Abandoned Like a Dog
"What a fucking trash novel." That was my impression after finishing the last chapter.
An utterly ordinary sentence. An utterly ordinary setting. An utterly ordinary narrative. Cliché after cliché after cliché. The beautiful daughter of a prestigious count family as the female lead. Her childhood friend and fiancé, the bastard son of a neighboring house, as the male lead. All the whispered promises of the future they exchanged. The conspiracies swirling behind their love. The genuine affection that stubbornly took root and bloomed no matter what trials came. Still, it had been fun while I read it. Even though the characters were the same cookie-cutter types I’d seen a thousand times, I’d grown somewhat attached. The romance was refreshingly sweet.
The problem was the ending.
The male lead, who had trained at the academy with dreams of becoming a knight, dies in the war that decides the fate of the continent. His bleached bones are trampled into the mud. The female lead, left alone in the defeated nation, wastes away from illness without ever learning whether her lover is alive or dead. And then the author’s note that hammered the final nail into the coffin.
Thank you for reading until the end. I will return next week with the epilogue.
Epilogue? Give me a break. I was about to leave a comment saying I wouldn’t be reading it and that the author could shove their epilogue up their ass, but it felt too harsh, so I quietly pressed the back button instead.
I didn’t mind that it was bleak and depressing. I didn’t mind that the ending was complete garbage. There’s even a saying that a masterpiece always crashes and burns in the final chapter. But the title was Endless Waiting, and the story really did end with nothing but endless waiting? Wasn’t that just pathetic imagination? If that’s how it was going to be, they shouldn’t have dragged it out for over a hundred chapters and sucked the life out of their readers. It would’ve been way more entertaining if, right when the couple was hugging and living happily ever after, some ninja from the East suddenly appeared and slaughtered them all.
A horrible ending. A bland ending. A half-assed ending. A painfully predictable ending. And yet it suddenly floors the accelerator at the last second just to ruin your mood—a complete piece-of-shit ending.
Plenty of adjectives came to mind, but spending any more emotion on it felt like a waste of time. I turned off my phone, lay down on the bed, closed my eyes, and thought.
I could write better than this.
…And when I opened my eyes, I was standing in the middle of a forest surrounded by green.
All kinds of nameless weeds and wildflowers, grown beneath sunlight as clear as glass, tickled my feet. The sound of a stream—something I was certain I’d never heard in my life—reached my ears. Above my head, birds and leaves mingled together in a chorus. I woke as if from a dream, standing in the middle of an idyllic landscape I had never seen before.
Beside me was a small girl with platinum hair that gleamed like pale wheat and skin so white it looked almost translucent. She was gripping my hand as if it were something precious. Her ruby-like red eyes stared straight through me.
“Ain? What’s wrong? You’re not hurt, are you?”
A voice as clear as her hair color rang out.
“…Ain?”
“Yes. Ain Magnolia. That’s your name, silly. Why are you making such a stupid face?”
I slowly looked over the girl who had casually called me that. Suspicion hardened into certainty.
“Giselle…?”
“That joke isn’t funny. Hurry up and lead the way. The birds will all fly off.”
The moment I spoke the name I had suspected, unfamiliar memories flooded my head and filled every corner of my mind. I was currently with my one and only childhood friend, the girl I would one day fall in love with and become engaged to—Giselle Evergreen. We were heading into the forest known as a habitat for rare birds.
So if you’re that frustrated, you want me to run it myself?
Maybe it was because I’d complained so much about someone else’s precious work, but I had become Ain Magnolia, the male lead of the novel I’d been reading.
It’s a possession story.
Perhaps because I’d lived immersed in genre novels, I adapted to the situation and behaved accordingly with surprising speed. It might have been thanks to the memories of life as Ain Magnolia that had been injected into my head all at once.
“I love you, Giselle. I cherish you more than my own heart.”
In the past—in reality—I had immersed myself in the role of the novel’s “Ain” to the point of forgetting myself.
“Ain. If I lose you, my soul will surely shatter.”
The love confessions that had made me cringe and curse while reading flowed from my mouth as if they were sincere, and my lover Giselle gave me the exact same reply I had seen in the novel. Even though I knew the future developments, it didn’t hinder my immersion. On the contrary, my heart raced with joy at this guaranteed love that would never fail.
Ain was a bastard. He was in a position where he was constantly oppressed, and the number of people in the story who showed him goodwill could be counted on one hand.
“I’m sorry, Ain… Your sister should have paid more attention… Father and Mother…”
“Who would ever treat something like you as an older brother? You crawled out from between the legs of some nameless whore. How dare you speak to me when you don’t even know your place?”
The trials that would become obstacles between the lovers and set their affection ablaze even hotter. The typical lines of humiliation that you could find in any book of the same genre. However, experiencing them with my own eyes and ears instead of as a third party made it impossible to objectify the pain and watch with folded arms.
“I’m sorry, young master. The madam… the madam ordered me to…”
The dog I had raised was strangled to death by a servant’s hand.
“Tsk. Who cares about the path some bitch takes…? Just stay quietly in your hole.”
I couldn’t even leave the annex to attend my mother’s funeral.
“Are you okay, Ain? You look so sad.”
“Don’t worry, Giselle. As long as I have you, I can overcome anything.”
Even so, Giselle was always by my side. If I had gone through it all alone, I might not have been able to endure. Giselle always gave me more love and eased my worries. Perhaps it was because the world I was trapped in was a romance fantasy. Giselle’s bottomless love became the perfect antidote for the pain Ain suffered.
The most tormented animal in the world didn’t only invent laughter. But one critical problem still remained. Even after entering the novel, no matter how much I racked my brain for a way to prevent the predicted war, nothing came to mind.
“War…? In this peaceful era? Are you spouting nonsense after reading another one of those cheap romance novels?”
“Puhaha! Your son is quite bold. The peace of the Pater Empire is unquestionably firm.”
“Ain, if you keep saying things like that, you might be charged with disturbing the peace… I’m worried about you, sister…”
It wasn’t simply because I was a child. The empire had systematically researched and explained the magic circuits the moment they were discovered, succeeding in standardizing them at an astonishing speed. The dazzling technological achievements they developed had solidified the empire’s position on the continent. Every other major power wanted nothing more than friendly relations with the Pater Empire I now lived in. The idea that such an empire would be invaded by foreign forces overnight was something that anyone—not just the bastard son of a count who knew nothing of the world—would be treated as the ravings of a madman for saying.
Once I realized I couldn’t stop the war, I considered every possible method an individual could take. I searched for ways to refuse conscription. I even thought about leaving the empire, or rather the entire war-torn continent, and settling somewhere else. But it was utterly impossible for a brat with no personal funds to elope with his lover to a strange foreign land without the support of his family and environment.
I couldn’t even identify the cause of the war that would suddenly break out. Because it had never been described anywhere in the original work I had read. It was a war that simply happened one morning with no foreshadowing whatsoever. I couldn’t avoid the draft, either. My parents, who were already counting the days until I died in some inexplicable unfortunate accident, would never permit me to refuse conscription.
There was only one thing I knew for certain about the war. When it would happen. Only its timing. In that case, I had to build real strength. Regardless of who won the war, I had no choice but to preserve my own life and return safely to Giselle’s side.
But Ain Magnolia’s misfortune did not end there. He was horrifically talentless in every field. Even the swordsmanship that was essential if he wanted to dream of becoming a knight. It was impossible for him to even learn magic studies, which was basic education for any noble family on the continent. Ain’s body was completely devoid of the magic circuits that every continental native possessed.
“This is the first time I’ve seen a case like this. Not a single circuit is active. You won’t be able to light even a small flame by yourself. You want to learn basic magic? It would be like trying to pour water into a sieve.”
The same answer came from the other tutors I could only visit thanks to my older sister who took my side.
“If you want to smoke in the future, just carry matches. If you want cold water, go to the nearest restaurant. Or you could just employ a servant who can use magic.”
I chose the sword as the closest option. I had no talent for it either, but at the very least, if I learned how to stab, slash, and block, I could at least serve as a soldier.
“Ain, don’t push yourself too hard. No matter what kind of person you are, no matter what you look like, please never forget that our love will never change.”
I clung to that slender thread of possibility.
“It’s because I want to protect you. My sword exists only to be swung for you, Giselle.”
Except for the times I spent with Giselle, I trained with the sword all day. I hired an instructor for lessons and filled in the gaps by self-studying from textbooks. Even so, my sword would never reach the sky no matter how the world split in two. It was ambiguous to say my efforts bore fruit. If I had spent that much time on anything, I would have been better than a complete beginner.
Even during all those moments, I never once neglected my love with Giselle. I experienced every single romance and event described in the original work without missing any. Beneath the withered old tree by the Messiah River, I lay my head on Giselle’s lap and whispered words of love.
“I hope the children we raise can see this scenery too, Ain.”
On the balcony of the ballroom we had slipped away from together, I clearly saw the orange flames Giselle created with magic shoot up into the star-filled night sky.
“Isn’t it pretty? It’s a flame that resembles you, Ain. Brave and strong.”
Walking hand in hand at the academy, we received the envious gazes of everyone around us.
“Insulting Ain is the same as insulting me. Take back what you just said. Right now.”
To the frail Ain of the original work, Giselle was a support and a solid fence. She became a companion who would spend her entire life with him. Ain—no, I—couldn’t help but fall in love with Giselle. I wanted to repay her expectations and trust.
“I will definitely return to your side, Giselle. Our souls are bound as one.”
“Yes, Ain. I will always wait for you here, thinking of you. You must come back to me.”
That was why, as I recited the original work’s lines promising a reunion while departing for the battlefield and slipped a ring onto her finger, my heart ached far more deeply than the original Ain’s ever could. I am certain of it.
“You are dogs. From this moment on, you will function solely as the Empire’s loyal dogs. If ordered to bark, you bark. If ordered to run, you run. Inferior things who cannot even handle magic have no value whatsoever.”
I was able to endure the officer’s cold contempt by thinking of Giselle.
“Aaaaaaaaagh! Haaaaaaaagh!”
I was able to endure the screams of allies hit by combustion magic and the sickening stench of burning flesh.
“Father in heaven… Father in heaven… Father in heaven…”
I was even able to endure the sight of an enemy soldier I had beheaded continuing to recite prayers with his teeth stained with blood, wishing for salvation that would never come. By thinking of Giselle, who was surely waiting for me, I could endure it all.
“This procedure is truly hopeless.”
“Your body will never withstand it.”
“You will simply meet a meaningless dog’s death amid terrible agony.”
That was why I voluntarily climbed onto the operating table for the body modification surgery that used mana. It had been developed in secret by mages and scholars working behind the empire in order to grasp an invisible path to victory. Right after the war began, I realized that in a fantasy battlefield where all kinds of magic flew overhead, my current body—which could barely handle a single infantryman—would soon die. It was obvious.
If I can even slightly raise my chances of survival—
I had no intention of becoming a hero from an epic poem. The body strengthening technique that forcibly injected mana into every blood vessel in the body. Every time the foreign mana that was not my own pulsed through my veins, it felt as if my bones and flesh were melting. My clenched molars ground down. The corpses that had been crumpled like rags beneath the operating table. Berg. Milter. Rex. Brion. I still remember the names of the comrades I had shared meals and camaraderie with just the day before. I was the only one who survived the surgery that everyone had predicted would fail.
Thanks to that, I gained enough strength to crush a person’s skull with my bare hands as easily as splitting an apple. Even so, I could not escape being treated as nothing more than a disposable meat shield who couldn’t even use basic magic. At the very least, I became able to barely dodge the trajectories of enemy mages’ spells and barely parry the swords that followed, allowing me to counterattack. My life was still a thread that could snap at any moment, but I had at least reached the starting line against magic users. That was enough. My goal was not to win the war, but to escape the hopelessly bleak ending of the novel and return to Giselle.
The magic artillery developed by the enemy nation could easily create a perfect circle eighty centimeters in diameter anywhere within a three-hundred-meter radius. The fact that part of my body had been inside that circle was probably also part of the misfortune Ain was meant to suffer.
—BOOM!
With a roar, only thick gray smoke filled my vision. Moments later, half of that smoke was replaced by a shadow so dark I couldn’t see an inch in front of me. The source of that shadow was my lost right eye. I turned that distorted field of vision downward. My left arm, which was in a different direction from my eye, had vanished below the elbow so completely that its shape could no longer be recognized. After that, my memories were almost nonexistent. The only clear thing was waking up on a tattered cot in the medical barracks, gasping for breath. The missing arm and eye sometimes hurt as if they were still there, and the military doctor diagnosed it as phantom pain, a side effect of the procedure.
Even so, my heart was filled with joy at the news that came soon after.
“The Empire has won! Long live His Majesty the Emperor! May his reign be with us forever!”
The sound of victory ringing in my ears. The war had been won. The reason the Empire had achieved victory unlike the original work was unimportant to me. The only thing that mattered was that the war had finally ended. The only thing that mattered was the result that I could return to Giselle.
You cannot imagine how my heart raced with anticipation inside the carriage on the way home. I would hug Giselle, hold her in my arms, and tell her that I had endured all that time just for her. Every place we had spent time together disappeared behind the carriage window. I got off the carriage, ran up the hill, and sprinted toward the mansion I had longed for even in my dreams. Giselle was standing at the very top of the stairs leading to the garden. Joy at our reunion rose in my throat like a sob. If I could just climb those stairs, I would be able to embrace my lover.
—Clink.
Something fell from the top of the stairs. Something that glittered silver as it caught the light of the lantern I held. It was the engagement ring engraved with Giselle’s and my initials. I raised my gaze to look at Giselle again. Within those pitiful eyes filled with sadness or pity, the love I had longed for had vanished without a trace.
“I’m sorry, Ain… I… I had no power in the family… Your sister is sorry…”
My family left me one by one, as if following some predetermined order.
“…Disappear. There’s nothing I can do for you, brother… No. You already know that, don’t you, Ain.”
Even the meager interest that had never been enough to begin with, nothing more than pity, disappeared. At the military tribunal held after the war, I was tried under some unheard-of charge claiming that the body strengthening I had received was black magic.
“The family’s shame has now become a stain on the war.”
The trial ended in a not-guilty verdict, but the family gladly used it as an excuse to declare my expulsion.
“The Magnolia family will take back everything it has given you.”
They took away even things I had no memory of receiving.
“…If the person himself wishes, we will welcome him back to the academy at any time.”
When I returned to the academy with the desperate hope of clutching at straws, I was treated as less than a pebble.
“Look at that. It’s the torn bastard. I guess he can’t even touch the hem of Giselle’s skirt with that hand now? Pathetic.”
Stones are ignored, but deformities are mocked. Every time I walked through the places filled with memories of Giselle, my chest was torn to shreds just like the nickname carved into me. I started drinking and smoking—things I had avoided touching because I didn’t want Giselle to smell them on me. They couldn’t remove the pain that came suddenly from inside and out, but they let me sink into a hazy stupor.
The swordsmanship I had painstakingly honed became completely useless after I lost my arm. My sense of distance was off, so I frequently missed the path of my blade. The muscles that had melted from alcohol meant I couldn’t even display half my skill.
“Did you hear? They say Giselle is engaged to the Northern Archduke. What? Ain? Is that bastard still alive?”
Rumors reached me about Giselle’s engagement to a character who had been nothing more than a supporting figure in the original work. Borrowing the strength of alcohol, I walked a long road. The place I arrived at was the exact center of the stairs where Giselle had abandoned me. A torrential downpour fell beneath dark clouds that filled the night sky. A truly fierce rain that froze me to the bone. The silhouette of Giselle, so painfully familiar to me, was barely visible through the harsh curtain of rain.
“Giselle!!”
I screamed at the top of my lungs and threw myself at her feet, kneeling in a puddle. I looked up at her and begged.
“Please… Giselle… Say anything, anything at all…”
There was no answer. With the help of her butler, Giselle opened an umbrella and disappeared into the mansion. She left me abandoned in the middle of the rainy season without a single word.
After that, even the restraint I had barely maintained disappeared. I reached not only for alcohol but for drugs as well. My memories and senses grew fainter as the number of bottles piled up in the room increased. In the small house the family had graciously given me, only the floating dust was clear to me.
That was how I spent several months. Then one day, while I was wiping a table stained with spilled alcohol using a dry rag, the blade of a knife engraved with the family’s magnolia crest lay on the table, gleaming blue under the moonlight. I placed it against my chest and, on impulse, stabbed it in. The shirt was stained dark red like a pomegranate. Even though my muscles had melted from alcohol, the dull blade of a steak knife was not enough to pierce through. So after stabbing myself more than a hundred times, the miserable life of Ain Magnolia came to a lonely end with no one to watch.
The feeling I had when I encountered the notification window again was nothing but cheers.
So it was a regression story. A second chance existed. No wonder my luck was terrible. Me, of all people. I didn’t use the genre cleverly at all.
The empty sleeve that dangled limply. The unfocused vision. And before I could even register the thick aftertaste of alcohol clinging to my mouth—
I looked around. It was an unforgettable sight. It was the exact day I had gone to find Giselle again after drowning in alcohol. I had been standing dazed in the middle of the tree-lined path leading to the mansion. Dark clouds heavy with rain hung low in the sky, and sticky humidity clung to my clothes. I turned my steps back toward the house. The gradually falling rain grew heavier. Even when it became the exact same torrential downpour as in my memories, I kept walking without avoiding it. I stepped through the muddy puddles filled with filth without caring.
The house was empty. The old wooden door opened with a familiar creak. The mountain of cigarette butts and bottles of every kind had disappeared. Even so, the fact that it was a lonely house resembling a ghost, furnished with only the bare minimum of furniture, remained completely unchanged.
—Thud.
I lay down on the bed with its damp sheets and quietly stared at the window. The mattress with its exposed springs creaked like my own body. I opened the cigarette pack in my inner pocket and took one out. I put the cigarette in my mouth and lit it with a match against the wall using a gesture that had become all too familiar. I must have smoked enough to buy a house in a year. Because I had returned to a body that was still half-grown, the smoke sliding down my throat made me nauseous. If they were going to give me a reset, it would have been nice if they had sent me back to my childhood. Even so, my mind became clearer instead. I stared at the cracked ceiling and slowly exhaled smoke as dark as storm clouds.
I remember the phrase that floated before my eyes right before my breath stopped. Horrible ending. Bland ending. Those were the words I had used to criticize the original work’s ending. Now I understood. What I had been given was not a second chance at all. It was mockery. Mockery. The notification window, what the original author wanted to say to me, wasn’t “If you’re so frustrated, you do it,” but “Idiot lol, you think you can do better?”
“That damn author’s mind is so fucking narrow. No wonder they only write trash.”
Swear words I had never thought of while trying to survive as Ain flowed out naturally. All the immersion I had built up over ten years was completely shattered by this shitty worldview that injected nothing but misfortune porn with not a single sip of cider. A small haze faintly rising from the dust. The murky air and the acrid smell of wooden walls.
And this damn notification window that obstructed my vision as if even looking at such a desolate room with my own eyes and ears was a luxury. Fuck off.
—Hiss.
I ground the cigarette out on the blanket. The acrid smell of burning linen tickled my nose. I flicked the extinguished butt toward the notification window with my hand and made a vow.
From now on, I’m just going to live however I want…
I quit living as the novel’s character, Ain Magnolia.