The World Is Not Equal
The sun had already dipped low in the sky, yet the sweltering heat still clung to my skin like a second layer. I let out a long sigh and trudged the rest of the way home. By the time I punched in the passcode and pushed the door open, the familiar silence greeted me like an old acquaintance.
Stepping into a house with no one to welcome me, I finally felt the weight of another exhausting day settle in my bones. A deep sigh escaped me. On the way back from work, the thirst that had made even my dry mouth feel like a luxury finally won. Instead of heading straight for the fridge and gulping down cold water, I tossed my wallet and phone onto the bed, grabbed a change of clothes, and made for the bathroom.
I stripped right there in the doorway and stepped inside, twisting the shower knob. A blast of cool water hit my arm.
“Ouch—hot!”
Maybe it was the scorching weather, but the water heated up faster than expected. I flinched and quickly adjusted the valve until it settled on something lukewarm—bordering on too warm.
“Haa…”
Standing under the perfectly tempered stream, I let my mind go blank. The fatigue and emotions that had piled up throughout the day washed away, and a soft, almost giddy breath slipped from my lips. After lingering a little longer—though it was probably only half as long as I wanted—I washed up and stepped out.
The shower was over in a flash. As I left the bathroom, thinking that the one truly useful thing I’d learned in the military was how to shower efficiently, the air felt noticeably cooler against my damp skin. I should turn on the air conditioner before it gets muggy again, I thought, draping a towel over my wet hair and heading to the fridge. I pulled out a can of ice-cold beer.
The chill against my palm sent a shiver of anticipation racing down my spine. I grinned and brought it straight to my lips.
“Krrruuu… That’s the stuff!”
The cold beer flooded my mouth, slid down my throat, and filled my stomach with a crisp, vivid sensation. My whole body trembled with satisfaction. Another day survived.
“Haa… How could anyone give this up?”
Someone had once told me this habit wasn’t great for my health, but I figured that without these small joys, how was anyone supposed to survive a brutal summer like this? With that thought, I walked over to the computer out of habit.
I pressed the power button on the PC tower under the desk with my big toe, dropped into the chair, and the monitor flickered to life, displaying the familiar desktop wallpaper.
“Now… how should I wrap up the rest of the day?”
Since I had to go to work again tomorrow, I scanned the screen while considering how to spend the remaining hours. Nothing particularly stood out, so I opened the browser as usual and started scrolling through humorous posts on various communities, chuckling to myself.
Then my phone—still lying on the bed—buzzed. I flinched, wondering if it was work calling me back, and snatched it up.
“Whew… Thank god it’s not the company…”
It was just a notification for a new chapter of the web novel I’d been enjoying. I patted my startled chest, turned back to the computer, and immediately navigated to the novel site.
“Let’s see… Wait, what? Why is the epilogue already up?”
The story had been heading toward its conclusion lately, but an epilogue at this point felt premature. Still, I clicked on it, hoping for a decent ending, and began to read.
“Haa… You’ve got to be kidding me.”
After finishing the epilogue, I immediately hammered out a 570-character comment full of dissatisfaction. The reason I—who had only ever left supportive comments until now—wrote something like this was simple.
The heroine I’d been rooting for, who had appeared early in the story and played a small but meaningful supporting role, never got chosen by the protagonist. She never found happiness.
In a harem genre, there were naturally many heroines. Among them, she wasn’t particularly popular—her ranking would be easier to count from the bottom—and her screen time had gradually dwindled. Even so…
Having watched the blessed wedding from afar, René Lorelei offered a lonely smile before quietly slipping away. She left for the island owned by the Lorelei family.
She was the heroine who had lost her twin sister at birth, endured a lonely and timid childhood due to her family’s indifference, and stood by the protagonist’s side to support him whenever he wavered. Didn’t she deserve a happy ending?
Yet in the epilogue, the author had given her only a single line. While the other heroines who weren’t chosen somehow found happiness—pursuing their dreams or starting anew—she was sent off alone to an island in what amounted to a sad ending.
“Well… at least it’s better than being sold off, I guess…”
I cooled my rising irritation with another swig of cold beer and scrolled through the comment section, feeling slightly calmer. Seeing others scream that their favorite heroine had been eliminated or wail that she’d lost her charm, I thought maybe things weren’t quite as bad as they could have been.
“Exile?!”
The comment suggesting she be sent into exile on the island made me sit up straight, ready to argue back.
“Are you kidding me?!”
The author’s snide reply in this situation made my head feel like it had been doused with boiling oil. This time I wasn’t just going to complain—I was going to tear the story apart. I drained the can, decided it wasn’t enough, and jumped up to grab another beer from the fridge.
“Starting with the lazy modern elements thrown into a fantasy setting, I’ll nitpick every single flaw and write a 5,700-character essay… ugh.”
I adjusted my posture, ready to compile all the oversights I’d previously let slide into one massive critical comment. But suddenly the room spun clockwise. A stupid sound escaped me as my vision blurred, and I face-planted into the keyboard.
With the world spinning and my head growing colder by the second, the last thought that crossed my mind was that I’d seen a similar situation in a novel once. Then my consciousness cut off completely.
…Is this a cliché now too?
When I regained consciousness and opened my eyes again, I was staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. Thanks to all the web novels I’d read, I immediately realized I had somehow entered the story. I let out a bitter laugh.
The original protagonist was a poor noble who might as well have been a commoner, so…
Looking up at the ornate ceiling, I concluded I definitely wasn’t the protagonist. Then I heard babbling nearby and laboriously turned my head toward the sound.
“Ah.”
Right beside me was a baby with light green hair. In that instant, I understood exactly what I had become in this world.
The twin younger sister who, according to the brief mention in René Lorelei’s character setting, had died at birth.
René Lorelei.
The shock of realizing I had become a character who never even appeared in the original story quickly gave way to a surge of resentment.
Out of all the men in the world, why did I have to become a little girl?