How to Turn a Kind Savior into an Emperor (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 1

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The world was utterly saturated with contempt and malice directed at Ines. Ines Swenden, a foolish woman trapped in a vast snare, had ruined not only herself but everything around her.

As she reached the place where her husband’s grave lay, a light drizzle began to fall. Finding a place she had only heard of in words and never visited before was no easy task.

After passing three hills lined densely with tombs and walking along a drainage ditch, she finally found her husband’s gravestone. The gentle rain that had been falling steadily now poured down hard enough to soak her entire body.

He had once been someone she loved dearly, yet no tears came before his grave. Having no means even to buy a single flower, she offered herself before his tomb as though she were a blossom.

Joseph Bunoa, 322–349. Even the resentment lingering in his eyes now sleeps here.

Ines painfully lifted her head to look at her husband’s gravestone. Her face was far too gentle to belong to the infamous seductress who had callously murdered her husband and kept multiple lovers.

“Is this resentment directed at me, Joseph?”

The name she had uttered dozens of times a day ten years ago now caught in her throat, mangled beyond clear pronunciation. She gently traced the name “Joseph Bunoa” with her fingers.

The wedding ring returned to her by the prison guard spun loosely on her finger. When he had proposed to her, he was twenty-five and she was twenty. They married the following year—and he died the year after that.

“Did I really kill you?”

Ines slowly leaned her body against his headstone. She hadn’t expected warmth, yet the stone, drenched by cold rain, felt suddenly and chillingly icy.

“The whole world says I killed you. Since everyone claims it’s true, I don’t even know anymore. I can no longer trust myself, Joseph. Is the place where you are a little warmer?”

Though she knew she’d never receive an answer, she resented her silent husband. What exactly had happened to him that day? Ines hadn’t even seen her husband’s body.

Before coming here, Ines had gone to the Swenden estate—the home that had been her sanctuary ten years ago, where her beloved family once lived happily. There, she met Susan, formerly a maid, and heard stories so unbelievable they defied comprehension.

Her mother’s death, the consolidation of Landhill, the confiscated title, and her father’s suicide…

How could the Swenden family’s title, held for over three centuries, possibly pass to a commoner like Bunoa? Did you truly have a twin brother?

Overwhelmed by thoughts she couldn’t sort out, Ines tilted her head toward the sky—she couldn’t breathe otherwise.

Her body trembled uncontrollably. As she stared up at the heavily overcast sky showing no sign of clearing, a hallucination echoed in her ears.

“To someone as beautiful and noble as Lady Ines Swenden, this humble and lowly Joseph Bunoa now… dares to propose.”

From her one ear, damaged by years of prison collisions until it barely heard, Joseph’s voice rang like tinnitus. She remembered his neat, shy face as he timidly asked for her hand in marriage.

Yet her drenched, shivering body denied her even the strength to despair or rage.

As the sun began to set, Ines rose from her place and moved toward the house she once shared with Joseph. Though filled with dreadful memories, she had nowhere else to rest that night.

After passing through the familiar marketplace and walking a long while down a quiet road, she would reach the place that had once been their home. Of course, after ten years, there was no guarantee it hadn’t passed into someone else’s hands.

The streets hadn’t changed as much as she’d expected. The familiar scenery, unchanged despite the long years, only deepened her sorrow.

Dragging her injured leg from four years ago, she eventually spotted her old house in the distance. Though nothing was certain, Ines summoned every ounce of strength she had—when suddenly, an unbelievable voice reached her ears.

“Hey, number 4568.”

Convinced she must be trapped in a nightmare by that familiar, giggling voice,

“It’s really you. They said I’d find you if I came here.”

Jemern Winingstone—he was the guard who had obsessively fixated on Ines during her ten years imprisoned in Romfield. Turning stiffly with a creaking motion, she saw him standing there with a cruel smile.

Ines froze in place, unable even to scream. Trained fear made her shiver reflexively. In an instant, strong hands seized her shoulders and shoved her hard against the house door.

“Didn’t I tell you? You can’t escape me.”

A damp sigh escaped him, sending chills down her entire body.

“Seeing you without your prison uniform… I might just lose my mind.”

Jemern grabbed the doorknob to drag Ines inside. The door creaked open with a dull thud, and she collapsed onto the floor.

Her left ankle, broken by him four years prior, flared with sharp pain. Seeing this, he laughed like a demon.

“Not curious who told me?”

“……”

“Who else? Your dead husband.”

As he spoke, Jemern reached for Ines again—but she quickly rolled her body away, escaping his grasp.

He smirked as if amused, but Ines clenched her teeth. This wasn’t Romfield, where fleeing from Jemern would be useless.

Glancing around, she spotted a fire poker lying haphazardly on the floor. She snatched it up and swung it wildly.

“Aaah!”

Leaving his scream behind, she dashed out through the still-open door. The rain had grown heavier, turning the ground entirely to mud.

When she reached the bustling street, Ines looked around frantically—but the swiftly moving carriages forced her to pause momentarily in place.

As she wiped the rain from her eyes, her vision clearing, she saw a familiar figure standing across the street.

“Joseph?”

Was this a desperate hallucination she’d conjured? No, that couldn’t be. Though she’d seen illusions before, this was no mere fantasy.

“Joseph.”

Her voice couldn’t possibly reach him from where he stood, yet the man’s gaze shifted precisely to where she was.

In that moment, Ines knew with certainty—he hadn’t come to catch her, but he had been watching her the entire time she fled.

Trending

“Joseph!”

When Ines called his name with all her strength, he quickly turned and began running away, hiding his face. She tried to chase him, but her injured leg made it impossible. He headed toward the busier marketplace.

Joseph kept glancing back to check how far she’d followed. Seeing her struggle to walk properly, he let out a quiet, mocking laugh. Meeting his scorn, Ines felt a chill run through her and stopped dead in her tracks.

Her legs refused to move, as if stuck in a swamp. If a god truly existed, He should never treat her so cruelly.

“Move! Get out of the way!”

At that moment, a stranger’s shout rang out amid the roaring commotion.

Their eyes met—Joseph no longer tried to hide himself and fixed his gaze squarely on her. With his head held high, he sneered—

Just as she thought that, a thud sounded, and Ines’s body flew into the air.

Startled by women’s sharp screams, the horse collided with the carriage and trampled Ines’s fallen body repeatedly. Darkness closed in around her, and her vision narrowed steadily.

In that dying moment, absurdly, Ines recalled a verse from the scripture she’d clung to like her very life:

〈If someone offers you their hand and asks to walk ten steps with you, give them everything you have.〉

Feeling warm blood seep from the back of her head, Ines slowly opened and closed her eyes.

〈But those who desire too much shall return empty-handed.〉

And then she saw him—

Joseph Bunoa, standing among a crowd of horrified onlookers, smiling as he watched her die.

Ines slowly regained consciousness and realized she hadn’t died.

“Why won’t this fever break?”

Yet she must still be dreaming—otherwise, she could never hear that voice again.

“I’m really upset. In all this rain, where on earth have you been wandering?”

Still unable to open her eyes, Ines reached out and gently grasped the hand touching her forehead. Even in a dream, its warmth felt vividly real.

“Mother…”

Was God taking pity on her, the one He’d once punished so harshly? Beneath her palm, she clearly felt her mother’s hand.

Her mother had passed away the year after Ines was imprisoned. Did that mean she was now in heaven with her?

Since her husband’s death, Ines had never once had such a sweet dream. In fact, not a single day had passed without her reliving the nightmare of that courtroom.

She longed to see her mother’s face but feared it would vanish if she opened her eyes, so she squeezed her shut even tighter.

“What’s there to cry about when you’ve done nothing wrong?”

“Mmm… I was wrong. I was so wrong. Please forgive me.”

No matter how many times she’d begged for forgiveness over the years, Ines always felt she needed to ask just a little more.

“You wouldn’t understand. Don’t cry—it’ll keep your fever from breaking. I’d better go fetch some lukewarm water.”

As soon as those words left her mother’s mouth, her hand slipped swiftly from beneath Ines’s grasp. Ines jolted her eyes open in surprise, but her mother was already standing and walking toward the door.

“Mother?”

“Don’t get up. I’ll be right back.”

‘No, don’t go! Mother, please stay! Your face… just once, let me see your face.’

Her throat felt clamped shut, words refusing to come out. Desperate to stop her mother, Ines nearly leapt from the bed and planted her feet on the floor—and in that instant, she realized sharply:

Everything she was experiencing was utterly real.

The searing pain that used to tear through her ankle every time she stepped on the ground was completely gone. Startled, Ines halted her pursuit of her mother and looked down at her feet.

Unblemished and white, they filled her vision entirely. Overwhelmed by disbelief, she closed her eyes briefly.

Placing both feet firmly on the floor and standing upright, she consciously lowered her heels—and they touched the ground without issue. The familiar, soft texture of the rug beneath her feet made Ines’s eyes widen involuntarily.

‘How on earth is this possible?’

Just then, the door her mother had exited through opened again, and a maid entered.

“Miss! Why are you out of bed?”

“Susan…?”

“Oh dear, you still don’t look well. Please get back into bed right away—it’s time for your medicine.”

Ines stared at Susan’s youthful face. Just hours earlier, the Susan she’d met had clearly been a woman well past thirty.

Suddenly, Ines turned toward the fireplace. Above any noble family’s hearth hung their crest without fail. At the sight of that emblem, dizziness overwhelmed her, and she sank onto the bedsheet.

“Miss, are you alright?”

Alarmed, Susan hurried over, but Ines raised a hand to stop her. Then she looked again at the family crest.

Had she gone mad? Had she truly lost her mind like Léna?

Léna Marier was a woman who always giggled with eerie “kukuku” and “kikiki” sounds. She would sit facing the prison wall, muttering meaningless words.

If Ines hadn’t truly gone mad like Léna, how else could any of this be possible?

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Yet everything before her eyes felt more vividly real than ever before.

The willow crest, her living mother, Susan grown young again, and her painless ankle—

The meaning of these clear signs was unmistakable.

“Susan… how old are you now?”

“You’re the same age as me, Miss—how could you not know? I’m twenty now.”

Ines Bunoa—no, Ines Swenden—had returned to her own home twelve years in the past.

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