Chapter 1

If the average person’s life was a well-prepared multi-course meal, my life had only been a bowl of misery garnished with sadness, tragedy, and misfortune.

Born in a brothel, I never knew my father’s name or face. When I was around three years old, my little sister was born. We were barely getting by.

While I was born bearing all of the world’s misery and gloom, my sister was like light itself. She had been sculpted with all the beauty and goodness in the world. I couldn’t let her end up like me, a back alley rat. She deserved a good life.

But the world’s greater forces were indifferent to those living in darkness. When I was seven, our mother passed away, leaving us nothing but an old and cramped hovel. When I turned eight, my sister Aria grew sick. With no known cause or cure, her illness only worsened, but I couldn’t give up. She was my only treasure. I couldn’t lose the only one who brought color to my otherwise drab life.

The medication that temporarily improved Aria’s condition was very rare and expensive. Naturally, I had to start working to be able to afford it. At the age of ten, I picked up a sword for the first time. That was the beginning of my bloodstained life.

My swordsmanship improved rapidly as I wandered from place to place seeking out magical beasts, which I could slay and sell for profit. Before I knew it, I had mastered the sword, and in the process became known throughout the empire as the “Dark Disaster.”

Then one day at the age of eighteen, as I was walking home from a job—covered in blood, as always—I twisted my ankle and fell. My head collided with the ground.

As the sharp pain shot through my skull, I remembered my past life.

F*ck.

***

I woke up gradually with a throbbing headache.

Where am I? The familiar white ceiling of my usual hospital room greeted me. I was used to coming here after having collapsed countless times while out doing mercenary work. Someone must’ve brought me here. Feeling grateful to whatever stranger had helped me, I tried to sit up.

Suddenly, I felt a chill down my spine. “Sister...” The quiet, sweet voice of a girl called to me. I could tell she was upset, but it was the cold distance in her voice that made me shiver.

Flinching, I turned my head to see a head of thick, wavy pink hair that resembled a flurry of cherry blossoms. Below her hair sat a pair of sorrowful sky-blue eyes peeking out from voluminous eyelashes. This was the lovely girl made of all things beautiful.

“Aria?”

My sister, Aria.

I immediately leaped to my feet to check on her. She was pale and had a worried look on her face, but she didn’t look particularly ill.

“Why are you here? You should be at home resting,” I said, wrapping her in my own blanket. I was worried she might catch a cold from leaving the house on such a chilly day.

Aria bit her coral-tinted lips. “I’m the one who should be worried! You were passed out on the street, drenched in blood.” Her quiet voice rippled with emotion.

Noticing how upset she was, I looked down and shuffled my feet idly. “You’re just so frail.”

She frowned and flung the blanket at me. “Do you think you’re the only one who’s concerned about their sister? I can’t help but worry! You won’t even tell me what kind of work you do, and you always come home injured. You won’t take a break, even though it’s obvious you’re exhausted! You should look after yourself, Cass. I told you, it’s not up to you to cure me.”

I had never told Aria that I’d been working as a beast hunter. I knew she’d just tell me to stop. It was a dangerous job and I didn’t want her to worry about me. She was more concerned because recently I hadn’t taken a day off, but I was desperate to earn money. I’m doing everything I can for you, Aria...

“I don’t want you to suffer because of me,” she sobbed.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I carefully hugged her small body. My heart ached as I watched her weep in my arms.

My lovely sister, Aria. With a sigh, I gently stroked her soft hair. The fine pink strands wrapped delicately around my fingers. A few years back I was the much taller one, but she had now reached a similar height. Nevertheless, she still cried like a child. You might have grown, but on the inside you’re still a little kid.

“I’m sorry for making you worry. I’m fine,” I told her.

“There you go again! You always say that!” Sobbing, she pounded my chest.

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t feel a thing, but I groaned as realistically as I could. I didn’t want to embarrass Aria as she bawled her eyes out, but I was fine, just tired. The blood on my clothes was a beast’s, not mine. I hadn’t been hurt worse than receiving a few scratches. It would take more than an ordinary attack to harm a Sword Master—not that I would have allowed one to hit me in the first place.

That’s not the issue, though. My thoughts were as tangled as a ball of yarn after a fight with a kitten. A cold sweat ran down my back.

It had all begun when I fell and hit my head on the ground. It was hard to believe, but that fall brought back memories of my past life.

I remembered that my name used to be Yoon Lee. I was a lonely orphan, born in a country called South Korea on a planet called Earth. In my previous life, I was as poor and hardworking as I was now as I immersed myself in studying military science.

It was amazing that though my past self and my current self grew up in different environments and were even from different worlds, our personalities ended up being so alike. It made me sad to see that I hadn’t looked happy as Yoon Lee.

I died of a heart attack in my mid-thirties, just as I was finally about to become a professor of military science at a prestigious university. Life is cruel, but it was all in the past now.

If those had been the only details I remembered, it would have been enough to call it an interesting experience, put it aside, and get on with my life. But there was one more memory.

Fairy Night. That was the name of a romance fantasy novel I’d read in my previous life. The main character of the novel was Aria Freya, the beautiful daughter of a count who was descended from a bloodline of fairy kings.

Aria was born in a filthy back alley, which would have disgusted her noble paternal relatives had they ever known her. She was growing into a fine young woman, but she had a rare disease that worsened as she grew older. One day when she was fifteen, her body finally gave out and she collapsed on the street. A nobleman named Count Freya happened to discover her as he was walking down that street and he brought her back to his manor.

Aria received treatment while in the count’s care and managed to barely survive. He invited her to stay at the manor for a short time, but her warmth quickly won over not only his heart but the hearts of his servants as well. Since Count and Countess Freya didn’t have any children, they decided to adopt her, and she became “Aria Freya.”

After that, Fairy Night was the story of a heroine: Aria entered high society, had love affairs with several prominent male characters, and saved the world in her spare time. It became a reverse harem romance in which a beautiful woman conquered the hearts of a swarm of handsome men. The story might have been cliché, but its engaging style and neat plot made it a bestseller. I seemed to enjoy it in my previous life.

The problem was that my current sister’s name was identical to the name of Fairy Night’s heroine. Even their backstories are the same! This can’t be a coincidence... To think that Aria, who I raised for fifteen years, is really the main character of a fantasy novel! Actually, I can’t even believe we’re living inside the world of a novel!

Though everything turned out all right for Aria by the conclusion of Fairy Night, the pure girl had to go through all manner of trials and tribulations before she finally had a grand awakening. Why does she have to endure such hardship? Let her stay pure and innocent! Is it even necessary for her to have some kind of epic realization? How dare the author make my precious sister go through that?!

I was also part of the novel, but thinking about the book’s version of me just made me sigh. In the novel, Cassmire Crisis—that’s me—was a villainess, responsible for one of Aria’s many trials. She was also the half-sister of one of the male protagonists.

Her story went like this: Cassmire, the daughter of a poor commoner woman and Duke Caesar Crisis, happened to learn the secret of her birth while caring for her sister Aria. Whether it was out of naive ignorance or misguided joy, she decided to visit Duke Crisis and demand that he recognize her as his daughter.

The duke mercifully accepted her into the family. But being an illegitimate child with a rotten character, she ended up ostracized from high society—not a surprising outcome.

When the novel’s Cassmire realized that things weren’t turning out as she’d hoped, she became more and more spiteful. After a decade apart, she was reunited with Aria, who in the meantime had become Count Freya’s daughter. She felt insanely jealous when she saw how her half-sister was adored by the male characters, and decided she would throw away her convictions and become the story’s villainess.

How can that be? I don’t understand. I stared at the Aria currently in my arms, my eyes full of confusion. It didn’t matter what it said in the book. As long as I was in my right mind, there was no way I could torment Aria.

But learning that I was the opposite of the novel’s Cassmire, I was worried that I’d somehow disturbed the intended plot. I was seventeen now, but Cassmire was supposed to leave Aria and go to Duke Crisis’ manor at the age of ten. That meant my sister and I should have already parted ways long ago. In addition, the novel’s Cassmire never cared about her sister. She wouldn’t have tried to cure Aria’s illness.

Although Cassmire wasn’t that significant to the overall plot, I was worried about the ripple effect I might have already caused by diverging from the story.

I gently ran my hand through Aria’s wavy, blossom-hued hair. I just wanted her to be happy. I wanted her to live in complete bliss and never have to experience any of the hardships mentioned in the novel.

“Aria...” She was crying so much that her tears were dampening my worn leather armor. I lifted her chin, locked eyes with her, then kissed her forehead gently. “I promise I’ll make you happy.” That was the oath I’d recited to her ever since she had fallen ill. So far they had only been words, of course, but now I had the knowledge to make them a reality. “I’d do anything for you,” I whispered.

Aria let out a sob. “I just want you to be safe, Cass. I’m happy when I’m with you.”

I chuckled and ruffled her hair. Aria, my kindhearted sister.