Chapter 1
If ordinary people's lives were like a well-balanced full-course meal, mine was a wretched bowl haphazardly mixed with every dark ingredient imaginable.
Born in a brothel, I never knew my father's name or face. We scraped by in poverty, barely putting food on the table, until I was three and first laid eyes on my little sister.
I, born embracing all the world's misfortune and gloom. My sister, crafted from the finest collection of adorableness imaginable. She shone like a spring fairy, and I didn't want her living like a gutter rat like me. I wanted her to have a proper life.
But the gods are indifferent to humans under the shadows.
The year I turned seven, my mother passed away, leaving only a rundown, cramped old house behind. I had to work desperately to feed Aria. Some days, just keeping food in our mouths was a struggle. Then, to make matters worse, when I was eight, Aria suddenly fell ill for no apparent reason. No known cause, no cure. Her condition only worsened with time.
But I couldn't let her go like that. She was the one splash of color in my colorless life, the precious thing I'd somehow been given. I absolutely couldn't let her go.
The medicine that could temporarily improve her condition was exceedingly rare. To afford it, I took any job that came my way, no matter how reckless. The year I turned ten, I picked up a sword for the first time. After that, my life reeked of blood.
Throwing myself endlessly into beast-infested hellholes honed my swordsmanship at a frightening pace, and before I knew it, I'd reached the pinnacle. In the empire, I became known as the Black Calamity.
Then, one day when I was eighteen. After finishing a commission as usual, covered in blood and heading home, I tripped, slammed my head into the ground, and in that moment of throbbing pain—yes. I remembered my past life.
Crazy.
I slowly opened my aching eyes.
'Where...'
It was the familiar white ceiling of the single-room hospital ward I'd ended up in so many times from overworking as a mercenary that it felt like my personal suite.
'Someone must've brought me here.'
Feeling grateful to this unknown benefactor, I struggled to sit up, only to feel a chill on the back of my neck.
"Sis......"
A slender, sweet girl's voice. It was drenched in pathos, but the coldness laced within it raised goosebumps.
I whipped my head around.
Pink hair in thick waves, cascading like falling cherry blossoms. Beneath lush lashes casting deep shadows, sky-blue eyes brimming with sorrow. A girl so lovely, it was as if all beauty had been poured into her creation.
"Aria......?"
It was my adorable little sister, Aria.
I shot up and checked her over. Her skin was unnaturally pale, her expression poor, but she didn't seem to be in pain.
'Why's a sick kid like her out here? Won't she catch a cold from the winter chill?'
"Why'd you come out? Rest at home."
I wrapped the blanket tightly around her and eyed her worriedly.
Aria's eyes widened as she bit her coral lips. Her fists trembled, her face twisted in anger. A sharp cold emanated from her.
"You're worried about me right now? When you passed out covered in blood on the street?"
Her thin voice boiled with emotion. I couldn't meet those glaring sky-blue eyes and timidly lowered my gaze.
"You're the one who's sick......"
She stomped her foot on the floor. Aria's eyes bulged. She flung off the blanket I'd wrapped around her.
"You don't think I worry about you? You think only you worry about me? I worry about you too! You won't tell me what you do! You're always hurt when you come back! It's obvious you're pushing yourself, but you won't rest! I tell you to stop working so hard, but you never listen! Please, for once, worry about yourself, Sis! I told you my illness doesn't matter!"
I still hadn't told Aria that my main job was hunting magic beasts. She'd obviously demand I quit immediately—it was dangerous—and I didn't want her worrying about me when she was already sick. Lately, desperate for money, I'd been working nonstop without a single day off. That must've worried her a lot.
'It's all for you, though......'
I made a glum face and glanced at her. Aria took a deep breath to suppress her emotions, but fat tears finally spilled down her cheeks.
"I hate seeing you suffer because of me......"
'Oh no.'
Biting the inside of my cheek, I carefully approached and pulled her small body into a hug. Watching her sob uncontrollably in my arms tore at my heart.
Adorable Aria. My sister.
I let out a soft sigh and gently stroked her silky hair. Strands of fine pink yarn wove delicately between my fingers. We used to have a big height difference when she was little, but now our eye levels were almost the same, yet she still cried like a child.
No matter how much she grows, she'll always be a kid to me.
I patted her back affectionately.
"I'm sorry. I should've been more careful so you wouldn't worry. But really, I'm fine."
"Again! You always, always say you're fine......!"
Aria sobbed and pounded my chest. It didn't hurt at all, but to spare her embarrassment, I pretended to wince and groan while rolling my eyes.
Though Aria was crying her heart out like the world was ending—and understandably so—my body was actually fine aside from fatigue. The blood on my clothes was from magic beasts, not me. My scratches were minor. A Sword Master's body doesn't get damaged by ordinary impacts, and it doesn't allow them anyway. The enemies' heads fly first.
I did have a bit of a headache, but nothing serious. The real problem was elsewhere.
My mind was a tangled mess, like yarn a cat had played with. Cold sweat dripped down my back. My mouth went dry, and I swallowed hard.
It all started when I slipped and bashed my head good and hard.
Hard to believe, but the moment I hit it, I remembered my past life.
In that life, my name was Yi-yoon. I lived on a planet called Earth, in a country called South Korea, studying military science as an orphan.
My past self had as rough a family situation as now, and I lived just as fiercely. It was intriguing—and bittersweet—that despite the different world and environment, my personality matched so closely. I didn't seem any happier then.
I died in my mid-thirties from a heart attack. After a harsh life as an orphan, I'd clawed my way to a PhD in military science and was about to become a professor at a prestigious university when it happened. Unjust, sure, but that was my past life. If that was all I'd remembered, it would've just been a bizarre experience.
But I couldn't brush this off lightly.
Fairy's Night.
This ticklish, romance-drenched title was from a romance fantasy novel I'd read in my past life.
The heroine, born under a brothel madam but heir to the fairy king's bloodline, the beautiful Countess Aria de Freya. Despite her ignoble birth shaming her noble family, she grows up pure and upright amid hardship. But she suffers from a mysterious illness since childhood—one with no known cause or cure, fatally worsening as she ages.
After years of illness, at fifteen when it intensified, Aria collapses on the street. Count Freya happens by, finds her, and takes her to the count's mansion. Sustained by rare elixirs there, and with the childless couple's warm hearts—and the servants'—captivated by her kindness, she becomes Aria Freya at their request.
She then enters high society, flirts with hot male leads amid hijinks, saves the world in her spare time—the typical tale.
That was Fairy's Night: a reverse harem romance where the beautiful fairy-hybrid heroine collects handsome men. Cliché plot, overdone tropes, but addictive prose and tight pacing made it a bestseller. I'd enjoyed it quite a bit in my past life.
The problem starts here.
The heroine of Fairy's Night is named Aria.
And her backstory matches my sister's exactly.
My precious little sister, whom I'd raised with all my love for fifteen years, was the heroine of a romance fantasy novel! This world was inside a novel!
And Fairy’s Night is...
Basically a fluffy heroine story, but the flower-brained Aria in the book had to endure trials for "awakening."
Why does Aria need trials to awaken? Her head could be a flower field—why awaken at all!
Making someone else's precious sister suffer trials for growth? Infuriating.
And I appeared in the novel too. Recalling Kashmir Crisis from the story just made me sigh.
The novel's Kashmir is one of the "many" trials Aria must face—an evil side character, and half-sister to one of the male leads.
Born between a brothel whore and Duke Kaiser Crisis, Kashmir grows up with Aria in the gutters until she learns the secret of her birth. Foolishly brave, she confronts the duke, demanding recognition as his daughter. He accepts her out of mercy, registering her in the family, but as a bastard, she's ridiculed in society and grows twisted.
One day at a social event, ignored as usual, she reunites with Aria, now a countess's lady after over a decade. Unlike her own isolation, Aria basks in society's gaze and the male leads' affections. Consumed by jealousy and inferiority, Kashmir awakens as the villainess.
A textbook jealous villainess in romance fantasy.
I gazed down at Aria in my arms with complicated eyes.
Would I ever torment my adorable sister? Original story or not, grandfather or whatever—as long as I stayed sane, I'd never hurt Aria.
But what worried me was that my different path from the original Kashmir might tangle the plot.
Kashmir leaves Aria at ten to seek the duke. Meaning I shouldn't have stayed with Aria this long.
Up to ten, original Kashmir ignored Aria, so she shouldn't have tried to cure her illness either.
Kashmir wasn't that pivotal, so it might not derail the whole story. But I was anxious about the butterfly effect.
I slowly stroked her rippling cherry-blossom hair. My heart pounded.
I wanted Aria to be happy. Completely happy, without even the novel's brief trials.
"Aria."
I gently lifted her chin—still sniffling into my worn leather armor like a wet rag—and met her eyes. Her tear-streaked face, red-rimmed eyes. I pressed my lips lightly to her round forehead.
"I'll make you happy."
The promise I'd made endlessly since she first fell ill. One I hadn't kept yet, but now I felt I could.
Original or not, I'd make Aria happy.
"I'd do anything for you."
I whispered in her ear. She let out a watery breath.
"I just need you safe. Living with a healthy you—that's my happiness."
I chuckled softly and ruffled her hair. My sweet sister even had a heart of gold.