The cheap lye soap burned the skin of my palms.
This is not a figure of speech. Layers of my skin were literally peeling off from the harsh chemicals.
Numbness had long since taken over my knees after kneeling on this damn stone floor for at least three hours.
'Who was the absolute idiot who designed a castle hallway as long as an endless highway?'
'Oh, right. Me. The idiot is me.'
Severe burnout had completely destroyed my common sense last year.
'Drunk on cheap instant coffee at three in the morning, my past self actually typed, "Valdris Castle needs to be grand! The hallways should be made of black marble!"'
'What an absolute joke.'
Black marble my ass. Now the burden of scrubbing it until it shined fell entirely on me and this worn-out palm brush.
My name is Xaviera. Twenty-four years old, a former barista, and a workaholic part-time webnovel author.
Or rather, that used to be my real identity in the original world.
Right now? The name is Lia.
Just a maid in the East Wing, occupying the absolute lowest caste in the food chain of the Vessen Kingdom.
No family. No money. No future.
And the absolute worst part: no Resonance.
In this world built entirely on emotion-based magic, my birth record proudly displays an 'Empty Tone'.
The Church literally considers this body soulless.
Having no soul means possessing zero legal rights. Legally speaking, a maid like me is equivalent to the castle furniture.
Getting thrown away or beaten to death carries no legal consequences whatsoever.
Dirty water, looking more like sewer sludge than cleaning fluid, dripped from the mop.
A loud pop echoed from my spine as my posture shifted.
My stomach growled violently. Not a single crumb of food had entered this body since yesterday afternoon.
The agricultural tax was set at a staggering 60 percent, siphoned straight to the kingdom's treasury.
Basic food prices had artificially skyrocketed in the lower districts thanks to the trade monopoly held by House Caldris.
'A 60 percent tax rate? What kind of garbage economic system is this?'
'Only a lazy writer refusing to do basic macroeconomic research would write a system this rotten.'
'The problem is, the current me has to starve because of my own past laziness.'
"Lia! Why did you stop scrubbing?!"
That shrill voice pierced right through the freezing hallway. Zora, the head maid of the East Wing, was on the prowl.
Turning my head to look at her felt like a waste of energy. "The water is already black, Ma'am. Unless you want this floor dyed gray."
A harsh scoff escaped Zora's lips. Her heavy footsteps approached fast.
"Don't give me excuses, you soulless brat. Change the water immediately. The Crown Prince will be passing through here shortly!"
Total paralysis took over my body.
Glucose deprivation suddenly stopped mattering.
'Wait. The Crown Prince? Killian? Black marble hallway. Morning shift. Zora yelling. Scrubbing the floor alone.'
'Shit. Holy shit.'
'This is Chapter 3 in my original novel draft. The exact introductory scene meant to establish just how tyrannical and cruel the Male Lead is.'
A puddle of dirty water sat mockingly on the marble floor. The exact garbage script from my past flooded my memory.
'He is going to walk by with his entourage. The clumsy maid, Lia, is going to trip over her own bucket out of sheer terror at the prince's aura.'
'Dirty water will splash onto Killian's ridiculously expensive leather boots. And then, Killian will step on Lia's hand until the bones shatter.'
'Why did I write that? Because my ex-boyfriend was a jerk, so I took it out on a fictional maid. I wrote him as an edgy psychopath just to vent my frustration.'
Walking away without looking back, the prince would leave this throwaway character permanently crippled.
Red, blistered hands trembled before my eyes.
'The very hands used to type this novel are now scheduled to be crushed by my own character.'
'This is pure insanity. Burning the manuscript sounds like a fantastic idea right about now.'
Heavy footsteps echoed from the north end of the hallway.
It wasn't just one person. A group of fully armored knights marched in perfect unison.
The atmosphere dropped instantly. All the air in the corridor felt like it was being vacuumed out.
An invisible pressure pushed down on my chest, nearly causing me to choke on my own spit.
This had to be the effect of his Tone Six Resonance. The Resonance of Wrath. A deadly anomaly that kept the entire Church awake at night.
A massive wave of cringe hit right through the panic.
'Back then, the description went like this: "A deadly aura that froze the air and shrank the courage of men".'
'Reading it on a laptop screen was cool. Experiencing it in person? It feels like a one-ton elephant is sitting directly on my lungs.'
The filthy bucket got shoved violently toward the edge of the wall.
'Screw the script. To hell with dramatic plotlines. Surviving this feudal hellhole requires all ten of my fingers.'
Bowing deeply, my arms hugged the worn-out brush to my chest, and my gaze fixed on the holes in my cheap shoes.
'Just keep walking. Pretend this maid is dust. Just a broken NPC.'
The entourage was getting closer. Leather boots hit the floor rhythmically, echoing against the marble walls.
At the very front, a pair of pitch-black boots with silver detailing stopped right in front of me.
Breathing was no longer an option. The ache in my knees throbbed like crazy, begging for mercy.
The entire group came to a complete halt. Absolute silence fell over the hallway.
"You are in my way."
The voice was low. Too masculine. Way too try-hard to sound threatening.
'Dear God, did I really write this cheap, cheesy dialogue for my own main character? He sounds like a teenager trying to act tough.'
"I beg your pardon, Your Highness," the response came out deadpan.
No hysterical, terrified tone escaped my lips, completely ruining the intended manuscript.
The wooden bucket slid back just a few inches. "The path is clear."
This hallway was four meters wide. A circus troupe and a horse carriage could pass through without ever touching the hem of my skirt.
One second passed. Two seconds. Three seconds.
The boots didn't move.
Suddenly, the tip of that expensive footwear forcefully kicked the wooden bucket.
Smash! The bucket toppled over violently.
Black, mud-smelling lye water poured out everywhere.
That disgusting flood swept across the marble floor that had taken three painstaking hours to scrub.
Freezing, sticky water soaked my knees and half of my dress.
Suffocating silence returned to the hallway.
The knights behind the prince held their breath. Waiting for Killian to explode in anger and draw his sword was clearly part of their daily routine.
In the original script, this was the exact moment wailing and begging commenced.
Prostrating in that filthy puddle and degrading her pride until it sank beneath the castle floor was Lia's sole purpose.
The black puddle reflected my miserable face.
Filth covered the floor once again.
'Three hours. Dead knees just to clean this area. And this bastard kicked it over simply because his villain persona needed validation today.'
Extreme exhaustion, a mountain of real-world stress, and severe sleep deprivation finally vaporized the last drops of my sanity.
My head snapped up.
'Screw Tone Six Resonance. Screw the kingdom's threat of execution.'
Dark red eyes—another edgy, childish character design choice—glared sharply downward.
Killian Aldric Vessen. The face was undeniably gorgeous.
'A ridiculously sharp jawline, aesthetically messy jet-black hair. The exact picture from my head.'
'But right now, the only thing standing there is a giant, angry toddler desperately in need of a massive reality check.'
"Do you know," the words came out sounding more like an exhausted sigh than a loud protest. "How long it took to scrub this floor?"
Gasps echoed from the knights behind Killian. Someone muttered under their breath, sounding completely scandalized.
Killian froze. His ice-cold eyes widened just a fraction.
His eyebrows furrowed slightly. Processing this absurd situation seemed to crash his central nervous system.
'Of course a glitch is happening. A throwaway character with no civil rights just complained about her workload instead of crying in fear.'
"The water had to be changed three times because the dust was so thick."
Ignoring the murderous glare from Zane, the guard captain standing protectively behind the prince, was surprisingly easy.
Standing up sent agonizing screams through my joints. Snapping in half felt like a real possibility.
The soaked dress clung tightly to my skin, dripping dirty water. The piercing smell of cheap soap induced a wave of nausea.
"There is no Resonance magic here. No backup cleaning staff exists. Breakfast didn't even happen because the food rations were cut."
Direct eye contact with Killian was established. Those red eyes were now radiating pure, unadulterated danger.
"And now everything has to be restarted from scratch because the bucket was kicked. That was entirely on purpose."
Killian stared intensely.
The murderous aura that felt so thick a moment ago suddenly shifted directions.
Cold, obsessive curiosity replaced the wrath. Literally, it was just as terrifying as his anger.
"What is your name?" Killian finally spoke.
Flat intonation carried a dominant undertone, automatically making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
'Ah, shit. God damn it.'
'Deviating from the character profile is a bad sign. Prince Killian never cares about a lowly servant's name.'
'Keeping my mouth shut would have been smarter. Crying and wailing like good cannon fodder was the right play. Stubbornness is always the root cause of every disaster.'
"Lia," the answer slipped out quietly. Reluctant.
Fingers gripped the handle of the scrub brush tight enough to throb with stinging pain.
A slight tilt of his head followed. The gaze felt like it was skinning my brain alive.
"Clean up this mess, Lia." Stepping forward, Killian closed the distance until looking up at him became mandatory.
The smell of expensive musk and faint rusted iron wafted from his clothes.
"Then come see me in my study in the Central Tower."
Turning around, the prince led the way. The group of knights resumed their tense strides.
Zane shot a look that screamed 'delayed funeral corpse' before hurrying after his master.
Complete isolation returned to the disgusting, grand hallway.
Shaking knees stood in the middle of a mud puddle.
The sound of their footsteps slowly faded around the corner.
Suddenly, a small female figure came running frantically from the direction of the laundry room.
Gwen.
Brown hair flew everywhere in a messy tangle. Pale skin dripped with cold sweat from sheer terror.
"Lia! Oh my god, Lia! You're still alive?!" Hands grabbed my shoulders, shaking the fatigue right out of my bones.
Optimistic eyes, usually shining so bright, were now filled with absolute horror.
Glancing at the puddle, then at the surprisingly intact hands, Gwen gasped. "The Crown Prince stopped in front of you. A dead woman is all I expected to see."
Staring at Gwen felt surreal. Lia's true, overly chatty best friend.
'The pure, warm, and slightly naive character written specifically to be brutally murdered in Arc 3.'
'Her death in the original manuscript served as nothing but a cheap plot device for the Male Lead's motivation.'
'Seeing her breathing, feeling her warm hands, makes the nausea so much worse. Text on a screen has turned into a living person.'
"Still breathing, Gwen," a hoarse voice scraped my throat. "But the Prince ordered an audience in the Central Tower."
Both hands covered Gwen's mouth. Tears of terror immediately welled up in her eyes.
"The Central Tower? No lowly servant ever comes back from there in one piece, Lia. Reporting this to Madam Zora is the only way!"
A bitter, sarcastic laugh escaped the back of my throat.
"Zora threw us into this work area, Gwen. Being tossed off the top of that tower today wouldn't even make her blink."
Trembling hands gently pulled Gwen's grip away.
The wet dress stuck coldly to my skin, causing violent shivers.
Meeting Killian was unavoidable now. The handsome psychopath created out of pure anger at the world was waiting.
Surviving his interrogation, avoiding torture in the Central Tower, and then completely dismantling this dying kingdom's feudal system from scratch was the new itinerary.
'All of this is happening just because a certain idiotic author refused to delete a trash manuscript file last month.'
The back of a dirty hand wiped away the grime on my face.
'Dear God, I really hate this book.'