Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I understood that a person like my boss who didn’t have a speck of interest in animals wouldn’t do well in this line of work, but that didn’t give him an excuse to take his anger out on me.

Those kinds of people didn’t care how much I love animals and how friendly I was with them.

Though I had started working as a part time zookeeper during high school, thus amassing the most work experience than any other worker around, my image couldn’t go beyond, “the kid who couldn’t go to college and is stuck working at a small zoo.”

“……Ah, how nice it’d be to just live comfortably with you guys.”

Since after work, there wasn’t another place I had to go next or someone I could wait for.

With a can of beer in my hand, I staggered to the lake in the middle of the zoo.

T/N: do not do this at home. Do not drink a beer by yourself next to things that could harm u. Like a knife. Or a lake. Plushies are okay.

“Guys, Mom’s here!”

The only children who really welcomed me were the zoo animals I took care of myself.

I forced a smile on my face as I stroked the shell of an elderly turtle.

So, you think you know everything!

At the time I laughed as if those words had been spoken as a joke, but now I only felt overwhelming sorrow.

“Aww, can you tell just by looking at me? Ah no……do you know, sir?”

“……” (old sir turtle)

The person who came up with the phrase that turtles’ eyes were like those of deer had probably never actually seen the eyes of a turtle.

As I kept gazing at the beautiful black eyes, I became enchanted with them, and my heart melted away.

Looking at them was enough for the words piled up in my heart to spill out.

“I want to live the rest of my life without having to think about job contracts and such. I just want to look at you pretty ones……”

I wanted to throw all my worries away, and have a happy life raising animals.

Head filled with dreams, I sat down and hugged my knees to my chest, blinking away tears.

“I’d be so happy if I could just jump into a novel.”

I wanted to try living leisurely, like that swan floating in the lake over there.

Well then, there was only one decision I could make to try to make this happen in reality.

“……Let’s buy a lottery ticket.”

Hahhhh!

I put my hands on my knees and got up to leave, but stumbled as I felt the world spin.

What’s going on. I didn’t even drink that much……

I suddenly felt sick in the stomach and my steps staggered.

And so one step, two steps, and so on, continued in the direction of the deep blue lake, until.

Splash!

And that’s how my life ended.

I’d said I wanted to fall into a novel, but who knew I’d fall into a lake!

T/N: ok but why is there a lake like that in the middle of a small zoo in the first place…

All the animals on the shore of the lake flocked toward me, but I couldn’t even let out a scream from my mouth.

Their black eyes watched the sight of me struggling to breathe as I drowned.

“Glub, gl-glub!”

In the novels I’d read, it was a given to pay back kindness with a good deed, but there was no such thing for these guys.

For over ten years, I’d fed them and brushed their fur, but they just sat there with blank expressions as if they were looking at a stranger.

Maybe it was just an illusion, but I thought I saw a few of them smirk.

T/N: no, it was just you. Leave the poor animals alone. U didnt train them to save u from drowning. So stop it. Train the animals better in ur next life.

……You guys.

The last memory of my life ended there, and I made a final decision.

If this older sister of yours survives this……

You’re all dead meat.

◇ ◆ ◇

And with that, I opened my eyes again.

I might have had an insignificant life, but does it make sense to die in an artificial lake at a zoo!

As soon as I managed to hold onto a thought in my hazy mind, a breath burst out of my originally blocked throat.

“Hua!”

But the me who had been reborn was no longer a temporary zoo worker in South Korea.

I’d won the very lottery I’d so badly wished for.

“……Holy shit.”

Is this what they call transmigration, that “famous” transmigration experience?

Black hair that glowed with a dark bluish hue and a pair of mysterious purple eyes.

Cheeks white like snow and full, crimson lips.

There wasn’t really a way to describe this body’s jaw-dropping beauty.

After I saw my looks in the mirror, I kept staring for so long that bruises could’ve appeared on my face.

But when I woke up and noticed my different appearance, I reacted differently than most novel characters in the transmigration stories I’d read about. I didn’t scream or slap a maid in shock or confusion.

I mean, why would I?

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I’d always dreamed of this, so now I only wanted to enjoy the time I had in the novel as much as possible.

Would I marry a cold-hearted duke and end up melting his heart, or would I be running away from a crown prince who was obsessed with me? Or if not that then maybe I’d become the disciple of an archmagician and overthrow the world.

A list of exhilarating options from storylines flowed through my head.

“Ok, let’s do this.”

Wondering what I should do for my first step as a transmigrator, I clapped my hands in glee, full of anticipation.

I was motivated, but there was one problem left. I didn’t know which novel I woke up in.

◇ ◆ ◇

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An hour after transmigrating,

“……Hahh.”

What was I expecting?

If I had good luck in the first place, I wouldn’t have died so ridiculously in an artificial pool.

But no matter how bad my luck is, this was still a little too much.

Others read a lot of books and become judges and doctors, but I read too many books and was still in a situation where I didn’t know who I was.

‘’What character could it be. A princess? Villainess? “

They said even a dog could recite a poem if it spent three years in school, and I’d read at least a thousand transmigration novels. Eventually, as long as I read the first couple pages of the book, it was easy to predict how the protagonist’s life was going to turn out.

T/N: 서당 개 3년이면 풍월을 읊는다: a dog could recite a poem if it spent three years in school. It’s similar to the lesson that experience is the best teacher.

Like who the protagonist would meet, what kind of hidden power they had, etc, they would all pour out like fortune telling.

But I still couldn’t recognize the story I was in.

“Ugh! I didn’t even have that much money but I bought all those books!”

It was obvious that i felt like I could do anything with this body’s stellar beauty, but the characters that were most commonly used as stepping stones in romance-fantasy novels were the good looking ones.

So with this sort of unfamiliar character setting, I continued to find out more about my situation.

Wait a second.

I flipped over my hands and looked at them, and checked every inch of my entire body for a possible unique body characteristic.

But no matter how diligently I looked over my body and face, there was nothing I could find in the mirror’s reflection.

“Hahh…how is it possible to be this pretty.”

I removed the black dress I had been wearing, revealing a pale-skinned figure that stood out even more.

I’d have liked to wear a slightly more elegant and brightly colored dress than the fine quality, yet modest, one I had on.

Or it sort of seemed like a mourning attire, if it was okay to say that……

“……Haha.”

No, probably not.

No matter how unlucky I am, I can’t possibly be unlucky enough to be a widow.

Though there were tales of evil spirits that brought misfortune with them wherever they went, I wasn’t in South Korea any longer, so my luck wouldn’t be too horrible.

‘Right. Let’s treat this as an escape room and look for clues! I can even play it for free!’

With the most positive attitude I could muster, I looked around the majestic room I had woken up in. There was a chandelier, bed, and wardrobe, all three of them large and imposing.

I wondered if I could get any hints by the clothes I owned, but when I opened the wardrobe, my hopes turned into dismay.

“Wh-what. Why are they all like this?”

The inside of the magnificent wardrobe was only filled with a number black clothes.

Black dresses, black bonnets, black veils and black shoes. No matter how much this person liked black, this had to be a serious obsession.

But if it wasn’t that, then……

“Al-alright, let’s first go meet other people.”

Thud!

Erasing the ominous thoughts from my head, I firmly closed the closet door and changed into one of the black dresses.

Well anyway, this escape room isn’t a good one because it’s for free, they should only be played if they have a fee like the usual. These days, they’re all scams if they’re free, you can’t do anything properly if you don’t use money first.

If this were a scene in the novel, there’d probably be someone next to me who’d say something like ‘Oooh, Miss Isabelle! As the Duke of Eden’s one and only precious daughter and the fiancee of the Crown Prince, you have to protect your reputation and standing!’, thus explaining my situation like an npc, and then waiting for me to reply. But no matter how long I waited after waking up, such an npc didn’t appear and I was still alone.

……Umm.

To be left alone like this, it’s a little too much.

If it’s a room and furniture of this size and quality, I must be a noble, so how could it be quiet enough to hear the sound of a pin drop?

Was I maybe the boss villainess of the story?

I guessed that perhaps my family members had all moved away, or, on second thought, had completely abandoned, but with the kind of beauty I had, I was sure people would be approaching, and not running away from me.

I’m saying that I was so pretty, my family members who supposedly sold me off for money, they’d feel it a pity to sell such a beautiful daughter.

Whatever the case, this situation was strange.

Finally, I carefully opened the room’s door, albeit with a distracted mind on what I’d find outside.

But the only thing I heard in the grand hallway was the sound of my breath.

“Hello! Excuse me? Is there anyone there!?”

I loudly yelled again and again, but my voice only echoed off the walls.

A horror house.

Or something like that, maybe.

I rubbed my arms that, at some point, had become covered in goosebumps.

I ran down the stairs and stumbled out of the building, but then couldn’t help but exclaim with pleasant surprise.

“…….Oh my!”

How could such a wonderful place exist.

I’d run out, frightened, but when I saw the spectacle in front of my eyes, my breath stopped for a few moments.

Though no one had explained anything to me, this place reassured and comforted me of where I was.

“So this really is inside the world of a fantasy novel!”

I gazed in awe at the beautiful scenery and repeatedly rubbed my eyes because it looked too good to be true.

I felt like my heart was being squeezed as I saw the small hills and lush bushes surrounding the area, and best of all, a blue lake that shined like a gem.

This was the real deal transmigration, a real deal harmonious nature scene!