If I Can’t Save You, I’d Rather Die

Chapter 1

00. Prologue

I blinked slowly. My eyesight was blurry, perhaps from the blood on my eyelashes.

I wonder what the problem was.

Was there a problem that arose from the time I survived, which was not in the original plot? Or was there a problem because I saved him to use him as I wished…?

As I stared at the man in front of me, he had a distorted look on his face as he gripped my wrist with crushing strength. His other hand had a vein protruding from it as if he was about to strangle me.

I thought everything would be alright.

Even if it wasn’t perfect, I believed that somehow I could get over it.

I thought that he would eventually forget about me from his childhood as well as his resentment towards me, and lived as commander-in-chief in the military… And when everything was done, he would get an adequate fiancee that matched his status…

I once thought so.

For half of my life, I’ve been afraid that he’d found out about our shared memories, and that was why I’ve avoided getting close to him. Still, I had a tiny expectation that we might occasionally ask each other, ‘how are you doing?’ but…

“Do you… really have to… find someone who has passed away… Sir Schloetz?”

My voice, that has been rested, came out stutteringly.

“If that woman’s truly dead, there’s no need for me to find her.”

I knew really well ‘that woman’ he was talking about.

…Because it was me.

“However, it doesn’t look like she’s dead.”

“….”

“I don’t believe she’s dead at all.”

His voice sounded like a heavy rain, and I thought I was being carried away by it.

He wanted to find ‘that woman’ and kill her. Right… he had already said that back then.

For years, he’d been thinking that it was that one person’s fault, so he’d rather kill that person. Because of that, he wanted to kill me… since the day I cruelly abandoned him. Those days when I saved his life, lingered around, and deceived him about his status…

“Answer me, Young Lady.”

My sight kept getting blurry.

“Give me a desperate excuse that proves my doubts are not true.”

“I…”

“You’ve been doing that all the time, Vlandea Lefebvre.”

I couldn’t say anything and only hesitantly took a step back. My wrist, which he was holding, was very painful.

The long golden hair that had been cut off was dripping with blood.

01. I was reincarnated as a supporting character who will die soon

I was inside a baby blanket when I first found out that I had fallen into a novel.

At first, everything was unfamiliar, though as time went by, I gradually understood that I had died after overworking and got reincarnated. Luckily, it seemed that I was born in a nice house. Above all, there was always a man and a woman looking at me every time I opened my eyes.

Wearing elegant-looking clothes and having a gentle impression, I eventually understood that they were my parents. Still, I couldn’t figure out why they were always crying when looking at me because I always fell asleep before I even understood what they were mumbling about.

Then, one day.

After being constantly distracted by a strong need to sleep that was close to hypersomnia, I finally could open my eyes wide on a whim.

“Why are you not asleep? It seems that you know that I’ve chosen a name for you.”

A warm and friendly voice. A man that called himself ‘father’ said while carefully hugging me.

“Vlandea Lefebvre… that’s your name. It means days that shine as bright and glorious as gold.”

The moment I heard my name, a strange feeling washed over me. It was a strange coldness that made me feel as though a dagger had pierced my heart. I wondered what this sudden feeling was.

However, before I could figure it out properly, father’s face became cloudy.

“Vlandea, your father promised in the honor of Lefebvre’s family. No matter what, you will be healthy.”

“That’s right, baby.”

My mother, who was next to my father, uttered with teary eyes.

“Get better quickly, and you can see your brother, too. Enrico will be back from the academy soon.”

Enrico….

Lefebvre…

Enrico Lefebvre…?

It was a very familiar name. If I could, I’d like to deny it wholeheartedly, but that familiar name was indeed the name of the supporting character in the novel that I read right before my death.

Mother stroked my hair and whispered in a raspy voice.

“Look at the golden hair that resembles Enrico. Who wouldn’t think you’re Enrico’s younger sister? Baby, how I wish you weren’t terminally ill…”

At last, her voice continued with a sob.

Even though both mother and father were shedding tears, I couldn’t think of anything else after hearing those words.

‘…Who was I born as, and where was I born to now?’

Did I get reincarnated into that crazy novel where everyone dies?

That mad novel with a mortality rate of over 80%. Even the title was mad…

Besides, I was born as a supporting character, like a decoration who died at less than three years old…?

That was the title of the novel I was born in.

The novel, which had such an intense title, was even in series. There was a reason why I could recognize the novel that I couldn’t bother to finish just by listening to the supporting character’s name.

It was because I was completely enthralled by the supporting character. When the supporting character died while protecting the main character, I grasped my phone while crying and left a comment.

Let’s see if the world that killed my favorite character will do well.

Because I’ve been rereading the part where my favorite character appeared again and again, I could recognize this world as soon as I heard this body’s parents’ conversation.

…But I got reincarnated into that novel? Did I get reincarnated as a supporting character because I’ve been rereading it?

Vlandea Lefebvre.

Luckily, because I’d been reading the novel day and night again and again until finished, my knowledge about the novel’s world was very keen.

Vlandea was a minor character without any episodes, but fortunately, her brother, Enrico, was quite an important supporting character. Since I’ve been reading all the supporting character’s extra chapters that sometimes came out as events, I could vividly remember her life in one single line.

“My sister, Vlandea,”

Enrico gritted his teeth and continued,

“Died because of a painful illness when she wasn’t even three years old.”

‘Sh*t!’

I wanted to scream, but a baby couldn’t scream—!

“My lord, my lady. I couldn’t come up with the cure. The Young Lady’s terminally ill condition is so rare…that even using all the family’s power…”

The butler’s words, conveyed with a dark complexion, were similar again this time.

‘So, it’s difficult to develop a new cure even for a significant family.’

The family I was born in, Lefebvre, was regarded as one of the leading families in the empire’s nobility. Because of that, Lefebvre could spend a lot of money and time to find the cure for me.

However, no matter how much money and resources you had, developing a new cure was not an easy task. Nonetheless, in the original storyline, the Lefebvre family was described to have accomplished that difficult task.

The problem was…

It took years to be finished after I, no, Vlandea died.

‘…No way.’

Perhaps because of my condition, mother and father also looked gloomier day by day. And yet, every time I opened my eyes, they would always give me a warm smile.

Even though I wanted to reach out to them, my body didn’t move like I wanted to.

While I rarely stayed awake, I could feel my body become stiffer every time I opened my eyes. I knew it was a disease that made my senses gradually perish, but was this how I was going to die? Just like this…?

I had to find a way to get the cure as soon as possible.

“Vlandea, are you sleeping?”

Lying in bed, I could see a brat thrust his face onto me.

Enrico Lefebvre… A boy that was only three years older than me blankly stared at me and opened his mouth again.

“Do you know that you’re two years old now?”

‘Of course, I know, you brat…’

“It would be great if you could get out of your bed quickly. Let’s have a picnic together.”

‘I wonder when I can get out of this bed…?’

I always wanted to answer Enrico, who always came to see me, but I couldn’t. It was because I, no, Vlandea, who died before she even reached three years old, was really suffering from a terrible illness. Even though I couldn’t even speak, since there was a problem with my nerves, I couldn’t even feel any pain.

Before I turn three and die, no matter what, I have to find a way to survive…

Still, my resolution soon got extinguished because I got pulled into deep sleep again. They said I was suffering from hypersomnia because of my health.

Suddenly, one day.

Enrico Lefebvre, who came to see me again today, said words like a bolt from the blue.

“Your birthday is in two months. Vlandea, you’ll be three years old.”

‘Damn it, thank you for telling me…’

Time passed a lot faster than I had expected. I thought only 24 months had passed. At that time, I could finally guess why my family would always have wet eyes every time they came to see me.

I couldn’t believe I’d been sleeping this way for so long…!

Even just for a day, it was time to quickly carry out the plan.

After a while.

Late at night, when everyone was asleep, I carefully woke up in my cradle.

I didn’t even know how much hardship I’d have to endure to get up at this hour. But still, maybe this body, too, didn’t want to die since the sleepiness didn’t swallow me today, and my stiff body was able to move to some extent.

‘I have to go to the rear garden to get it…’

As I grabbed the shabby cage of the cradle and tried to cross it, I fell and tumbled to the floor instead.

…If it hadn’t been for the thick carpet on the room’s floor, I would have died from a concussion. I headed outside in a cold sweat.

“If you go all the way down the left hallway from your room, you can find a rear garden.”

Carefully recalled what Enrico had been saying when he was next to me, I was crawling and walking diligently. Fortunately, my room was on the first floor, so the rear garden wasn’t that far off.

No, it was really close.

The problem now was the closed door… I had crawled all the way just for this moment. Get up and grab the doorknob!

‘If I use all my power…!’