Chapter 2
“…Huh? This feels like such a familiar setup. It sounds like something straight out of a romance novel!”
“I thought you’d like it.”
Meeting her sparkling eyes, Max let out a small chuckle.
Why is my heart racing?
As she widened her eyes with interest at the romance-novel-like development, Max continued explaining.
“According to the newspaper, Blake LeBlanc discovered that the young lady he had a crush on had fallen for someone else. To avoid getting in their way, he left alone for the battlefield.”
Well, why a witch newspaper was reporting human news in the first place was beyond him.
Vivian ignored that part entirely.
“S-So what happened afterward?”
“How should I know? I don’t care. The newspaper didn’t say.”
“…Max.”
At the low voice calling his name, Max shivered.
“Do you know what makes people the angriest?”
“What?”
“Stopping in the middle of a story! No, seriously, what happened after that?! This is driving me crazy!”
Vivian pounded her chest dramatically before slumping back into her chair in disappointment.
Her soft hair, a blend of red and pink, fluttered through the air and dragged across the floor.
“Your hair is sweeping the floor like a broom. And I didn’t clean this room today.”
“Blake LeBlanc… Why does that name sound so familiar?”
“Probably because you just heard he was the protagonist of a juicy romance story.”
“No. I really think I’ve heard it somewhere before.”
Although a long time had passed, she was certain she’d heard the name before.
A name she’d likely encountered in one of the countless romance novels she’d devoured in her previous life.
“Hmmmm…”
As she held her head and dug through her memories—
Boom!
A colorful firework burst across the black night sky.
Seeing it, Max hurried over to the window.
“Oh. Looks like that little witch who lives nearby came to visit. She fired a doorbell firework.”
“…Ah, who was it again?”
“The little witch, Annie. Annie, one of the few witches living in the West. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”
“Ughhh…”
“Honestly, Vivian! You’re supposed to be the representative witch of the West. How can one of the four witches representing the cardinal directions not know a witch living in her own territory?”
To escape Max’s lecture, Vivian rose to her feet.
Covering one ear with a hand while clutching the newspaper in the other, she teleported straight into the garden.
She could hear Max shouting, asking where she was running off to this time, but she ignored him.
“Honestly, he’s getting old.”
It had already been 250 years since she’d found and raised the baby dragon whose mother abandoned it because its wings were damaged.
She never expected him to become such a nag.
“Open sesame.”
With a meaningless incantation and a snap of her fingers, the fountain in the garden split apart.
A staircase appeared beneath it.
Vivian slowly descended.
Because she had never been able to figure out which novel she’d transmigrated into, she always paid close attention whenever newspapers printed special reports about the human world.
Flopping down onto a sofa hidden within the secret chamber, she unfolded the newspaper again.
Blake LeBlanc.
Just as Max had said, he was an impressive man.
“I knew I’d find you here.”
The basement door creaked open.
Max entered while holding the hand of a small child.
The little witch Annie, with orange hair and freckles dotting her face, removed her pointed witch hat and bowed deeply.
“Hello, Lady Vivian! I’m Annie! You said you’d show me the basement before, so I came!”
“Hello, Annie. Feel free to look around.”
“W-Wowww…! So this is the basement of Vivian, the Great Witch of the West!”
Gold and jewels sparkled so brightly they hurt the eyes.
Around them lay all sorts of sinister magical artifacts.
Of course, everything was piled together in complete chaos.
“So many amazing things!”
Chuckling at her adorable reaction, Vivian shrugged.
“These are treasures I’ve collected over three hundred years. Be careful. Honestly, some of them were things I picked up randomly, so even I don’t know what they do.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Answering with a crisp salute, Annie quickly became absorbed in the basement’s countless oddities.
Meanwhile, Vivian buried her face in the newspaper again and stared at Blake’s photograph as if she might crawl inside it.
Silver hair as clear and brilliant as stars scattered across the night sky.
Purple eyes that seemed to glow.
A face so perfect it was impossible to forget.
He really is handsome.
Even now, she couldn’t deny it.
Perhaps saying he rivaled the beauty of the dragon race itself would be enough to explain.
“You’re still looking at that human man? Apparently he’s famous, but I’ve heard his personality is worse than a Black Dragon’s.”
“Worse than a Black Dragon’s? How is that possible? Do you know how awful those guys are?”
“Exactly. Apparently it’s because of a curse that prevents him from sleeping. But still, just how terrible can someone be?”
“Max. Where did you learn a word like ‘terrible’?”
“From you.”
“Sorry.”
A human with a personality worse than a Black Dragon.
As she clicked her tongue, a thought suddenly flashed through her mind.
Wait.
The unrivaled champion of personality disasters.
A walking fountain of insults who accumulated bad karma every time he opened his mouth.
The heir of the most powerful family in the Empire, feared by all.
Yet a hopeless romantic known to care for no one except his first love.
And—
The man who suffered through life under a curse that robbed him of sleep!
The newspaper slipped from her hands.
Her trembling eyes widened.
Then she shouted.
“My Lovely Savior! That was the title!”
My Lovely Savior.
The story of Leah, a kind and gentle heroine, who becomes childhood friends with Ian, a discarded imperial prince, and ultimately saves him.
And Blake, their childhood friend and the heroine’s second male lead, also appears in the novel!
“That’s right! Blake LeBlanc was the villain in the story!”
If she remembered correctly—
Blake, caught between love and friendship, eventually lost his way and made a terrible choice.
Hmm… Was it because he wanted the heroine for himself?
The details didn’t matter.
What mattered was that—
In the end, unable to abandon a friendship that meant as much to him as love itself…
He saved the two protagonists and died.
It had been such a tragic ending that readers filled the comment sections with emotional outrage.
“The poor second male lead who suffered because of that curse… Why didn’t I remember this sooner?”
“Huh? What are you talking about? Annie, don’t touch that!”
Max frowned at Vivian’s nonsense, only to suddenly notice a shelf collapsing.
The contents came crashing down.
“Ah-choo! Cough, cough!”
“Annie! Put that down! That’s a potion that turns people into frogs!”
The already chaotic basement became even more chaotic.
“I finally figured out what original story I’m in! I’m so moved I could cry!”
“That’s not emotion—it’s dust! Achoo! Annie, stop!”
“Wow! What’s this old papyrus scroll?”
Holding a tattered ancient scroll she’d somehow discovered, Annie bounced excitedly.
“Uh… Even I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before. It must’ve been shoved away a very long time ago.”
“Then let’s open it!”
Even as Annie dramatically unfurled the papyrus, Vivian remained lost in her excitement.
After all, a mystery that had bothered her for three hundred years had finally been solved.
Then suddenly—
Wait.
Were there witches in that novel?
The worldbuilding seemed much larger than she’d remembered.
Still, that wasn’t important.
Right now—
If only there were a portal so I could go see the original story for myself!
Since she couldn’t travel to the human world, perhaps she should ask Laura to include more human news in the newspaper.
That was what she was thinking when—
“Whoa!”
A brilliant white flash erupted beside her.
She watched in slow motion as Annie dropped the violently vibrating papyrus.
“…Huh?”
A purple magic circle burst from the scroll and flew straight toward her.
A magic circle?
Everything happened too quickly to process.
An intense flash bright enough to burn her vision swallowed the room.
“Lady Vivian!”
“Oh no! What do we do?!”
Max’s green eyes were filled with horror.
His hand stretched desperately toward her, trying to grab her.
But that was the last thing she saw before everything went black.
And when she opened her eyes again…
“Hahaha. I heard Blake LeBlanc is attending tonight’s banquet.”
“That Blake LeBlanc? Why would he come here?”
“Why else? This banquet is celebrating Lady Leah Everett’s birthday. Everyone knows about Lord LeBlanc’s unrequited love.”
“Even so, it’s unsettling. The LeBlanc family gives me chills.”
“Shh! Are you trying to get yourself killed? If someone hears you, Lord LeBlanc might make you disappear without a trace.”
…What?
A banquet? Blake LeBlanc?
Elegant waltz music echoed in a steady rhythm.
Beyond a massive glass door, men and women dressed in glittering gowns and tuxedos danced beneath dazzling lights.
“W-Wait…?”
Her frozen brain slowly began functioning again.
Dong. Dong.
As the bells rang to welcome the New Year on January 1st, Vivian finally understood the situation.
Her eyes widened in shock.
This place…
“Don’t tell me… this is the human world?!”
