Chapter 3
Her consciousness, which had been snatched away and dragged off, came to a stop somewhere. She floated in an empty space—how long had it been?
‘That kid’s the orphan?’
A detached voice echoed.
That voice made Elshunine realize she was drifting through her own memories.
‘Waaaah.’
Her very first memory from before her transmigration was an old baby bottle at the orphanage. In other words—yes, she had been an orphan.
When people hear “orphan,” they usually assume it means a tragic life. That’s a stereotype. Some orphans did live happy lives.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t been one of them.
‘Why does she keep coming to this playground? It’s not good for the other kids. She doesn’t know her place.’
Sadly, she had much better hearing than the other kids at the orphanage.
‘Ugh, I’m paired with her? Hey… can I switch partners?’
She was also too perceptive for her own good.
‘Miss, don’t you realize you just got scammed? You just lost everything!’
She was unlucky.
Her final memory from that life was of collapsing from cardiac arrest while walking, the streetlight above her slowly dimming.
Her life before transmigrating had been a series of misfortunes.
So, when she opened her eyes for the first time in this new world, staring up at the sunlit surface of the water, it wasn’t strange that she’d assumed she’d been reincarnated as a fish.
‘Wow, even in death, I’ve got the worst luck. Why a fish?’
Determined never to bite a hook or end up sliced into sashimi, she dove deep underwater… when suddenly, a young voice reached her ears.
“Yesterday… my mother slit her wrists.”
It was the day she first met Killian.
At the time, Killian—an illegitimate child of the Hounberth family—was living in hiding with his mother in a forest owned by the family.
His mother, broken by constant abuse, had lost much of her sanity, and Killian, raised under such a woman, was malnourished and small for his age.
‘Wait… is that a human?’
From beneath the water, Killian’s face looked distorted, warped by the raindrops splashing on the lake’s surface.
His heart must have been just as distorted back then.
“I tried stopping the bleeding just like the book said… but when she woke up, she got mad. Should I have let her die instead? She even let me go out on my own. Is she abandoning me?”
–What kind of lunatic mother is that?
“…Huh? I think I just heard something strange.”
Killian, who had been sitting on the lakeshore with his knees hugged to his chest, looked around in confusion.
She cautiously peeked her head out of the water to get a better look.
Surely it was okay to peek just a little, even if she was a fish.
‘Wow. He’s really cute.’
The boy, still chubby with baby fat, had an adorably innocent face.
The way he talked to her while placing a little pebble in front of him added to the charm.
But the swollen side of his face, as if he’d been slapped, made him look pitiful.
Still… why did he seem so familiar?
–Idiot. That’s not a mother.
“Th-The voice…! A fairy? Are you really a lake fairy? Mother said it was true! Please, grant me a wish!”
Apparently, Killian really believed she was a fairy.
He said his mother had told him fairies lived in the lake. That they would grant his wish.
After eating him, presumably.
Had Killian’s mother wished for her son to drown in the lake?
“Fairy!”
Elshunine tilted her head at his desperate expression as he leaned toward the water.
He really was adorable. And something about that face—it felt so familiar.
Black hair and red eyes? That’s classic male lead material in a romance fantasy.
Ha… huh? Romance fantasy?
“Fairy, please grant my wish. My wish is… my wish is…!”
–A wish?
“To make my mother happy. I’ll give you my life in exchange. My name is Killian Hounberth. I heard you like the blood of young children!”
–Killian Hounberth…?
That name made Elshunine realize: she had transmigrated into a novel.
This rainy lakeside encounter with a “fairy” after being hit by his mother—
It was part of the male lead Killian’s backstory.
…And she was the fairy, Elshunine, his friend.
“My mother says someone like me should just die. Don’t you think so, Elshunine? I wish you were a real fairy…”
Strangely, even though he was human, Killian could see her, a spirit.
At the time, Elshunine wasn’t all that interested in him.
Just because she’d transmigrated into a novel didn’t mean she had to follow the original plot.
She was just thrilled not to be some lowly fish, excited to discover she could breathe outside the water too.
She was ready to live her second life as a spirit to the fullest.
–Die? Don’t be stupid. Tsk.
But that pitiful little boy kept catching her attention.
Like all tragic male leads, he carried every possible burden—his birth, his suffering, his despair. And he dreamed of death.
So, she made a choice.
–Want to make a contract?
“C-Contract? What’s that?”
She decided to follow a cliché of transmigration novels: to change the original with her own hands.
–You make your mother happy. I’ll make you happy.
“…!”
So what if it was a transmigration?
The story didn’t have to unfold exactly like the original. To change Killian’s miserable fate, she made a contract with him.
–Repeat after me: My name is Killian Hounberth. Will you make a contract with me?
“My name is Killian Hounberth. Will you… make a contract with me?”
–Yep. Of course!
Elshunine believed that if Killian lived a life different from the original, he’d find happiness.
So she tried to save his mother. Tried to stop the abuse by his father. Tried to prevent him from ever meeting the heroine, Arwen.
Back then, she was confident.
But her confidence didn’t last long.
“Mother! MOTHER!! Aaaaaaah!”
Despite her efforts, Killian’s mother took her own life in front of him.
“Are you the maid’s son?”
She couldn’t stop the inevitable meeting with Killian’s biological father, who abused him under the guise of “training.”
“My name is Arwen. Sir Killian.”
Then came the day, after Killian became a teenager and a Holy Knight of the Aetern Temple, when he met the Saintess Arwen for the first time.
That’s when Elshunine realized.
This world was moving on the original story’s path—one far too vast for someone like her to oppose.
But if things kept going like this, Killian would eventually lose the heroine and go mad.
‘I don’t want to see Killian lose his mind.’
She didn’t want him to suffer. She wanted him to be happy. Why was that so hard?
Despair slowly set in.
Time passed. Killian rose to fame across the continent, embarked on a quest with companions to hunt monsters…
Everything followed the original plot.
…Until the day he became the Guardian of the Continent.
Elshunine gave up.
‘I can’t change the story.’
She was devastated.
To think that she had to let Killian endure such pain.
A past reduced to just a few lines in the novel had been unbearably cruel when seen firsthand.
‘When… when will Killian finally be happy?’
The answer came soon.
He would be happy a few years after the story began. With the one he loved—Arwen.
Accepting she couldn’t change the original, she decided to fulfill her given role: reviving Arwen.
‘I can’t be the one to make you happy.’
That wasn’t her role. That was Arwen’s.
So she would bring Arwen back, and through her, bring Killian happiness.
That was her wish—her plan.
Yes, that was the plan…
So then, why hasn’t Arwen awakened?
Why… has the original story fallen apart now?
* * *
“Gasp!”
Elshunine suddenly drew a deep breath and opened her eyes wide. A familiar ceiling came into view.
‘Huh… I fainted near the valley. How did I end up back in the cabin?’
She held her throbbing head, blinking rapidly, and slowly pushed herself upright.
“…Elshunine.”
A low voice by her side snapped her back to full awareness.
Ah. Right. She’d activated divine magic.
Elshunine creaked her head to the side.
The first thing she saw were red eyes—vivid like pigments inside glass, staring intently at her.
Below them, a straight nose and pale cheeks like a nobleman’s.
Firmly closed lips and a sharp jawline gave him an ascetic appearance.
But the glimpse of his red tongue between his lips shattered that illusion, leaving only a sensual presence behind.
He whispered.
“It’s been a while.”
His dry voice held none of the hostility he’d shown when they met in spirit form.
Elshunine gulped and clutched the white sheet like it was a lifeline.
‘Killian… is here.’
Which meant—
It was time to move on to the next phase of her plan.
Her heart pounded nervously. She clenched her jaw and slowly parted her lips.
“…Who are you?”
