Beguiling the Enemy’s Patriarch - Chapter 3

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 3
It was a novel I’d read obsessively right up until my dying breath. A story with such terrifying pull that once you started, you couldn’t possibly put it down—*Brizni Wants to Be Happy*. Memories came flooding back like a broken dam.
Lebovni. The Laigar Continent. And beyond the Sezan Mountains lay the Belgot Empire. All those familiar names came rushing back to me.
Now that I thought about it, it was strange I hadn’t realized this sooner. My older sister with her red hair, so beautiful—her name was Tezebia.
I clutched my head, struggling to piece together the novel’s setting as it surfaced in my mind.
Lebovni was the kingdom where the heroine Brizni lived. The country was tiny—barely the size of a fingernail—but it occupied a crucial position linking the western and eastern parts of the continent, making it a prize coveted by all the great powers.
The heroine Brizni was the daughter of Tezebia, the first princess of Lebovni. And the male protagonist Alexio was Brizni’s escort knight.
And then there was one more major character in the novel. The undisputed hegemon of the eastern Laigar Continent—the tyrannical emperor of the Belgot Empire, Decarve Belgot. The primary antagonist of *Brizni Wants to Be Happy*, a wicked dark sorcerer who murdered his own father and seized the throne. A villain driven by obsession and betrayal toward Brizni, intent on trampling Lebovni beneath his heel.
The main cast consisted of these three, yet the male protagonist Alexio didn’t exist in this place?
What on earth was happening? If I really had entered the book, what point in time had I entered?
I chewed my lip anxiously. No way, surely not—but even as I thought it, an unwelcome hypothesis kept rearing its head in the back of my mind.
“Fernandis, there really is no son, correct?”
“Yes, that is correct, but… Your Highness, why do you suddenly ask?”
My head was beginning to throb. Because the most plausible hypothesis I could conceive was this:
I had entered the novel before the protagonists were even born.
Then understanding dawned on me.
‘Oh, that’s right…’
The original story didn’t actually *begin* at Chapter 1—that wasn’t when the protagonists were already adults. Before Chapter 1 began, there was a small chapter that came before it.
Commonly known as the prologue.
The prologue that opened the curtain on the story began just before the protagonists’ births.
‘Oh. My. God.’
At that realization, I felt like I might actually faint. I think I even muttered a few curses right in front of Fernandis.
What, you don’t believe me? I suddenly found myself inside a novel. And not just any point—a time before the protagonists even existed. Who would believe that on the spot?
“This is impossible!”
It was impossible. It made no sense whatsoever, and yet… if I just accepted that I was inside a book, everything fit together perfectly.
At some point, strangely, everything began to make sense.
“…It can’t be. Surely not.”
Perhaps this was all just a dream. Maybe there had never been an accident in the first place, and when I opened my eyes, I’d find myself back in my small but comfortable studio apartment.
But time marched on, indifferent to my delusions. A month passed. Then two. And eight months drifted by until the year changed.
During that time, my suspicion hardened into certainty. The decisive clue was the news of Tezebia’s pregnancy.
* * *
“What are you going to name her, sister?”
It was a day when the spring sun shone warmly. I sat across from my only sister at a tea table.
My sister, with her red hair braided in intricate patterns, was beautiful as a single crimson rose. She didn’t look like a pregnant woman with three months left to go.
“Hmm…”
Tezebia seemed to be considering my question. I gripped my teacup tightly, urging her on. My heart was racing.
“Surely your husband has already decided? What did he choose?”
“Well, he did, but…”
My sister seemed somewhat embarrassed. In truth, I already knew what name would come from her lips. I also knew why she was embarrassed.
“Brizni.”
As expected. I hid the corners of my mouth twitching with amusement behind my teacup. It was the name I’d anticipated.
“Brizni. What a lovely name.”
I responded as calmly as I could manage, though I couldn’t quite suppress the slight tremor in my voice. Tezebia’s cheeks flushed a rosy hue as she asked.
“Doesn’t it sound a bit like a pet’s name?”
“Not at all. It’s adorable.”
I answered with deliberate nonchalance. And with that, it was confirmed beyond a shadow of doubt.
This world was the world from “Brizni Wants to Be Happy”—the novel I’d been reading right up until my death. And inside Tezebia’s womb sitting before me….
“Brizni….”
The original story’s heroine was growing there!
Without realizing it, I’d been staring at my sister’s rounded belly with eyes full of longing. Tezebia called out to me in a puzzled voice.
“Yerenika?”
“Huh? Oh, um, yes.”
“Why are you staring so intently? It’s making me embarrassed.”
My sister laughed softly, her face reddening. I barely managed to tear my gaze from her belly and awkwardly laughed along with her.
“It’s fascinating. Brizni will be born soon.”
Every word was one hundred percent sincere. I laughed vacantly.
While I’d been struggling to adapt to this new world, Tezebia had married Duke Lebanon and become pregnant.
When my sister shyly shared the news of her pregnancy, everyone rejoiced as though it were a blessing for Lebovni, but I couldn’t bring myself to smile.
The original story’s heroine was growing inside my sister’s womb.
The implications were endless. The fact that all of this situation befalling me wasn’t some absurd dream, but genuine reality.
And soon, the prologue of the original story was about to begin!
“Ah, I should be heading back now. Look at the time.”
Tezebia checked the hour and rose from her seat. I saw her off with worried eyes that never wavered.
“Next time I’ll come to you, sister. Take care of yourself.”
“Thank you, Yeni.”
I waved to my sister as she grew distant.
Farewell, sister.
Farewell, our heroine….
The moment my sister disappeared from view, I collapsed onto the table.
“…Aaahhhhh! I’m going mad!”
At this point, I need to review the major plot of the original work, “Brizni Wants to Be Happy.”
“Brizni Wants to Be Happy” is fundamentally a story about how the protagonists heal their childhood traumas and tragic experiences through one another. Aside from the climactic invasion of Lebovni by the villain Decarve, it’s a peaceful healing narrative with little major conflict or hardship.
However, what I needed to focus on wasn’t the protagonists’ story, but the story of the generation immediately before them.
The prologue, which I’d thought was rather long—the tale of the generation before the protagonists were born and the protagonists’ childhood years.
I mentioned earlier that all the protagonists had unfortunate childhoods.
To rephrase that: the generation before the protagonists was stained entirely by tragedy. Not a single person among the parents’ generation lived an uneventful life.
No, it wasn’t merely that they failed to live peacefully. A chilling realization seized my body.
‘They almost all died young….’
Those who survived either became disabled, contracted plagues, or were even cursed to find no peace even after becoming zombies and dying.
Unhappy even after death. Author, isn’t this going a bit too far?
If I had known that the protagonists’ happiness was built entirely upon the sacrifices of their parents’ generation, I would never have praised that novel so lightly as a healing story.
And perhaps this was my punishment for thoughtlessly lauding it as a feel-good tale—cursed as I was, I had entered the heaviest and most desolate period of that frivolous novel. Of all things, I had to start from the tragic prologue itself.
No matter how I thought about it, it was unfair! I slammed my fists against the table and cried out in anguish.
“Why couldn’t I have entered a few pages later? Why the prologue of all things!”
I clearly remembered Chapter 1, where the adult protagonists’ romance began in earnest. I had read through it at least three times, after all.
But the prologue—the very prologue that mattered most now—I had almost completely forgotten.
It had been unusually long for a prologue, and since it was the only tedious section in the entire novel, I had skimmed through it carelessly and never reviewed it even once.
“If I’d known things would turn out like this, I should have underlined passages while reading.”
As I unconsciously tugged at my hair, my fluffy pink locks bounced into the air.
I remembered only a few scenes from the prologue. One of them was the young Emperor of Belgot kidnapping the pregnant Tezebia.
A scene from the first page flashed through my mind.
[Silver hair gleamed dizzily in the thin sunlight. My heart plummeted. Tezebia stood with her mouth agape. Violet eyes tinged with a reddish glow bore down on her with intense force.]
The reason I remembered that scene was simple—it appeared on the very first page of the book! No matter how carelessly one reads, the opening scene is usually memorable.
I trembled as the written words materialized vividly before my eyes.
Belgot was an empire that dominated and ruled the eastern part of the Laigar Continent. Our tiny Lebovni Kingdom, located in the central region, was nothing but a speck that could be crushed in an instant by such a great power.
The incident of Belgot’s Emperor kidnapping Tezebia was the beginning of the long original prologue and the prelude to the tragedy that the protagonists’ parents’ generation would endure.
The Emperor takes our pregnant sister and confines her in Belgot for a full ten years. Of course, the man himself turns out to be pitiable, and he eventually meets a tragic death at the hands of his own son, the villain Decarve Belgot. So when he died, I too wept bitterly while clutching my phone!
“But it’s still terrifying…!”
Ambush! Kidnapping! Confinement!
When it’s a fantasy that will never actually happen, I can sympathize and pity. But when I think of it as an imminent reality before my eyes, my spine turns cold. How could anyone keep a pregnant woman confined for ten years without sending her back to her homeland? He’s absolutely a scoundrel.
Of course, fortunately, it hasn’t happened yet. But conversely, that means it will definitely happen.
Then what I need to do is…

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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