Let me talk about a tale, a story of something that happened not so long ago.

It was on a freezing day of winter when I was heading at a place to meet with a friend of mine. The wind was especially strong that evening and to avoid the cold for a moment, I entered an old shabby bookstore.

I didn’t intend to buy any books. I had only gone out that day because I had appointment and it would be cumbersome to buy books, and not only that, the books in bookstore were all worn out. I had just entered to avoid the freezing cold and kill some time.

But then, amongst all the old books, a book that looked rather new caught my eyes. I was quite surprised that the entire series was here, which was very unusual for second-hand book stores, and when I came to, I realized I was in the place of my appointment with the entire series in my hands.

My friend then asked me what that book was and I rather taken aback as I looked at the title <The Sage of the Winter Tree>, which was something I had never even heard of before.

That day was freezing, the books were ridiculously heavy, and 200,000 won was gone from my wallet.

Such went the rather trivial—no, wait, 200,000 won isn’t trivial—story, that happened not so long ago.

Chapter 1: Frail Extra in the Book (1)

I woke up with a splitting headache. I was dizzy as if someone had smacked me hard in the back of my head. Maybe I was having a hangover because of the two—or wait, was it three?— bottles of straight vodka I drank non-stop late into the night last night.

“Ugh… I’m dying…” I swept my hair with my hand and massaged my eyes and forehead.

In the past I was known as the madman of Bulgwangcheon, the Confucianism Breaker “Ahn Yuan.” If that friend of mine from before heard me groaning because of a hangover, he would probably ridicule me with a huge laugh.

When my thoughts reached there, I let out a sigh with a groan: I remembered that it was at that guy’s funeral that I drank vodka like that.

Usually, no matter how much alcohol I drink, I would know how to keep myself in control. I despised losing my reason above everything else so I never drank much beyond my limit.

Damn that punk… after acting like he would never die even if I killed him, he had to leave the world so early. That damned… punk.

Feeling bitter, I stayed laying down with my eyes closed, but after a while it started to feel hot.

“Ugh, what kind of funeral blanket is this thick?”

I kicked the thick blanket that I was tucked in and got up. Then I slowly opened my eyes and looked around.

I was on a bed that should be called “spacious” more than “big,” and the room was even wider with this huge bed not taking up much space. The walls were plastered with wallpaper that looked beyond the level of classic and in the level of being “antique,” and on the ceiling hung a chandelier made of a transparent material which I couldn’t tell was glass or crystal.

In other words…

“What is this place?!”

No matter where I looked, this place did not seem to be my friend’s funeral hall. Was I abducted while I was asleep? No, I might be a reckless man, but I knew who had resentment towards me. It wasn’t that I did nothing that warranted an abduction, but I would never let someone off if I thought they would retaliate against me in the future. And also, if I had been kidnapped, I would have opened my eyes in a cramped place in a moldy warehouse and not in some luxurious European style room.

While I was trying to figure the situation I was in, I felt something strange—were my hands always this fair? It was not just hands but even my arms were thinner than I remembered. It also didn’t take long for me to realize that I was dressed in fabric that looked expensive even at a single glance.

As I was trying to get myself out from the bed, suddenly the door flung open and someone entered.

“Your Highness! Have you woken up?” a voice rang out.

The owner of this sweet, worried voice was a beautiful person in an armor with braided red hair on the back. The person’s face seemed young unisexual.

While I was thinking about whether I had seen a beauty like this person, whose gender was difficult to discern, somewhere before, another person came in after, wearing a butler uniform and a dog mask.

What the heck is this? A candid camera? How is that dog mask made to look so realistic? It’s as if he has an actual dog head on his shoulders. It looks like a mask that furries would go crazy for.

I started thinking that perhaps I was not sober yet, but then the butler asked anxiously. “Your Highness! Are you hurt anywhere? Are you alright?”

Wait, Your Highness? Is he saying that to me?—I was confused and was about to say something but then the red-haired person hugged me while sobbing.

“I am so glad that you managed to wake up. I… I…”

That person hugged me so tightly that I felt like being strangled and for a moment I couldn’t breathe.

Why is this young-looking person so strong?

While I was thinking hard, trying to figure out what was going on, I saw my face reflected on the butler’s spectacles. I was appalled to see a young handsome boy with bright blonde hair. The reflection on the spectacles was not me.

I pushed away the person hugging me but they did not even budge because of huge difference in our strengths. When I tapped on their armor as if I was surrendering that person let go and blushed.

“Ah! Ple-please forgive me! I didn’t know…”

I furrowed my brows and stared at the person that was apologizing. “Name.”

“Huh…?” the person asked back with their blues wide open.

“I have a headache so don’t make me ask twice. Your name.”

This person seemed restless not because my voice seemed irritated but after hearing that I was sick.

“Do you mean my name? I Precia Jamilayon, your escort knight. That aside, you just said you have a headache? Go get the royal physician right now!”

Precia. It was a name I had heard, no, read somewhere before. But I couldn’t be so sure yet. There was no way such a ridiculous thing would happen!

I grabbed Precia by the shoulder and calmed her down before asking, “Then, what is my name?”

“You-Your Highness…?”

“Calm down and answer me! Who am I!”

At my cry, Precia got on one knee and shouted as if she was pledging her allegiance to me.

“You are the legitimate successor of the great Duplion Royal family! First Prince Yuan Del Azdemian Duplion!”

I got out of the bed with “her” support. When I heard “my” name, I felt a sharp jolt in my head and I saw the fragmented memories of this body flashing in front of my eyes. And I realized some things that I did not want to know.

“Yes, I am Yuan, the first prince of this nation. Isn’t that right, Dame Precia?”

One was the fact that I had opened my eyes as a frail prince, an extra character, of a novel.

“Yes! That is right!”

And the other was that the girl in front of me, who replied energetically, happened to be the female lead of said novel. The problem was that this novel began with the death of the prince that the female lead served.

And an even bigger problem was that today, the seventeenth birthday of that frail and foolish prince, was the day he died.

In short, it meant that my life was in a predicament right from the beginning.

I’m doomed. Why! There were so many other normal extras!

* * *

“I’m still not fully awake, so could you leave me by myself for a while?” I asked, trying to gain some time for myself to think. The way I gave them orders looked so natural, despite the fact that it was my first time meeting these two. Maybe it was this body’s influence.

The two looked at me with puzzled faces at my irritated voice. It wasn’t that surprising as the frail prince would have never spoken to them in this way. However, I had no time to think about that as there were already a lot of things in my mind.

“Can’t you hear me?”

Hearing my question, the old werebeast attendant of the wolfkin race came to his senses and responded politely. “No, forgive us, Your Highness. Dame Precia, His Highness looks fatigued so let’s wait outside.”

“Huh? Oh, yes…”

After having the female lead of the novel and the prince’s exclusive attendant leave, I sat down on the edge of the bed, thinking about the situation I was in. It was difficult to believe, but it seemed that I had entered the novel <The Sage of the Winter Tree>.

The memories of Prince Yuan I saw before were fragmented and difficult to recall but I had no choice but to believe that after recalling the description of female lead Precia’s appearance.

Although Precia looked young right now, she bore a great resemblance to the cover illustration on the third volume of the novel. “If it isn’t some mad scientist doing any experiments with my brain and showing me an illusion, then this must be real.”

The sense of touch on the skin, the sense of smell being stimulated by the perfume in the air, as well as the blinding light that provoked my sense of vision… to my knowledge, there was no technology that simulated the sense of reality to this extent.

And on top of that, there was simply no way I would suddenly gain the memories of Prince Yuan who never appeared again until the very end of the story after his death in the prologue other than in the form of flashbacks.

“No, I don’t have to worry about why I became Prince Yuan right now.”

Indeed, that problem was trivial right now. What I really had to worry about was if I would die for real if I died in this body. In other words, was I in some kind of computer game where I would meet a game over if I die and be able to return to the original world? Or, had I really become the prince inside the novel and would die forever if I were to die here?

“This is a pain,” I said, slapped my cheeks.

The tingling sensation sharpened my senses. With such a realistic replication of the senses, even if this was a virtual world, there was a high possibility of dying in real life if I died here, purely from shock.

With a sigh I tousled my hair and decided to plan things out for the future. “Tsk, I can’t make a risky gamble.”

My course of action was set. From now on, I would live as the frail Prince Yuan, who, in the novel, died helplessly. And at the same time, I would have to find out why this happened to me.

With that in mind, the first thing I had to do was to survive.

“This sounds like fun.”

This was the first time I felt so thrilled ever since I faced off that friend whose funeral I attended.

Come to think of it I did not even watch his cremation.

Feeling depressed all of a sudden, I shook my head and devised a plan for survival. The world in this novel did not just have humans. There were various species such as dragons, werebeasts, trolls, dwarves, fairies and dryads… all kinds of races were living everywhere.

And in a broader sense, even undeads possessed reason and rationale, having formed a nation. Though, obviously not all undead were rational beings.

“Let me first recall contents of the novel.”

The novel I read started with the death of Prince Yuan, leading to his escort, the female lead Precia, being blamed for having failed to protect him and being exiled to a place known as the “End of the World.”

The “End of the World” was bordered by the Bastaille Mountain Range, where all sorts of monsters roamed. Anyone who survived one day in that place would be acknowledged as a warrior, a reliable comrade if they survived a month, and be revered as a great fighter if they survived a year.

Precia survived there for 3 years and almost died when she faced a monster army by herself in order to save her comrades. But thanks to the male lead of <The Sage of the Winter Tree> Jade, who was in the mountain range at that time, she barely managed to save her life.

Having survived, Precia would then join Jade to fight against many evil forces that try to take over the world, while reminiscing about Prince Yuan whom she lov—

“Wait, loved?” I blurted out. No, that is not important right now. I am about to die today. Do I have leisure to think about love?

Anyway… after she found out that Prince Yuan was killed because of the schemes of evil organization Arcana, she went on a journey to save the world and take revenge.

That was the main plot of <The Sage of the Winter tree>.

Most of the narratives were centered around Jade, the protagonist, but the author also worked hard in the narratives that surrounded Precia, the female lead. Thanks to that, I could gain a lot of information right now.

In particular, it was constantly mentioned that Precia kept having nightmare of Prince Yuan being murdered.

When the clock that rings eight minutes late pointed at eight minutes past six, a sharp dagger pierced the heart of frail prince Yuan, the one Precia served. Amidst the eerie ring of the clock, the moonlight indifferently shone through the window, glistening against the tragic flow of red blood.

It feels terrible when I think that it’s my future—I thought.

Most of the times the extra character Prince Yuan appeared in the novel was as a flashback to the time he was killed. Although it was there to emphasize the trauma of female lead, I still couldn’t help but think that content related to him was too small.

Anyway, thanks to that, I knew exactly when, where and how I was going to be killed so it allowed me to come up with countermeasures.

From the clock I found out that there were still eight hours and eight minutes until my death. In that time, I had to find a way to survive.

After settling my thoughts, I opened the bedroom door and went out. I saw a large space which seemed to be the living room and according to Yuan’s memory, my “room” was connected to a living room and several other rooms just like a suite. As expected of a prince.

“Your Highness, are you feeling better?” Precia asked, rather cautious as I had forced them out of the bedroom.

I looked into the memory of Prince Yuan and gave her a smile unique to an extra.

“I feel a lot better thanks to you. Thank you for your concern.”

I decided to pretend to be Prince Yuan until my safety was assured. There was no one I could trust right now, so I needed a way to protect myself.

Precia smiled with reassurance at my reply. “Then you must be able to attend dinner at 6:30 today! That is a relief. You’ve been looking forward to it.”

Today was Prince Yuan’s birthday. Usually, aristocrats would be invited to celebrate the birthday of a prince, but that wasn’t the case for this guy. Right now, Prince Yuan was in a precarious position despite being the first prince. Not only was he not the child of the current queen, but his maternal family that should help him was also a very weak family on the verge of collapse.

There was only one reason why Prince Yuan was looking forward to this dinner. That was because his father, the king, whom he could not see usually, had announced his attendance.

I said with as weak a smile as possible, “Sorry for making you worried.”

At my apology, Precia shook her head in embarrassment. “No, please don’t be!”

“Oh, by the way, why did I pass out?”

While I couldn’t be entirely sure, my memories told me that Prince Yuan never drank a sip of alcohol, so this piercing headache shouldn’t be from a hangover.

Precia got gloomy at my question. “You were saving a cat that could not climb down the tree and then your feet slipped…Please forgive me. As your escort I should have protected you.”

Oh, right. There was a scene like that amongst the flashbacks. It started from the third paragraph on page 267 of the fourth volume, I believe.

Geez, a frail prince he is alright. Turning into this mess just because he couldn’t save a cat.

“Never mind. You can protect me well from now on.”

Please. My life is at stake from now on.

“Now, shall we go for a walk?”

When I tried to step outside, the old attendant blocked me.

“Excuse me, Your Highness. With all due respect, in your pajamas…”

Only then did I realize that I was in pajamas.

* * *

After changing into formal clothes, I walked in the palace with my escort Precia and the old attendant. Walking around allowed me to feel how everyone viewed Prince Yuan.

The maids and knights that I encountered while walking on the aisle greeted me, a prince, half-heartedly and passed by. Some people even blatantly ignored me as if they hadn’t even seen me or outright sneered at me.

“Those rude…!” Precia clenched her fist whenever she saw people ignoring me, but she did not pick a fight with them. It seemed that she decided not to fight recklessly as it could damage my already unstable position.

The queen exerted dominance in the palace and naturally she wanted her child, the second prince to be the crown prince, which meant that I, the first prince who was higher in the line of succession, must’ve been quite a thorn on her side. So, those who sided with the queen had no choice but to ignore me.

As a matter of fact, the queen also had a hand in the death of Prince Yuan. She was not the main culprit behind it, since Prince Yuan was not worth killing to the queen. There was someone behind her. After all, the principle of primogeniture in a feudal system was only possible with a decent backing.

Still, though, I was glad that there was no one who came up to me and picked a fight openly. Considering that this was a world inside a novel, it wouldn’t be strange for one of them to come pick a fight with me just for the entertainment of the readers; something refreshing that could give them catharsis.

Though, realistically speaking, the position of the king’s child was not something a knight could insult, no matter how weak and frail I was. If anyone was foolish enough to get his family beheaded just to get a moment of exhilaration, then they would not be able to enter the palace in the first place.

It was good to have avoided any annoying matters, but as a reader, it was a bit of a pity.

“Your Highness, where are we going now? The garden is in the opposite direction.” Precia asked.

I grinned at her innocent question. “First we will go to the kitchen. I would like to have a simple meal for lunch.”

The old wolfkin attendant began to guide us at my reply. “To go to the kitchen, turn right at the end of the hallway and climb down the stairs. The kitchen is right there.”

“Is that so?”

An attendant well-versed in the passages of the palace was much more reliable than my fragmented memories. First, though, I had to acquire some things hidden throughout the palace so that I could protect myself, since I did not know whether Precia could protect me or not.

There were many secrets and hidden treasures in this world and naturally, the royal palace, being a place related to the female lead Precia, had a lot of useful things as well. Most of the things were based on the things that were obtained elsewhere but there were also things that male lead obtained by coincidence.

Those were the things I was aiming for. And right now, the kitchen had the thing that I wanted the most.