TLNTAAM Chapter 1

I Became a Lady's Maid

Looking back now, I really shouldn't have just kept reading.

If I'd known it was real, I would have spent my final hours with a nice clean fairy tale—rabbits making friends with tigers, eating cloud candy in some paradise of dreams and hope—not a TL novel absolutely crammed with scenes on the eve of my surgery.

"Like I was supposed to know it was real......"

There was absolutely nothing to do in the hospital pre-op ward, which meant I was dying of boredom. Then an emergency case pushed back my surgery by half a day. All I did was read a TL novel I'd already paid for with a coupon—one that had been sitting in my backlog forever. Was that really such a terrible sin? Was this what Mom had meant all those years ago, telling me not to read that kind of thing?

'That was because of your height. She said it would stunt your growth.'

I'm well past growing age, so I should get to read whatever I want! Do you know how precious a TL novel with generous scene content is? Maybe not an essential item for the modern commuter packed into sardine-can subway cars, but certainly MSG for the soul—or so I'd thought, before things went like this.

'Calm down. Calm down, Lee Hwayun!'

Adults don't get punished for reading a little spicy content! Use your head! Think!

I took a careful breath and started working through things one at a time.

'Okay. Start with the easy stuff. Where am I, and who am I.'

I looked around slowly. A battered, filthy wagon spread out before me. The interior was narrow, the wood cracked and studded with protruding nails, every available space crammed with cargo.

'Freight wagon, I think?'

No matter how I looked at it, the setup was very much cargo, with person stacked on top. There were seats, technically—but they were bare planks without so much as a scrap of cloth padding.

That was when the wagon lurched violently. Clatter-clatter. My rear end lifted off the seat and came down hard on the wood.

"Ow!"

With no cushioning whatsoever, the impact went straight through. My eyes watered from sheer pain.

After that, the wagon began shaking as if it had been waiting for permission. The vibrations were bad enough that keeping my balance was a genuine effort. I sat alone in the rattling wagon and clutched a bundle of luggage to my chest.

Why was I in this wagon?

'I remember.'

It was still vivid. The child had cried while saying her goodbyes to the priest and her friends. Then she had climbed into this shabby wagon on her own two feet.

What was her name?

'Nina, wasn't it?'

She'd been an orphan, so originally she had no surname. She'd only received one when she became a lady's maid—borrowed from the name of the orphanage.

'She was young, wasn't she?'

I spread open the hand that had been clutching the luggage bundle. A small palm swam into view, no bigger than a maple leaf.

Small and somewhat cute, but rough from hard work.

I murmured the child's name quietly.

"Nina. Nina Cage."

The young maid from the TL novel. The moment her name surfaced, her memories came pouring down like water.

'So she's that kid—not the most perceptive, but incredibly, almost offensively kind. Right.'

What had she done in the novel? The heroine kept crying about wanting to escape from the possessive king, and Nina helped her get out, and then——

"Oh, for crying out loud! She dies!"

Was it beheading? A spear? Fire? Doesn't matter—she definitely died. The heroine cried over losing Nina, the king wiped her tears, then forcibly undressed her and said the charming words you are mine, and——

'Three days and nights, wasn't it? I think?'

That night was the heroine's first time, and the possessive king who refused to let her go? Five stars. An absolute masterpiece.

"Mom, I'm in serious trouble."

Is this really happening? Am I that girl now? The girl who has to die so the leads can build the Great Wall of China together?

Tears ran down my cheeks. The shock was so sudden that even my hands shook. Wait, why am I actually crying. Oh. Because I'm a child. I cried and startled myself.

'Small bodies are soft, I suppose.'

I quietly rubbed my eyes and took a slow breath.

How did it come to this. Why did I become this child.

'Calm down, calm down, Lee Hwayun. First things first—I'm Nina Cage now, right?'

I desperately wanted to deny it, but Nina's memories were sharp and immediate. Her life was short and not particularly eventful, but it was absolutely one full human life.

Nina. A girl. Lost her parents young, raised in a temple-run orphanage, recruited as a poison-tasting maid and sent to Iberia.

Inside that short life, the child had been dangerously, almost stupidly kind.

'Genuinely, offensively kind.'

Scrolling through her life like security footage on fast-forward: she helped with the younger children, gave away her own bread to hungry kids, trusted people easily because she was innocent and cheerful and good. She laughed easily and cried easily and loved the priest and the nuns.

'If she'd been my niece, I would have absolutely adored her.'

And her face matched her heart. Still young, but the platinum hair and red eyes worked beautifully with her delicate features.

'I would have bought a DSLR camera just to post photos of her.'

Beauty that delivers on its promise shows itself early, and Nina showed it. Kind and pretty and loved for it, and taken advantage of for it in equal measure.

"So I guess that's why she died......"

She thought the heroine she was serving was too pitiable, granted her one wish, and was erased for it. Nina's death set the main characters in motion—physically, one event triggering another—but the more important thing was this:

'The heroine forgets Nina.'

A second male lead appears in the back half with overwhelming romantic momentum, and Nina's death gets buried under it. Scene after scene of the romantic payoff, and neither the main characters nor I—the reader—had thought about Nina in quite some time.

'Is this punishment for forgetting her?'

I opened and closed both small hands. Such small hands on such a small child. This girl died before she got to grow up. Died doing something kind, at that.

"This is a nightmare."

I exhaled as I tried to keep my balance in the swaying wagon. Breathing deep did exactly nothing to change anything.

Silence in the wagon. In the brief quiet, I set the luggage bundle down at my feet.

'Actually, wait.'

I had forgotten the most important thing.

"Did I actually die?"

A thin voice touched the wagon wall and scattered. In the broken silence, I turned it over carefully. What was my last memory?

I sorted through my head. The conclusion came quickly. The last memory I had of being an ordinary Korean woman ended in an operating room.

—Anesthetic going in now.

A nurse? A doctor? The voice was low and slightly rough, the tone completely flat. I thought I'd wake up and the surgery would be done.

I hadn't seriously considered the other possibility.

I pressed Nina's small palm lightly against her chest. The child's heart tapped along steadily. Tap-tap. Tap-tap.

That was the area that had hurt Lee Hwayun. The doctor had recommended an ultrasound, and the results showed a heart valve abnormality.

'Was heart valve surgery that dangerous?'

The success rate had been over ninety percent. Which was why it hadn't occurred to me.

'I had plans for the insurance payout and plans to take time off work, but dying wasn't something I'd thought about at all......'

I had been busy preparing for life with a mechanical valve. Researching warfarin precautions. That sort of thing.

What would happen to my apartment if I died. Who would get the deposit on my studio. What would happen to my computer. Ah, I'd just put together a really good graphics card setup for gaming—that's genuinely unfortunate.

'And the Ibis folder was not a small loss......'

Photos of well-built men in there, and sports footage worth watching. If I'd known this was coming, I would have deleted it all.

'Actually, the real culprit might be the TL novel on my phone.'

First thing someone would find when they unlocked it would be Bound Bird sitting right there on screen. Whoever found it—embarrassing. Deeply, personally embarrassing.

"Ha. Hahaha."

At least I had no family, so there wouldn't be many people to grieve. My friends would be sad for a while, but they were all doing well for themselves. It wouldn't last long.

'Such a hollow death.'

I thought I'd been living reasonably hard. And yet here I was, snuffed out just like that.

'I've always been the one to hit the one-in-a-hundred side effect—but dying during surgery is a bit much, don't you think.'

No excessive overwork. No drinking, no smoking. Reasonably healthy. This was almost certainly hospital negligence. And I had no family to sue them.

'Genuinely the worst luck.'

It had been genuinely bad luck to become an orphan the moment I turned twenty and started my first job. And now my death is this anticlimactic too.

'I should have written a will.'

It would have been nice if whatever was left went to school lunch programs for children who needed them. But with no will, some distant relatives would probably divide it up however they felt like.

"How hollow."

If I was going to be reborn anyway, it would have been so nice to start with a silver spoon. Whether this counts as reincarnation or possession I can't say, but why this child. There went my education, my career, and my savings.

'No, wait, Lee Hwayun. Why are you accepting your own death so easily. Nothing's been confirmed yet.'

I could still open my eyes after surgery like everything's fine. This could be a dream! Don't give up.

I smiled without much feeling and tapped the luggage bundle at my feet. It bounced back with unusual firmness, tightly knotted.

I knew exactly what was inside.

'Clothes, a letter of introduction, and her mother's keepsake, wasn't it?'

The bundle Nina had packed while holding back tears as she said goodbye to the orphanage she'd loved.

If my memories were this thoroughly mixed with hers, it couldn't be a dream.

'And Nina's last memory was......'

I looked around the wagon and sighed.

'She was in here, lost her balance, and hit her head hard. That's where it ends.'

So. She hit her head and Lee Hwayun's memories mixed in afterward? What am I now, then? Two personalities fused into some kind of Jekyll and Hyde?

'Wow. Two personalities merged and I'm not even having a breakdown. That's impressive, honestly.'

Not a dissociative disorder? Does this count as something to celebrate? I clapped.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

The sound bounced around the small wagon. I clapped. And the moment I finished, the hollowness was absolute.

What are you doing. Pull yourself together.

I took a breath and looked at the small window cut into the wagon wall. Thin shafts of light sliced through the gaps between cargo—sharp as knife blades.

The light wavered at Nina's throat. Like the child's fate, laid out in advance. I scratched my head and sighed.

"Alright. Let's set aside complicated for now."

Both Lee Hwayun and Nina were simple people. So the current me was simple too.

"Let's live well."

First of all, let's not die.

"Let's stop being so selflessly kind."

Let's not die trying to help the heroine.

"Life isn't that complicated. Eat well, sleep well, and you'll be fine."

The life of a maid was thin ice, but there's a reason they say keep your head and you can survive even a tiger's den. Eight years of working life—that knowledge doesn't disappear. Guide poor sweet Nina toward the land flowing with milk and honey!

"Thrift leads to prosperity, and death is the end of everything!"

Safety first! Don't get killed!

"But I'm not just any maid. I'm a poison-tasting maid."

Poison-tasting maid. That's the one that tastes poison to check for it, right?

'There goes safety first.'

The moment you let yourself hope, reality drops you straight into despair. I genuinely wanted to cry. I picked up the luggage bundle and hugged it to my chest again. Feeling its solid, heavy weight, I caught myself—right. Clutching things when anxious. That was Nina's habit.

'Using a child this small as a poison litmus test—where are the human rights? I genuinely want to go back to Korea.'

The political situation had been dynamic, but it was a good country that had successfully impeached a president! What sin did I commit to end up at the very bottom of the pecking order in a country with no human rights infrastructure?

'I've become a test subject.'

A small maid who eats poison in place of the high and mighty heroine. This is genuinely grim.

'Oh right—there was actually a reason she became a poison-tasting maid.'