The Extra Saved the Terminally Ill Princess and Ran Away
…I felt a chill run down my spine.
Did I just hear what I think I heard?
No—wait, what the hell did she just say?
Before I knew it, the headmaster had stepped in front of me, his lips moving, but all I could see was motion. I couldn’t hear a single word. Couldn’t. Not with everything else crashing through my skull like a runaway carriage.
I didn’t need to hear it. The graduation ceremony was nothing. My entire universe had just tilted on its axis.
Lily—Liliana—had gotten herself a fiancé.
A fiancé.
—Someone far greater and far kinder than you…
No. Absolutely not.
In the original story I knew, no man had ever circled close to Lily. Not unless Ian Cedric was involved, and that was a different kind of trap. I had written her world so carefully, so gently, that even the slightest crack would have ruined everything.
—My fiancé.
That one hit harder.
Lily was the rightful imperial princess I had created. Not some fading, half-dead title. Not a name on a deathbed. A real Hwangnyeo. And now this? The doting, golden-retriever emperor would actually approve of it?
I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
Everything I knew about the novel said this outcome was impossible.
…So the cause had to be one thing.
That bastard author had forced destiny onto Lily just to drag me down with her.
If that was the case, there was only one ending waiting for her.
The one where she became the heroine, got cuckolded in the NTR route, then crawled into the misery route and died alone.
That would happen to Lily?
—Crunch.
The thought of it boiling up inside me felt like acid in my veins.
Why did I have to die in the first place? I had fallen trying to save her. I had spent everything—every ounce of mana, every drop of my existence—to pull her back from the brink. And now this? While I was gone for exactly one year, the author used that time to shove her straight into the NTR route?
“…Fuck!!!!!”
“W-Whoa! You scared the hell out of me! Why are you acting like that, Veri…? Ever since you were talking with Her Highness the Princess a minute ago, you’ve been… weird. Actually more than weird now.”
How much time had passed? I had no idea. The Grand Auditorium had emptied out. The other students had already filed toward their destinations, leaving only Ian Cedric and me standing in the middle of the hall.
“…Ian.”
“Why are you staring at me like you want to kill me?”
“Have you ever once spoken with the Princess?”
Did this idiot really think he was special?
In the original story, Lily had never shown the slightest interest in any man except the one destined for her. Not even a flicker.
Did my interference speed up their meeting?
If that was true, I would have cut his throat right there and then.
Of course I was friendly with Ian in the first place—I made sure he never had the chance to approach Lily. That was the entire reason I’d spent two years playing the perfect attendant.
Ending? Demon God?
Whatever. Any route that entangled me with this bastard ended up the same: NTR or misery, it didn’t matter. If I couldn’t prevent it, I would cut the thread at the root. Right now, the problem in front of me was priority number one.
“Ah… no…? This is the first time I’ve met Her Highness…”
“…Really? Swear on your mother?”
“I-I don’t know why you’re bringing my mom into this, but yes, it’s the truth! First time!”
The man looked completely sincere.
Thinking about it, Ian was the type who couldn’t lie to save his life. If he said it was the first time, it probably was.
…So that’s it. This bastard didn’t actually cheat. He just got caught in the crossfire.
I let out a long, shaky breath.
Back then I’d still been a side character, but seeing Ian—the very man who would one day betray the heroine—as the actual victim had made me furious. He was a complete idiot for even considering it.
But reality is cruel. Of course it’s different now… damn it.
Wait. If he hates NTR so much, why the hell is he pursuing Lily? Wouldn’t it be easier to find another heroine, help her, and plant a new flag?
Easy to say. Hearts aren’t flip-flops you can rearrange at will.
And Lily is my first love. How the hell am I supposed to just walk away from that?
I still remembered the warmth she had given me when I lay like a vegetable in the hospital. The gentle kiss on my forehead when I was too weak to even open my eyes.
Now some random extra was crashing into that? Asking me to abandon her?
If I gave up right here, the misery route would be waiting like a red carpet. I’d be a failure even to animals that know gratitude.
…Yeah.
Despair could wait. Compared to the hellish life I’d lived before transmigrating, this was nothing. I could still recover.
Yes. Compared to back then…
Of course. Before I came to this world, my existence had been nothing but endless, grinding suffering. No ups and downs, just pure darkness. The memory still made my blood run cold.
…I had remembered the past.
The nightmare that had faded over time but still lodged itself deep in the back of my mind.
Even though it was a nightmare, I didn’t remember every single second of its beginning. My memories started the moment I arrived at the orphanage with that one man.
Before that and after that, I never experienced parental love, so I couldn’t remember the exact moment the nightmare began.
…If it had only been parental love, I would have been lucky.
Unfortunately, I had never received love from anyone.
Not from the orphanage director’s affection.
Not from my friends’ friendship.
Not even from a woman who had lived more than twenty years.
Reason? The reason was obvious.
—Ah, hello, Director… Would you like this?
I had once handed a piece of chocolate from the school cafeteria to the director. I had heard she liked sweets.
Apparently she didn’t.
She accepted it with a twisted face, as if it pained her, then immediately turned me away with a sharp voice.
—Go on, go on… Now run along!
She sent me away, but through the closing door I saw her secretly push the chocolate to the far corner of her desk.
…If that had been the only thing, it would have been fine.
She could have simply disliked the taste.
But a few days later I realized the real reason behind her cold expression.
—Oh! It’s for the teacher? Thank you~ Let me try one…
I watched her devour another child’s chocolate with obvious delight. The gentle smile she gave the other children was something she had never once shown me.
Until that day, I had believed I was simply a being who was unloved for no reason.
That was because, at my age, I had no way of understanding why people would ignore me.
But then I learned the real reason.
It started during a school trip, the usual cause of fights: who got to sit in the front seat of the tour bus.
The girl who ended up next to me screamed and cried, refusing to sit beside me.
—Why do I have to sit next to a monster like you?! I hate you! I hate you!!!
She was the first person who had ever called my appearance a monster directly, and that was when I finally realized why everyone looked at me with those strange, wary eyes.
…Up until now… my face had made me a monster…
I had known my looks were different. I just hadn’t realized they were repulsive.
On the day I first arrived at the orphanage, the director had looked at my face and her first words to the man who brought me had been:
—A child’s face… What on earth happened?
The man had started explaining like a news anchor, using words I barely understood.
—He lost his parents to a arsonist, full-body burns, no memory of the incident…
—I see…
From that moment on, I understood.
Ah… so people found me repulsive because my face was different from theirs.
And I had learned it because the girl who had screamed and cried for me to stay away from her next to her had caused it.
I had learned my face was monstrous to others.
I had learned that everyone avoided me.
I hadn’t chosen it. I hadn’t done anything wrong. The real culprit was the arsonist who had burned down our house.
…By then I had learned everything.
After that, I avoided contact with people as much as possible.
High school dropout, GED, survival through government disability benefits and whatever odd jobs I could find.
So of course it was only natural that I would be drawn to a fictional space that didn’t exist in reality.
Real-life dramas and movies had been like eating medicine—too bitter, too painful.
Modern stories and simple romances had been even worse, because I could see myself so easily in them. The reality I compared myself to was so pitiful I had seriously considered ending my own life.
Thrillers and horror had been off the table. My own body was horror and terror enough.
Fantasy, on the other hand… was the perfect escape.
It let me turn my eyes away from my own pain for a while.
I could imagine what it would be like to be born in that world and live a wonderful life.
But something had always been missing.
The worlds had been enjoyable, but I could never shake the empty feeling inside.
…Then I discovered the genre.
Romance fantasy.
The protagonist and heroine meeting in a world of swords and magic, sharing deep love, protecting each other, living together.
In the distance from reality, I could feel love indirectly. For someone who had never known it, it was like a drug.
So I became completely addicted. I read the entire genre like a stray dog, over and over, until I found this third-rate web novel:
The Record of Academy Demon God Subjugation.
And I saw—actually read—her.
Liliana.
Just like me, the protagonist of the original story had been doomed from the beginning, yet had done nothing wrong. And just like her, Lily had been born with a fatal illness and had chosen to devote every single thing she had left to the protagonist until the very end.
Her dedication had moved me so much.
I would never have been able to do what she did in that situation, yet she had given everything until the last breath. She was amazing.
I left a comment because I wanted her to be rewarded for it.
And I couldn’t hold back my anger at the protagonist who kept switching between heroines like an idiot, even while being showered with the heroine’s devotion.
So I left another comment, hoping she would at least find a little happiness.
“There are no characters as pure as the Princess, and ending it like this is too cruel, author-nim.”
And the result?
I had been reincarnated directly into that romantic fantasy world I had imagined for so long.
The only problem was the fact that I was supposed to die alongside her very soon.
Still, I had known the original story. Like the typical isekai protagonists, I thought I could rewrite the ending somehow.
But the result had been terrible.
…I had been the one who let the woman who had given me more love than the protagonist ever received die in cold solitude.
She was the first woman to ever make me feel love.
The first to make me understand what warmth really was.
…But I had received another chance to reverse it all.
A chance to repay the love she had given me.
But does that make me the reason she was forced onto the NTR-misery route?
I shook my head firmly.
No. If something had been stolen, I would just take it back.
This isn’t NTR. This is simply the process of reclaiming the woman I love who was taken away from me.
Yes. I had a lot of time to correct the man who hated NTR more than anything—and who would have taken the worst ending in the world if given the chance.
“I should have targeted that bastard instead…”
I would make sure that route never touched Lily’s life as long as I was breathing.