Chapter 2
I learned that this world was a novel—no, more specifically, a revenge story—thanks to my nephew, Luca.
Luca Maibaum. The protagonist of The Master of the Winter Forest, who would later become Luca Winterwald.
I had always been particularly fond of revenge stories.
I loved watching the protagonist roll around, body and soul, scraping themselves raw, and the electrifying catharsis when revenge was finally exacted—it was unbeatable.
My favorite classic was The Count of Monte Cristo, my favorite films were Park Chan-wook’s Revenge Trilogy…
And among genre novels, it was The Master of the Winter Forest.
The story went like this.
One day, a man suddenly appears before Luca, a boy born out of wedlock who never knew his father, claiming to be his uncle.
The man insists that Luca is of the bloodline of the Ducal House of Winterwald and takes him to Winterwald as its heir.
Of course, many people coveted the Winterwald ducal seat. They could not accept Luca, a bastard.
The collateral relatives, all aiming to become duke, wove conspiracies and schemes.
Still just a child, Luca was utterly powerless before them, and in the end he lost so much at the hands of those collateral relatives.
Status, honor, title—everything. Not to mention his only remaining direct blood relatives and all the pillars who had protected him were killed.
In short, everyone by Luca’s side died.
The uncle who brought him to Winterwald, and the owner of this body—Judith Maibaum—were no exception.
To make matters worse, Luca himself nearly dies in an assassination attempt.
Seizing that chance, Luca hides his identity, lives under another name, and waits for the moment of revenge.
And in the end, he triumphs and claims the ducal house for himself.
That was the story.
My favorite scene was when everyone believed Luca to be dead, only for him—now grown—to return to Winterwald as a war hero, clad in a dignified military uniform, and execute those who had seized Winterwald.
Even the sense of emptiness that followed in the ending was perfectly to my taste.
Having severed all ties of resentment, Luca Winterwald dragged his exhausted body back into the castle.
The Castle of Winterwald, where he had spent his childhood, welcomed him just as it always had—but none of the people from that time remained.
Sinking deep into his grandfather’s chair, Luca gently closed his eyes.
With his revenge, winter too had come to an end. The packs of wolves that had bared their fangs, eager to tear into his life, had vanished.
The one who had claimed the Winter Forest so coveted by all was none other than Luca Winterwald himself.
Spring would soon come. A spring where all things bloom, life sprouts, and happiness overflows.
But would spring truly come to this frozen Winter Forest?
Luca did not know.
Damn. Even recalling it now, it’s so good.
But still… I absolutely refuse to become the bedrock for my favorite scenes!
They say even rolling around in a dung heap is better than dying, and whether I’d come to this world or possessed some random body, I wanted to live—really live.
But why this novel of all things? Was it because it was my favorite?
When my friend said my tastes were weird and suggested healing stories or slice-of-life instead, I should’ve just kept my mouth shut and changed my preferences…
Then maybe, at the very least, the world I reincarnated into would’ve been gentler.
No—let’s at least be grateful it’s not a grim survival story. If I’d been a zombie-story fanatic… ugh.
But still, why Judith Maibaum of all people? There were plenty of other supporting characters! Like the princess who helps Luca when he nearly gets assassinated…
Honestly, I didn’t like Judith.
No—more accurately, there wasn’t a single reader who liked Judith.
After all, Judith—Luca’s only maternal blood relative—abused him as a child, then sold him off for money to the uncle who came looking for him.
As if that weren’t enough, later on, when the collateral relatives plotted schemes to threaten and manipulate Luca, she was the very first one to be used as a pawn.
She was the textbook example of a stupid, selfish villain from a novel—someone who did nothing but block the protagonist’s path.
Could it be that somewhere deep in my instincts, I shared something in common with Judith?
The thought nearly made me sink into self-loathing.
Anyway, I wanted to live, and I had no intention of walking straight into an obvious death flag.
Ideally, it would be best to eliminate the cause of the conflict altogether, but Luca was destined to go to Winterwald no matter what.
Once the ducal house had acknowledged Luca as blood kin, insisting that I wouldn’t send him would be like throwing an egg at a rock.
Even if I couldn’t change the entire plot, I at least had to change Judith’s life.
The very first step toward that was how I treated Luca.
Honestly, is it something a human should do—bullying a scrawny little kid who barely comes up to your waist? At the very least, you should feed him properly!
Perhaps because Judith had starved him for so long, Luca was practically earning his own meals.
He ran petty errands around the village, receiving a potato here, an apple there to get by—just barely scraping out an existence.
He was only nine years old!
Didn’t Judith feel even a shred of pity for such a pretty child?
No. With her complex about her own looks, she probably found Luca’s good looks irritating.
Judith was beautiful—so much so that when I first woke up in this body, I’d thought, Wow, I must be dreaming to become such a beauty.
And yet, Judith herself loathed her appearance.
What had she said again? That she looked like she’d fallen into water and gone all soggy…
To me, she looked nothing but lovely, like a watercolor painting.
But the original Judith didn’t think so.
“Judith’s other family members were exceptionally good-looking, after all…”
Appearance may be subjective, but there’s always some degree of objective consensus.
And Judith’s family exceeded those standards to the point of overflowing.
Especially her older sister Larissa, only three years older, who was beautiful enough to make heads turn.
Young Judith had been filled with inferiority and insecurity about her looks.
Tsk tsk. Living a life satisfied with what you have would actually make things easier on yourself…
I found myself delivering a stuffy sermon to a Judith who no longer existed.
In any case, Judith was extremely sensitive about her appearance.
She did grieve her family’s deaths, but in some corner of her heart lurked the joy that she was now the prettiest person in the village.
And then Luca, who had been little, started growing up… and turned into a beautiful boy you could spot from a kilometer away.
Unlike Judith’s faded pale-blond hair, his was a truly shining gold.
And his blue eyes were so radiant that at first I thought someone had photoshopped a glow effect just around him.
Luca didn’t resemble his aunt, but there was no question that he had an angelic beauty far beyond any comparison with Judith.
In that way, Luca’s looks became the catalyst that reignited Judith’s long-dormant inferiority complex.
Burn, burn bright, inferiority! Yes—exactly like this.
Still, comparing yourself to your own young nephew? As an adult? Just where did you put your years?
I cursed the original owner of this body with all my heart.
Fine. For now, let’s be kind to Luca.
Setting aside the future and the plot, I wanted to treat him well simply because he was pitiful. He’d be leaving for Winterwald before long anyway…
Having made that decision, I put it into action immediately.
But from Luca’s perspective, it must have been extremely confusing.
After all, wouldn’t it seem strange for an aunt who had bullied him for nearly nine years to suddenly flip her attitude overnight, as if struck by lightning?
If it were me, I’d suspect some hidden motive too.
Even the first time I cooked him dinner, his reaction was something else…
That very day, I diligently made what passed for dinner—a stew with chunks of meat—and called Luca over.
It was my first time cooking in this world, and since it turned out fairly decent, I felt a bit proud.
But Luca just glared at me with a dumbfounded expression. And that wasn’t all.
“You’ve been sleeping around for days—are you crazy? Just do what you usually do.”
He snapped those words at me, then, without even waiting for my reply, bolted straight into his tiny room as if fleeing.
