SPRFG 05

Chapter 5…

Prologue (5)

“Hello, Lady Ritorna.”

“Hello, Lady Aiolia.”

Ritorna placed her right hand over her chest and caught her skirt with her left, sinking into a flawless, breathtakingly elegant bow. Juaiye could only stand there and stare, utterly dumbfounded.

Ritorna was as stunning as ever—a exact mirror image of the girl living in Juaiye’s—or rather, ‘Aiolia’s’—memories.

Another year older, the girl had matured into a woman. Thick, golden hair tumbled in soft waves down past her waist, her wrists were impossibly delicate, and her skin was porcelain white. Bare-faced without a trace of makeup and wearing a simple white lounge dress stripped of any jewelry, she was still a vision that commanded the entire room. For a brief second, Juaiye almost forgot that Ritorna was currently confined to her quarters under suspicion of murder. Even gaunt, sorrowful, and tragic, Ritorna remained outrageously beautiful.

If this world really were a novel, a girl like this would definitely be the main character.

Juaiye entertained the thought once more as she pulled up a chair and sat down without waiting for her host to offer a seat. It was a complete breach of noble etiquette, but Juaiye didn’t realize it, and Ritorna didn’t care anyway. They used to be close friends—the kind who shared secrets, kept a joint diary, and braided each other’s hair.

“So… um… how have you been? I mean… it’s been a really long time.”

“Me? I’ve been doing well. And you’re right, it really has been a while.”

Juaiye was the first to break the ice, and Ritorna responded with a soft, sweet smile. But just as Juaiye thought the tension might be melting away, Ritorna leaned back against the sofa, her gaze sharpening.

“Though it doesn’t look like you’ve been doing so well.”

“…”

“Oh, Aiolia. You look like you’ve been through hell.”

Juaiye met her gaze calmly as Ritorna’s eyes slowly scanned her up and down.

Her hair—which used to be styled with diamonds, pearls, or at the very least, intricate flowers cut from fine paper—was tied up haphazardly with a tattered strip of cloth. Strands stuck out every which way from a hasty braid, making it look far from neat.

Instead of a gown, she wore the sack-like uniform of a factory apprentice, paired with a worn-out apron to hide the frayed spots on the fabric. The corners of her eyes were hollowed out by the harsh realities of the world, and the backs of her hands, once soft and pale, were now rough and calloused. Beneath her unraveling hem, raw, blistered ankles and scuffed, mud-stained shoes peeked out.

The optimism and bright cheer that used to fill her eyes were gone without a trace, replaced only by anxiety and quiet resignation. Still, if Ritorna had looked just a little closer, she might have caught the unshakable core—that stubborn ember of pride—burning deep inside her.

“Yeah, I ran away from home. As you’ve probably heard. But I’m doing fine.”

Ritorna burst into a disbelieving laugh. Juaiye offered a small smile in return.

She didn’t regret losing out on fine clothes or sparkling jewels. If she were the type to pine over things like that, she never would have found the nerve to pack up and walk out of her estate in the first place, no matter what had happened.

‘Aiolia,’ the precious daughter doted on and raised like a fragile glass doll by the Duke and Duchess of Almadelcore, had fled her golden cage and reborn herself as ‘Juaiye.’ She earned her own keep, and though her life hung by a thread, it belonged entirely to her. Juaiye actually felt a quiet swell of pride in that.

And for a very obvious, very crucial reason—she wasn’t a murderer.

“You’re right. It’s been tough. But hey, at least I haven’t killed anyone.”

“…”

Juaiye put it plainly. Ritorna offered no reply.

Suddenly, the words of the Imperial Guard officer echoed in Juaiye’s mind: ‘Lady Ritorna simply refuses to be reasoned with.’ She had come in expecting Ritorna to be spouting ancient dialects or rambling in nonsensical, broken gibberish. But look at her—she was having a completely coherent conversation, wasn’t she?

Feeling confident that she could steer the conversation toward the murder case, Juaiye stole a glance over her shoulder. Second Lieutenant Kunsi stood guard by the door with a rigid expression, ready to charge over the second anything went sideways.

“Look, Ritorna. I came here to help you. They’re saying you killed your maid. Why did you do it? Or… you didn’t actually do it, right?”

“…”

“You have to say something if you want to clear your name. Don’t you have anything to say for yourself? Did you kill her, or was it someone else? Let’s just start with that, okay?”

Juaiye pressed, but Ritorna only blinked back slowly. She looked as if she hadn’t understood a single word. Or maybe she had, but simply decided Juaiye wasn’t worth responding to.

Ritorna’s eyes dragged over Juaiye once more. I really should have taken two seconds to comb my hair properly, Juaiye thought to herself.

“…”

Ritorna stayed dead silent.

To get out of this room, she needed to wring some kind of statement out of Ritorna—even a simple ‘Yes, I killed her,’ ‘No, I didn’t,’ or ‘I was framed.’ If she confessed, getting an explanation of why she did it or what happened that day would be the absolute jackpot.

How on earth could she get this girl to open her mouth? Juaiye let out a heavy sigh, only for Ritorna to flash a faint, ethereal smile.

The sight sent a sudden chill down her spine. Juaiye dropped her gaze. It was a stunning smile, but knowing it belonged to a killer made her skin crawl.

“Aiolia, since you’re already here… use your brother to get me a meeting with the Crown Prince.”

“What?”

“I’ll explain everything to His Highness directly. I have nothing to say to anyone else.”

“Hey, how am I supposed to bring the Crown Prince… I mean, His Highness here? Better yet, how am I supposed to drag you to the palace?”

“I have to see him. He’s the only one who will understand my situation.”

Ritorna reached out and grabbed Juaiye’s hands tightly. Juaiye blinked. Is she planning on pulling this exact tragic routine on the Crown Prince to make him ‘understand’? If she honestly believed a trick like that would work…

Well, yeah. It probably would. The Crown Prince was a man, after all. If a woman this gorgeous looked up at him with tear-brimmed eyes and begged, it wouldn’t matter to him whether she’d committed murder or not. Juaiye had heard somewhere that men were just wired like that.

Fortunately, while Juaiye had a soft spot for handsome men, she possessed a solid immunity to pretty women, allowing her to snap back to her senses in no time. She slipped her hands free and picked up the official investigation report sitting on the table.

Even then, Ritorna kept pleading in her clear, melodic voice.

“It was just a minor bump in the road, Aiolia. Once the Crown Prince sees me, he’ll understand. So you just need to help me out here. Do this for me… and I won’t forget your favor.”

“What ‘bump in the road’?”

Juaiye asked without looking up, flipping rapidly through the pages. Ritorna answered casually:

“Just a small hitch in my plan, I suppose.”

“What plan?”

“My plan to become the Crown Princess.”

Juaiye felt a surge of pure absurdity. Looking up, she saw Ritorna smiling shyly, completely deadpan. The fact that her eyes were fully focused made it ten times creepier. Juaiye found herself asking:

“And whose plan was that? Yours?”

“No. The author’s plan.”

“Author? What author?”

“Aiolia, you wouldn’t know this, of course… but this world is a novel. A story written by someone. And I’m the main character.”

Ritorna was rambling out loud the exact thought Juaiye had just entertained moments ago. But hearing those words spoken in real life instantly stripped them of any plausibility.

What main character in the world goes around shouting, ‘I’m the main character’? True main characters are main characters precisely because they don’t have to scream it from the rooftops.

Juaiye let out a dry smirk.

“Right… and let me guess, this novel ends with you marrying the Crown Prince?”

“Yes. That’s the ending of this story.”

Oh, sure. Good luck with that.

Since Juaiye didn’t offer any further pushback, Ritorna seemed to take it as agreement and visibly calmed down. That bought Juaiye enough time to thoroughly skim through the report. For a while, the only sound in the room was the rustling of paper.

As it turned out, the deadly row between Ritorna and her maid had stemmed entirely from Ritorna’s wild megalomania.

According to the official statements, Ritorna and her maid fought practically every single day. The maid, as it happened, was also a woman who insisted that this world was a novel, that she was the true female lead, and that she was destined to become the Crown Princess.

Ritorna argued that a noble lady of high standing like herself was the rightful bride for the Prince, while the maid countered that high-born female leads were a tired, outdated cliché. The readers, the maid insisted, would much rather see a common girl like her marry the Prince in the end.

It was baffling. It was crazy enough for the daughter of the prestigious House of Vinkitur to fall into delusional madness, but for her maid to share the exact same delusion? Was this nonsense contagious or something?

The two were constantly at each other’s throats. Ritorna had poured cold water over her own hands and accused the maid of scalding her with hot water over a dozen times just to get her into trouble. The maid gave back just as good as she got, stealing Ritorna’s cosmetics and reference books—items that were only recovered after her death.

They fought like rabid dogs every day, so why hadn’t Ritorna just fired her? Why hadn’t the maid looked for another job?

Because neither of them had anyone else to direct that obsession toward. Through their mutual hatred, they had forged a deeply twisted bond. Rivals competing for the crown, the only other person in the world who shared the absurd belief that reality was just a storybook, and a shared resignation to the idea that every human’s fate was predestined by a supernatural entity called the ‘Author’—leaving them with nothing to do but desperately pray that they were the main character.

Even on the day of the murder, the two had been locked in a heated shouting match over who was the real protagonist and who would end up marrying the Crown Prince.

“Isn’t it normal for a protagonist to kill someone—or hell, ruin an entire kingdom—in a novel? Why do I have to go through all this trouble? There must be some kind of mistake,” Ritorna grumbled.

Juaiye replied coldly, “Because this isn’t a novel. It’s real life. To any reader flipping through pages, we might look like nothing more than phantom ink on paper, but every real person gets just one life and exists in just one world. You’re standing on hard ground just like the rest of us—talking like you’re looking down from the clouds isn’t going to fix anything.”

It was a bitter, half-sarcastic remark, but Ritorna didn’t catch the bite in it at all. She even let out a light laugh.

“You just don’t get it. This is a novel. I’m positive.”

Juaiye racked her brain, searching for the right words to throw back. She walked a tightrope, debating how far she could push it, until her self-restraint finally snapped.

“Excuse me… are you Korean? Man, it’s so nice to bump into another Korean overseas!”