Chapter 01
The protagonist’s husband had died.
And so suddenly, too.
“…What a killer of a weather.”
The sheets of rain pouring down from the sky as if it were torn open left me dazed.
I tilted my head up for a glance, then repeated the words I had just muttered inside my mind.
A long sigh slipped out as I once again reminded myself of what I was doing at this hour.
A stormy, pitch-black night. A woman standing before a grave with a shovel.
No matter how you looked at it, the picture was suspicious beyond belief.
Add to that this grim, chilling atmosphere—my whole body shivered.
I bit down the urge to call out, “Is anyone there?” like some pathetic first victim in a horror movie.
More than anything, I wanted to toss everything aside and run back to the warmth of my home.
“No, no! Get a grip, Ariel Lecaischa!”
If I’ve come this far in the middle of the night, shovel in hand, then I need to finish the job.
Tonight, I’m the horror movie’s main character.
But I’m not the victim. I’m the ghost, the demon, the killer—take your pick.
“…Shiiit.”
Even so, bracing myself didn’t make the fear go away.
After glancing nervously around, I finally reached the grave I was aiming for.
The rain was pounding like mad, which was fortunate—there were no gravekeepers or guards in sight.
I drew in a deep breath, then began digging up the earth.
The grave’s occupant had only been buried a day ago, so the soil was still soft and easy to dig.
If only it weren’t raining.
Still, having gotten used to a pampered life of privilege after possessing this body, even digging a few shovels’ worth was exhausting for me.
“Haah… Hhff….”
After much panting and digging, the shovel finally struck something solid.
Realizing it was the coffin I was searching for, I carefully cleared the dirt around it.
I didn’t have the strength to unearth it fully, just enough to pry it open, letting the rainwater wash the dirt aside.
I must have looked pitiful—but the ritual had to be done.
Tossing the shovel aside, I gently opened the coffin.
It was ornate, befitting the identity of the body it held.
Of course, one could argue that such splendor only mattered while one was alive.
Yet the pounding rain, the splashing mud, even death itself—none of it could tarnish the beauty of the corpse inside.
Nor should it.
Because lying in that coffin was—
“…Damn you, husband…”
The protagonist of this world. My husband, the Crown Prince.
The original novel, The Chalice that Governs Ruin, was still supposed to be ongoing, yet he had suddenly died. How could that make sense?
“It doesn’t make sense at all, does it.”
How dare you turn me into a widow?
You’re supposed to divorce me, follow the novel’s storyline, save the world, and live happily ever after with the female lead!
He had only just begun to overcome countless crises and expand his influence.
It was exactly the point where he should have been writing his glorious saga as the main character.
And yet he had died, just like that? Out of nowhere?
Rumble—
Thunder cracked the heavens as if to jolt me from my thoughts, lightning flashing bright.
Startled, I carefully reached out and stroked my husband’s face.
His pallid skin was cold—unmistakably a corpse.
There wasn’t a single external wound.
The imperial family had announced it was an assassination.
And then, in typical royal fashion, buried him immediately, with no prolonged mourning period.
As the Crown Princess, I hadn’t even been given the chance to say a proper goodbye.
The funeral had been rushed through in a single day.
The Empress and her son, Prince Alec, who had always been at odds with him, could barely contain their delight.
It had felt more like a festival than a funeral.
Only once the coffin was in the ground did the shock hit me.
Based on what I knew of the novel’s story…
If he died, the world would perish.
He had been crowned Crown Prince because of the prophecy declaring him the “Hero of the World and Sovereign Who Prevents the End.”
So here I was, standing in front of his grave on a stormy night, trying to get my bearings.
Not because I had some great power of my own.
The character I possessed, Ariel Lecaischa, was nothing more than one of the hero’s trials.
A commoner-made-Crown Princess, a tool meant only to humiliate him.
Her story ended with her eloping with her ex-fiancé and dying miserably.
Readers’ overwhelming reaction to her was: “What an awful character.”
But after the novel had ended, the author had released various side stories.
And one of them, out of nowhere, had been about Ariel.
The fans had protested—no one cared about Ariel! They wanted sweet side stories of the leads!
But the author, stubbornly, had published it anyway.
And it contained almost nothing.
Just that Ariel had a peculiar ability.
She herself never realized it, nor did she live long enough to use it.
Readers had wailed, “What is this nonsense? Instead of this, give us more of the leads’ romance!”
So what was it, exactly?
Ariel was—what they called a necromancer.
…Huh?
Necromancer? Out of nowhere?
With her spring-fairy looks, fresh and charming? Necromancer?
I had been completely dumbfounded.
But since I, as Ariel, was destined to rot away in a villa until the story’s end, I hadn’t thought I’d ever use such a power.
At least, not until my husband—the protagonist—had dropped dead out of the blue.
“Phew…”
I knew the label “necromancer,” but I had never once tried to use the power.
Looking down at the corpse with its tightly shut eyes, I slowly lowered my hood.
From what I remembered of that side story, raising the dead required three things.
First, a proper corpse.
Of course. You needed a body to hold the soul.
That condition, I had met—at the cost of a sore body tomorrow from all the digging.
Second, the name.
It had to be the full name, family name and true name included.
Royalty in this world revealed their true names only to their closest kin or spouse.
My husband had never told me his.
But I had read the novel.
So that wasn’t a problem.
And lastly, the third—Breath.
You had to breathe life into the corpse.
In other words…
Like artificial respiration, you had to give them a kiss.
“…Huuu.”
After a moment to steady my breath, I knelt down.
My expensive gown was already ruined by the mud, but I didn’t care.
I couldn’t waste any more time.
The downpour was so relentless that I was bound to wake up with a raging fever tomorrow.
Looking at the corpse, so much like a doll at rest, I parted my lips.
“Dominic Hal Blake Escany.”
A long name, as befitted the future emperor and protagonist.
It was the very first name I had heard upon arriving in this world, and one I had never once forgotten.
Murmuring his name, I slowly lowered my head to meet his lips.
Though pale and bluish, they were surprisingly soft to the touch.
Just like when he had kissed my cheek at our wedding.
Then I breathed into him, as if giving him back his breath.
Pulling away cautiously, I checked—but he still lay motionless.
Had I done something wrong?
But how could I know what the mistake was?
This was my first time trying to resurrect anyone…
Despair tightened my chest, and I bit down hard on my lip.
Then I begged him.
“Wake up…”
You need to rise, follow the novel’s path, and see it to the end.
You need to divorce me, and you need to live happily with the female lead!
Maybe my desperate plea had reached him. For after staring at his face for a long while, I noticed something change.
Though his eyes were still closed…
He no longer looked like a corpse, but like someone peacefully asleep.
Leaning close to his ear, I whispered his true name once more.
“Please, wake up. Blake…”
And then, in that moment, his eyelids slowly lifted.
His long, dark lashes trembled, revealing what lay beneath.
Eyes brimming with a chill sharp enough to freeze, yet burning with a blue flame like the depths of hell.
Those blue eyes blinked drowsily.
Like a man waking from a long slumber, struggling out of a dream.
They drifted hazily in the air before finally locking onto mine.
His Adam’s apple bobbed.
At last, he had awakened!
I had resurrected the protagonist!
Overcome with emotion, I nodded, waiting eagerly for him to speak.
And then, in a voice deeper and more beastlike than I had ever heard from him, he answered me.
Hoarse, as if from a long sleep in the abyss:
“…Yes, master.”
…Huh?
…Master?
