Summer's face hardened as she saw the person who entered the room.
"Summer. Get up. The sun is already high in the sky."
The uninvited guest interrupting Summer was Lady Lindsey.
Countess Lindsey, who recited the same lines every day, was no longer the kind mother Summer remembered but merely a doll performing a predetermined role.
Summer didn’t even bother to speak anymore and remained silent. Only then did Countess Lindsey leave the room, delivering her scripted lines to the empty air with a perfectly painted smile.
“Hey… did she see a ghost or something? Or is she sick?”
Fey approached and tapped the floor with her tail. Startled, Summer looked at Fey with a bewildered expression.
“What do you mean?”
“She just talked to herself in mid-air.”
“Fey… did you also find that strange?”
“Of course. What do you take a witch for? Wait, are you crying again?”
“I thought I was going crazy!”
Summer hurriedly wiped her tears, speaking in an agitated tone. It was the first time anyone had told her this world was strange.
Fey looked at Summer with a baffled expression before slipping under the desk.
“So what are you going to do? Hurry up and decide!”
“I want to go back! No matter what it takes. Even if it means dying!”
“Good.”
“Fey, you mustn’t abandon me until I return to my original world.”
Summer crawled over to Fey and bowed her head deeply.
Fey, thinking that Summer looked both pathetic and pitiful, curled her tail.
“I’ll be with you until you leave this place, so don’t worry.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s not for you. It’s for this world.”
“Still.”
Summer smiled bashfully. The mere fact that Fey was here in this lonely world brought her to tears.
When someone stuck in the depths of despair is given even a small chance to escape, their survival instinct makes them reach out, no matter what.
And Summer wasn’t in a state to defy that instinct and reconsider.
“I told you, I’m not here because I like you. Just hurry up and go back.”
“I will.”
Summer smiled brightly. Perhaps it was because of her golden hair and blue eyes, but her smile was as radiant as sunlight sparkling on the sea.
Fey, feeling strange, turned her back to Summer and lay down.
“By the way, not today. Because Summer’s soul is missing.”
Fey spoke in a deliberately grumbling tone, curling up and wagging her tail.
“What do you mean by Summer’s soul is missing?”
Startled by Fey's words, Summer asked with wide eyes.
“It’s complicated to explain. Simply put, the soul that should fill the place when you return to your world is nowhere to be found.”
“…”
Fey, sounding annoyed, closed her eyes. It was a bit of a blow to her pride.
She had boasted to her fellow witches that she would solve the problem within three months. Three months, my foot.
The soul of the original Summer, which should fill the empty body once the black-haired soul leaves, was nowhere to be found.
Souls usually exist like air, and it’s not hard to sense their flow and catch them, but this one was untraceable.
Just as the black-haired soul had suddenly disrupted the flow and appeared, Summer’s soul had abruptly vanished, disrupting the flow.
“Anyway, it’s not your concern. I’ll handle it. You just get ready.”
“I will.”
“Don’t die before I get back.”
At Fey’s insistence, Summer clenched her fists and nodded resolutely.
Watching her, Fey left the mansion, intending to research the missing soul.
Summer didn’t stay idle either. Ignoring everything and everyone following their predetermined roles, she explored the mansion thoroughly.
The mansion was eerily perfect.
There were always small, cute larks chirping, the grass was lush, and the flowers were vibrant.
No matter where she went, not a speck of dust was to be seen, and there wasn’t a single rundown spot.
However, perhaps because there were too many empty rooms or too few people for the mansion’s size, it felt eerie and unsettling.
After touring the vast mansion, Summer returned to her room and collapsed onto the sofa.
“I need to get out.”
She would rather die than perish in such a place. A place so unnaturally perfect. Dying here felt like even her death wouldn’t be human.
Summer rose from her tired body.
A feeling akin to a mission surged within her—she had to escape this place. And if there was one place she wanted to go in this world, it was only one.
Summer went to her desk, opened a drawer, and took out a piece of paper.
It was filled with notes about the original novel.
“The novel starts at the imperial banquet when the male lead saves Julian. The beginning of the novel…”
This world was a novel. A somewhat bleak romance fantasy.
Something felt almost within reach.
The beginning of the novel.
The current time Summer was living in was technically before the novel started.
In other words, the current world was merely a backdrop for the novel’s setting.
Summer’s body had been created, but her soul was missing. And the current Summer was filling that void.
Summer pulled the bell cord, and Mary entered with a stern face.
Mary, who had once seemed bright and cheerful like Summer’s imagination, now had the worn-out look of a seasoned worker.
“You called?”
That point actually made Mary’s eerie nature more bearable.
Perhaps she seemed more tolerable because there was now a way out.
Facing Mary with a slightly relaxed expression, Summer asked,
“How long until the imperial banquet?”
“Exactly two weeks.”
“…”
Not much time left. The character settings for the female and male leads must be almost complete.
Shortly before the novel begins. This place was a novel. The god and creator of this world was the author.
The existence or nonexistence of everyone here depended entirely on the author’s will.
If that were truly the case.
A sudden hypothesis sprang to Summer’s mind.
"Mary, help me get ready to go out."
“Yes, which dress would you like to wear?”
At that moment, Summer recalled the description of the original novel's heroine, Julian Dudley.
Sky-blue hair that reminded one of cotton candy, and lovely pink eyes.
“Sky blue, please.”
While Mary went to fetch the dress, Summer stared at the perfectly painted yet ambiguous world.
If the author is the god here, then the god of this place is human. Humans are neither perfect nor omnipotent.
So, there must be gaps in the setting, and it would have been impossible to meticulously describe the aristocratic society from top to bottom.
Thinking that way, it made sense why Summer’s character was created but not imbued with life.
A setting is just a setting, but a character needs to be alive and moving. In other words,
“That means the day Summer’s soul is created,”
is the moment the story begins.
It would be the very moment when Summer’s character, a selfish yet innocent noblewoman who grew up in luxury, becomes necessary to describe the grand imperial banquet.
“Young lady, let me help you get ready.”
Mary, who had returned with the dress and tools, said as she pulled out the chair by the vanity.
Summer sat down at the vanity and faced the mirror.
She saw radiant blonde hair reminiscent of sunlight and blue eyes that resembled a melancholic lake.
“So, this is my face.”
Mary pretended not to hear Summer’s muttering, being tactful.
Summer’s reflection in the mirror looked like a housecat realizing it was not human but an animal.
“Let me help you change first.”
“Huh? Oh, thank you.”
With Mary’s help, Summer donned the dress and once again stared at the mirror.
Only now, no longer trembling with fear, did she truly take in her appearance.
To summarize her thoughts, it felt awkward. The exotic features and the soft skin that bore no signs of hardship throughout her life.
Awkward, but not frightening. With a way to escape from this novel world, she no longer feared it.
She even managed to smile at Mary, a sign of her newfound composure.
If Summer’s hypothesis was correct, Summer’s soul would be created at the novel's beginning.
Then Fey would place Summer’s soul into this body, and she could return to her original world.
“Young lady, how would you like your hair adorned?”
“…”
“Young lady?”
“Ha-ha…”
Summer burst into a seemingly mad laughter and covered her face with both hands. She had just remembered a nearly forgotten fact.
The day the original Summer’s soul is created is the day the current Summer dies. The day she must die in this world to return to her original one.
If her guess was correct, that day would be the debutante ball when the novel begins.
The novel’s introduction sets the stage for the backstory that the heroine and hero were acquainted long ago.
“Young lady.”
“Damn it.”
Summer cursed bitterly. She had been acting as if she had all the time in the world, despite knowing the day of her death was approaching.
In her original world, she had struggled every moment to survive.
She spent five years rotting in a tiny room where lying down meant giving up.
It was excruciating and painful enough to feel like her breath would stop at any moment, but her instinct to survive pushed her to endure another day.
So, death was a word too far from Summer’s reality.
“Mary, do you know of any painless ways to die?”
Mary’s hands, which had been fiddling with various hair ornaments, came to an abrupt halt at Summer’s question.
Summer couldn’t tell what emotions were hidden behind Mary’s expressionless face.
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