Chapter 1

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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: I'm the Male Lead's Daughter, But I Want to Live With the Sub Male Lead!
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Sophia's life had been perfect, and she had been happy.
She had married the man she loved and was finally carrying the child she had so longed for.
She truly believed she would live happily ever after, just like the protagonists in fairy tales.
“You’re carrying my child? Impossible.”

Until she heard those words.
Just moments before, her husband had been listening intently to her, but now his eyes were filled with deep betrayal, contempt, and disgust.
“Whose child is it?”
“What… what did you say?”
“I said, whose child are you carrying?!”
It was a tragedy that unfolded at a surprise party celebrating her pregnancy.
The beloved Duchess instantly plummeted, branded a harlot who had consorted with another man.
Sophia couldn't comprehend her husband's reaction.
How much effort had she put into conceiving his child?
Finally, the fruit of her efforts and love had blossomed within her, in her own womb.
Why was no one celebrating?
Why was her fidelity being doubted?
She had loved only one person, him, her entire life.
“Darling, please talk to me. This child is truly ours!”
Sophia pleaded sincerely with Caesar, who had returned home after a long absence.
But what she received in return was…

“You haven’t gotten rid of it yet?”
“…What?”
Ah, foolish, naive Sophia.
From the very beginning, Caesar had no interest in her true feelings.
“I don’t know how you can be so brazen, carrying another man’s seed.”
The answer had already been decided.
“Just like a commoner’s daughter, you turned out to be a vulgar woman after all.”
Caesar walked past his wife, his face like that of a victim of some terrible ordeal.
A few days later, rumors spread that he was taking a second wife.
Unlike Sophia, who was a concubine's daughter, this woman was said to be the legitimate daughter of a noble family.
Sophia crumbled.
“Gasp, ugh… my stomach…”
It was a time so agonizing she wished she could die.
In the profound loneliness of giving birth alone, without a midwife, Sophia desperately wished:
‘I want to turn everything back, to make it as if it never happened.’
Her childhood, when she grew close to Caesar through their shared experience of having commoner mothers.
All the efforts she made to place Caesar on the ducal seat, bypassing his legitimate brothers.
The fact that she loved him more than her own life.
Even conceiving this child!
She wanted to erase it all, make it as if it never happened.
But God ultimately did not grant her wish.
“Waaah! Waaah!”
In the frigid Duchess’s room, a child was born.
And…
And…
…
“…What was it?”

The child tilted her head.
The novel's plot, which had been unfolding in her mind like a movie, abruptly cut off.
She tried to think a little harder, but unfortunately, the rest of the story didn't follow.
“Still, it’s a relief. I remember most of it.”
The child mumbled, then tied her clumsily gathered hair tightly and looked into a broken mirror.
Reflected back was a girl with messy purple hair and reddish eyes.
The child’s name was Mabel Ashilonia.
She was the child abandoned by the Runaway Female Lead, Sophia, and the biological daughter of the Regretful Male Lead, Caesar.
‘And now, she’s the child who realized this world is a novel!’
About three hours ago.
A miracle finally happened to Mabel, who had endured eight years in an attic with no one to properly care for her.
The entire novel’s plot suddenly flooded into her small mind.
Of course, she didn’t remember much else besides the novel’s content, but the child thought.
Perhaps she was a Reincarnator.
Anyway, according to the novel's flow, the Regretful Male Lead and the Runaway Female Lead would soon reconcile.
‘Right in front of my tombstone, no less.’
Does that even make sense?
Eight whole years.
‘All this time, I’ve been treated like an invisible person…’
Sophia ran away when Mabel was just learning to walk, and after that, the Ashilonia Family members thoroughly treated Mabel as if she ‘didn’t exist.’
They pretended not to see her even when looking, not to hear her even when listening.
They acted as if a child named ‘Mabel Ashilonia’ had never existed in this world from the very beginning.
Mabel grew up alone in such heartless times, without understanding why.
Sometimes, she would even hurt herself, wondering, ‘Am I really a ghost?’
Only after seeing painful red blood, enough to make her eyes well up, did Mabel feel relieved.
I am human.
I am still human.
She endured, thinking that someday her parents might finally notice her.
‘But I die, and then they have their happy ending in front of my tombstone, saying, “It was a misunderstanding after all!” and “I only ever loved you!”?’
“No? I absolutely refuse to let that happen!”
Novel or not, she would survive out of sheer indignation.
Although Mabel was a ‘true’ extra, with no extraordinary abilities or secrets of birth.
“I might not have parents, but I have a family to sell, don’t I?”
It was a stroke of luck that the Ashilonia Ducal Family had so many enemies.
Of course, she wasn't planning to propose a deal to villains, make contracts, or entice them with help to make them her guardians.
It had just occurred to her that there was a good orphanage in the side story.
‘I just need to get some money and go to the orphanage. The one in the side story, that one, let’s go there. The director there was a really good person.’
In any case, Mabel had no intention of taking reckless risks.
She just needed to survive and…
‘I’ll definitely mess up my parents’ happy ending!’
Mabel, who had neatly packed her small bag, opened the attic door.
The moment she poked her head out, her eyes met with two maids passing by in the hallway.
“Gasp…”
Mabel’s body stiffened.
‘What should I say if they ask why I came out? If they try to lock me up for coming out, can I escape?’
Mabel gripped the bag strap across her chest and held her breath.
Her heart pounded rapidly.
“…Hey, did you hear that story?”
“Huh? What story?”
But the maids continued their conversation among themselves, as if Mabel wasn’t even there.

“Ah…”
Mabel’s gaze dropped.
Of course.
‘They wouldn’t care about me.’
The Ghost Princess of the Ashilonia Ducal Family.
A being whose eyes should never be met, who should never be spoken to, whose stories should never be heard.
That was Mabel.
‘Caesar was publicly known to be impotent, no, infertile.’
This was why Mabel, despite being the Male Lead’s biological daughter, was never acknowledged.
However, the truth of Mabel being his real daughter would only be revealed much later.
At the current point in time, Mabel was the seed of another man, conceived through the Duchess’s alleged infidelity.
“…”
Mabel walked around the Ashilonia Ducal Residence, gripping her bag strap tightly.
Occasionally, the servants’ gazes would fall on the child, but they quickly flickered away.
Thanks to this, Mabel was able to leave the residence without being caught by anyone.
“Ya… Yay! Long live being invisible!”
Having successfully escaped, Mabel deliberately shouted as if she were thrilled.
Otherwise, she felt she would burst into tears from the sorrow.
In truth, she was already at her limit.
“Ugh… ngh…”
Her vision blurred from the tears welling up.
‘No time to cry. No time, I know there’s no time…’
Ultimately, hot tears streamed down her hollow cheeks.
The novel’s plot surfacing in her mind was both a medicine and a poison to Mabel.
It gave her the determination to run away, but at the same time, it made her realize how pitiful her life had been.
Why did she have to live like this?
Why was she invisible to everyone?
She was here.
She was alive, right here…
A terrifying thought suddenly struck her.
‘Given my situation, what if the villains don’t believe I’m Mabel Ashilonia?’
No, what if they don’t even know that a person named Mabel Ashilonia exists?
‘Now that I think about it, was there ever any description in the novel of people other than the Ducal Family knowing about Mabel…?’
Only then did she realize she had run away far too impulsively.
‘Wh-what do I do? Should I go back now? Or…’
Her vision went dark with the overwhelming reality, leaving her unable to move either forward or back.
“…Mabel?”
At someone’s call, Mabel started, lifting her head.