Can an Enemy Become Salvation? - Chapter 1

“My lady, ……Nel my lady, Ibnel my lady.”

At the voice calling her name several times, the red eyes that had been absentmindedly staring at the rapidly passing scenery outside the window turned towards the person sitting opposite.

“Are you alright?”

A young girl with a youthful face looked at Ibnel with worried eyes.

Ibnel maintained her silence, her lips still tightly closed. Her expressionless face made it impossible to know what she was thinking.

Seeing this, the maid, Lia, tried to change the atmosphere by deliberately speaking in a lively voice.

“Don’t worry. No matter what anyone says, you are Lady Ibnel, the noble princess of the Istela Duchy in the Aodin Empire. So nothing will happen.”

At that moment, Ibnel’s closed mouth slowly opened. A slightly hoarse voice, as if she hadn’t spoken for a long time, flowed out.

“Do you really think so, Lia?”

“Of course.”

At the confident answer, Ibnel turned her head back towards the window without another word. Then, as if the inside of the carriage was stuffy, she opened the window wide.

Because of this, her platinum blonde hair fluttered in the wind. Seeing the scenery that had changed since they first departed, she muttered in a small voice.

“We’ll arrive at our destination soon.”

At the same time, she thought to herself something that would have made Lia gasp if she had heard it.

‘Then the time of my death must not be far off.’

For some reason, Ibnel asserted her own death.

But incompatible with this, her eyes were indifference itself. As if she had been desperately waiting for that moment.

‘I’m so tired.’

She closed her eyes, leaning deep into the carriage. She just wanted to escape this world, whether it was a dream or an illusion, as soon as possible.

As darkness came to Ibnel with her eyes closed, scenes as vivid as if they were from yesterday flashed through her mind.

All the moments she had lived as Ryu Arang, the shooting athlete, before waking up in this novel.

‘And then I opened my eyes in this nonsensical world.’

Even when she first opened her eyes in Ibnel’s body, bright sunlight was shining on her, just like now.

* * *

Arang’s eyes, wrapped in the bright morning sunlight coming in, slowly opened. She raised her body weakly from the bed.

‘It’s morning again.’

Without much thought, Arang turned her head towards the incoming sunlight, and the sleep that had remained vanished in an instant at the sight of the huge terrace window filling her view.

“What the…?”

Hurriedly looking around, it wasn’t the room she had been in before falling asleep.

“Lady Ibnel, are you awake?”

Before she could figure out what was going on, the door opened and someone entered the room. It was a girl with short brown hair who looked about high school age.

As soon as she saw that face, Arang’s mouth moved on its own.

“Aran?”

“Pardon? What are you suddenly talking about?”

As the person who approached with a puzzled look came closer, disappointment flashed across Arang’s eyes as she looked closely. Although similar in appearance and atmosphere, it wasn’t the person she knew.

‘Of course not. Because in front of my eyes, you…’

Gripping the sheets tightly with her trembling hands, she closed her eyes and tried to calm her mind.

“My lady?”

Barely opening her eyes at the voice calling her, she carefully examined the other person.

The first thing that caught her eye was the clothes she was wearing. It was an outfit that would be worn in medieval Western Europe, in short, something that didn’t fit at all with the 21st century.

“Who…”

“Why are you suddenly asking my name? I’m Lia, the maid who serves you, my lady.”

“Lia?”

Although her ears clearly heard it, nothing was registering in Arang’s mind. The title of ‘my lady’, the word ‘serve’, the name Lia.

Come to think of it, the language coming out of her mouth was also a foreign language she had never heard before. The surprising thing was that she was using it without any sense of unfamiliarity. Like Korean, which she had used since birth.

‘Am I still dreaming? But it’s too vivid for that.’

The warm sunlight shining on her face was clearly telling her it wasn’t a dream.

Arang got up from the bed to assess the situation. Conveniently, there was a large full-length mirror on one side of the room.

“My lady?”

Lia was just puzzled by her behavior, which was different from usual. Meanwhile, Arang, standing in front of the mirror, was speechless at her own appearance.

Platinum blonde hair falling cumbersomely to her waist, red eyes that immediately captured attention.

Add to that skin so pale it seemed blanched, hands clean without a single callus, and a delicate body that looked like it might collapse at any moment – it was all surreal.

‘Who is this person?’

With a glimmer of hope, she reached out to the mirror, and the beautiful woman in the mirror followed, reaching out to meet her hand.

This confirmed it. The unbelievable situation of waking up in this woman’s body had occurred.

“Why have you been acting strange, my lady?”

‘I keep telling you, I’m not your lady.’

Arang was a national shooting representative of South Korea who had swept gold medals in the pistol category at the Olympics that had opened just recently.

Shooting, which she had encountered by chance when she was young, had opened up a new world for her. Neither the deafening noise nor the smell of gunpowder was a problem.

She just instinctively felt that this was her path the moment she first saw it.

As if proving that conviction, Arang’s genius was fully displayed when she started shooting in earnest.

Sweeping medals not only domestically but also in various world competitions, she was selected as a national representative at the age of 18. Even at her first Olympics, she surprised the world with her unwavering skill.

The reason she could maintain composure more than expected even now, when it would be natural to panic, was because of that. Shooting was also a mental battle.

There were times when she had to fire 60 shots in a row, so maintaining composure without wavering in any situation had become a habit and daily life.

Quickly turning the circuits in her head, she thought she needed to get information about the identity of this body and this place.

And the person best suited to provide that information seemed to be the girl named Lia in front of her.

“Where is this?”

“Pardon? It’s the Istela Ducal residence in the capital of the Aodin Empire, of course.”

“Aodin Empire?”

Strangely, that word felt very familiar. From her experience traveling to various countries during her athletic career, it was clear that it wasn’t a place on Earth.

Asking such an out-of-place question made worry slowly bloom on Lia’s face. After hesitating for a moment, she carefully opened her mouth.

“Are you like this because you’re shocked by yesterday’s events?”

‘Yesterday’s events?’

Arang had no idea what yesterday’s events were, but she instinctively sensed that it was an important story related to this body.

So she calmly nodded.

“That’s right. I seem to be confused in my memories because of the shock. So could you tell me again?”

Lia was just bewildered that someone who had been crying and wailing until yesterday was now calmly asking questions. But because it was an event with such an impact, she soon accepted it without doubt.

At the same time, she felt sorry. How shocked must she have been to not even remember properly?

“You were decided to go there at the request of the Karies Empire, weren’t you?”

“Karies Empire?”

“You know that they don’t have a good relationship with the Aodin Empire due to past events.”

Arang had no way of knowing. But strangely, the name Karies, like Aodin, didn’t feel unfamiliar.

However, she couldn’t show that she knew nothing, so she agreed as calmly as possible.

“That’s right.”

“The Karies Empire said something like, if they’re going to show sincerity, they should at least send someone from a noble family with a reputation. As you know, Aodin isn’t in a position to refuse.”

She tried to grasp the situation here with minimal information. Fortunately, Lia didn’t seem to show much suspicion.

“So it was decided that I would go to show that sincerity?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Why me of all people?”

“As you know, the Istela Ducal family is one of the families where ability has been passed down for generations. So Lady Ibnel, the eldest daughter of the ducal family…”

“Wait a moment.”

Arang stopped Lia’s words after hearing only that much. Because as several puzzle pieces fit together, she finally realized the identity of the déjà vu she felt when she first heard the name Aodin.

“I wondered why it sounded so familiar.”

‘It’s the content of a novel that Aran once told me about.’

Aran particularly liked a genre called romance fantasy among novels and sometimes told her stories.

‘At the beginning of the novel, Aodin sent a noble lady from a ducal family, but she ends up being thrown as food for monsters by the emperor of Karies, the male protagonist, and eventually dies. Then they send the corpse back to Aodin. Isn’t it completely satisfying?’

‘Why kill an innocent person?’

‘Just being a person from Aodin is a crime in Karies.’

From Arang’s perspective, it was an incomprehensible part. It just seemed like taking out their anger on the wrong person.

Even if there were such circumstances in the past.

‘But unexpectedly, when a female protagonist who can see the core of monsters appears in Karies…’

‘Stop there. I don’t understand well even if I listen.’

‘Try to have interests other than shooting. Even the books you read are only related to guns.’

Arang’s interests were only related to shooting, so she had listened lightly even then. But thanks to that, she could know who this body was.

Ibnel Istela, who dies horribly by monsters at the beginning of the novel.

Could it be that she opened her eyes in this unbelievable place because she missed Aran so much?

“Are you alright, my lady?”

Lia was just worried about her, who had even fainted upon hearing the news of going to Karies. At that moment, Arang, who had been lost in thought, threw a sharp question.

“But is that really all?”

“Pardon?”

“The reason I’m going there. It seems like there’s another reason.”

“That’s…”

Seeing her unable to continue speaking easily, Arang returned to the bed instead of pressing further.

“I want to rest a bit.”

“What? Yes, please do. I’ll perfectly prepare everything for going to Karies. Don’t worry, I’ll be going with you.”

Left alone after Lia left, she turned her body and gazed blankly at the sunlight shining so brightly it hurt her eyes.

“So I’ll die soon.”

The reason she didn’t care despite knowing she was in a role facing death was simple.

‘I’m alone here anyway, just like before.’

If Arang couldn’t meet her sister Aran again, she didn’t want to change anything particularly.

“Maybe it’s fortunate.”

She wanted to believe more in the slim possibility that if she died here, she might be able to meet Aran then.

‘I miss you so much even now.’

The sense of loss from losing her only family wouldn’t be more painful than dying by that monster called a mabeol. That was the one thing she could be sure of.

Arang, no, Ibnel, who had already lost everything, intended to just let things flow as they were. Even if that meant her own death.