coldly abandoned me. You didn’t even keep your promise.”
“Th-that’s…”
I stammered, unable to deny his words, and he stepped even closer.
“It’s hurt here ever since.”
He grabbed the fabric over his chest as if crushing it, his face twisting.
“Ha.”
This is ridiculous.
No matter how I thought about it, it made no sense, and a disbelieving laugh slipped out.
What is he even talking about? If anything, I know better than anyone that he’s perfectly healthy!
“Don’t lie!”
“…I’m not.”
“This is insane.”
So I guess I should start by explaining my connection with this man who’s pretending his heart hurts.
To put it simply, I was hit by a truck and died.
It was brief, but I remember it being quite painful.
It felt so futile.
After leaving the orphanage, I lived in a tiny goshiwon, skipping meals and studying relentlessly for civil service exams—a dull and exhausting life that ended just like that.
I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was just walking along the sidewalk through a crowd, reading a romance fantasy novel. Then a crazy truck driving the wrong way charged onto the sidewalk and hit me.
The truck’s headlights blinded me. Then I felt as if my whole body shattered into pieces. I let out a cry, closed my eyes—and when I opened them again, I was lying in a bed inside a strange log cabin.
Staring blankly at the wooden ceiling, I blinked for a while before suddenly sitting up.
“…What is this?”
The immense pain I’d felt when the truck hit me was completely gone, so at first, I thought this might be heaven.
Though, for heaven, it looked a bit shabby.
But as I lay there and looked around, something felt off.
If this were heaven, shouldn’t I feel something different? Instead, everything felt strangely real—too real.
‘No way…!’
Only then did I realize I wasn’t dead—I was alive. And I briefly thought the truck had somehow kidnapped me.
That the pain had been an illusion, and I’d been abducted for organ trafficking.
Terrified, I jumped out of bed and searched everywhere, even outside—but there was no one in the mountains.
There was truly no one but me.
‘What is this?’
I found a bat in one corner of the cabin and searched again, but all I could figure out was that this place was deep in the mountains, far from where people usually came.
Completely isolated.
‘What is going on?’
I survived on the food in the cabin, cleaning and passing time in a daze. A week went by like that.
Then things began to change.
My memories of my past life started to fade, and memories belonging to ‘this body’ began to surface.
I was confused.
‘My name… is Aillet?’
And then one day, everything rushed back at once.
I had transmigrated into a romance fantasy novel I’d read over and over again. The very same novel I had been rereading right up until the moment I died.
‘Really? I ended up inside that novel?’
At first, I doubted myself. I couldn’t be sure my memories were reliable.
But as time passed, the world itself seemed to insist that this reality was true.
‘This is insane.’
I was inside a romance fantasy novel titled The Emperor Is Hiding Something. It was still ongoing, and I had been eagerly waiting for every update.
But I hadn’t become the protagonist.
…Damn it.
I was just a minor extra. What kind of extra?
The kind described in exactly one line by the author.
—
‘The Grand Duke’s physician, Aillet, disinfected his wounds and left the room with her head lowered.’
—
That Aillet… was me.
I couldn’t believe it, but no matter how I searched my memories, there was no mistake.
‘I became that extra character?’
As I gradually realized my role in the story, my face turned pale.
‘No.’
The problem was that the Grand Duke wasn’t a protagonist or even a normal side character.
He was the villain who would destroy this world.
And I was fated to become his subordinate.
‘Why?’
I looked around my log cabin, puzzled.
It didn’t make sense.
‘Wait, then why am I here alone? I’m supposed to be the Grand Duke’s physician, right? Wouldn’t someone like that need a top-tier education and live in the capital?’
Exactly.
I clearly remembered that the villain, Grand Duke Berriot, was the Emperor’s younger brother—a royal. There was no reason for him to hire someone like me, raised in the countryside.
‘Is there something special about me?’
Though confused, I tried to stay calm.
‘Let’s think. There must be a reason.’
I sat at the desk and wrote down everything I could remember about the novel.
The problem was that my past-life memories were now mixed with Aillet’s, making everything fuzzy.
And since Aillet only appeared briefly in the story, it was hard to piece things together.
But one thing was certain—if I was living in this cabin, then this was before I became the Grand Duke’s physician.
Which meant the story hadn’t properly begun yet.
‘Wait.’
A thought struck me.
Then I can just change the story.
My eyes lit up.
People who transmigrate into novels don’t just let the story play out as it is. They twist it to their advantage.
They fix the dark parts and create a happy ending.
‘My first goal is to never become the villain’s physician.’
So it would be best to stay hidden here in the mountains, never moving around or drawing the Grand Duke’s attention.
I swallowed.
‘Right. Villains always die in the end.’
Unfortunately, the Grand Duke would die at the end, and all his subordinates would meet brutal ends too. There was no guarantee I’d survive as his physician.
The story wasn’t even finished yet, but the author had already hinted at more chapters to come.
Still, one thing was clear—the villain dies.
‘I don’t want that. If I’ve been given another chance at life, I’m going to live properly this time. I don’t want to die.’
I steeled my resolve.
To do that, the first thing I needed to accomplish was avoiding becoming the Grand Duke’s physician at all costs.
‘I don’t know how I became his physician in the original story, but I’ll stay out of sight as much as possible.’
I carefully began to make my plans.
All to avoid becoming the villain’s physician.
