IQBSA 01

Chapter 01

The chilly wind slipped through my pajamas.

“Ugh, why is it so cold?”

I groggily opened my eyes and looked around.

My gaze followed the shadow of a tree branch that stretched ominously into the room and stopped at the window.

‘So that’s why it felt strangely cold.’

Beyond the curtains flapping wildly in the wind, the window was wide open.

‘I’m sure I closed it before sleeping. Why is it open?’

Suppressing my annoyance, I was about to sit up from the bed when I spotted a dark figure flickering by the window and froze on the spot.

‘……What?’

Someone was sitting by the window where the moonlight fell.

Jet-black hair, dark as pitch, scattered in the night breeze, revealing an unrealistically beautiful face beneath the pale moonlight.

Dazed, as if enchanted by the dreamlike sight, I came to my senses and rubbed my eyes.

This wasn’t the time to be staring blankly in admiration.

If my eyes weren’t deceiving me, that person was unmistakably……

“……Master of the Magic Tower?”

As if affirming my question, one corner of the man’s mouth curled up slightly. In that instant, I felt every hair on my body stand on end.

‘Holy shit.’

I was wide awake now.

The identity of this uninvited guest who had shattered my sweet slumber was none other than my boss.

Roakin Argent.

The most powerful mage in the empire’s history, the Master of the Magic Tower, and also this novel’s second male lead.

I asked.

“……Why are you here, Tower Master?”

Why are you sitting on my window?

I was in hiding, and I had told no one of my whereabouts.

‘How did he find me?’

As I fell into confusion, Roakin spoke in a nonchalant tone.

“Why else? I came to catch my runaway secretary.”

‘……You crazy bastard!’

I’d always known he was a person beyond normal comprehension, but this was beyond imagination.

Never mind how he’d figured out where I was.

What kind of person breaks into someone’s window like a stray cat in the middle of the night?

As I stood there speechless from sheer absurdity, a languid voice like low-lying fog called my name.

“Serpine Mirabel.”

“……”

“How dare you run away while I was away?”

A bitter, mocking smile formed on Roakin’s lips.

At the same time, his deep violet eyes, churning with anger, fixed on me. The look in his eyes was chilling enough to send a shiver down my spine.

“Well, that’s……”

‘Because you wouldn’t accept my resignation!’

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t understand.

Why were those eyes—clearly broken in some way—fixed on me?

‘This isn’t how it goes in the original story!’

If things followed the original, Roakin should be busy flirting with the female lead at the Magic Tower by now.

‘The caring second male lead who protects the female lead in danger.’

That was the role of Roakin Argent, Master of the Magic Tower. He was supposed to be completely smitten with the female lead and have no interest whatsoever in a mere extra like me.

Yet not only did he refuse my resignation, he’d chased me all the way to this backwater town just to catch one secretary.

‘Do you really have to drag me back to work for your satisfaction?’

That was the only way I could interpret this twisted obsession of the Magic Tower Master toward a supporting character with no significance.

At this point, I felt like grabbing him by the collar—or at least by the hem of his pants—and shouting:

‘Direct your obsession at the female lead, not your secretary!’

Actually, I was merely lying low to avoid the novel’s villainess, the Empress Dowager.

I didn’t want to meet another gruesome death ending.

But the second male lead was running amok for no reason, throwing a wrench in my perfect survival plan.

‘Tower Master, why are you doing this to me?’

Because of this madman suddenly obsessing over his secretary, I was going to end up dead for real.

I hadn’t been in this damned novel world from the start.

Before I was possessed, I was an ordinary office worker in South Korea.

That day, like any other, I was working late. Unable to fight off sleep, I looked for something to use as a pillow to rest my eyes for a moment.

That’s when a novel came to mind.

Scanning the empty office and confirming no one was around, I fished the book out of my bag.

‘<How to Wake the One Under a Spell>’

It was a romance fantasy novel that had gone out of print long ago, with only collector’s editions circulating—one I’d had difficulty getting my hands on.

But perhaps my expectations had been too high?

When I finally read it, it was cliché-ridden and unremarkable, not even worth re-reading, so I’d immediately listed it for sale on a secondhand trading site.

I was supposed to have mailed it today, but work had piled up and I’d forgotten.

‘……So this is why I forgot it.’

Its thick bulk looked perfect for use as a pillow.

I smiled contentedly and laid my head on the book.

I’d been running on fumes from days of overtime, and I soon fell into a sleep like a dead faint.

How much time had passed?

‘……My alarm should be going off soon.’

When I opened my eyes with a vague sense of unease—

I found myself slumped over a desk piled high with documents.

As my vision cleared, what greeted me wasn’t a drab gray office, but an unfamiliar room with an old-fashioned feel.

‘Where am I?’

The floor was covered with a velvet carpet etched with geometric patterns, and in one corner of the room, colorful liquids in transparent bottles were bubbling away.

It felt like I’d stepped into a witch’s room from a fairy tale.

“Is this a dream?”

As I tilted my head and sat up, the stacks of papers surrounding me came crashing down.

“Ah! What the hell!”

The sensation of papers showering down on my head was far too vivid for a dream.

While I was wrestling with the flying papers, a voice suddenly spoke.

“……Serpine? What are you doing?”

A man peeking through the crack in the door was looking at me strangely.

But what was with that pink hair that looked like it belonged in a romance fantasy novel… Wait.

‘Serpine?’

Serpine was a character from <How to Wake the One Under a Spell>, the romance fantasy novel I’d used as a pillow.

It was such a distinctive name, and since I’d just read it, I recognized it immediately.

‘Did he just call me Serpine?’

I snatched the last piece of paper fluttering down from the air and looked around.

But there was no one else in the room besides me.

The moment I felt confused, unidentified scenes flashed through my mind, bringing a headache.

At the same time, Serpine’s memories began to assimilate into me as if they were my own.

“This is insane.”

That’s when I realized it.

I had been possessed into the romance fantasy novel <How to Wake the One Under a Spell>.

<How to Wake the One Under a Spell> is a novel based on the fairy tale <Sleeping Beauty>, and here’s the detailed plot:

After a long war with monsters, the Arkinia Empire, the novel’s setting, erected a barrier to protect the empire from vicious beasts.

The female lead, Ramona, came from the Silodian Ducal family, which guarded the northernmost point of this barrier.

Having grown up beloved by the people of the duchy, Ramona suddenly became a fugitive when her family was accused of treason.

This was due to the machinations of the Empress Dowager Daria.

The Empress Dowager was the stepmother of the male lead, the Crown Prince, and wanted to make her own son, Prince Enoch, the emperor.

However, when it seemed that Ramona, a noble daughter from the influential northern family, would become the Crown Prince’s consort, the Empress Dowager felt threatened and destroyed her family.

The Empress Dowager falsely accused the Duke of Silodian of plotting to ally through marriage and oust the Crown Prince.

Enraged, the Emperor ordered the execution of every member of the Silodian ducal house.

Gaining momentum, the Empress Dowager plotted an even more terrifying scheme.

‘To poison the Crown Prince.’

The Empress Dowager secretly commissioned a witch from the Magic Tower to brew a poison.

The Crown Prince drank the poison, collapsed, and could not wake. It seemed the Empress Dowager’s victory was sealed.

‘But that’s when the female lead appears.’

Having escaped execution, Ramona was hiding in the Magic Tower disguised as a cleaner.

While cleaning the tower, she coincidentally discovered the commission for the poison sent by the Empress Dowager, and realized that the Crown Prince’s collapse was the Empress Dowager’s conspiracy.

It was the moment a truth that might have been concealed was brought to light.

The righteous Ramona couldn’t ignore her childhood friend, the Crown Prince.

So she risked her life to infiltrate the imperial palace and awakened the sleeping Crown Prince with true love’s kiss.

For saving the Crown Prince from the brink of death and exposing the wicked Empress Dowager’s scheme, Ramona was cleared of the treason charge.

And she married the Crown Prince and lived happily ever after.

Just like the fairy tale it was based on, it was a beautifully happy ending.

‘So the problem is—who have I possessed?’

In <How to Wake the One Under a Spell>, after receiving the commissioned poison, the Empress Dowager killed the witch who brewed it to destroy the evidence.

In other words, I was that very witch of the Magic Tower.

‘Serpine Mirabel.’

A minor extra who was used by the novel’s villainess, the Empress Dowager, and met a gruesome end.

‘That poor soul is me.’

Of all the characters to possess……

“Of all the roles, I had to get this piece of shit!”

I slammed my fist on the desk in frustration, sending the carefully stacked pile of documents crashing down again.

“Ugh.”

From Serpine’s memories, the pink-haired man named Eliser watched me with an uneasy expression, then quietly closed the door and disappeared.

Left alone in the room, I stared blankly at the papers scattered across the floor.

‘Why is this happening to me……!’

Had the heavens smitten me for daring to use a sacred book as a pillow?

“I only ever worked hard!”

I wanted to sleep on a soft, fluffy pillow in a comfortable bed too!

My life had ended so pointlessly, with my last moments being dozing off at my desk after overtime.

‘I died from overwork……’

If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve traveled abroad instead of being cooped up in the office, gone to luxury hotels and restaurants and eaten my fill.

But lamenting my regrets now was useless.

I was already inside <How to Wake the One Under a Spell>, the book I’d used as a pillow.

With the fate of a villain’s extra who would soon die.