Chapter 1

Erabelle Vermilion. Adopted daughter of a provincial count. Age: 23.

She was silently counting down the seconds in her head.

The New Year’s Festival. The grand hall was packed with people.

Good. I’m blending in. No one’s looking at me.

Even as she reassured herself, she never lowered her guard. Her palms were slick with cold sweat.

1,286... 1,285...

Landmines were scattered throughout the banquet hall. Amid the elegant dresses, the sweet scent of wine, and the strains of graceful music, this was a battlefield. One wrong step, and you were dead. At the very least, your life would be ruined.

Well, mine’s already half-ruined. One more wrong step and it’ll be ground into dust.

Which was why, within the next 1,284 seconds, she had to slip quietly out of here without attracting a single glance.

It was no easy task.

Erabelle knew perfectly well that some of these people possessed senses that stretched across hundreds of kilometers. Hundreds. It sounded absurd, but compared to them, she might as well have belonged to an entirely different species—one that could barely see clearly a hundred meters ahead.

So she had to look natural. Blend in. Fade into the background as though she had never been here at all.

1,244...

The timing, the place—everything about this was far too precise. Honestly, it felt almost malicious.

1,243... 1,242...

One of the landmines turned its head in her direction.

In that instant, Erabelle casually shifted her posture, picked up a dessert from the table, and popped it into her mouth.

1,221... 1,220...

The steady countdown helped keep her mind from unraveling, anchoring her nerves before they could spiral out of control.

I have to get out of here. Now.

Erabelle Vermilion had transmigrated into this world.

Actually, “transmigration” wasn’t quite the right word. It was closer to a relocation. She knew that because, although a few details had changed, this body had originally been hers. Even the name was one she had acquired simply by living here.

In other words, she wasn’t even a character from the novel.

Not that that particular detail mattered very much.

What did matter... was that the source material this world came from was completely deranged.

“Hellhound.”

Just as the title suggested—hellish brutality, degradation, emotional devastation...

Yes. This world originated from a high-content R-rated novel steeped in violence and chaos. Guns, grand spirits, mythology, planets, science fiction—you name it. It was a bizarre mishmash of practically every genre imaginable.

Its only redeeming feature?

Hot men.

Lots of them.

Unfortunately, there was one enormous catch.

Their looks and their psychopathy were directly proportional.

Come to think of it... that’s not a perk at all.

The story was crawling with lunatics.

Oh, right. There’s one more thing.

The novel was BL.

Considering that most of the characters were psychopathic serial killers who treated love and insanity as interchangeable concepts, that was probably the greatest advantage she had.

Even so, there was one fatal flaw.

Their twisted romances did absolutely nothing to guarantee her survival.

So in the end, everything came down to staying alive.

If she had to be dropped into a fictional world, couldn’t it at least have been one where basic human rights existed?

Her crime?

Reading an R-rated novel while she was underage.

Out of curiosity, of course.

She had been a bright, innocent, pure-hearted teenager. Completely wholesome.

This is all the fault of the people who carelessly shared those 19+ files.

I didn’t do anything wrong. Certainly not enough to deserve punishment on a cosmic scale.

Erabelle felt profoundly wronged.

In a novel where serial killers made up most of the main cast, there was only one reliable way to survive.

Stay the hell away from them.

And for the past eight years, she had done everything in her power to do exactly that.

Eight long years.

She had bent over backward to avoid this island, where the Imperial Palace was located. The protagonist of the original novel was the Empire’s 13th prince, so naturally, one of the story’s main settings was this very island—the seat of the Imperial Palace.

Erabelle wanted nothing more than to live quietly in a world where people dropped dead by the dozens, so she had avoided this place with almost obsessive determination.

She had even chosen an academy on a remote planet so far away that the decision had nearly given her adoptive father a stroke.

And yet...

Here she was.

Right in the middle of it.

Surrounded by practically every major character.

Why today, of all days?

That was what made her skin crawl.

The New Year’s Festival.

The day when all the major characters gathered in one place.

Here, in the imperial city.

Inside the palace itself.

Erabelle, whose life seemed to be one long cosmic joke, had tried to dismiss her unease.

But it clung to her like a second skin.

If the protagonist himself hadn’t happened to be absent, she would already have given up.

1,018...

Erabelle kept moving.

One step at a time.

Steadily toward the exit.

And finally—

With just over a thousand seconds remaining, she slipped out of the banquet hall.

The instant she crossed the threshold, Erabelle hurried down the corridor.

About ten meters ahead, a shadow shifted unnaturally.

She immediately turned into the opposite hallway, moving quickly and silently.

That little detour cost her another eighty seconds.

Her pulse accelerated.

919... 918...

The numbers continued their relentless descent.

Preparing for the worst, she ducked into the women’s lounge and spent another hundred seconds there.

Now she had 716 seconds left.

From this point onward, she would be entering areas completely unrelated to the banquet.

If anyone caught her, she would claim she had gotten lost after leaving the lounge.

The fewer seconds remained, the faster her steps became—

But she forced herself to slow down, biting her lower lip as she tried to appear casual.

For the past several days, throughout the entire New Year’s Festival, she had entered and left the Imperial Palace every single day.

All for the sake of securing this escape route in advance.

Having to do this one more time would probably shave ten years off her life.

Erabelle entered a servant’s room she had already scoped out.

Its occupant, who was responsible for kitchen and banquet-hall service, wouldn’t be back for at least several hours.

To make absolutely certain, Erabelle had even snuck in earlier to confirm the shift schedule.

The moment she stepped inside, she unzipped her dress.

Changing clothes in a dark, unfamiliar room...

It was absolutely miserable.

702...

Still counting down, she stripped off the elegant dress in a flash.

As the graceful hem collapsed to the floor, it revealed her legs clad in dark green middle-school gym pants.

The matching top was tied around her waist, along with a pair of bright yellow sneakers.

Honestly, perhaps she didn’t need to go this far.

But Erabelle refused to leave even the smallest margin for error.

When your entire life consisted of the gods screwing you over, even a one-in-a-million possibility wasn’t something you could afford to ignore.

If that was the case, though, then the fact that she had ended up here today in the first place...

Erabelle shoved the creeping unease aside and untied the gym shirt from around her waist.

She dropped the sneakers onto the floor, pulled the shirt over her head, and kicked off her heels in one fluid motion.

Within seconds, she had shoved her bare feet into the sneakers and thrust her arms through the sleeves.

She had never moved faster in her life.

Her movements were frantic, almost violent.

Inside the pitch-black room, which wasn’t even hers, adrenaline blazed through her veins like wildfire.

If someone caught her now, there would be no excuse she could possibly give.

She snatched up the discarded dress and flung it out the window, hoping it would delay anyone trying to trace her escape.

689... 688...

Erabelle hauled herself onto the windowsill.

Although she had graduated from the academy with excellent grades, her physical abilities were well below average.

Even climbing through a first-floor window nearly made her twist her ankle.

512...

Panting, she steadied herself and peered past the flowerbed, scanning the surroundings.

Once she was certain no one was nearby, she broke into a run.

...N..., N29, E31...

Within seconds, her breath caught in her throat.

Only adrenaline kept her body moving.

Because if she was caught here, she was dead.

They’d probably just cut off my head.

Her thoughts raced, but Erabelle remained composed enough to check the coordinates on the handheld screen once more.

A restricted, off-limits section of the Imperial Palace Gardens.

They called it a garden, but in reality, it was closer to an enormous greenbelt.

Aside from members of the Imperial Family and a handful of authorized personnel, no one was permitted to enter.

Just like every other royal property.

88 seconds... 87...

The closer she got, the harder her chest burned, every breath tearing raggedly from her lungs.

But before long, she forgot all about the sweat streaming down her back.

She forgot the stabbing pain in her side.

She heard it.

Running water.

N29, E31...

Erabelle stopped before the enormous river flowing silently through the gardens.

This is it... This is the place...

A strange euphoria surged through her.

She didn’t need confirmation.

She knew.

This was the spot.

Even so, she checked the coordinates one final time before taking several steps backward.

Far ahead of her, the air began to shimmer.

A sign.

It’s starting... It’s opening...!

She slowly backed away, bracing herself to leap.

7, 6, 5...

Her heart hammered violently against her ribs.

Her legs tensed.

Her eyes remained fixed on the surface of the water—

On the shimmering distortion hanging just above it.

3, 2...!

With everything she had, she jumped.

At that moment—

...!!

Her foot touched it.

Her toes made contact with the distorted space above the river’s surface.

The water shimmered like a mirage, and the top of her foot sank into it.

Joy overwhelmed Erabelle.

Beginning at her toes, her body gradually faded into transparency.

She was entering the crack.

She could go back.

Back home.

That was the last thought she had...