Chapter 2
“I told you, regret stories aren’t really my thing.”
“Come on, just trust me and try it once. C’mon, c’mon!”
<What Awaits at the End of Regret>
Even from the title alone, the scent of a heavy “regret-filled romance” was unmistakable.
It wasn’t my preferred genre, but I ended up touching something I absolutely shouldn’t have—tempted by a friend who swore the male lead’s illustrations were insane.
The story was exactly what I expected. A textbook pile of regret-romance clichés.
An arranged marriage for political reasons, a male lead who absolutely despised the heroine, and a heroine who waited like a sunflower, hoping he would one day recognize her feelings.
Misunderstandings push them apart whenever they try to get closer, and only after she leaves does the male lead finally realize his feelings.
Yes, up to that point, it was a completely ordinary regret-romance novel.
But there was one unusual difference compared to others…
In this one, both the male lead and female lead die. Even the second male lead dies. Every single one of them.
A happy ending? There was no such thing. It ended in a tightly sealed bad ending.
What… what is this? Did the author lose their mind?
Just when it seemed like the two would finally clear up their misunderstandings and meet again—after all that emotional baiting—the author killed everyone off. No dreams. No hope.
And in an extremely brutal way, too.
The heroine suddenly dies from poisoning, and not only the male lead but even the second male lead follow her into death. Everyone dies. It was literally a “let’s all die together” ending.
I’ve seen “everyone lives together” endings before, but this was my first time seeing a “everyone dies together” ending.
What made it even more infuriating was that no one ever found out who poisoned the heroine.
The popular theory was that the author simply lost interest and wrapped up the story half-heartedly.
And into this ridiculous ending of a novel, I had possessed “Leticia Astor.”
She was nothing more than a background extra—someone who only appeared to say “Congratulations!” at the wedding of the male and female leads. The daughter of the male lead’s swordsmanship teacher and his childhood friend.
Still, it could’ve been worse. At least she wasn’t the tragic heroine who dies from poison, nor a villain who torments the heroine and disappears miserably.
That’s what I thought… but—
“Leticia?”
The problem was this guy.
“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“…Ah. No, it’s nothing. I just… feel a bit weird.”
The impossibly handsome boy sitting in front of me was none other than Aiden Crofton.
My only childhood friend—someone I’d grown up fighting and bickering with—and also the male protagonist responsible for 99% of the novel’s “reader complaints.”
A dry laugh escaped me.
I always thought he looked like a protagonist from a romance novel…
I didn’t think he actually was one.
“You’ll be coming of age soon, yet you still act like a child, spilling everything everywhere.”
Aiden sighed as he casually brushed crumbs from my mouth.
Hah…! That’s exactly what I should be saying to you.
With my mind shaken by memories of my past life, I stared into space, even forgetting I was eating cookies.
Of all things, I had to be possessed into a novel with such an insane ending.
And worse—
“Leticia? Something’s wrong. Your face is pale.”
Why did it have to be this guy—my only friend, practically my family—be the damned regretful male lead who dies from despair?
“Are you sick? No, that won’t do. Get on my back. I’ll call the doctor immediately.”
Aiden stood up abruptly, clearly alarmed.
It looked like he was about to scoop me up and run.
“N-no, I’m fine!”
I shook my head quickly and forced a smile.
Only then did he sit back down, somewhat relieved.
“I think I ate too fast. Just… got something stuck in my throat.”
“Be careful. You worried me.”
“Sorry. The cookies were just too good, hehe.”
Aiden chuckled in disbelief and pushed a teacup toward me.
“See? You’re still a kid. I wonder who my teacher plans to marry you off to. Drink some tea while you eat. What if you choke?”
“Thanks.”
…This is insane. My friend was a doomed regret-romance male lead who dies from heartbreak.
Feeling suffocated as if I’d swallowed a hundred cookies whole, I gulped down the tea.
Glug, glug.
“Hey. That was freshly brewed tea—”
“Kyaaa—!!!”
My tongue burned, but it actually helped me snap back to reality.
What’s done is done. Panicking won’t fix anything.
I couldn’t just let my only precious friend walk straight into that horrific bad ending.
And maybe…
As I held the teacup, my right hand tightened unconsciously.
In my previous life, I had lost a friend who suddenly disappeared from my side.
I never even knew why.
I lived with guilt, regretting that I hadn’t answered their final missed call.
So I suddenly thought—
Maybe being thrown into this novel was a second chance given by fate.
A chance to stop it this time.
“…Are you okay? Did you burn your tongue?”
Aiden stared at me blankly, like I’d gone insane.
“I’m totally fine!”
I slammed the teacup down on the table.
“I’m really okay, don’t worry, Aiden!”
I will definitely save you from that doomed regret-route ending.
Unlike my previous life, where I didn’t even know my parents’ faces or names, in this world I grew up receiving warm love.
My mother passed away early in an accident, but my father loved me so much that I never once felt her absence.
In short, my father was an extreme daughter-obsessed dad.
“SHASHA!!!”
After quickly finishing tea with Aiden, I returned to my room and was organizing future plans based on my memories of the original story.
“Princess Shasha!!!”
A deep, echoing voice came closer and closer before the door burst open.
“My princess!!! Guess who’s here! Try to guess!!”
A large man with light brown hair tied back and arms spread wide appeared.
This was Calian Astor, the male lead’s swordsmanship teacher in <What Awaits at the End of Regret>—and my extremely daughter-obsessed father.
“Dad! I told you to knock before coming in!”
“Oops!! Sorry, princess! Daddy just missed you too much, hehe!”
He bonked his own forehead lightly with his fist and stepped back out, then knocked properly.
“Knock knock. See? I knocked.”
A muscular, intimidating man with a surprisingly cute personality.
Others might think he was strange—well, very strange—but he had once been the captain of the imperial knight order.
He had given up everything—his status, his honor—to marry my mother, who came from a different social class, and became simply “Viscount Astor.”
People said he was foolish for love, but I actually admired him.
A man who can throw everything away for love—it sounds exactly like a romance novel male lead.
“But something’s weird. My princess doesn’t look happy.”
As expected of my father—he noticed immediately.
“…Huh? Me? Do I?”
“I see. You fought with Aiden again, didn’t you?”
He guessed wrong, but not completely off.
“It’s not that.”
“Don’t lie. I can tell just by looking at your face.”
He narrowed his eyes and shrugged.
“Come to think of it, it’s strange, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“You two used to act like you wanted to kill each other. How did you become so close?”
He seemed to recall our childhood.
—“No way I’m training with some weak girl like her.”
The day Aiden first came to our estate for sword training.
When I was introduced as his sparring partner, he threw a wooden sword in protest.
—“Sorry, but I don’t go easy just because you’re a girl.”
And I shot right back at him.
Honestly… it really was strange.
Even I didn’t know how we went from constant fighting to inseparable childhood friends.
“Right, Shasha?”
Just then, as I was lost in childhood memories, my father snapped his fingers.
“How about this? We just make Aiden our son-in-law—”
“…Huh? Son-in-law?!”
A chill ran down my spine.
Aiden… my husband?
Just the thought was terrifying.
“Dad!!”
I quickly cut him off.
“That’s impossible! Aiden and I are just friends—no, basically family! You don’t marry family!”
Besides, he already has his destined heroine.
Agnes Carnarvon. Their tragic, obsessive fate…
Which, of course, ended in both of their deaths.
“…Sigh.”
“Shasha, think about it! Where are you going to find a man as good as Aiden—Sh-Shasha!!”
Bang!
I pushed my father out of the room and shut the door quickly.
Honestly, he was impossible sometimes.
After finally chasing him away, I could focus on the most important thing.
The “Regret Male Lead Escape Project.”
