Chapter 3

When the child opened her eyes and woke up, Violet’s face was immediately seen.

“…!”

“Hi. Did you sleep well?”

“…Yes.”

“Did you sleep well while hugging this teddy bear tight? I’ll give you this doll as a gift.”

“….Ah, i-it’s okay though.”

Looking at the pink teddy bear, the child flinched in surprise and quickly refused, but Violet even kindly put it in a small bag.

‘What is she doing now?’

The child glanced at Violet.

‘Don’t tell me… Is she packing it?’

Violet stroked the child’s head.

“It’s okay. It’s a doll that I used to cherish, but it suits you better. You guys look like sisters because of the pink fur, you know.”

‘Just where in the world is there a person who is sisters with a teddy bear…!?’

The child gulped as she thought so.

Come to think of it, the novel…

In that tragedy novel, the female lead never gave the teddy bear to anyone.

‘Then it must not be that novel!’

The child tried hard to deny reality, but…

“Now. We’ll go to your house.”

At those words, which exposed the existence of a ‘house’ for a beggar child who had nowhere to go, the child felt that she could no longer avoid fate.

‘I’m doomed.’

It would be rather great if the Earth exploded right away.

***

The place where Violet secretly arrived while holding the anxious child’s hand, was the Duke of Eston’s mansion.

In the greenhouse, there was the Duke and Duchess of Eston, Adrian, and Adrian’s twin younger brothers.

Every day at this time, this family often liked to talk here.

‘I’m glad I came on time.’

As Violet thought so, she entered the drawing room.

“Greetings, Your Excellency the Duke, and the Duchess.”

“It’s nice to see you, Violet. Come quickly and sit down.”

“Welcome.”

“Violet!”

The Duchy married couple and Adrian greeted her warmly.

Ahem. Ahem. 

After coughing, Violet said.

“Actually… There is one more guest today besides me.”

At Violet’s words, the Duke of Eston Family people’s gaze gathered.

“What are you talking about, Violet?”

When Adrian asked, Violet smiled softly.

She beckoned the maid who came with her.

Violet let the child who was in the maid’s arms be put down in front of her.

She then took off the black hood that the child was wearing.

“…!”

The Duke of Eston Family’s expressions distorted.

The hair of the child, who was wearing a hood, was bright pink, and her eyes were sky blue.

In addition, the child’s appearance was very similar to the Duchess.

“Violet, now, what are you…!”

“You may be flustered, but what you are assuming is true. This is a certificate of the blood ties between Adrian and this child. Through the temple, I received it this morning .”

“….”

At the sudden remark, Duke Eston approached with a serious look and received the documents.

He quickly checked the last page.

“T-this, just what is…”

The Duke’s hand, which was holding the document, trembled. The Duchess’ shoulders, who was watching from behind, also began to tremble.

“H-Honey… r-really…”

The Duchess was about to collapse at any moment.

The Duke looked at the child Violet brought with confused eyes.

“Violet, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but I’ll have to do another test.”

“Of course.”

It was then.

“Mother!”

“Mother!”

Srrk.

The Duchess slipped down from her chair. Adrian quickly supported her, and his two younger brothers also ran to their mother.

“Wife!”

Duke Eston shouted as he ran to his wife with a surprised face.

“Call a doctor right now!”

In this chaotic situation, the child stared at one boy, blankly blinking.

One could tell just by looking at him that he was a handsome boy. His appearance was so fine to the point that she was enchanted.

She could even see the illusion of a sparkling light floating next to his face.

It’s so blinding!

The child gulped.

‘Adrian Eston….’

Now she couldn’t deny it anymore.

This place was the world inside the novel [Ending of the Eternal Flame] which she read in her previous life.

And that novel… was a terrible tragedy novel that was bound to a tremendous ending.

***

The [Ending of the Eternal Flame] was a novel that gave one great shock with an unconventional ending.

The female lead of the novel was Violet Fitz. She was a lovely, brown-haired Lady of a Count Family.

And the male lead was Zerkan Ferdenia. He was the Imperial Crown Prince of this country.

Finally, the second male lead was Adrian Eston, the eldest son of the Duke of Eston.

The character which she, who was the child’s past life, most cherished was Eston.

The novel starts from the childhood of the main characters. When they were young, the three were close friends.

‘Even until then, I thought it was a bright and warm novel…’

And then, one day.

Violet walks around the slums and discovers a pink-haired child.

She felt something weird and took the kid, but…

The child was the child of the Duke of Eston Family who was said to have died.

No one knew. But, on the day the Duchess gave birth, a maid of the Duchy secretly gave birth.

‘Unfortunately, the maid’s child died as soon as it was born. However…’

In truth, the child’s birth father was Viscount Beryl.

Coincidentally, both children had pink hair.

The maid thought as soon as she saw the sky blue eyes of the baby whom the Duchess gave birth to.

‘I can fool him by saying that the baby is Viscount Beryl’s child!’

After the maid set fire to the mansion’s separate house and caused a disturbance, she succeeded in replacing the child.

It was possible because the Duke’s mansion was in a very busy situation.

Anyway, the dead child she gave birth to was, as expected, born with pink hair, and since the Duchess’ child was born particularly small, she thought it would not be suspicious.

Moreover, there was no one who knew that the maid had given birth. It was a perfect crime without any doubt. Of course. Since the maid was secretly receiving the help of prohibition magic.

The maid handed over the child to Viscount Beryl, and received a large sum of money in return for leaving without telling the truth. And then she left the capital right away.

Anyway, Violet returned the child which the Duke of Eston Family thought was dead, and…

Because Adrian considered Violet, who saved his family, no different as the savior of his life, he deeply loved her.

‘It was definitely a family healing novel up to here…’

After that, the atmosphere began to change rapidly.

Violet, Zerkan, and Adrian, all three left for the Academy to learn magic and magic swordsmanship, but…

In that same period of time, there was a war with magical beasts on the continent.

All kinds of magical beasts began to pour out of the gap in the black dimension that appeared one day.

People called it the ‘End’s Crack’.

‘But that word also came out in the game that I played before….’

Although she didn’t know whether it was quoted by the original author or just a coincidence, the game she had played also had a similar concept.

Anyway, that’s how the war against the magical beasts broke out, and even the main characters who attended the academy got involved in the battle.

Years later.

Magicians and knights who were dispatched from the Imperial Palace, Holy Knights and priests who were dispatched from the temple, and senior magicians of the academy who were now adults, gathered and worked together and succeeded in eliminating the ‘End’s Crack’.

Peace had come to the world again.

After returning to the Capital, the male lead, Zerkan would continue to inherit his throne and had decided to do a contract marriage with the female lead, Violet.

Since the two were close friends, he thought it was a lot better than marrying a woman whom he didn’t know.

‘But that part was surely the problem.’

Adrian, who finds out that his two friends were married, fell into despair.

Marriage of a friend who was more precious than his life and it was even with the woman he loved.

The contract that went back and forth behind the marriage was a secret that even Adrian didn’t know.

Adrian smiled on the outside and blessed the two, but… his mind was dark.

Eventually, Adrian decided to leave for the two people.

Adrian took his own life after leaving on the pretext of traveling around the world to his family and friends.

‘That scene was really shocking though….’

Adrian was literally the second male lead trope’s embodiment.

He was warm, considerate, sweet, and…

Regardless of what novel or drama she watched, it was enough to capture her heart, who was suffering from a second male lead syndrome.

That was why she shed tears at the scene of Adrian’s death.

Is the author crazy? Do you have to kill him? Are you a psychopath?

She was so upset that she left a comment blaming the writer.

But that wasn’t the end.

‘If the male lead and the female lead lived happily ever after, it would just have been sad and that was the end, however…’

Unfortunately, after Adrian left, Violet realized that the person she really loved was Adrian.

At the same time, a tragic accident happened to the male lead, Zerkan…

It was the death of his mother, the Empress.

In fact, Zerkan’s mother had been terminally ill since a long time ago, but she kept her life waiting for Zerkan to return, before finally dying in the end.

After that, Zerkan began to become unstable little by little.

His mother whom he thought was the only safe place died, and he felt that he was left alone in the world.

In the meantime, when he found out that even the female lead was trying to leave him, he began to cling to the female lead like crazy.

It wasn’t love, it was obsession.

His friend Adrian died, and his mother died.

For Zerkan, there was only Violet now.

Violet tried to avoid and escape his obsession, but soon Zerkan confined her.

In the tragic situation, even Violet took her own life.

And even Zerkan, who was left alone, died. In order to follow and catch her, he took his own life, the very same way Violet did.

‘To think that the author killed all three main characters.’

You might have thought it was over here, but the story still continued.

After Zerkan’s death, the lout Prince, who was the Second Prince, ascended the throne.

And the Second Prince screwed up the Empire very coolly.

The Empire, which was occupied by the alliance of neighboring countries due to an incompetent Emperor, gradually walked the path of destruction.

‘It doesn’t even have enough main characters anymore, and the author still killed them all, it’s very…’

For a long time after she saw the ending, she was spaced out as if her soul flew out of her body.

If she could, she wanted to grab the author by the collar and shake them.

‘What are you going to do about my mentality!!?’

She wanted a warm novel full of dreams and hopes, but what should she do if the author killed them all!?

‘You should’ve told me from the beginning that it was a tragedy novel! You said it was a healing story! You said it was a healing story!’

Just like the title, the [Ending of the Eternal Flame] literally showed a flame-like ending.

Since the author burned it all down.

She, whose reality was not even close, suffered from depression for a while after that.

However…

‘Out of all the novels, just why does it have to be that novel…’

She was happy to see her favorite character in front of her eyes, but she had mixed feelings since she knew the future.

The child couldn’t even deny reality now. She just sat blankly in Violet’s arms and hit her head.

At the same time, she glanced at Adrian little by little.