Charon hit his own chest as if he was frustrated. I opened my eyes wide and snorted loudly.

“You’re the one who should have gathered your senses! A gorgeous boy like my brother is looking for someone who is not as skinny and looks like an earthworm crawling on the floor like you! For real! You have no shame.”

“Earth- Earthworm?”

“…Pft!”

The children beside Charon couldn’t help but laugh and covered their mouths because they must have heard something really funny. The other children also turned away and hurriedly hid their laughing expressions, but their trembling shoulders seemed to show the fact that their laughter would not die down soon.

I glared at them and turned my head towards the silver-haired girl.

However, I began to see something strange in my sight.

Weren’t there strange letters floating above the girl’s head?

[The silver hair that shone glowingly in the dazzling sunlight. Gloria, who had eyes which looked like Amethyst, was crying by the river because she was upset about her brother getting harassed.]

‘Are those words sound like the passage in a novel? It’s written in Korean, isn’t it?’

It was the proper Hangul that I saw after 13 years of being reborn in this world. No, before that. Was it possible? The fact that there were letters floating above someone’s head? Even the writing looked familiar.

‘I guess it’s like a phrase from a novel which I wrote in my previous life. It can’t be…’

When I saw those floating letters, I inadvertently opened my mouth wide. Charon cleared his throat, paying no attention to the expression I was wearing, and put on a serious expression.

“Hey, Haley. I’m not sure if I should say this here. Actually…”

Oh, shut up.

I didn’t want to hear your confession.

“Cha-Charon! Can you see it too?”

I cut off Charon’s inconsequential words, hit him on the shoulder and pointed my finger into the air. Looking at exactly where the floating letters were. Charon turned his head in the direction I pointed and narrowed his eyes.

“Where? What do you want me to see?”

He must have pretended not to see anything floating in the air. The writing. I started to think I was the only one who could see it. It wasn’t pleasant. I hit him again out of frustration and shouted.

“T-That! Did you see that writing?”

“It hurts, Haley. Stop hitting me.”

Charon tilted his head whilst putting on a frown on his face, his left hand also holding his right shoulder which I had hit just now.

“Writing? Is there a book hanging on the tree?”

Charon scratched his head and asked the other children.

“Is there something you can see?”

“No, can you see it?”

The children surrounding Charon also shook their heads, saying that they couldn’t see anything.

I wondered if I was mistaken, so I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. However, no matter how many times I rubbed my eyes and looked in front of me again, the letters were clearly floating above the head of the silver-haired girl.

“Claude, what about you? You can see it, right? The writing on top of her head. Right?”

Claude shook his head vigorously. He also looked confused by what I was saying.

“What? Am I the only one who can see the writing?”

Despite the fuss I made, the silver-haired girl also looked above my head and looked around as if looking for something.

Oh, wait. Was there something strange in this situation?

“Hey! What’s your name? Gloria?”

The reason for the ominous premonition that could never be wrong. The silver-haired girl nodded at me and replied, “Yes.”

It has been 13 years since I was reborn.

Only this time did I realize that I just got involved with the female lead in this world. Until now, I had only assumed and doubted that this was the world inside the novel because of my mother’s name and the situation of the empire. It felt like I was being shot down.

“Hey. What’s wrong, Haley? What are you seeing?”

Charon, who acted as the boss to the neighborhood children, grabbed my arm for no reason and swallowed nervously. He pretended not to see it, but was secretly terrified as well.

“A ghost. There’s a ghost.”

“Huh…?!”

When I saw that pale-looking Charon, I thought I’d tease him a bit longer. I raised the corner of my mouth and whispered to him.

“There’s one on your shoulder, too. Ugh, scary-looking female ghosts, who are looking at you. She said she was going to catch bad guys, huh?”

Did my expression look really ridiculous? Charon snorted when he realized that it was just a joke, and changed the subject hastily. It must have been embarrassing for him to be spooked by what I said for a moment.

“Hey, Claude. Who hit you? Say the b*st*rd’s name. I’ll beat the hell out of him.”

Claude’s head turned at Charon’s words. Following the child’s gaze, Charon’s gaze shifted towards his left side. The gray-haired boy flinched under the sharp gazes of the two people at once.

“Is that you, the one who hit Haley’s little brother?”

“N-No, leader. It’s just, I asked him for an easy favor. He said he’d never listen to me. Therefore, I got angry and punched him a bit.”

“You said this is a little punch? I told you not to bother Claude last time! If Haley and I get married, he will be my family. Claude’s face seems so swollen!”

Charon’s shout instantly startled me. I glared at him sharply.

I guess it didn’t work out too well when I pretended to misunderstand that Charon had a crush on my little brother earlier. It wasn’t my little brother that this boy had in mind. As I expected, it was me.

But for me now, this trivial thing was not a big deal.

What was more important to me was that I’d met the female lead, and there was the writing above her head that only I could see.

Charon looked at me and asked his friend again.

“What did you ask Claude to do?”

“…”

“Huh? Are you not going to speak?!”

The gray-haired boy just dropped his head without saying anything.

Then Claude wrote what the boy was supposed to say on the ground using a wooden stick.

[He told me to bring Haley’s underwear.]

Upon seeing the writing, Charon’s expression turned cold. He gritted his teeth and raised his fist.

“You b*st*rd. Who are you, dare to trick me?”

“N-No, Captain. I was planning to take it and give it to you, Captain. I never meant to take it for myself. I just…”

Claude wrote this on the floor again.

[Such a pervert.]

“I’m going to beat the hell out of you today.”

“Oh! Captain, I’m sorry!”

From the side, I heard his fists hitting the boy’s flesh. I let the boys fight, having no intention of breaking it up.

‘I finally met the female lead of the novel I wrote.’

Gloria, the female lead in this world.

She was much more beautiful than what I portrayed in my novel.

I felt like I was her only fan, and I stood still, feeling as if I was watching an idol that has been buried in my heart.

“Why are you crying?”

Gloria shook her head as she wiped her red eyes with her sleeve.

“It’s nothing. Don’t bother thinking about it.”

“Who’s bothering you? Were it those boys?”

When I picked up the weapon I’d made whilst asking her, she shook her head. 

However, judging from her pursed lips, it seemed that she was not willing to explain the reason why she was crying here.

“Did you just move here a few days ago?”

“Yes.”

“Hi, my name is Haley Mertes. All the kids in this neighborhood are a bit wild except for me and Claude, so try not to get involved with them.”

I said this while extending my hand to the female lead in this world. At that moment I was acting as if I didn’t care. However, my head was about to explode. All kinds of thoughts and emotions become overwhelming to me. What should I do now?

Gloria smiled and took my hand.

D*mn, the way she smiled was as pretty as a picturesque painting, as if she had just received a buff for the main lead.

This situation is like a dream where I started to feel sick in my stomach.

I couldn’t do this. Let’s just run away from this situation.

“Alright, I’m going home after this. You have to hurriedly get home so you can be safe, too.”

I grabbed Claude’s hand and ran back home. But wasn’t Gloria chasing me? I looked back and questioned her.

“Why are you following me? I told you to go home.”

“Oh…. Uh. My house is this way too.”

“Don’t lie to me. There are only two houses in this way. Oh! You said you just moved in, right? Did you move into the house next to ours?”

“Y-Yes.”

Gloria, who ran out of breath because of running for a while, was the kid who had just moved in next door to our house.

‘I have been trying to avoid her, but I couldn’t, it’s going to be difficult to avoiding her.’

What kind of fate was this? I felt bad about being with the female lead, so I tried to get out of the previous situation quickly. The female lead turned out to have moved in next door to my house. Although I didn’t like her, I have fallen into a situation where I was going to face her every day. My heart became heavy for no reason.

‘Sorry for all the difficulties you’re going to face in the future. It was me who had written all that. Even when you were supposed to spend time happily with the male lead, I stopped writing without letting you two confirm each other’s feelings instead.’

Everyone has a conscience. How could I just say this to myself?

If there was the biggest villain in the world, it would probably me. All the difficulties and painful phases the main character would face originated from my mind.

Of course, it was her family and Empress Fionia who committed all kinds of crimes that brought direct misfortune to Gloria. Nonetheless, that couldn’t take away my debt toward the female lead.

I walked as fast as I could to get away from Gloria, but Claude, who was holding my hand, stopped in his spot.

“Why?”

I turned my head towards Claude, and he was pointing his hand behind us.

The female lead had fallen on the road and sat on the ground crying behind us. Red bright blood ran down her white knees.

‘Why are you so clumsy like this? So annoying.’

After all, she was the character that I created. After all, she was suffering because of me. I dragged my feet against the road, feeling sympathetic toward her, and felt like I couldn’t just leave her behind like that.

I sighed loudly, walked back to her and stretched out my back before her.

“Get up. I’ll carry you home.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

Gloria wiped away her tears with her sleeve, she quickly climbed onto my back despite refusal slipped out of her lips. She was shorter than me and had more slender bones, so I thought she was a bit fragile.

“How old are you?”

“13 years old.”

“Hm. You’re the same age as me.”

Was it because she had been abused at home? Even though she was the same age as me, she was much behind in height compared to me. And why did her body feel so light? At a single glance, I could see that she didn’t even eat properly to go through life.

I carried the female lead on my back and held Claude’s hand with the other. We walked alongside the river. On the riverbank, a dense colony of grasses swayed along with the wind.

There were two houses located half a mile upstream. Among them, my house was the one that was surrounded by birch trees.

Gloria pointed her finger at the one which was not surrounded by birch trees.

“Over there. That’s my house.”

“I know.”

I dropped off the female lead when we got inside the house and told my brother.

“Get some ointment and bandages from our house. You know where they’re kept, right?”

Claude nodded and ran to our house.

I was concerned about leaving a wound untreated like this, because it would get worse and leave a scar after it was healed. Obviously, it wouldn’t leave a scar because she was the female lead, but the pain wouldn’t go away for a while.

I soak my handkerchief in the water and wipe it carefully around the wound.

“I’m fine…”

“I’m the one who is not fine with it. My eyes hurt just looking at your wound.”

How dare she show such an ugly wound to others? Come here. I would heal her.

Right now, I was only thinking of treating the injured kid and staying away from the female lead after this.

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