I Thought It Was a Common Transmigration - Chapter 71

“Shall we take a lap around the lake?”

“Sure.”

As if they’d done this many times before, Samuel and Killian took me for a lap around the lake in the yacht.

I relaxed and watched the sunlight break on the deep blue water.

Every now and then, a small fish broke the surface.

“Look there, Killian! Oh, there again!”

“Don’t stick your head out too far. It’s dangerous.”

But there was no wind, and the yacht wasn’t tilting in the slightest, so Killian wasn’t actively trying to stop me.

There was no way one woman was going to cause the yacht to tilt.

I clung to the front of the yacht, stretching out my hand toward the jumping fish.

There was no way I could reach them, but it felt good just to feel the cold water.

Killian watched me, smiling, and then coiled up the rope on the floor.

And then,

“Uh……?”

The surface of the water suddenly seemed to loom over me. It was only then that I realized my body was tilted.

“Ahh!”

“Edith!”

I could hear Killian’s urgent voice in the distance, but there was no way I could have defied gravity.

Time seemed to pass so slowly that I wondered if it was real, and then I fell into the cold lake.

“Gah! Cough, cough! Ki- Killian……!”

What a disgrace.

I was just worried about getting scolded by Killian.

I had no idea how I’d ended up in the water, but I figured I’d get a scolding for not heeding his warning not to go too far out.

“Edith, hold on tight to this!”

I saw Killian toss a rope in my direction.

I reached for it, swung my leg over, and the end of the skirt of my dress caught in the heel of my shoe and tangled.

“Ack!”

Suddenly, the dress felt heavy and I sank.

I flailed my limbs, but the more I did, the farther away from the yacht I went.

“Edith! Edith!”

The water was increasingly blocking my vision.

I choked on the lake water as it washed over my nose and mouth, and a cold sense of dread gripped me.

‘Let’s stay calm, I can’t die here, it’s Killian who’s going to kill me, I can’t die here!’

I repeated the thought and tried not to panic.

In the distance, I saw Killian take off his vest. It looked like he was about to jump into the water.

‘No! It’s dangerous!’

I had to stop him.

I remember learning that when rescuing a drowning person, you shouldn’t just jump in blindly.

You have to throw a rope or tube towards me first…… but why is the yacht so far away……?

I managed to get my shoes off and my feet were free, but the water was cold and I felt increasingly numb.

I felt the strength drain from my flailing limbs and realized my body was sinking.

My breath caught in my throat.

I was completely submerged, and everything became dark and quiet.

And that’s when I heard the voice of the sister announcer.

 

[Edith Ludwig’s death as a villainess puts the story back on its original flow. Three minutes to go until death.]

 

I heard the words, but I was a beat too late to realize what they meant.

‘What? What the hell is this? This is not fair!

It was an unfair game to begin with, and suddenly the rules have changed!

I wanted to grab anyone by the scruff of the neck and ask them.

‘Why did it suddenly change? Was it a game that didn’t even have rules in the first place?

Was I being too complacent?

I tried to pull myself together and tried to swim, but my soaked clothes felt heavier than I could have imagined, and my head felt more and more numb from not being able to breathe.

And the surface I needed to reach was getting farther and farther away.

‘If I was going to die, I’d rather it was killed by Killian……’

Even through my fading consciousness, I missed Killian, and I felt a little ridiculous for doing so.

If I die, would Killian care about my absence?

No, he wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t……

 

***

 

[……has been broken……]

 

What are you saying?

I think I hear a TV announcer’s voice from somewhere.

Is it a dorm room? Did I fall asleep with the TV on?

Why is my throat and nose so sore? Do I have a cold?

As I dazedly assessed my condition, I realized that I had heard the announcer’s voice many times before.

 

[Some of the flow of the original story has been broken by the author’s excessive intervention. The original story has been further damaged. The author’s control is weakening.]

 

A voice flowing nonchalantly.

I belatedly realized the identity of the voice.

‘Oh, I’ve died and reincarnated as Edith, right?’

With that thought, I gradually woke up.

Not only my nose and throat hurt, but my stomach and ribs hurt, and my whole body felt like it had been beaten.

‘Surely…… yacht…… yes, I went for a yacht ride and…… fell into the water and……?’

If I can still think like this, I’m definitely not dead yet, thankfully.

I blinked my stinging eyes a little, trying to come to my senses.

As my blurry vision became clearer, I could recognize the person standing next to me looking at me.

But he was the first to speak.

“Edith? Edith, are you awake?”

“Kil……”

“Oh, Hershan, thank you. Haa……”

Killian held my hand tightly and thanked the God.

“What…… happened……”

I wanted to ask what happened, but my voice didn’t come out right. Perhaps it was an illusion that I was awake, for my eyes were quickly blurring and I felt dizzy.

“Shh…… get some more sleep, it’s okay now, it’s okay……”

It’s okay?

Oh, I’m alive and Killian is okay. Thank goodness.

I drifted back to sleep, relieved.

 

***

 

I slept soundly with no dreams and woke up to find it was the middle of the day again.

“Killian……”

I called out to him in a low voice, but it was Anna who rushed to my side.

“Miss, are you awake?”

“Anna……”

“Would you like some water?”

“Yes……”

Unlike before, I was feeling better now.

I finished the glass of warm water Anna offered me and slowly looked around.

I knew I’d been drowning, but looking at the peacefulness of my bedroom, I had no idea what had happened.

“Anna…… what happened?”

“They say that the yacht suddenly tilted and you fell into the water, and Master Killian saved you,” Anna replied, sitting on the side of my bed and holding my hand tightly.

“Killian……? You mean he jumped into the water to save me?”

“Yes.”

“You idiot, what if something bad happened……!”

I raised my voice a little and it made my throat hurt.

I coughed a little and grabbed Anna’s sleeve again. “Killian, is he okay, is he unharmed?”

“Yes. He’s fine. He was really shaken up, though……”

“Hah…… thank goodness. What a disgrace…… I should have listened to him when he told me not to stick my head out of the yacht,” I mumbled, rubbing my face.

Then Anna patted me on the shoulder and hesitantly said, “Miss, you didn’t fall in by mistake.”

“Uh? Then?”

“Apparently, the yacht’s rudder malfunctioned at that moment, and all of a sudden, the boat yacht and moved in a weird way.”

I wasn’t even swimming that hard, so maybe it was the yacht moving away from me.

But it was weird.

Obviously, Samuel said he’d checked the yacht the day before and found nothing wrong……

“So where is Killian now?”

“That’s…… he’s interrogating Uncle Samuel.”

“What?”

“Uncle Samuel wouldn’t make such a mistake. In all the years he’s been managing the Ludwig family’s yachts, he’s never done anything like this. Besides, he’s a very nice man, and I don’t believe he would ever intentionally try to harm you, miss.”

Even without Anna’s defense, I believed Samuel had nothing to do with the incident.

The man who glowed with pride in his profession could not have sullied his honor by deliberately malfunctioning the yacht.

Besides, the voice in my dream told me how this happened.

‘Some of the flow of the original story has been broken by the author’s excessive intervention.’

The author, who was playing with me, had broken the rules of the game, intervened in the story, and tried to kill me.

At first, I wondered if the rule itself had been changed, but when I heard that the author’s intervention had broken the flow of the original, I was convinced, 

‘Maybe the author got nervous because I met the second condition……’

The fact that the author did so at the risk of weakening his control probably meant that he was backed into a corner.

‘Then the third exception condition is likely to be the last one.’

Despite my near-death experience, instead of being scared, I found myself smiling.

I was overjoyed to realize that I only needed to meet the third exception condition to get past this cursed original flow.

But what would be a happy situation for me would be disastrous for Samuel.

I had no intention of letting Samuel, who had only been used by the author, suffer such an unjust punishment.

“Anna. Go to Killian and tell him I’m awake. Tell him I’m looking for him……”

“Yes!”

Anna seemed to have a personal relationship with Samuel, and she seemed anxious, unlike her usual demeanor.

Not long after she left, there were urgent footsteps outside, and Killian burst in.

“Edith!”

“Killian……!”

Killian’s complexion was noticeably worse for wear, with dark circles under his eyes.

“Killian…… are you okay?”

“Are you worrying about me right now as soon as you wake up? Do you realize you almost died?”

I do. I even heard a voice start counting down to my death.