Chapter 1

A chilly wind slipped through the gaps in my pajamas.

“Brr… why is it so cold?”

Half-asleep, I opened my eyes and looked around.

My gaze followed the eerie shadows of tree branches stretching across the room until it landed on the window.

No wonder it felt so cold.

The curtains were whipping wildly in the wind, and behind them the window stood wide open.

I’m pretty sure I closed it before going to bed. Why is it open?

Suppressing my annoyance, I started to climb out of bed.

Then I noticed a dark silhouette by the window.

I froze.

…What?

Someone was sitting on the moonlit windowsill.

Pitch-black hair fluttered in the night breeze, blending into the darkness, while an impossibly beautiful face was illuminated by the pale moonlight.

For a moment, I stared at the dreamlike sight in a trance.

Then I snapped myself back to reality and rubbed my eyes.

This wasn’t the time to admire someone’s looks.

If my eyes weren’t deceiving me…

“…Tower Master?”

As if confirming my guess, one corner of the man’s lips curled upward.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I was fully awake now.

The uninvited guest who had ruined my blissful sleep…

…was my boss.

Roakin Arzen.

The Master of the Magic Tower, the greatest mage in the Empire’s history—

—and the second male lead of this novel.

I asked carefully,

“…Why are you here, Tower Master?”

No, seriously. Why are you sitting on the window of my house?

I was supposed to be hiding.

I hadn’t told a single person where I was staying.

How did he even find me?

As I stood there in confusion, Roakin answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Why else? I came to catch my runaway secretary.”

…You lunatic!

I already knew he wasn’t someone who could be understood through normal logic.

But this was beyond anything I’d imagined.

Never mind how he’d figured out where I was—

Who in the world breaks into someone’s room through the window in the middle of the night like some alley cat?

As I stood there too dumbfounded to speak, his low, lazy voice drifted toward me like creeping fog.

“Serphine Mirabel.”

“…”

“You actually dared to run away while I wasn’t around?”

A cold, mocking smile spread across Roakin’s lips.

At the same time, his deep violet eyes, blazing with anger, fixed themselves on me.

The murderous intensity of his gaze sent an icy chill down my spine.

“That’s…”

Because you refused to accept my resignation!

No matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t understand.

Why were those completely unhinged eyes directed at me?

This isn’t how the original story goes!

If the plot had stayed on track, Roakin should have been at the Magic Tower right now, flirting with the heroine.

The gentle second male lead who protects the heroine whenever she’s in danger.

That was Roakin Arzen’s role.

He was supposed to be hopelessly in love with the heroine and have absolutely no interest in an insignificant extra like me.

But not only had he rejected my resignation—

He had actually chased me all the way to this backwater village just to drag back one secretary.

Do you seriously have to force me back to work that badly?

The Magic Tower Master’s bizarre obsession with a minor supporting character could only be interpreted one way.

At this point, I wanted to grab him by the collar—

No, by the leg if I had to—and scream.

If you’re going to obsess over someone, obsess over the heroine, not your secretary!

The truth was, I had only been hiding for a while to avoid the novel’s villainess—the Empress.

I had no desire to end up brutally murdered again.

But now the second male lead had suddenly gone completely off the rails and was wrecking my perfectly planned survival strategy.

Tower Master… why are you doing this to me?

At this rate, I was really going to die because of a lunatic who’d become obsessed with his secretary.

It wasn’t as though I’d always lived in this ridiculous novel.

Before transmigrating here, I had been an ordinary office worker in South Korea.

That day had been like any other.

I was working overtime.

Unable to fight off my drowsiness any longer, I searched for something I could use as a pillow.

Then one particular novel came to mind.

After making sure the office was empty, I rummaged through my bag and pulled out a book.

How to Wake the One Enchanted by Magic.

It was a fantasy romance novel that had gone out of print years ago.

Only collector’s editions still circulated, and I’d gone through a lot of trouble to get a copy.

Maybe my expectations had simply been too high.

When I finally read it, it turned out to be a cliché-filled story that wasn’t worth rereading.

I’d sold it on a used-book marketplace almost immediately.

I’d planned to mail it at the post office that day—

But work had been so overwhelming that I’d completely forgotten.

…So that’s why I forgot.

The thick hardcover looked perfect for a makeshift pillow.

Smiling in satisfaction, I rested my head on top of it.

After days of nonstop overtime, exhaustion had reached its limit.

The moment I closed my eyes, I fell asleep as though I’d lost consciousness.

How much time passed?

…Shouldn’t my alarm be ringing by now?

An inexplicable sense of dread made me open my eyes.

I was still lying face-down over a desk piled high with paperwork.

But as my vision cleared…

Instead of my dull gray office, I found myself in an unfamiliar room with an old-fashioned elegance.

Where am I?

A velvet carpet embroidered with geometric patterns covered the floor.

On one side of the room, colorful liquids bubbled inside transparent glass bottles.

It felt exactly like stepping into a witch’s room from a fairy tale.

“Am I dreaming?”

As I tilted my head and stood up—

Crash!

The mountain of papers surrounding me collapsed onto the floor.

“Ah! What the—?!”

The sensation of countless sheets raining down over my head felt far too real to be a dream.

As I struggled against the blizzard of flying papers, another person’s voice suddenly interrupted.

“…Lady Serphine? What are you doing?”

A man with pink hair peeked his head through the slightly opened door, staring at me as if I’d lost my mind.

Pink hair?

Wait.

Serphine?

Serphine was a character from How to Wake the One Enchanted by Magic—

The very novel I’d just used as a pillow.

It was such an unusual name that I recognized it immediately.

Did he just call me Serphine?

I caught the last sheet of paper drifting through the air and looked around.

There was no one else in the room.

The moment that realization struck, unfamiliar memories flashed through my mind.

A splitting headache exploded inside my skull.

At the same time, Serphine’s memories began flowing into me as though they had always been mine.

“No way…”

That was when I understood.

I had transmigrated into the fantasy romance novel How to Wake the One Enchanted by Magic.

How to Wake the One Enchanted by Magic was a fantasy romance inspired by Sleeping Beauty, and its story went like this.

After winning a long war against monsters, the Arkina Empire built a massive barrier to protect its people from the terrifying creatures beyond.

The heroine, Ramona, was the daughter of the Duke of Silodien—the noble family responsible for guarding the northernmost section of that barrier.

Loved by the people throughout the duchy, Ramona lived a peaceful life—

Until her entire family was suddenly accused of treason.

Overnight, she became a fugitive.

The mastermind behind it all was Empress Dahlia.

The Empress was the Crown Prince’s stepmother.

Her goal was to place her own son, Prince Enoch, on the imperial throne.

When she realized that Ramona, the beloved daughter of the powerful northern duchy, was likely to become the Crown Prince’s future wife, she decided to eliminate her.

She falsely accused Duke Silodien of conspiring through a marriage alliance to overthrow the Crown Prince.

Enraged, the Emperor ordered the execution of the entire Silodien family.

With her enemies seemingly gone, the Empress set an even more terrifying plan into motion.

She decided…

…to poison the Crown Prince.

Secretly, she commissioned a witch from the Magic Tower to brew the poison.

The Crown Prince drank it, collapsed, and never woke up.

It seemed as though the Empress had won.

But that’s where the heroine entered the story.

Having escaped execution, Ramona had disguised herself as a cleaning maid and hidden inside the Magic Tower.

While cleaning, she accidentally discovered the Empress’s written request for the poison.

Only then did she realize that the Crown Prince’s mysterious illness was part of the Empress’s conspiracy.

The truth, which had almost been buried forever, finally came to light.

Being righteous by nature—and unable to abandon her childhood friend—the Crown Prince—

Ramona risked her life infiltrating the Imperial Palace.

Then…

She awakened the sleeping Crown Prince with a kiss of true love.

After saving his life and exposing the Empress’s plot, Ramona was cleared of all charges of treason.

She married the Crown Prince.

And the two lived happily ever after.

Just like the fairy tale that had inspired it, it was a perfectly beautiful happy ending.

So the real problem wasn’t the plot.

It was who I’d transmigrated into.

After receiving the poison she’d commissioned, the Empress murdered the witch who had made it.

She wanted to erase all evidence.

Which meant…

I was that witch.

Serphine Mirabel.

A nameless extra who was used by the villainous Empress—

Then brutally murdered.

That pitiful person… was me.

Of all the people I could have become…

“I seriously transmigrated into a role this awful?!”

I slammed my fist onto the desk in frustration.

Crash!

The carefully stacked tower of documents collapsed all over again.

“Gah!”

The pink-haired man—whose name, according to Serphine’s memories, was probably Eliser—watched me with a conflicted expression before quietly closing the door and leaving.

Left alone in the room, I stared blankly at the papers scattered across the floor.

Why is this happening to me?!

Was heaven punishing me for daring to use a sacred novel as a pillow?

“I didn’t do anything except work my butt off!”

I just wanted to sleep in a comfortable bed with a soft pillow!

Instead…

My life had ended pathetically after falling asleep at my desk during another overtime shift.

I actually died from overwork…

If I’d known this would happen, I wouldn’t have spent every waking hour trapped in the office.

I would’ve traveled overseas.

Eaten at luxurious hotel restaurants.

Actually enjoyed my life.

But it was too late for regrets.

I was already inside the novel How to Wake the One Enchanted by Magic—

Destined to become a minor villain who would soon meet a gruesome death.