CH 1

‘Was a funeral originally this desolate?’

Craw, craw – 

Instead of the priest’s mass, only the ominous cries of crows could be heard filling the empty ceremony. 

Even the weather was cloudy, so the funeral hall was even gloomier at a glance.

Covered in a black veil, Livia held a white lily and stared at the coffin in front of her.

The owner of that coffin was her father.

‘To be exact, he was my father from this life.’

It was only a week ago that Livia’s father took his own life.

Her once well-off father was betrayed by a trusted friend, and he quickly fell into debt. Unable to bear it, he ended his life.

And his daughter, Livia Pellington, was the first to find her dead father.

Having just discovered her father’s body, she passed out from shock, and when she opened her eyes again…..

She had recovered the memories of her past life.

To clarify at this point, in her previous life, Livia was an orphan, and a terminally ill one at that. 

As soon as she was born, she was abandoned in front of a poor orphanage, and as soon as she entered middle school, she was diagnosed with an incurable disease.

Fortunately, her story became known on the internet and donations came in, so she was able to live in a hospital bed with that money.

However, since she started living in a hospital bed at a young age, there was not a single person around her, and eventually she died alone at the young age of 24.

But she was born again.

Among the extras that do not appear in the romance fantasy novel <Everyone Loves the Saint> that she read before she died in her previous life, she became the extra known as Livia Pellington.

***

Now, to describe the life of Livia Pellington….

Even if you were sugar-coating it, you couldn’t call it a comfortable life.

Livia grew up with love and support under her father, a successful and self-employed businessman, but by the time she entered the academy, her father collapsed and with that, her life as Livia Pellington began to crumble as well.

If only it wasn’t for that bastard’s guarantee.

Her father’s only close friend, Count Lever, was in trouble with his business, so he asked Livia’s father for a guarantee to help him only once. Her father, the kind and foolish Count of Pellington, signed it.

However, all of that was Count Lever’s ploy to pay off a debt through her father, and in the end, Count Pellington – once a successful businessman –  went bankrupt overnight.

Her father ran barefoot every day to borrow interest, and Livia did everything she could.

In the meantime, she was bullied at the academy.

In any case, it was still a bleak life.

Livia stared blankly at the plain wooden coffin and thought cynically, ‘If I was going to possess a character from a book, you would think I would be possessing a person with a little more weight.’

She didn’t want to be a heroine, but even setting that aside, there were many other honey-sucking roles out there.

‘Why, of all the many, many characters, did I become Livia Pellington, the most insignificant?’

But.

It wasn’t like she had nothing at all.

Livia approached her father’s coffin with a lily in her hand.

The coffin, without even a single lily, looked so lonely.

In his lifetime, her father was a shy person which did not fit in with his profession as a businessman.

When someone needed money, he took money out of his pocket, and when someone needed clothes, he took his clothes off and gave them to them.

There were dozens of people who had received help from Count Pellington, but not a single one of them attended the funeral.

It was because they were all conscious of Count Lever, who became a rich man by sucking her father’s blood.

“See you later,” Livia chanted quietly into the coffin.

“I’m going to help you, just a little.”

A resentful tone leaked out of Livia’s aching lungs without her realizing it.

She felt guilty for being resentful at a funeral, but thought someone had to understand.

She was alone again.

But…..

“On your last journey, have a happy dream.”

She reached out and laid her hand on the coffin, closing her eyes. 

After a while– 

Woosh

A silver halo spread from under her hand.

It was when Livia had just graduated from the academy that she realized she had a special ability. 

When her father, who had barely fallen asleep after being harassed by creditors, groaned, Livia had moved to wake him. The moment she raised her hand to wake him up, a light shone from under her hand.

The light enveloped him, and when he woke up, he said he had a very happy dream that day.

After trying a few more times since then, Livia discovered that her ability was the ability to manipulate the other person’s dream in the desired direction. 

She didn’t know why she was given such an ability as an extra, but she was glad she had it – because she was able to at least give her father a happy dream during his final sleep.

“This is my last gift.”

A halo of light filled the dark funeral.

Even so.

“I was happy to have a family in this life.”

Even if it was only for a moment like a midsummer night’s dream.

After the funeral, Livia simply packed her things and walked through the gate of the Pellington’s mansion for the last time.

It was because she had managed to barely pay off their debts by selling the mansion they had lived in.

The moment she thought that it was the beginning of a new life–

Spatter-

“……..What?”

Livia stared blankly at the blood dripping down her chin and onto her clothes.

On the day her father died, she thought the graph of her life had reached its lowest point, but something worse was waiting for her.

***

“It’s a magical flower disease.”

Livia had rushed straight to a doctor.

Until then, she honestly hadn’t thought much of her condition. She had assumed it was just because her father passed away, and she had been tired and stressed out while preparing for the funeral. 

…….Or so she thought.

“A magic disease?”

Livia asked back with an incredulous face when she heard of a random disease for the first time.

The doctor nodded with a serious face and continued explaining.

“It’s a disease that distorts the flow of mana in the body. Along with it, a mole appears on various parts of the body; it’s nicknamed like that because the dot resembles a flower.”

The doctor gave a lengthy explanation, but Livia could barely hear it. 

She immediately fired another question in a hurry.

“You can fix it, right?”

Then the doctor looked at her with a pitiful expression, and soon shook his head.

“There is currently no way to fix it. You can slow down the progress with medicine, but at the longest, three years……”

Livia sprang to her feet. 

It wasn’t worth listening to any more.

‘A time limit again?’

It wasn’t enough to be an orphan, so she even got a time limit again?

Livia shook her head. 

‘This is not possible. Something’s wrong.’

She would have to look elsewhere.

Thinking so, she took a step without hesitation. But her feet stopped before she crossed the threshold.

“………..”

And when she left the clinic again, she had a white medicine bottle in her hand.

***

Sitting on a bench in a nearby park, she looked at the white vial with distraught eyes.

She needed to take a pill every day, without skipping even once.

“Ha……”

A sigh escaped her lips at the unbelievable reality.

“I’ve never heard of a disease that occurs when the flow of mana in the body is twisted…..”

‘Oh, wait a minute.’

While Livia was lamenting and mumbling casually, she paused at the thought that passed by.

In short, the problem with this disease was that it is caused by a twisted flow of mana in the body.

Then shouldn’t she just go with the flow?

Of course if anyone heard her absurd theory, they would definitely laugh, asking what nonsense that was.

Mana was a natural energy itself that cannot be grasped or changed by hand. But…..

“I knew it, something could be changed!” Livia exclaimed, unable to contain her triumph.

It appeared briefly as an explanation in the original <Everyone Loves the Saint>.

The heirloom of the Duke of Mercedes.

The only family in a goddess-worshipping empire that did not believe in the goddess and was blessed by the demon god. 

The heirloom of the Duke of Mercedes, also known as the family of the moon, has the power to handle all the magic in the world.

Of course, it should also be able to handle the mana in the body!

She joyfully pinned her hopes on the tool that could cure her disease.

Unlike in her past life, where she couldn’t even use her hands, just the fact that there was a way to live filled her with hope.

But the joy of hope was short-lived, and she soon ran into a big problem.

The heirloom of the Duke of Mercedes could only be used by the current Duke of Mercedes.

The Duke of Mercedes was the only one who could save her….

And he was the world’s villainous sub male lead. 

…..Would she be okay?

***

Cardien Mercedes, the final villain and one of the sub male leads in  <Everyone Loves the Saint>.

A character who ends up ruined by overenthusiastic desire to covet the heroine, Celestina.

He was known to the world as a maniac, but the reality was a little different.

Cardien suffered from mana overload, to the point where he had to smoke sedatives every day due to a splitting headache.  

His life was a pain in itself, and he was living because he couldn’t die.

It was the heroine, “Saint Celestina”, who freed him from his pain for a while.

Feeling free from pain was like a brief taste of paradise, so he gradually began to be consumed with thoughts of Celestina, ending in madness and obsession.

He had the worst ending.

Anyway, what was clear now was.

‘I need him,’ Livia thought resolutely.

Cardien was essential for her illness to be cured.

But how could she approach him?