The Poisonous Princess Who Successfully Infiltrated the Enemy as an Employee - Chapter 1

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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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Episode 1.

My corpse lay abandoned halfway up the mountainside, scattered like offal for the beasts.
I realized it that dawn.
“Cough, cough-cough—, hack—!”
The moment a scalding sensation crawled up from the root of my tongue, a mass of blood surged back into my throat.
Damp, cold earth beneath me. I stared blankly at the blood pooled on the ground, unable even to wipe the blood from my lips.
Ssshhhik—. The black leaf that the blood had fallen upon began to dissolve with a sickening sound, as though touched by acid.
It was proof that the blood flowing through my veins was a lethal poison.
Especially when it met the special compounds certain plants possessed, it produced a dangerous and violent reaction.
‘No wonder they call me a Witch.’
I laughed bitterly at myself and slowly pushed myself upright.
At least I was alive.
“……Ah.”
A ragged voice scraped from my throat.
‘Repaying kindness with betrayal. Cowards.’
I stared toward the distant lights of Billot Village.
“Evelyn, this is all for the village’s sake. Never because we hate you, absolutely never…….”
The Village Elder’s hollow words flickered through my mind.
‘He took my Medicinal Herbs more greedily than anyone else, yet he led the charge to poison me.’
Billot Village—the southernmost point of the Empire, so small it didn’t appear on any map.
The people who had taken in an orphan and raised me. People I should have been grateful to.
So I’d freely sacrificed my body for them.
I chewed Toxic Herbs to their limit to have Premonition Dreams, warning them of plagues, droughts, and floods. I made Potions by experimenting on myself, distinguishing between Toxic Herbs and Medicinal Herbs.
But what came back was a brand—Witch—and poison.
‘They scraped together some worthless venom from gods-know-where…….’
Ptui—! I spat the black blood still lingering in my mouth toward the village.
Ignorant creatures who repaid my goodwill with poison.
They never knew.
That the Toxic Herbs I’d chewed to help them had made my body resistant to poison.
And because they’d forced that Poison down my throat and stopped my breath once,
‘Everything came back to me…….’
My past life’s memories. And the fact that this place was the world of a novel I’d read in that past life.
I had no time to waste here anymore.
‘If they discover I’ve survived, they’ll burn me alive this time.’
I had to leave now.

***

First, I made my way to the cabin I’d secretly built halfway up the mountain.
A place the villagers didn’t know about—my research laboratory, my secret base for studying Medicinal and Toxic Herbs.
Never had the stale air of that cabin felt so welcome.
But there was no time to say a proper farewell to the place I’d grown attached to. I frantically swept everything from the drawers and shelves into my arms.
Medicinal Herbs and Toxic Herbs I’d gathered over the years while roaming the mountain.
‘I need to grab my Research Journal too.’
I stuffed the notebook—worn and tattered from reading and rewriting it hundreds, thousands of times—into a small Backpack along with everything else.
There was no time for regret. I rushed out of the cabin and began descending the mountain, while my mind unfolded a map of the Empire.
‘I have to avoid the Capital and the Northern Region no matter what.’
That was the domain of the novel’s major players, the stage for their drama.
The Capital and the Northern Region, the Imperial House and the Grand Ducal House, the Crown Prince and the Holy Maiden, the Holy Maiden and the Northern Grand Duke.
Every conflict, every love, every betrayal and scheming happened there.
‘The Eastern Region is the right choice.’
Crunch, crunch—dry leaves crumbled beneath my feet. I bounded lightly over stones and crossed the slippery mountain path with practiced ease.
The instinct of one who’d roamed the mountains like a beast for over a decade, gathering herbs, only sharpened after brushing against death.
I ran without hesitation, and when breath came rushing up to my throat, I’d press my back against a tree trunk and catch my wind for a moment.
‘I’ll head to the Eastern coastal region where commerce thrives.’
From there, I could sell the Medicinal Herbs I’d brought, find passage by ship, even disappear into another Empire if I wished.
Yes, I had knowledge of Medicinal Herbs, and I had knowledge of Toxic Herbs.
‘I’m confident I can feed myself anywhere I go. That much, at least.’
No more. Not anymore.
Now that my memory has returned, I won’t spend my body to ruin just to help others.
Those dreams I thought were Premonition Dreams—they were simply memories of the original novel surfacing.
‘Now that every detail of the original story has come back to me, there’s no reason to swallow poison just to keep having Premonition Dreams.’
It’s all already in my head.
The future? Premonitions?
‘Let them rot.’
I’m going to find a quiet place, open an apothecary, and die peacefully in my old age.
I pulled myself up and bolted toward the Eastern Region forest, where darkness lay thick.
Thanks to the few potions I’d brought along and consumed steadily, the body that had once ceased breathing was recovering at a frightening pace.
How far had I run?
The morning mist was rolling in heavy, and my vision grew steadily dimmer.
Then I heard it.
The sound of hoofbeats, distant but distinct.
‘What? Don’t tell me the villagers found out already?’
No. I shook my head.
‘They’re not people who’d climb a mountain at dawn to confirm my corpse.’
It would take them time to notice I was gone. And given their fear of that mountain, they might spend their whole lives never knowing I’d disappeared at all.
‘Then who is it?’
I stopped running abruptly and crouched down.
This situation was familiar. I’d wandered the mountains hunting Toxic Herbs and encountered wild beasts more than once.
Just as I had then, I now held my breath and masked any sign of my presence.
And moments later, through the mist, I saw a black carriage.
In front of it knelt a woman, head bowed, encircled by men dressed entirely in black.
Her dress, clearly once elaborate and beautiful, lay mud-caked and spread wide across the filthy ground in cruel contrast.
Then it happened.
Whissh—the cold ring of steel cut through the morning fog. And a wet, sickening sound.
Without even a proper scream, the woman’s head fell away.
‘Insane……’
I clamped both hands over my mouth. I choked back the shriek that was trying to claw its way out.
I began backing away, very slowly.
Quietly.
Careful not to step on the dry leaves beneath my feet, making sure even my breath dissolved into the fog.
Just a little more. Just a little further and—
Then.
Snap—!
A dry branch cracked sharply beneath my foot.
‘No……’
And the masked men’s heads turned in unison toward me.
“Seize her!”
“Move!”
I spun quickly in the opposite direction.
But then—Whoosh—!
A sharp dagger flew through the air and lodged in the ground right before my feet.
“Agh!”
My feet tangled, and I tumbled to the dirt without managing to escape. Before I could even feel the pain, shadows fell across my fallen body.
“A little rat was hiding here.”
One of them grabbed my hair and wrenched my head back.
“Ugh!”
I groaned, my face twisted in pain. And I glared at them savagely.
“Please, please spare me! I really didn’t see anything! I swear!”
“Stop your useless prattle—”
I knew it. Knew that my words wouldn’t land.
‘But it’s better to babble than to just die, isn’t it?’
Yet as he looked at my face, the man’s eyes widened slightly.
“Wait. Look at this.”
What? Look at what? I huffed, trying to read the sudden shift in the air around us.
The other masked men glanced at my face, then at the corpse of the woman some distance away, their gazes moving between us with an odd intensity.
“……They look alike.”
What? Me? Me with whom? Surely not with… that corpse?
‘I mean, granted I was a corpse just moments ago, but…’
I stared at the thugs with anxious eyes. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but one thing was clear—this was no good sign.
‘There’s no way they look like they’re planning to let me live, is there?’
A wave of despair crashed over me. I’d died and been brought back to life because of the villagers, and now I was about to die again in this godforsaken place…
‘If this is how it ends, why bother saving me in the first place!’
I cursed the heavens. My jaw clenched hard, and then I screamed at the top of my lungs.
“Either kill me or let me live! Make up your minds!”
At that, the man’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“She’s got some spirit.”
“What kind of person doesn’t have spirit in this world?”
I ground my teeth and shot back, and a short laugh leaked out among the thugs.
Then one of the thugs holding me glanced at the backpack I was carrying and spoke.
“A Medicinal Herb gatherer, is it? Amusing. With a face just like that Princess from Delmar, yet gathering herbs for a living.”
At those words, my shoulders trembled.
What…?
A Princess from Delmar…?
Startled, I turned my head toward the cold woman.
‘That woman… is a Princess from Delmar?!’
Princess Evelina Delmar.
A hostage sent by the enemy nation Delmar to the Empire, and a tool for the Peace Treaty.
In the original story, the Emperor granted such a Princess to the Grand Ducal House of Escar in the Northern Region.
Eventually she does marry the Grand Duke, but…
‘When the original heroine appeared later, she was abandoned and took her own life.’
A Princess rejected by her own nation, and then abandoned by the husband she had relied on in this enemy land.
Perhaps her choice was inevitable—a woman without home or wholeness of mind.
But more than that…
‘She’s supposed to be alive right now…’
Before meeting the Grand Duke, before the marriage, before being abandoned!
‘Why is a Princess who should still be alive lying there?!’
As I stared in confusion toward where the Princess lay, the thug gripping my hair looked down at me and spoke.
“From now on, you’re the Princess.”
“What…?”
What kind of insanity is this?
The man studied my eyes with clear displeasure before continuing.
“Lucky for you. We won’t need to waste expensive Magic Stones changing your eye color and hair.”
Then, with his other hand, he pulled a small glass vial from his pocket.
Inside the transparent vial lay a gnarled, dark-brown tree root that looked grotesque, and it was writhing faintly.
“This is a Toxic Herb. It’ll make sure you don’t get any foolish ideas.”
A Toxic Herb? My eyes widened a little as I took in the writhing root inside the vial.
Most Toxic Herbs wouldn’t be able to harm me at all.
But this writhing thing was a type I’d never seen before.
Through the knowledge of my past life and the experience of my current one—gained by tasting countless plants—I knew instinctively.
‘That’s dangerous…!’
As I struggled to escape, the other thugs seized both my arms and pinned me down.
“Let go of me!”
“Living as a Princess then dying—that’s not so bad, is it?”
“Why do you get to decide that—ugh!”
The thug gripped my jaw roughly and twisted it. Then, as if my opinion had never mattered to begin with, he opened his mouth.
“Now then, Your Highness.”
A reek of laughter followed.
“Open wide.”

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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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