Chapter 1

Muriel Tierney took her own life.

No—more accurately, she tried to.

Because the “poison” she swallowed was revealed to be sleeping draught.

“Did she really mean to die?”

“No way. She just put on a show to fool the lord.”

Even the servants who’d been left with an uneasy feeling—What if she actually meant it?—soon decided it had all been a minor commotion. And once they did, they went right back to condemning Muriel as usual.

The wicked woman of House Tierney.

A devil of a woman who did nothing but vile things.

A wretched wife everyone wished would hurry up and disappear, for the poor lord’s sake.

That was what Muriel Tierney was in this place, the Duke of Winterberg’s castle.

---

I was sure I’d died—yet when I opened my eyes, I was in a strange, unfamiliar room.

Not long after I grasped that fact, some woman burst into the room and slapped me across the face.

Smack!

Clutching my stinging cheek, I staggered slightly and let out a small groan at the sharp pain.

Then came a voice—elegant, but so theatrical it bordered on melodrama.

“How utterly vile. Muriel, you’re the worst.”

I slowly turned my head to look at her.

Pink hair like spring blossoms, and eyes the color of water.

She was so lovely it made you wonder if there could possibly be another person like her in the world.

“You caused a fake suicide uproar just to get Raul’s attention, didn’t you? Did you want it that badly? And on the anniversary of the late Duke and Duchess of Winterberg, no less!”

Muriel? Raul?

The names were familiar. Of course they were…

Muriel Tierney.

Raul Winterberg.

They were the protagonists of the regret-filled novel I couldn’t stop clinging to until the very moment I died—back when I was a terminal patient.

‘…She definitely called me Muriel, didn’t she?’

If I was Muriel, then the person in front of me was…

‘Sienna Castel.’

A princess of the neighboring kingdom of Castel, and Raul’s childhood friend.

“Your father—the Duke of Tierney—killed Raul’s parents so cruelly…! How can you…!”

Sienna, shaking as if she were seething, took a deep breath and bit her lower lip hard.

Then, before long, she recovered the poise befitting royalty and scolded me in a dignified, imperious voice.

“After committing so many atrocities, you didn’t repent—you deceived everyone by playing the victim, and now you’ve staged something this absurd…. Aren’t you ashamed?”

“……”

I parted my lips.

I had no idea what was happening, and I wasn’t even the real Muriel, but I still felt wronged by those words.

Because all the “atrocities” Muriel was said to have committed were, in truth, nothing but slander.

“I’ve already told Raul. It would be best to exile you to the Blighted Lands. According to the laws of Winterberg’s territory.”

“Ah….”

“There, you’ll meet a miserable end—an ending that suits you. Muriel Tierney, the wicked woman of House Tierney.”

Sienna cast a contemptuous look at me where I sat collapsed on the floor, then turned sharply on her heel and strode away.

“……”

I sat there, empty-headed for a while, only truly registering reality when light finally began to creep into the dark room.

Me… I think I’ve possessed someone.

The tragic heroine of a regret story that ends in misery—Muriel Tierney.

---

I was an orphan, and at twenty-one I’d been diagnosed with an incurable disease and given a terminal prognosis.

Maybe that was why. Watching Muriel—whose circumstances weren’t so different from mine—I’d gotten far too emotionally invested. I’d wanted her to be happy.

But Muriel suffered her entire life and died.

And compared to that, the male lead, Raul, barely had a speck of regret—less than the crust in a hamster’s eye.

Why did it end like that?

Why couldn’t Muriel ever be happy?

I kept turning the injustice of that ending over and over in my mind until I was so obsessed that the novel came to me even in my dying moments.

Maybe that was why I ended up possessing Muriel.

“……”

Clatter, clatter.

Inside the swaying carriage.

I sat facing Raul and stared out the window.

From the moment I climbed inside, his gaze had dug into me with relentless insistence, prickling my skin, but I tried my hardest not to meet his eyes.

As if determined to ignore my will, his cold voice cut in without hesitation.

“I’ll grant you this—your acting was impressive. Was it really worth pretending to die just to get my attention?”

“…?”

No, I actually was trying to die?

The sheer, casual malice left me speechless.

“And on the anniversary of my parents’ deaths, too. You insulted the late Duke and Duchess of Winterberg.”

Well, Muriel must’ve been in a genuinely catastrophic mental state when she decided to die.

‘Do you really think she had the presence of mind to care about an anniversary?’

Tierney and Winterberg—those two houses were bitter enemies.

So how did Muriel end up married to Raul?

There was political intent behind it: the king wanted to settle internal conflict within the realm.

When the king forces your hand, what choice do you have? Muriel and Raul were pushed into an unwanted marriage as a symbol of reconciliation, but…

Raul treated Muriel with contempt as the daughter of his enemy, and he flung cruel barbs at her at every turn.

That wasn’t all. Everyone in Winterberg’s ducal castle shunned Muriel and tormented her.

‘The one at fault is the Duke of Tierney, not Muriel. And Muriel isn’t even his biological daughter.’

Unable to endure the malice aimed at her, Muriel swallowed poison and meant to die…

Only to learn it was actually sleeping draught, and the pharmacist had scammed her.

So Muriel slept like a corpse for two days and woke up… which was the story up to the moment I possessed her.

“The fact that you slither into my bedroom in the middle of the night has been utterly nauseating, too.”

“…….”

That was because the maids released rats and insects into Muriel’s room, and she ran away.

“Do you truly believe I’d ever want to share a bed with you? I’d rather die than mix bodies with a woman who makes me sick just to look at her.”

‘Oh… what a spectacular piece of garbage.’

I applauded in my imagination—clap, clap—at the terrifying mouth of a man worthy of being called a regretful bastard.

“Your punishment has already been decided, so don’t try to smooth this over by playing the victim.”

Playing the victim? The audacity—acting like he knows anything.

I wanted to argue back, to clear Muriel’s name at least once. But…

‘Even if I say anything, he won’t believe me. That’s how it was in the original story.’

Right. Don’t waste energy. Ignoring him is the answer.

I turned my gaze back to the window. I could feel his displeased glare boring into me, but I didn’t care.

A little while later, the carriage arrived at its destination.

“From today on, this is where you’ll live.”

A shabby cabin with a black forest at its back.

And before it, a wasteland where not a single blade of grass grew.

The place Muriel was exiled to after being framed again and again in the Winterberg ducal residence.

“Don’t step one foot beyond here. Live as if you’re dead. That is the smallest mercy I’m willing to grant you.”

So it begins—the real suffering….

“Now that you’ve been exiled, you are a criminal. Even if you die here, House Tierney won’t be able to protest.”

Protest? As if they ever would.

They’d probably be glad.

Muriel was a disposable pawn to House Tierney, after all. You just don’t know it.

“Servants will bring food and necessities once a month. As you can see, everything around here is blighted land.”

That’s right. This was contaminated ground.

Living on blighted land didn’t guarantee death, but staying longer than six months was dangerous.

Your physical abilities slowly deteriorated, and your skin and organs broke down beyond control.

In the original story, Muriel, too… her body had been ruined to the point daily life became difficult.

And eventually she even fell ill with an incurable disease.

“Let me emphasize once more.”

Raul’s blue eyes flashed. The only emotion I could read in them was hatred for House Tierney.

“I can poison you to death without evidence. I can make it look like an accident, too. Be grateful I’ve left you alive.”

Ah, yes…. Thank you so very much. Am I supposed to grovel?

I shot Raul a glance that I tried not to make obvious.

“…If you need assistance, send a request to the Winterberg ducal residence. I’ll send a servant once a week.”

That servant probably won’t come.

Every one of Winterberg’s retainers want Muriel dead.

“Then, I hope you live well while reflecting on your past sins.”

After the ill-omened regretful bastard swept away on a cold wind, I stepped into the cabin and looked around inside.

‘Just as I expected….’

Furniture worn to the bone, windows that looked like they’d let in every draft.

A wooden floor blanketed in dust as if no one had bothered to clean, and walls and ceiling hung with cobwebs in places.

A sigh slipped out of me.

“…First things first. Cleaning.”

I threw the windows wide open and beat the dust out of the furniture.

Then I swept and scrubbed the floor like my life depended on it. I wiped the window frames, wiped the walls….

About thirty minutes later. The cabin wasn’t exactly sparkling… but it was, in its own way, presentable!

“Hah. I’ve always been good at cleaning.”

With a satisfied feeling, I looked around the inside of the cabin.

It was old, sure, but it wasn’t the worst place for one person to live.

With the cleaning done, I stepped outside to catch my breath and slumped weakly onto the bench beneath the eaves.

‘How am I supposed to survive here from now on?’

For now, I needed to endure at least a month or two. Even if I planned to run away in the dead of night afterward.

With Muriel’s garbage stamina, traveling alone was impossible. At this rate, I’d collapse on the road and die.

‘First goal: build up my strength.’

The problem was food….

In the original story, Muriel barely got by on the food and necessities the servants brought each month.

So why not just do the same?

Well….

That might be difficult. Because…

‘Those bastards stole it all halfway through….’

There was a small storage shed beside the cabin.

I found boxes that looked like they’d been left by the servants, so I opened them—every single one was empty.

‘I don’t know why, but it’s different from the original.’

In the original story, the servants’ harassment hadn’t gone this far.

“Hah…. I’m a possessor too, you know. Do I not get some kind of buff?”

I muttered with a heavy sigh, and then-

“…?”

A sudden sense of wrongness prickled at me.

When I lifted my head slowly…

Something strange shimmered in front of my eyes.

A hazy cluster of blue light, almost close enough to touch.

As it grew clearer, taking on a more distinct shape…

It turned into a window—like something you’d only see in a game.

“What is this…?”

Was I hallucinating?

I blinked my wide eyes, rubbed them with the back of my hand, and looked again.

The blue window still floated in the air.

‘Don’t tell me… a status window?’

Fwoosh!

The screen burst with bright light and expanded.

Then letters I recognized instantly rose to the surface.