Chapter 1. What? Meeting the male lead in prison?

It was a day of wilting flowers and falling summer leaves. I finally accepted my situation.

Three months ago, I opened my eyes and found myself in a totally different world, a world of a book that I had read in my spare time.

I had transmigrated into a book. And it obviously wasn’t your typical transmigration.

I hadn’t transmigrated into a fancy room with a lavish bed or one in a dilapidated wooden shack.

<Why a prison!>

I had transmigrated into…a prison. Right in front of me were a group of people dressed in drab clothes of striped gray patterns, with prisoner numbers hanging near their chests.

…I mean, how could I have opened my eyes to a prison!

<A prison? A PRISON?>

Even if I was only dreaming, I would rather have a different dream than a pathetic one like this. But though it was the most pathetic place for transmigration, this prison, ‘Kambrakam,’ was definitely the setting from that book I had read before. I could tell from the strangely familiar ‘European Middle Ages’ setting.

Of all stories, why did I have to transmigrate into this X-rated tragic romance novel. The book was something I had casually read to pass the time, so the details were fuzzy, especially of the male lead. I only remembered that he was super handsome, but a bit peculiar.

I was in a sort of special prison cell with other prisoners. In a time period in which human rights were thrown out the window, we were given proper meals and even taken to a place for daily exercise.

This was because all the prisoners here were of noble class. As for me, my character was in prison in my father and older brother’s stead.

“Hey, Iana.”

I didn’t know what exact crime I was here for, but I knew I was some sort of extra character named Iana that hadn’t even been worth mentioning in the novel.

“Hey, hey. You listening?”

“Ah, yes, yes!”

Though I didn’t know everyone’s last names, the people in this prison cell with me were nobles, so I assumed that I was part of an aristocratic family as well.

I turned my attention to the middle-aged, pot-bellied man sitting in front of me. He cleared his throat and continued speaking.

“The reason why we don’t have personal rooms and have been stuffed into a prison cell together? Simple. They want to set an example. That aristocrats can be punished too. It’s a show of the emperor’s authority.”

“Aha, I see.”

Baron Paladis, who had been caught and imprisoned for selling fake money despite his smarts, was a useful confidante.

“So that’s why all the nobles are imprisoned in here.”

Here’s a rundown of what I remembered of the pretty strong plot.

The female lead. A lovely, kind, and friendly lady, Francia was imprisoned in Kambrakam in place of her father. This innocent lady couldn’t control her always insatiable curiosity, and one night, took a secret tour of the prison, only to get lost in the deep parts of Kambrakam. She chanced upon a prison cell with a single man imprisoned inside, but…

[Who are you?]

The man who had been chained by his hands to the wall, was the longest-term prisoner in the history of Kambrakam. In other words, the male lead, Heinrich Dorean von Hel.

The future Archduke of the Hel estate.

An incredible power was passed down to the sons of the Hel family, but unable to control his powers, he had been imprisoned in the depths of Kambrakam, and wouldn’t be released until there was someone who could help him with his control.

It was because this incredible power apparently turned the wielder into something like a ‘beast.’ Strictly speaking, one would gain power that surpassed human strength but would lose human awareness and reasoning.

[What a pitiful person…]

The kind and innocent Francia pitied the male lead after hearing about his situation, and released him from his bonds. But because of his power, as soon as he was free, he became a beast and ended up knocking down the female lead.

[Ahh~…!]

Ehem, you can guess what happened next.

Anyway. After an intense night together, the female lead became the male lead’s ‘companion,’ the only one who he allowed to free him from his shackles. In this case, ‘companion’ referred to a lover to the duke that was connected to him by their souls.

And then there’s more stuff about the villain and such, but for now, the male lead, the supporting male lead (villain), and the female lead developed their relationships with this prison as the setting in the X-rated novel. So, a love triangle was formed.

The love triangle concept continued throughout the story because the male lead had a relatively unstable personality and the villainous supporting male lead was consistently fixated on the female lead.

“The contents are quite…what a relationship those three must have had.”

As far as I knew, the villain and the male lead were of rival aristocratic families, so the love triangle persisted even in high society.

I stood outside the male lead’s prison cell as I thought to myself.

“Hmm, so I guess that’s him.”

Though I couldn’t see that well because of the darkness

“Ugh, I can’t see.”

I could make out a shape, but it wasn’t clear. Though the cells on the second and third floors had windows, this cell didn’t have any. Maybe because it was situated in the basement? Though they could have probably installed windows in the basement cells…

It made sense that the male lead had a gloomy personality. Even if he wasn’t born with it, he could probably only feel gloomy after being in such a dreary cell.

“Iana, I think you should go.”

“Aw come on mister, just a little more.”

I smiled at the prison guard Hans and hit his shoulders in a playful manner. He looked at me knowing that he couldn’t convince me to leave and shrugged.

“You know that such a thing like this shouldn’t even happen, right? If the boss finds out about this, I’m dead. Hmm?”

“Of course. Know that my lips are sealed.”

“Huh. You really are a little different. Usually the precious ladies of noble families wouldn’t mingle with lower class people like me, you know.”

As I smiled at him without an answer, Hans smiled bitterly and shrugged his shoulders again.

“Well…though I probably wouldn’t have talked with you if not for what you gave me.”

Kambrakam was a prison for the nobles, so all the guards were knights. Especially for the male lead’s cell, the guards were those with pretty high-level abilities.

A characteristic of this prison was that there were less chances of interaction between women and men than outside of the prison. And then, of course, there were a few people like me who struck up conversations with anyone, causing the bewildered knights to shake their heads. Though now that three months had passed, they had all gotten used to my actions.

“Did you like what I gave you?”

“Of course. Exactly where were you able to get such a high-class cigar? A middle-class knight like me would obviously drool over such an item.”

“I don’t know. I just asked for it in a letter to my family and they sent it to me.”

The knight looked at me as if he didn’t believe me, but I was telling the truth. As soon as I opened my eyes in this world, the first things I had seen were the desk I was sitting at and an almost blank letter with a small note scribbled at the top.

[Write to me what you want me to get.]

From then on, a blank letter would arrive every month, and if I wrote what I wanted and sent it back, those items, whatever I had asked for, would arrive.

Even items that were normally banned in prisons, like alcohol and cigarettes, were delivered to me if I asked. At first, I didn’t know what this letter was, so I just left it alone, but the next month I received a letter asking, ‘You don’t need anything?’

To the others who couldn’t get anything they wanted like I could, I quickly became a superstar.

<If you don’t mind, could the lady tell us exactly which family you are from?>

There were people here who went by their first names and others who went by their full titles. There wasn’t anyone who was called by their number, like, “Nobleman 3615!”

<I’d like to just be called by my first name.>

Anyhow, to the people who were curious about my family name, I always shook my head and asked them to call me Iana.

Because the thing is, I didn’t know either. So I didn’t let anyone know who my family was.

If my family was someone that I did know from the novel, then they would probably be someone with a high enough status based on how they could get me anything, but….it was difficult to see family members during imprisonment and other than the blank letter that arrived every month, there wasn’t anything else for me to work with, not even a name.

So I just assumed that I was from a relatively stable noble family. Because if I was from a family that appeared in the book, I would have figured that out by now. Well, it’s not like there were a lot of characters in the novel. I mean, other than the steamy hot nights between the female and male leads, nothing else was really that important.

Hans shook his head when I told him I didn’t know where I got the cigars.

“Well anyway, you are an interesting person, Iana.”

“Am I? I can’t really tell. Ah, more than that, Hans, I have a favor to ask of you.”

I pointed at the vague outline of a figure collapsed in the dark cell.

“Can you let me inside there?”

“No I cannot.”

“Really?”

Hans shook his head in a firm no, but I knew what these guards were most weak against. I smirked at him and spoke.

“Next time I’ll give you two of the same kind.”

“…I cannot.”

“3 cigars?”

He flinched at my smile.

“But still…”

“3 cigars and a pipe. If you don’t want to, I’ll just ask and give it all to Talmin-”

“Now that I think about it, I think going in for a few seconds is okay.”

Talmin was another prison guard who was a rival of Hans.

“Deal.”

I couldn’t stop my chuckle. Hans cleared his throat and turned his head the other way. He tried to hide his embarrassment.

“You really can only stay there for just a little bit, okay?”

“Oka~ay.”

Perhaps it’s because the novel’s events hadn’t happened yet. Unlike how the cell was under strict surveillance in the novel, the male lead’s prison cell wasn’t heavily guarded. Perhaps it was because no one knew the male lead’s power? In the novel, the prison cell was strictly monitored after the male lead caused a huge ruckus. So.

“You need to put in the key and turn it. Two times to the right. It’s a bit rusty, so you have to put in some strength.”

“Yup. Got it.”

I pushed open the door after unlocking it. I could smell something like wet moss past the rusted door. This cell hasn’t been cleaned at all, has it?

I took a few steps towards the wall and then stopped, blinking my eyes repeatedly. Someone lay on the ground, his body chained to the wall.

‘So this is the male lead who hasn’t met the female lead yet, huh…’

He probably hadn’t been eating well because he was rather scrawny, but he still gave off a sacred, saint-like feeling. Maybe it was because of his silver hair. Or maybe because of his long eyebrows or his eyes with a color like the sky.

My throat made a sound as I gulped.

Heinrich Dorean was hella fine.

***