Episode 1
Honestly—no, truly honestly.
There were times when I wished the company would collapse.
Not all the time. Maybe four times a week?
“Please let the company go under. Completely. If it could disappear without a trace, that’d be even better. Like… evaporating over a single weekend or something.”
I prayed like that every day, whenever I had a spare moment.
I mean… sure.
“But still…”
I stared at my reflection in the mirror, utterly dumbfounded.
“No matter how you look at it, actually collapsing the building is crossing a line!!!”
And of all times—why did it have to be when I was the only one left inside the office?!
I remember it clearly.
I finally finished the documents my senior demanded by 8 a.m. the next morning at exactly 11:15 p.m.
I patted my stiff lower back, packed my things, and put on my coat around 11:17.
After taking one last look around the empty office, I turned off the lights and pressed the elevator button.
Yawning lazily, I checked the last train.
Arriving in 3 minutes.
For a brief, foolish moment, I thought my luck wasn’t so bad today.
But just as I hummed to myself and opened the web page of the novel I’d been reading lately—
That was when it happened.
…the office building collapsed. Literally crumbled.
A deafening roar tore through the air, the ground shook violently, and I can still vividly remember the sensation of the floor dropping out from beneath me in an instant.
Surrounded by blinding dust and chunks of concrete raining down, I screamed and thought:
This makes absolutely no sense.
Even if I stretch my imagination and accept that a perfectly fine building could suddenly collapse for no reason—
Why did there have to be exactly one person left inside?
And why did that person have to meet such a freakishly unlucky death?
Couldn’t it have been someone other than me—the one who worked fifteen hours a day?
When my senior dumped their work on me and only took credit for the results,
When I was told to handle “urgent tasks” over the weekend,
When the insane department head sitting next to me at company dinners casually rubbed my arm—
…I endured it all.
“I’m sorry, but this is outside my scope of work.”
“You want me to work on weekends? Isn’t that a breach of contract?”
“What do you think you’re doing?! That’s sexual harassment!”
Those satisfying endings where you speak your mind to your boss and boldly punish the perpetrator—
They don’t exist in real life.
Why?
Because once you say everything you want to say, what comes next?
Isn’t it obvious?
Your already hellish company life just turns into an even deeper hell.
I wasn’t particularly smart, but there was one thing I understood perfectly.
My life wasn’t a novel or a movie—it was one hundred percent reality, with no plot twists.
For an ordinary nobody like me—no connections, no money—asserting my rights was a luxury.
…And besides, why do you think I endured a company that paid me a measly 1.8 million won after taxes?
Because I never wanted to go back to job-hunting hell.
Anyone who’s been through job hunting even once would understand.
That soul-crushing feeling when your self-esteem sinks lower with every résumé rejection.
And that’s not all.
Whenever one of the few old classmates I still had contacted me after a long time, it was always one of two things.
“Hey, I just opened a café! I’ve got some really cute menu items—can you write a few posts and add hashtags?”
Or—
“Sebin! We’re going on a luxury hotel vacation with the others. Wanna come? You landed a job at an S-tier company, right? Let’s hang out!”
If you haven’t experienced it, you wouldn’t know.
That feeling when you hear a friend from your school days is living an incredibly successful life—and you can’t even bring yourself to smile.
“…Damn it.”
I clenched my teeth, glaring at the unfamiliar woman reflected in the mirror.
“This is seriously the worst!!!”
It wasn’t that my successful friends annoyed me.
What annoyed me was this cursed fate that sent Lee Sebin—who had struggled so hard just to survive in an unforgiving world—straight to the afterlife.
And for such a ridiculous reason, too.
A building collapse.
And as absurd as that was, something even more unbelievable followed…
“Where the hell is this—and who am I supposed to be?!”
I stared blankly at the woman standing in front of me.
“Oh my, miss. Why do you look so pale?”
A stranger wearing a maid’s uniform entered my room as if it were familiar, calling me “miss.”
A ridiculous thought crossed my mind.
Barely daring to hope, I muttered absentmindedly,
“…Anna?”
“Yes. What’s wrong, miss?”
She answered calmly.
I slowly closed my gaping mouth.
I only said it just in case…
And yet—it really was Anna?
Anna was a character from the novel I had been reading right before the building collapsed.
She was a minor supporting character with barely any screen time, but I remembered her clearly.
Because her lines were unforgettable.
She was the one who tried—and failed—to commit an atrocious act against the female lead.
She managed to flee the scene at first, but was soon captured. Unable to endure the torture, Anna spilled everything about the person who had ordered her to do it.
“I’m sorry! Please, just spare my life! I had no other choice—I couldn’t refuse Lady Selenia’s orders—!”
But she never finished that sentence.
Before she could, the male lead’s sword flew straight for her neck.
I’d felt so bad for Anna that I’d even left a comment on that chapter for the first time.
Romance Fantasy Trash Addict
Am I the only one who feels bad for Anna? She’s just a servant—what was she supposed to do if her superior ordered her to do it?ㅠㅠ
The Saintess’s Way of Saving the Empire, Chapter 83
♡ 4
And now that Anna—
That Anna from the novel—
Was standing right in front of me.
“…Miss!”
The sudden voice snapped me back to reality. I stumbled backward as if I’d seen a ghost.
My neck ached from the shock.
Of course. Of course this is it! I reincarnated into the novel I was reading right before I died!
There was no other way to explain this situation.
As my hands trembled and my mouth hung open, Anna tilted her head.
“You seem a bit strange today, miss.”
Her gaze felt sharp, as if it were piercing straight through me, and cold sweat beaded in my palms.
“You woke up much earlier than usual.”
Earlier?
The sun was already high in the sky outside the window.
“And you were shouting at the top of your lungs first thing in the morning.”
That was unavoidable. Who wouldn’t scream after seeing a completely unfamiliar face in the mirror?
Anna stroked her chin, humming thoughtfully. Her innocent green eyes gleamed.
“Could it be…?”
“……”
“Are you nervous because of Lady Estellin’s birthday banquet this evening?”
My tightly shut lips slowly parted.
Birthday banquet?
Wait—whose birthday?
With a deep sigh, Anna stepped closer to me.
Then suddenly, she leaned in close, her face right in front of mine.
I flinched instinctively—but then she whispered softly by my ear.
“Don’t worry, miss. I delivered that to the kitchen maid in charge of the banquet, just like you instructed.”
I immediately leaned back, staring at her.
“…Th-that? What are you talking about…?”
Anna didn’t answer.
She just stared at me, eyes wide.
After a moment, she glanced around to make sure no one was nearby and whispered quietly,
“Why, the vial you gave me, of course.”
…A vial?
I gasped and covered my mouth.
A chill ran straight down my spine.
The scene I had read before my death replayed vividly in my mind.
…A sudden, crushing pain bloomed in her chest. The wineglass slipped from her hand, red wine spilling across the carpet.
“…P-Poison…! The wine is poisoned!”
“Call a physician immediately!!”
The banquet hall descended into chaos as she collapsed, gasping for breath, blood pouring from her mouth.
…This is bad.
I’ve seen this scene before.
My lips turned pale as I stared at my reflection.
Sensing something was wrong, Anna hesitated before stepping closer.
“Miss, what’s wrong? Could it be…?”
“……”
“W-wait. That medicine… it’s a laxative, right? Just like you said?”
A laxative, my ass.
I swayed, barely managing to brace myself against the bed.
What the hell is going on first thing in the morning…
A deep sigh rose from my core as my temples throbbed.
But amid all the chaos, one thing became painfully clear.
The body I now inhabited belonged to the villainess of the original novel—
The woman who, later today, would attempt to poison the female lead.
I was Selenia Tigeris.
“Miss! You need to put on your coat!”
I jumped down from the carriage and sprinted across the vast garden.
“You shouldn’t run like that, miss!!”
Anna’s desperate voice echoed behind me, but I didn’t stop.
With every step, my shoes dug mercilessly into my delicate heels.
But pain didn’t matter right now.
I have to stop her from drinking it—no matter what.
More precisely, not Estellin.
Her younger sister—Aria.
In the novel, the one who drank the poisoned wine wasn’t the female lead.
It was Estellin’s sister.
Aria.
And Aria was only twelve years old.
I bit my lip hard.
Now that I knew what was going to happen, I couldn’t just stand by and let a child die.
And more than that—
Selenia is executed after this incident is exposed.
That was right.
This was the beginning of Selenia’s countless crimes—and one of her most horrific acts.
If I couldn’t resolve this, I’d never survive in this world.
And if I fail… it’s an instant execution ending.
That was far worse—far worse—than dying in a building collapse.
Panting, I lifted my head.
At last, the massive gates of the grand estate came into view.
