ISTV 21

Princess of the Secret Palace, Arsagil, felt a strange sensation.

A miracle?

She left her residence and headed somewhere.

As the Secret Palace Princess, Arsagil had been researching miracles—phenomena that defied common sense and could not be explained by the rules of the world—for a very long time.

Whether it was magic or sorcery, everything had its principles and theories.

But miracles didn’t.

Sometimes, such miracles happened.

Like barren land turning into green meadows overnight. Or a mountain moving from one place to another.

Or the dead coming back to life.

They were usually the result of developer errors or glitches, and Arsagil had studied them for years.

She called them miracles, or divine intervention.

“I sensed the scent of a miracle, and here you are, Seira.”

Arsagil looked at the girl sitting blankly in a flower garden.

Around the girl, unidentified blue particles floated like cherry blossom petals.

“You’re very interesting to me.”

In truth, Arsagil had felt a miracle the first time she saw Seira.

It was hard to explain, but Seira herself seemed touched by divine interference.

“What happened here?”

“I…”

Seira stood up and picked a few blue roses.

“I wanted to give the Secret Palace Princess a gift.”

“For me? Why?”

“I heard a rumor that you like blue roses. Jermiel said he had to leave because of his promise with you, so I thought you didn’t get to meet him.”

Seira briefly explained what had happened earlier.

“…And when I opened my eyes, all the monsters had turned to dust. Was that your doing, Your Grace?”

“No. It wasn’t me.”

“Then what happened here?”

“Something mysterious that cannot be explained from a human perspective. I call that a miracle, or divine intervention. A miracle happened to you.”

Arsagil accepted the flowers Seira offered.

“They’re lovely.”

She murmured, staring vacantly at the blue petals.

“Yan would’ve liked them.”

“……”

Yan was her husband who had died over ten years ago.

He too had experienced a miracle.

But for Arsagil, it was a dreadful one.

Someone she loved dearly vanished one day, as if he had never existed in the world.

There are miracles where everyone remembers a person existed, but no one remembers any details about them.

Seira was a little shocked.

“Yan” doesn’t even appear in <The Girl and the Gods>.

He was just a character mentioned in the lore book.

No face, no personality, no age—most of him wasn’t even defined.

“Likes blue roses. Husband of Secret Palace Princess Arsagil. They loved each other deeply, but he died when Jermiel was about three years old.” That was about all that had been written.

“Strangely, I don’t remember anything else. Only that he loved blue roses. That itself might be a miracle too, one I can’t explain.”

Seira looked at Arsagil for a long moment.

Her face was hidden behind a veil, but somehow she looked dazed.

Losing someone you love… it’s truly devastating.

Seira understood because she’d lost her own father.

Though ten years had passed, she could still feel the emptiness Arsagil carried.

Perhaps due to Arsagil’s divine aura that governed the mysteries of all things, every flower around them except the blue roses began to wither.

“I’m sorry.”

Seira felt a human kind of regret toward Arsagil.

If I had known this would happen, I would’ve at least given him a face.

Or left out the part about them loving each other.

Maybe I shouldn’t have created him at all.

She couldn’t even begin to imagine how painful it must be to long for someone without a form, to remember loving them and yet not recall anything.

Seira gently reached out and held Arsagil’s hand.

Her hand was ice cold.

“Thank you for the flowers. That’s something to be grateful for. You have no reason to apologize.”

“……”

“But strangely, your tears comfort me.”

Arsagil wiped the tears from Seira’s eyes.

“There’s a distinct scent coming from you. A very strong scent of miracles.”

“Hopefully not a bad smell?”

Arsagil smiled softly.

“Come visit the Secret Palace one day. If I’m still alive by then.”

Outside the world of <The Girl and the Gods>, Lee Juhwan realized something.

No way!

He didn’t show it to Lee Sohyun, but he too had studied <The Girl and the Gods> in-depth and was a passionate fan.

When Sohyun said, “Seira d’Vernon must absolutely die!” he hadn’t agreed just because she was his sister.

As the CEO, he fully supported her opinion.

I get it now. The condition to enter that world.

Juhwan, CEO and lead developer of J&S Games, felt his mind spin and his heart pound.

About eight years ago.

Juhwan suddenly returned from the United States without warning.

And then he dropped a bombshell on his father and Sohyun.

“I dropped out of school.”

Everyone was shocked.

Especially Sohyun, who couldn’t understand.

“You dropped out of MIT? A full scholarship student? Why?”

“It was boring.”

“You crazy idiot!”

He had been attending the world-renowned MIT on a full scholarship, but returned to Korea and dropped out without even discussing it with his family.

Juhwan just chuckled and annoyed her further.

“It’s fine. You know I’m a genius.”

Afterward, he transferred to Korea’s top engineering university and graduated in just two years.

Reporters constantly reached out for interviews, but Juhwan refused every time, saying it was annoying.

That was also when their father had passed away.

After the funeral, Juhwan shut himself away like a recluse.

But one day, miraculously, he stood up again.

He saw Sohyun crouched in the living room crying, and he couldn’t stay down anymore.

He couldn’t replace their father, but he could be a strong shield.

He couldn’t give the same love, but he could give even more abundance.

Juhwan threw himself into his work.

He gathered investors on his own and founded J&S Games.

At twenty, Sohyun joined the company.

As she became obsessed with <The Girl and the Gods>, she slowly emerged from the grief of losing their father.

One day, Sohyun asked:

“So why did you really quit MIT? Without even telling us?”

“Again with that?”

Juhwan shook his head and replied.

“You remember I got in at eighteen, right?”

“Of course. The press was all over you back then.”

“Oh, so you do remember. I thought you forgot.”

“How dumb do you think I am?”

“From head to toe. Full-on idiot. Whoa-oh~”

“….”

“You don’t know that song?”

Regardless, she smacked him hard on the back, and they finally had a proper conversation.

“I didn’t think you were dumb. You were just young. How old were you then?”

“Thirteen?”

“You were a late bloomer. Remember how fast you grew after middle school?”

“Yeah.”

“You were changing every six months.”

“So?”

“I didn’t like that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know. It felt like you and even Dad were drifting away. I was lonely in America.”

“……”

“We only had each other.”

He didn’t need the best school in the world or a full scholarship.

To him, family was the most precious thing in the world.

From Sohyun’s perspective, maybe she hadn’t realized it because they were family, but Juhwan was a certified genius.

He never flaunted it, but he worked harder than anyone and knew far more than Sohyun realized.

Her perspective as the youngest developer and his as the lead developer were completely different.

At that moment, Arsagil had already begun to understand divine intervention and miracles.

In fact, it was Juhwan himself who had built the concept of divine intervention into the world of <The Girl and the Gods> from the very beginning.

Developers are human. They’re not perfect. Mistakes and plot holes were inevitable.

To balance that out, he created the idea of “divine intervention” and embedded it into the AI.

When divine interference clashes with a character’s will, a gap appears!

Juhwan, a genius since childhood, began to understand something bit by bit.

He was starting to see it.

The way to cross into that world.