Ankles First
My head hurt like it was going to split open. “...Ugh...” Consciousness returned slowly, the way you drag your foot out of thick mud. The spot where the club had struck me throbbed in time with my pulse, each beat hammering against the inside of my skull like a blacksmith’s mallet.
I tried to open my eyes, but the world stayed blurry. And more than that—my body refused to move.
“...?”
“What the hell is this?”
Someone was gripping both my arms. My legs, too. Rough, iron-hard hands pinned my wrists and ankles in place. My vision gradually sharpened.
“...Wait, why—”
They were villagers. Five of them, holding my limbs in a vise. The same ordinary people who had greeted Era so warmly on the village path just days ago.
“...???”
But that wasn’t all. Dozens more villagers stood in a perfect circle around me—men, women, elders, even small children. It looked as if every soul from that tiny border village had been dragged out here.
“What is this…”
We were in the middle of the plains. The sun had long since set, and a large campfire crackled at the center. About thirty villagers sat in a ring around the flames.
But their faces… every single one was wrong.
They wore identical, eerily serene expressions. As if a bound prince and whatever nightmare was unfolding beside him had nothing to do with them. Like dolls, they sat motionless, staring only at the dancing fire. No laughter, no chatter, no whispers. Just empty eyes and blank, vacant stares.
“Did… Era bring all of them?”
Across the campfire, Era sat waiting.
The firelight painted her face. It was completely devoid of emotion—a blank mask. Flames flickered and reflected in her black eyes, yet those eyes themselves remained frozen, cold as ice.
I looked at her. “Era…”
I had to persuade her. Right now, that was my only option. My hands and feet were bound, I had no idea whether the Maryeokche were coming, and every villager here was dancing in the palm of her hand. Words were all I had left.
I opened my mouth as gently as I could. “Era… you must have been so startled when I suddenly disappeared, right? That’s not what I—”
“Don’t open your mouth.”
Era cut me off with a voice like frost. “It’s disgusting.”
“……!”
Had I misheard? The girl who had spent days calling me “Your Highness~” with that sweet voice had just said I was disgusting.
“Era—”
“Don’t say my name!!!”
For the first time, Era screamed. The sound tore across the silent plains.
“…before I cut your tongue out.”
I shut my mouth immediately. Shock had stolen any further words.
This wasn’t the Era I knew. The girl I had spent the last several days with was gone. Same face, same voice—but the person inside was someone else entirely.
While I stared at her with wide, disbelieving eyes, Era suddenly spoke again, gaze fixed on the campfire.
“You know…?”
Her tone made it impossible to tell whether she was talking to me or to herself. Her eyes never left the flames.
“I trusted you.” Her voice sank low. “I thought if I did my very best, you would understand how I felt.”
The fire crackled.
“But you didn’t.”
“…Hehe.”
The laugh that followed was hollow, nothing like the soft, fluffy giggles I had grown used to. She laughed, yet there was no joy anywhere in it.
“Era, that’s not—”
“I told you to shut up.”
Slowly, Era reached beside her and picked something up. A kitchen knife. I had no idea when she had grabbed it. The blade was old but gleaming, wickedly sharp.
“Shall I really cut out your tongue?”
I closed my mouth at once. The knife’s edge caught the firelight and flashed. Just looking at it sent a chill racing down my spine. The way she was now… I genuinely believed she would do it. This was no joke.
Era turned the knife slowly in her hands as she continued.
“So I’ve decided to give up a little.”
“…?”
“It seems the complete, untouched Leon would find it difficult to love me.”
A sense of dread coiled in my gut at her words. The phrase “untouched” had sounded far too deliberate.
“What do you mean by that?”
Era slowly lifted her head and looked straight at me.
“First of all…”
“……”
“I’ll cut the tendons in your ankles and wrists, then lock you in a room.”
“……!”
“Ropes can be broken, after all. This is the best solution, isn’t it?”
She spoke so calmly. The way someone might explain how to boil porridge or hang laundry. Completely casual, as if announcing she would slice a person’s tendons was the most natural thing in the world. And that it was, in fact, the optimal choice.
“Era, you right now—”
“If that still doesn’t work,” she interrupted, “I’ll discipline you until you become obedient. Some bones may break, but you’ll endure that much, won’t you?”
“And if your heart still doesn’t change after that…”
Era paused. Firelight cast deep shadows across her face.
“Then I’ll have no choice but to tear your mind apart.”
“……”
“You probably don’t understand what I mean.”
“You… you wouldn’t really go that far, right?”
“Hehe…”
I was too stunned to answer.
This couldn’t be the same girl from yesterday. No matter how I looked at her, I couldn’t believe they were the same person.
Era rested the knife on her knee and stared at me quietly. Then, in a soft voice, she began to tell her story.
“You know… I really tried so hard to live properly.”
I could only listen in silence.
“After my parents were taken away and killed…”
My chest turned cold at those words.
“In this village, I had no one on my side…”
Her voice began to tremble.
“Still, I never once complained. No matter how hard it got, I endured everything alone. I never asked for help, never accepted fake kindness.”
Fake kindness. I understood the weight behind those words.
So she’s saying she never used her mental manipulation to win people over before.
Which means… controlling the villagers like this is her first time.
“That’s why the villagers came to like me. Genuinely.”
Era glanced at the people sitting around them—those calm, fire-gazing figures. Yet her words somehow sounded empty. After all, the very people who had once cared for her sincerely were now being puppeteered like dolls and dragged to this lonely plain.
“In my entire life, I never once allowed myself a single selfish desire.”
“This was my life. My fate.”
“Living and dying here like this must have been the destiny the gods granted me.”
Era fell silent for a moment. Only the crackling of the campfire remained.
Then she spoke again.
“And then… I saw you.”
“When I was even younger than I am now.”
“……?”
Wait.
I tilted my head before I could stop myself. Younger than now?
In the original story, Era’s first appearance had been during this very territory inspection. She had never shown up before—not once, not even in a single cutscene. She wasn’t even a main character in the source material. Across all those chapters, she had never spoken a single line.
Yet she was saying she saw me when she was a child?
What is she talking about?
If Era wasn’t in the original story, when could she have seen me?
More than that… just how long has she existed in this world?
Questions multiplied endlessly. Had she been here even before I transmigrated? Or had she appeared afterward? If it was during her childhood, that would have been long before my arrival.
But Era had no intention of answering my silent confusion. She kept speaking.
“For the first time, I wanted something. I wanted to be selfish.”
Her voice grew distant, almost dreamy—like a girl reminiscing about her first love.
“In my dark, hopeless life, you were my only star.”
Her voice trembled.
“But you were too far away from someone like me.”
“So I dragged you down.”
A prince—dragged down to a border commoner’s shabby house. Hands and feet bound. Kept at her side. Because she couldn’t reach the star, she had pulled it down to the ground. A completely insane logic.
“Forgive me. You are the first desire I ever allowed myself.”
“……”
“Era, it’s okay, so for now let’s just—”
I felt a small spark of hope. Maybe the old Era was still in there. The gentle voice saying “forgive me” sounded like the girl I had known these past few days might still exist.
But—
“And I hope you’ll forgive me for what I’m about to do as well.”
Era adjusted her grip on the knife, and that fragile hope shattered in an instant.
She rose slowly and walked toward me. Firelight gleamed blood-red along the knife’s edge, staining half her face crimson. The side touched by light burned red; the side in shadow stayed pitch black. It looked as though two different people were sharing one face.
“Wait— what are you—!”
I thrashed against the ground, but five villagers held me down so tightly I couldn’t even move a finger. Those ordinary hands had become iron chains.
“I’ll start with your ankle.”
Era crouched in front of me.
“It will hurt a little.”
She brought the knife toward my ankle, aiming for the tendon. I felt the cold metal kiss my skin.
“Hey… hey!!!”
I struggled like a madman. “Era! Wait! Just wait a second! Hey!!!”
Era lifted the knife, positioning the blade directly above my ankle.
“Just a moment, just a moment…!!!”
I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the coming agony—the pain of severed tendons, the moment I would never stand on my own two feet again.
Shit…
But at that exact instant—
From far away came the sound of hooves.
Clop. Clop. Clop.
Era froze, knife still raised.
“…!”
The villagers sitting in their circle all turned their heads at once toward the sound, moving like puppets on the same string.
Beyond the plains, from within the darkness, a group of riders in black cloaks approached, torches held high. A black flag fluttered at the front, bearing the character for Plague.
“…The Maryeokche.”
It was the Maryeokche.
Era froze where she stood, as if turned to ice. The hand holding the knife began to tremble. The same hand that had been so cold and steady moments ago now shook violently at the sight of them. The madness drained from her face, replaced by a familiar, overwhelming terror.
“Hm…”
Soon the riders halted near the campfire. The man at the front dismounted slowly.
A man in his fifties. Hair streaked with white. Tall and thin. His face, illuminated by the fire, was coldly composed.
Zork Hamen. Chief of the Maryeokche.
He surveyed the scene with deliberate calm: the white-haired young man who had only just reached adulthood, the villagers gripping him, the black-haired girl frozen with a knife in her hand.
Finally, his gaze settled on me.
Then, without hesitation, he dropped to one knee. The hem of his black cloak brushed against the dirt.
“Your Highness.”
“……”
“I have come to escort you.”
Era’s knife slipped from my ankle and fell to the ground. Over the plains, a heavy silence descended.