Summer’s face hardened when she saw the person who opened the door and entered.

“Summer. Get up. The sun is already high in the sky.”

The uninvited guest who interrupted Summer was Lady Lindsey.

Lady Lindsey, who recited the same lines every day, was no longer Summer’s kind mother, but merely a doll performing a predetermined role.

Summer now remained silent without even exchanging words. At that, Countess Lindsey spewed out all her scripted words into the air with a beautifully painted smile before leaving the room.

“Hey… Did your mom see a ghost? Or is she sick?”

Fei approached and thumped her tail on the floor. Summer was startled and looked at Fei with a dumbfounded expression.

“What do you mean?”

“That person just now was talking to thin air by herself.”

“Fei… You find that strange too?”

“Of course. What do you take a witch for? Wait, are you crying again?”

“I thought I was going crazy!”

Summer hastily wiped away her tears and spoke in an agitated tone. It was the first time. Someone telling her this world was strange.

Fei looked at Summer with bewildered eyes, then slipped under the desk.

“So what are you going to do? Answer quickly!”

“I want to go back! By any means necessary. Even if it means death!”

“Good.”

“Fei. You absolutely must not abandon me until I return to my original world.”

Summer crawled over and bowed her head deeply before Fei.

Fei thought Summer looked a bit pathetic, and a little pitiful, as she curled her tail into a circle.

“I’ll stay with you until you leave this place, so don’t worry.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s not for you. It’s for this world.”

“Still.”

Summer smiled broadly. She was tearfully grateful just for Fei appearing in this lonely world.

If someone approaches a person fallen into the abyss of despair and gives them a small possibility to escape the quagmire. No matter what it is, it’s human survival instinct to grasp that hand first.

And Summer was not in a leisurely enough state to go against that instinct and reconsider.

“I’m not here because I like you, you know. Hurry up and go back.”

“I will.”

Summer smiled brightly. Perhaps it was because of her dazzling golden hair and blue eyes. Like sunlight shimmering brilliantly as it strikes the sea, Summer’s smile was just as radiant.

Fei turned her back on Summer and lay down, feeling strange.

“By the way, not today. Summer’s soul is missing.”

Fei spoke in a deliberately grumbling tone, curling her body into a ball and swishing her tail gently.

“What do you mean Summer’s soul is missing?”

Summer asked with wide eyes, surprised by Fei’s words.

“It’s complicated to explain everything. Simply put, the soul of Summer that should fill your place when you return is not visible.”

“…”

Fei closed her eyes after speaking in an annoyed tone. It was a bit of a blow to Fei’s pride.

She had boasted to her fellow witches that she would resolve this in 3 months. 3 months, my foot.

After sending out the black-haired soul, Summer’s soul that should fill the empty body was nowhere to be seen.

Souls usually exist like air, so they can be easily captured just by detecting their flow, but this one could not be found at all.

Just as the black-haired soul suddenly appeared breaking the flow. Summer’s soul also disappeared suddenly, breaking the flow.

“Well, it’s not for you to worry about. I’ll take care of it, so you just be prepared.”

“I will.”

“You absolutely must not die before I return.”

At Fei’s instruction, Summer clenched her fists tightly and nodded with a determined face.

Seeing Summer like that, Fei left the mansion, saying she would research the case of the missing soul.

Summer didn’t just sit still either. Ignoring everything that played out their predetermined roles, she explored every corner of the mansion.

The mansion was so perfectly beautiful that it was chilling.

There were always small, cute larks chirping in the mansion, the grass was fresh, and the flowers were splendid.

Not a speck of dust could be seen anywhere, and no shabby parts could be found no matter how hard one looked.

However, perhaps because there were too many empty rooms, or because there were hardly any people compared to the size of the mansion, there was also a somewhat desolate and eerie feeling.

Summer returned to her room after looking around the vast mansion and plopped down on the sofa.

“I need to go outside.”

She didn’t want to die in a place like this, even if she died and came back to life. A place unnaturally perfect. If she died here, it felt like even her death would not be human.

Summer raised her tired body.

A feeling close to a sense of mission suddenly surged up that she had to leave this place as soon as possible. And if there was one place she wanted to go in this world, there was only one.

Summer went to the desk and opened a drawer, taking out a piece of paper.

It was filled with details about the original work, written down as she remembered.

“The novel begins with the male protagonist saving Julieta at the imperial banquet. The beginning of the novel…”

This world is a novel. A somewhat depressing romance fantasy at that.

Something seemed just out of reach yet not quite.

The beginning of the novel.

The current point in time Summer was living in was, if one had to say, before the novel began.

In other words, the world rolling on now would be a kind of background for the novel’s setting.

Summer’s body was created, but there was no soul. And now Summer was filling that empty space.

Summer pulled the bell rope, and Mary entered with a gruff face.

Mary had, at some point, taken on the face of a jaded member of society, rather than the bright and cheerful personality Summer had imagined.

“You called.”

Rather, that aspect reduced the bizarreness Mary had possessed.

In fact, it might just be that she was viewing things more generously now that a way back had appeared.

Summer faced Mary with a slightly more comfortable expression and asked.

“How long until the imperial banquet?”

“Exactly two weeks left.”

“…”

Not much time left. It meant that the setting values for the female and male protagonists were stacking up, almost to completion.

Just before the novel begins. This is a novel. The god and creator of this world is the author.

The existence of everything in here depends entirely on the author’s will.

If that’s really the case.

Suddenly, one hypothesis popped into Summer’s mind.

“Mary. Help me prepare to go out.”

“Yes. Which dress would you like?”

For a moment, Summer recalled the description of Julieta Dudley, the female protagonist in the original work.

Sky blue hair reminiscent of cotton candy, and lovely pink eyes.

“Sky blue, please.”

While Mary went to fetch the dress, Summer gazed at the world that was perfect yet vague, as if painted.

If the author is god, then the god of this place is human. Humans are not perfect, nor are they omniscient and omnipotent.

So there must be gaps in the settings, and it would have been impossible to meticulously describe the aristocratic society from top to bottom.

Thinking that way, it was understandable that Summer’s setting was created but not given life as a character.

Settings are just settings, but characters need to live and move. In other words,

“Then the day Summer’s soul is created,”

The moment the work begins.

It would be the very moment when Summer’s character – a selfish yet innocent aristocratic young lady who grew up wealthy – becomes necessary to describe the grand imperial banquet.

“Young lady. I’ll help you prepare.”

Mary said as she entered with the dress and tools, pulling out the chair at the dressing table.

Summer sat in the chair at the dressing table and faced the mirror.

She saw dazzling golden hair like sunlight and blue eyes like a somewhat gloomy lake.

“So this is what my face looks like.”

Mary tactfully pretended not to hear Summer’s muttering.

Summer’s appearance looking in the mirror was similar to that of a house cat realizing it was not human.

“I’ll help you change first.”

“Huh? Oh. Thank you.”

After putting on the dress with Mary’s help, Summer gazed at the mirror again.

The appearance of Summer that she hadn’t been able to see properly while trembling in fear all this time now properly came into view.

To express her impression, it felt awkward. Both the exotic appearance and the soft skin that seemed to have never experienced hardship in her life.

However, while awkward, it was not frightening. There was no need to fear this world anymore since a way to go from the novel to reality had appeared.

In fact, she had enough composure to smile at Mary.

If Summer’s guess was correct, Summer’s soul would be created in the introduction of the novel.

At that time, Fei would put Summer’s soul into this body, and she herself would return to her original world.

“Young lady. How would you like me to do your hair?”

“…”

“Young lady?”

“Haha…”

Summer burst into laughter as if she had lost her mind, covering her face with both hands. It was because she realized a fact she had almost forgotten.

The day Summer’s soul is created in the original work is the day the current Summer breathes her last. The day she will breathe her last here in order to return to her original world.

If Summer’s guess is correct, that day will be the debutante ball where the original work begins.

The introduction of the work served to lay the groundwork that the female and male protagonists were actually acquainted from long ago.

“Young lady.”

“Damn it.”

Summer cursed fiercely. She had been acting leisurely, talking about how she no longer felt fear despite having received her death date.

Summer had struggled to survive every moment in her original world.

To live, to survive, she rotted for five years in a small room where lying down meant the end.

It was painful and agonizing as if her breath would stop at any moment, but instinctively she endured another day to live.

So death was too distant a word for Summer.

“Mary. Do you know any painless ways to die?”

At Summer’s question, Mary’s hand, which had been trying on different hair ornaments, stopped abruptly.

Summer could not tell what emotion Mary’s expressionless face was revealing.