The Princess's Sweet Threat
The low, soft sound drew out like a sigh.
Hooooooo......
It slid down my spine like ice water.
I didn’t need to turn around to know. I already understood exactly what kind of expression the owner of that voice was wearing right now.
Arrogance laid on thick, then covered with a veneer of affection. In other words, the most terrifying smile the world had to offer.
Ha… I’m so fucked.
I slowly turned my head.
As expected, the imperial princess stood at the far end of the corridor, wrapped in shadow.
The first thing visible was a pair of crimson points of light.
In darkness so deep that even outlines blurred, only those eyes floated vividly.
Eyes the color of fresh droplets of blood, or the last stubborn ember refusing to die inside a pile of burnt ash.
When that light took one step closer, the rest of her finally emerged.
……Victoria von Roseria.
Her pitch-black hair spilled over her shoulders beneath the moonlight, and the blood-red eyes set in the center of that dark curtain gazed at me—slowly, intently, as though examining a fleeing animal for any wounds on its ankle. Then she smiled.
…I was finished.
──Thud!!
My heart dropped one beat late, but I somehow managed to lift the corners of my mouth.
As an Imperial Guard sworn to protect the palace, I wore the face of a loyal, brainless hound.
“Your Highness. What brings you here at this late hour?”
“That is what I should be asking you, Sir Lowenheim.”
Princess Victoria stepped out from the shadows.
“The second-highest ranking member of the Imperial Guard, carrying a bundle in the dead of night and heading toward the rear gate… Are you perhaps out for a stroll?”
She tilted her head with elegant slowness. It was the angle unique to the imperial family—the angle that declared it only natural for the world to revolve around her.
“…Or were you planning to abandon this one and flee under cover of darkness?”
The final words were truly… warm as spring sunlight.
In the same tone one might use to say, The weather is lovely for dying today, she pronounced the words flee under cover of darkness.
Then, as expected, she closed the distance.
There was no gap through which to escape. The princess leaned her shoulder against mine as naturally as if we were friends of ten years.
The scent of roses tickled my nose. Rising onto her toes, she brought her red lips close to my ear, exhaled warm breath across it, and whispered.
Gently. Like the most affectionate lover in the world.
She pulled away and once again offered that innocent, radiant smile.
“…See? It is not as though you cannot do it.”
A smile like spring blossoms that made it hard to believe the same mouth had spoken those earlier words.
…Only then was I certain.
Ah. I’m really screwed this time.
Okay. Freeze the screen right here.
Yes, you. The one looking at this from the other side of the screen. You’re thinking exactly this, aren’t you?
How on earth did this guy end up trying to sneak away in the middle of the night with a bundle on his back, only to get his ear whispered sweet nothings about having his legs cut off by a crazy princess?
It’s a good question. Truthfully, I’m the most curious about that myself.
So let’s turn the clock back for a moment. To figure out how I ended up like this… No. Before that, we should address something even more fundamental.
How the hell did I fall into this godforsaken deep-dark-fantasy novel?
And not just any role.
Out of all the characters in this trashy epic drenched in blood, betrayal, and madness, I ended up as the very first sacrifice…
The so-called “corpse number one” who vomits blood and collapses the moment you turn the page—the convenient tutorial death that kindly informs readers, Ah, this novel is going to be pretty hardcore.
To answer that, the story must go back to before I fell into this cursed world.
Back to the time when I was simply “me,” not Kyle Lowenheim.
In my previous life, I was a Michelin-starred chef.
Oh, wait. You just thought Oh, that’s kind of cool, didn’t you?
Don’t drink the kimchi soup. It was one star. Just one.
I poured ten entire years of my life into earning that single star. My stomach was already shredded. Romance? I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d held someone’s hand. That kind of one star.
The longer I stood in front of the fire, the stranger it became that the one who was always hungry was me.
While I made warm bowls of food for other people’s mouths every single day, my own meals were cold staff rations eaten standing up.
Yet every such dawn, I had one small joy.
After closing, in the empty kitchen with the burners turned off, I would squat down and scroll through web novels on my phone.
And among them, there was one story my hand always reached for.
…Yes. You already guessed it. That novel.
I don’t remember the title clearly anymore.
But I remember the female lead with perfect clarity.
Victoria von Roseria.
The world’s greatest bitch who was inheriting her father’s throne… Ah, I mean, the Princess of Victory. Anyway, it was a deep dark fantasy with her as the protagonist, reeking of blood.
Honestly, at the beginning I read it for the catharsis.
She was so refreshingly insane. Anyone who blocked her path—whether royalty or minister—was beheaded without hesitation. Traitors were crushed so thoroughly not even their bones remained. For someone dying from overtime, it was incredibly satisfying.
…But strangely, as the chapters piled up, my heart grew complicated.
The path she had walked to become empress was far more wretched than I had imagined.
As a young princess she had trembled reaching for a single piece of bread out of hunger. On the battlefield she bit down on arrows and endured. Betrayed by those she trusted, she grew colder, more insane, more monstrous.
Whenever I reached those passages, my occupational disease flared up.
That woman… she probably never once had a proper warm meal.
If I had been by her side, I would have at least cooked her a bowl of soup.
Ridiculous. Getting attached to letters on a screen.
Still, sometimes I thought about it seriously.
If someone had given her one warm bowl before she burned everything down and lost it all… maybe she wouldn’t have become quite such a lonely empress.
Then one day it happened.
With that single line, the novel was deleted in its entirety.
Remake? Sure. Nothing ever came back up.
…Unable to bear it, I eventually sent the author an email as one devoted reader.
The reply never came.
So I forgot about Victoria von Roseria and that miserable yet brilliant tale of the empress.
That was already several years ago.
Looking back now, that was the root of all evil.
There are wishes in this world that must never be made.
…I realized it far too late.
When I first opened my eyes in this world, I thought I had died.
The ceiling was far too high. Instead of the yellowish wallpaper of my familiar studio apartment, a stone ceiling embedded with stars the size of palms stretched endlessly above me.
The bed was soft. The sheets carried a faint lavender scent. I had been a one-star chef living in a cramped studio; this was nothing like the damp blanket I used to sleep on the floor with.
Ah, I must have died and gone to heaven. I can finally rest.
That was my first thought.
The second thought arrived the moment I looked in the mirror.
The man reflected there was not me.
A strong jawline, lean muscles without excess, hands that looked accustomed to wielding a sword. And over that face, an impression I had definitely seen somewhere before overlapped.
Memories slowly rose.
Late night after closing, in an empty kitchen, flipping through that novel on my phone.
The supporting character who appeared briefly in the early chapters and then vanished—Kyle Lowenheim.
Second in rank among the Imperial Guard. A man whose swordsmanship ranked among the empire’s finest, a stubborn soldier brimming with loyalty to the emperor.
…That man was now staring back at me from the mirror.
The Kyle in the mirror looked at me with a dazed expression.
I quietly muttered to that face.
“Hey, Kyle. You… are going to die soon.”