chapter 02
“Hey, Blandea.”
‘…!’
I held back a scream and fell backward in shock.
With a loud thud, I scrambled back up—only to see Enricor pulling my hand with a bewildered look on his face.
“What? Why are you so surprised?”
Why is he here?! Was he up studying all night?
Enricor didn’t care whether I was shocked or not. He just held my hand tightly.
“You’re trying to go to the garden? Do you even know what time it is? Babies like you aren’t supposed to be out at night.”
He tried to pull me back to my room, but I resisted with all my strength.
“Why? If you want to go outside, go in the daytime. It’s too cold at night for little kids like you.”
Of course, warm daylight would be better for my weak body.
But I had to go out at night, in secret—away from the eyes of the doctors.
Because that garden held the only chance for me, with this dying body, to survive.
Unfortunately, this tiny brat was way too strong, and I started getting dragged back.
“Wait—are you crying? Why are you crying?!”
When I finally burst into tears, Enricor panicked.
He quickly let go of my hand, his face filled with confusion.
“Ah man…”
He scratched his head, clearly torn.
In just a few seconds, that little boy looked like he’d made a huge decision. Then, he bent down and spoke.
“…We won’t tell Mom and Dad, okay? I’ll get in big trouble.”
Tears still on my face, I climbed onto his back.
“We’re just going out for a bit. It’s our secret, okay?”
I nodded while riding on his back. Enricor turned the doorknob.
The cold night breeze hit my cheeks—it felt like the first time I’d felt the outside air since being born as Blandea.
Still on Enricor’s back, I stretched out my hand and pointed to the far side of the garden.
“Over there?”
Enricor started walking, carrying me.
The wind was strong, and I started coughing. I quickly covered my mouth.
Then suddenly…
“Hey! Blandea!”
His voice rang in my ears—almost like a scream.
“You… you’re coughing up blood! Are you okay?! Is it because of your illness? You can’t feel anything, right?! You can’t talk either, and you can’t even feel pain, so that’s why Mom and Dad cry whenever they see you!”
He was crying too, even while saying all this…
All I could think was—what do I do now?
I couldn’t speak.
And seeing myself cough up blood… Maybe today really is the day Blandea dies.
“Let’s go back to Dad… to Mom and Dad. Hurry. Blandea is sick. Hurry…”
Enricor, not even six years old yet, was in complete panic.
He kept mumbling the same thing, pale as a ghost, and turned to head back.
No!
Just go already, you idiot!
I grabbed his hair with both hands and yanked.
“Ow!”
If only he’d just let me go—but instead, his tiny hands tightened their grip on me.
Still, by tugging at his hair, I managed to steer him toward the part of the garden I wanted.
“Hey! You’re still spitting blood! This is seriously—!”
He was stuck—he couldn’t put me down, and I was yanking his hair like crazy.
Around us, elegant lights glimmered like butterfly wings. I remembered reading in the novel: “A skilled gardener ensures flowers bloom all year round.”
Thanks to that, the garden was filled with blooms even now.
Found it…
The moment I saw the flowers, my eyes welled with tears.
Alice flowers.
They bloomed year-round, with yellow petals and blue stamens—a rare and strange sight.
Normally, they were just used for decoration. No one in the kingdom would eat them unless they were truly starving. Especially not children—because the flower had a mild poison that caused stomachaches.
But in The Mad Beauty’s End, the story was different.
After the Lefevre family’s young daughter died, they developed a cure for her illness.
And the key ingredient in that medicine… was this flower.
That’s why, in the original story, after Blandea died, the family filled their garden with these flowers.
It was said that if someone had just thought to feed the flowers to her, she might have lived.
That the true tragedy was failing to recognize the value of the flowers blooming right there in the garden.
There was even a scene where Enricor cried with his face in his hands, blaming himself.
So.
‘I’m going to live. I’m going to survive…!’
I dropped to the ground in the garden and quickly grabbed a bunch of flowers, bringing them to my mouth. But I was immediately stopped—Enricor, looking completely panicked, grabbed both my hands.
“Hey! No! You can’t eat this!”
‘I know!’
“It’s dangerous! Are you hungry? Let’s go to the kitchen! It’s right on the first floor! I’ll ask for some porridge! Let’s eat that!”
‘Oh, please!’
No matter how much I screamed inside, Enricor didn’t let me go. He was so flustered. Finally, unsure of what else to do, he snatched the flowers away from me and began stomping on the ones blooming in the garden. My eyes went wide.
‘Hey!’
I rammed my head into his stomach. Enricor fell over with a thud. It felt like we were having a wrestling match on the cold flower bed. But in the end, Enricor didn’t stand a chance. I didn’t feel pain anymore due to my condition, but he did.
I kept coughing up blood every time I moved. Enricor’s expression grew sadder and sadder until he eventually burst into tears.
“Why are you doing this?! You’ll die if you eat this! Didn’t they say if you eat random stuff, you’ll die?!”
He was still just a five or six-year-old kid. Even if he acted grown-up, he was in full panic mode, shaking and crying.
I wanted to comfort him… but he had just stomped on the flowers, so I had to crawl over to another patch.
‘This is really bad.’
I could feel it—my vision was spinning. My instincts were screaming at me. I was going to die right here. Today was definitely supposed to be the day of my funeral as Blan Dea. So…
Thud.
My whole body lost strength. I collapsed in front of a new patch of Alice flowers and barely managed to reach out and grab a handful. I stuffed them into my mouth and swallowed them without even chewing. I should’ve tasted that bitter grassy flavor, but maybe because of my lack of pain and sensation, I couldn’t taste anything.
“Blan! Blanaaa!”
Enricor’s voice echoed as he cried and ran toward me. I just kept stuffing the flowers into my mouth and swallowing. I didn’t even see his face as he grabbed my shoulders and shook me—I blacked out.
****
“Young miss?”
At the sound of a voice, I turned around. A maid was smiling gently, holding out a letter.
“You’ve received a letter from the young master.”
It was from Enricor. I took the envelope, opened it, and read through the letter. His still-childish handwriting was slow and careful.
“I guess I need to write back.”
“He’ll be very happy.”
He’s the kind of guy who keeps sending letters until I reply… I took the letter and headed to my room. It had been several years since that day I headbutted Enricor and ate the Alice flowers.
Since I had eaten them raw, not properly prepared, my body went into complete chaos. I coughed up blood until I almost went blind, and I was shaking so badly I couldn’t move on my own.
But the important thing was: I lived.
The doctors were the first to notice—my health, which had been steadily declining, had finally stopped worsening.
‘Alice flowers…’
Of course, they started questioning why I suddenly went to the garden and ate those flowers. And of course, they asked Enricor.
I couldn’t answer. I was alive, but I stayed unconscious for nearly a month, and even after I woke up, my condition was so bad it took years to recover.
Still, the Alice flowers showed a huge effect on my supposedly incurable illness. Thanks to that, experiments were resumed immediately.
Later, when I was finally able to talk again and was asked why I ate those flowers, I gave the excuse I had been preparing for a long time.
“In… a dream… someone… told me to… eat them…”
My mother burst into tears and hugged me tightly. She cried, talking about her late mother—my grandmother. Enricor ended up crying too, and even Father wiped his eyes.
The whole house was in chaos. But thanks to that chaos, the cure was completed way earlier than in the original novel.
So now, I was seven years old. Most of my symptoms had disappeared by four days ago. Some still remained, but still—what a miracle.
I sat at my desk, writing a reply to Enricor’s letter, then stared at my feather pen and fell into thought.
‘What should I do next with my life?’
I had avoided death just before my third birthday—but that wasn’t the end of the story.
Let’s see how this world survives now, after killing my favorite character.
In the comment section of the original novel, not only did I leave curses and angry words, but so did many other fans. The deaths of characters had become more and more frequent.
“No way they’ll kill this one—”
Dead.
“They wouldn’t kill that character—”
Also dead.
It was an absolutely brutal, cruel story. Even fan-favorite side characters didn’t get spared. The last chapter I read? Even Enricor died.
I still remember how his fans lost their minds that day.
The reason he died was tragic too.
He had charged into the Lefevre estate’s castle—now overrun by monsters. He risked everything just to retrieve his dead sister’s remains from the garden.
‘Oh no…’
Well, now that I had survived, Enricor would have no reason to go recover my bones.
But the real problem was this: the Lefevre estate would still be attacked and destroyed by monsters in the future.
The Lefevre estate, located in the eastern part of the kingdom, was one of the largest, even compared to the capital. It was rich with valuable land, thanks to generations of achievements.
If such a powerful estate was destroyed, then honestly, the capital was probably half-destroyed as well.
