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i’m starving to death. For several days already, he hadn’t been able to eat even a single cup of water, let alone a hot meal. This was going to starve him.

Judging by his head spinning and the dizziness, Yul’s current condition was on the verge of collapse.

Looking at the fruit basket on the table, Yul salivated. It was not a very satisfying meal after a few days of starvation, but now he was not in the position to be fussy about leftover food or dirty food… Or rather, he was not in a position to be fussy about withered fruit and the fresh fruit.

The distance to the table seemed to be approximately 2 metres. If the average person walked in stride, three or four steps would be enough to reach.

Yep, that’s for the average person.

The problem was that Yul was no ordinary person. He was only 20 centimeters long, and he was a double-headed, “human-shaped,” cotton doll whose head occupied half of his body.

Of course, it wasn’t like this from the beginning, but let’s talk about it gradually.

Yul moved his legs, the size of a finger, to the end of his shelf with pain. The height of the shelf was only about the waist when viewed from human eye level, but to the eyes of the 20cm cotton doll, it looked like a distant cliff.

“Can I? Can I really do it? Can I run up there from this height?”

“Umm…”

Yul, who was babbling to himself subconsciously because of anxiety, was startled by the man’s voice and hurriedly covered his mouth. A mouth the size of a fingernail was completely covered by his short, chubby hands.

The man tossed and turned his body before becoming quiet again. Even after his movements had subsided, Yul’s small chest was still pounding.

He was Archduke Mikael Orlov, the owner of this castle and the owner of this room where Yul was living unintentionally.

If he had to add a few more things, he was a coldblooded scumbag with a prideful personality, who in the future would become obsessed with his aide, Levi Bryce, and then became a possessive yandere1.

I must not reveal my identity to such a scoundrel, absolutely.

As soon as he is found out, his limbs would be torn to shreds, and the cotton inside would be scattered everywhere. Such a tragic death was a no-no.

While calming his startled heart, a quiet silence came into the room. Archduke Orlov seemed to have fallen asleep again.

Yul made up his mind while looking at the colorful fruit basket and the sleeping man alternately.

After watching for several days, Mikael Orlov was a guy who didn’t leave anything to eat in the room, which suited his character well.

Luckily for today, the object of Mikael’s obsession in the future and his assistant, Levi Bryce, brought him a basket of fruit, so there was something to eat in the room.

If he missed today, he could not guarantee when he would be able to see food again.

Hence, he must eat today.

Yul closed his eyes and tightly covered his mouth with both his hands to prevent accidentally screaming. Then, trusting the cotton stuffed in his body, he jumped off the shelf without hesitation.

Pa—

There was a small sound of the cotton ball falling. Yul almost screamed, but with his superhuman patience, he barely endured it.

The footsteps towards the table with the fruit baskets accelerated. His short, short legs moved busily. Yul, who finally came to the front of the table, took a deep breath.

“But how do I get up there again?…”

Although it was lower than the shelf, it was still a very high table from Yul’s point of view. Yul took a deep breath and looked at the table legs, which seemed to be three or four times his height, with a grudge.

Why on earth did he have to go through hardships by possessing a cotton doll the size of the palm?

He groaned in anger, but he didn’t do anything stupid to actually scream. He was just screaming internally.

“Phew… Anyway, I have to eat to survive. What to do? I can’t starve to death.”

Yul let out a long sigh and muttered to appease his anger. After taking a short deep breath, he hugged the legs of the table.

Okay, let’s go somewhere!

He squeezed the strength he lacked with his short limbs and started climbing on the table legs. Others may not know whether it is moving or rolling, but from Yul’s point of view, every time he moved his arm upward, he could feel his body rising. In other words, it meant that Yul’s body was small.

It was so difficult to climb up the table leg with the limbs covered with soft cloth, it was so difficult that it was like death. Yul sighed and climbed up the table leg.

“Huff, huff.”

Yul, who was going to rest for a while because it was hard, almost slipped and fell because of his soft body. He slipped about 5 cm, but in an instant, he gave strength to his limbs and escaped the crisis. Realizing that taking a break was a luxury, Yul squeezed out the energy he had mustered.

“Huh, huff, huh, I’m dying…”

Yul, who arrived at the table just before meeting the man wearing a black robe and a hat2, exhaled a rough breath, and fell face down.

Let’s rest a little, yeah, a little…

At that moment…

“… Why is this here?”

A cold voice pierced the eardrum sharply.

God damn it.

Thoughts like ‘What’s going on?’ and ‘It’s fucked up’ crossed his mind. He couldn’t even figure out what had happened to him, but one of the most primal human instincts, the sense of ‘being fucked’, was activated.

“Calm down, calm down. It doesn’t hurt even if I pinch myself. Thank god. I’m still not drunk… Wait, no I can’t pinch myself!”

Yul, who had been trying to calm down, realised that he could not pinch his cheek because he did not have a finger, and fell into panic again.

He looked around, but the cotton dolls that looked similar were sitting next to me in a row, and there were no clues he could get.

Yul, who had been staring at only his bare hands in vain, got up from his seat. He had to do something, whether it was looking in the mirror to check his condition, or figuring out where he was.

“What, why so high?!”

Yul’s hasty steps stopped after a few steps. Because he realised he was on the shelf like the dolls opposite him. As he tried to go down the ledge, he felt as if he was on a steep cliff.

Come to think of it, not only the chairs and tables in the room, but also the doors that could be seen from afar were huge. It was as if he had come to a giant country. If not, he had become a child.

“No way… No.”

Seeing the stuffed animals all around, Yul soothed his ominous thoughts. It was because he thought that he had become a doll himself, while being among the dolls at the same eye level.

“Yeah, it can’t be. Let’s think about how to get down from here.”

Yul glanced down at the bottom of the shelf and swallowed dry saliva. He’d have to do something once he got off this ledge, but if he just jumped off it directly, he would at least have a fracture.

Yul had been in trouble for a moment, but his eyes lit up again.

“Ow fuck, it’s hard…”

Yul made a painful sound and dragged the doll the size of his body next to him and dropped it on the floor. The stuffed toy was spread across the floor with a small thud sound. Seeing this, Yul resolutely nodded his head.

“Good.”

After dropping one doll, Yul grabbed another doll. Yul was thinking of making a mattress by stacking the plush stuffed dolls on the floor. The dolls were scattered around, and it was a strategy that came from the idea that it would be a hundred times better to fall on a bundle of cotton than to fall to the ground.

The, two, three, four… ten… He piled up so many dolls on the floor that he couldn’t count any more.

After dropping the last doll left on the shelf, a doll mattress that was thick and even looked safe was completed.

“Whew, Park Yul, you can do it!”

Although the safety device was made, the height of the shelf was still very high. Although the fracture could have been avoided, it was terrifying.

Yul pounded his chest at his pounding heart.

Calm down, heart! Don’t overreact!

“Okay, run. One, two, three…”

Rattle~

Just as he was about to say ‘ready’, the door burst open with a light sound of bells. Surprised, Yul stood still as if frozen.

“What happened here? Uncle, Uncle Vander!”

The person who opened the door was a pretty handsome man with reddish brown hair. The skin of the slender man was on the white side, and his eyes were bright green.

And… He was very big. Or so compared to Yul.

The chairs and tables, which looked just big, also looked just right for the man.

Seeing the huge man, Yul instinctively felt it. The fact that he should not move. It didn’t seem like nothing good would happen to him.

“Uncle Vander, are you there? Did an earthquake happen at night?”

‘Noo!!!!’

The man gathered up the strength that Yul had mustered, picked up the dropped dolls one by one, and placed them on the shelf. Yul was devastated to see that, but fortunately he didn’t do anything stupid by screaming in front of a man who was ten times as big as his body.

“Levi, are you here?”

“Yes. Uncle Vander, the dolls all fell, why is that?”

“What? No, what happened?”

“That’s what I was asking.”

The door inside the opposite shelf opened and a middle-aged man appeared. A man with reddish-brown curly hair, like the man called Levi, appeared to be in his mid to late fifties. Like Levi, Vander didn’t look Korean.

Vander, Levi. A very exotic name came and went in Yul’s mind.

Levi, Levi… It was an unfamiliar name from somewhere. Yul narrowed his eyes and fell in thought.

‘Levi, where have I heard that?’

“By the way, Levi, I heard you are busy these days because of the Archduke. How are you?”

Yul’s eyebrows deepened at Vander’s words as he was cleaning out the dolls that had fallen with Levi. Levi, Grand Duke. All the terms were not unfamiliar.

It was very strange. He didn’t know if he had only seen it in fantasy novels, but he didn’t recognise it from reality.

“Don’t even get me started. Every night I go to sleep and pray that tomorrow doesn’t come.”

“But how do you have the time? You came all the way here.”

“I’m here today because of the Archduke.”

“Did the Archduke have any interest in dolls?”

“What would a person like him be interested in?”

Levi shrugged lightly at Vander, who had been joking around and laughing out loud.

“Well, the Archduke Orlov is not interested in anything.”

Archduke Orlov… ?

The moment he heard the name, Yul’s eyes widened.

Levi, Archduke Orlov.

As the names of the two were recognized together, a forgotten memory came to mind.

Before Yul became a living dead as a graduate student, he devoured many fantasy novels while he was a college student when he had some spare time. Yul, an omnivorous fantasy reader who read this and that at random, came to read a fantasy novel with a rather manic title called “Red Prison”.

Although it had a 19+ label, he had already read a variety of fantasy novels and read 19+ fantasy novels too, so he started reading the book without much expectation.

But it was a novel where two men have a liaison with each other!

One of them was literally a crazy son of a bitch. So, Archduke Orlov was that crazy bastard. Yul later found out that such a bastard was called ‘yandere’.

Of course, Archduke Orlov was not a madman to begin with. Just a little cold and talkative, he started showing signs of madness when his aide told him he was going to quit his job. Then, from the moment he realised that he liked his aide, he became a ruthless maniac.

It was not enough to break the other party’s healthy ankle and tie him up, he even starved him to death. Even when that person ran away from Archduke Orlov after much effort and went to the Emperor, who usually cherished him, he caused a rebellion.

That love interest was the man in front of Yul, Levi. That is… So, this world that Yul was in now was the world in the novel “The Red Prison”.

He was able to actually experience the dimensional shift that he had read many times in many fantasy novels.

After realising the reality, he was rather less confused. At least he was fortunate enough to know what kind of world this was.

First of all, he should not get involved with the two main characters, Archduke Orlov and Levi. Looking at Levi’s face, it seemed that the Archduke had not yet realised his heart and had not yet gone mad.

What happened after the madness was not for him to know. Sorry to Levi, but he was originally created as a pitiful character, so… Yul could only leave him to be resentful to the writer for writing that way and find a way to return to his original world.

“The time has already come. Uncle Vander, I’ll take this one.”

“Yes.”

‘Huh? Hey, this crazy… !!!’

Despite his promise not to get entangled with the two main characters, Archduke Orlov and Levi, Levi quickly picked up Yul. In an instant, Yul in his hand struggled subconsciously.

“… Uncle Vander, didn’t this just move?”

“Aye, how can it be? Levi, you are tired. How can the doll move?”

“… Right. The doll cannot move. I must have been mistaken.”

They apparently called Yul a ‘doll’ twice.

Surrounded by numerous dolls, and the fact that his hands were soft balls of cotton, he vaguely wondered if he had become a doll himself. He had tried not to think about it because he didn’t want to accept it.

But now he had to admit it. The fact that he possessed the cotton doll from the damn novel “Red Prison”.

‘What do you mean I’m… a doll. Moreover… A doll in a novel with a yandere male lead…’

The words that his friend Changhyun had thrown out from somewhere seemed to echo.

‘When you are reborn, I will pray for you to be reborn as a doll. You must taste the pain of being pulled out.’

Levi, this jerk, didn’t even have a bag. At the very least, he should have put the doll in a paper bag or something, but he kept holding on to Yul’s pink hair with his bare hands. Yul, whose hair was suddenly caught, burst into resentment towards Levi in ​​his heart.

“Mom, it’s Annabelle’s friend.”

“Yes, that’s right. Annabelle’s friend.”

‘Eek, kid! What are you talking about?! Did you just call me Annabelle’s friend? Not at all!’

At the words of a girl who appeared to be about five or six years old, pointing at him, Yul reacted inwardly. Of course, he knew that the Annabelle the child was talking about was not the one in the horror movie, but the name of the doll the child was holding in her hand, but he was still somehow appalled.

“Bye, Annabelle’s friend!”

The child greeted him by waving the arm of the doll she had. Yul almost accepted the greeting without realising it. Had he done so, he would have really become Annabelle’s friend. Yul calmed his heart, surprised by the terrible situation just imagining it.

Meanwhile, Levi continued to hold Yul’s head.

‘Let go, you jerk! All my hair is falling out!’

Since it was a one-piece head stitched with a piece of cloth, there is no way that hair will fall out by holding the head, but Yul, who had not yet adapted to the doll’s body, had fallen into untimely worries about hair loss.

‘Wow, this jerk lacks manners. Sigh, whatever. I’m done.’

Because of Levi, who didn’t want to let go of his hair, Yul was halfway to giving up. It would have been more practical for him to think of a way to get away from him rather than to utter swear words in his mind that the other person wouldn’t be able to hear anyway.

(1) He pretends to be a doll and flees when he sees a chance.

(2) Move and talk openly to scare Levi and make him abandon him.

Yul traveled with his head in Levi’s hand, thinking seriously about the two options.

(1) was safe, but it wouldn’t be easy to sneak away with these short limbs. For (2), there would be no need to escape with difficulty since Levi would throw him out first, but there could be side effects.

For example, they might misunderstand that he was a doll with evil spirits and try to exorcise him, or put him on display like the Annabelle doll, or, if he is unlucky, take his head and burn him…

In any case, terrible things could happen that he couldn’t even imagine.

After a long deliberation, Yul decided to naturally choose (1), excluding (2) which has a large risk factor.

‘Okay. They won’t notice it anyway because I’m small anyway, and if I get the timing right, I’ll be able to escape.’

Deciding to pretend to be a doll, Yul stretched his body as much as possible and released the strength from his eyes. He vowed to show the perfect puppet acting.

Then Levi waved his hand at the carriage approaching from afar. Then the squeaking of horseshoes got closer and closer, and then stopped in front of him.

The impressive coach greeted him warmly, and Levi also gave a simple answer and got on the carriage. Thanks to this, Yul also got into the carriage.

Levi tucked Yul down in the corner of the seat. At that moment, while Yul was happy that his head had finally found freedom, he vowed to repay Levi for this disgrace one day.

“Sir, where are you going?”

“Please go to Archduke Orlov’s residence.”

At Levi’s words, Yul’s jaw dropped to the ground. The destination must be Archduke Orlov’s house of all places. Why take me to where that crazy maniac lives, why! The words he couldn’t say out loud lingered in his throat.

He was uneasy about heading for Archduke Orlov’s residence but Yul tried to placate his heart. There was no way the insane Archduke would show any interest in the doll anyway, so there would be nothing to do with him. Even before the Archduke realised his feelings, his attention was entirely on Levi.

———

‘… No, it should be like that! Why is that crazy Archduke bastard interested in me?! Why!’

Yul looked at his bright red eyes like a flame that was directed towards him and screamed silently.

The owner of the blood-red eyes is none other than Mikael Orlov. He was the crazy bastard from the novel “The Red Prison”.

Blood-red eyes approached his nose. In the burdensome narrow street, Yul almost closed his eyes tightly, forgetting his promise to perform a perfect doll performance. Fortunately, he pulled himself together with the last remaining reason and endured it, but his heart was pounding terribly.

‘Uhhh, why are you poking me? Why! Don’t touch me, you crazy man!’

When the Archduke stabbed Yul’s face with his long index finger without mercy, Yul bit his molars tightly so that he wouldn’t scream subconsciously. Fortunately, Archduke Orlov turned his gaze from Yul to Levi before long.

Yul breathed a sigh of relief at that moment, and secretly looked at Archduke Orlov, as he laid down on his back on the desk.

Bright red eyes with pale white skin that contrasted with his dark black hair.

In terms of his appearance alone, he was unrealistically beautiful. If you don’t know who he really was, it was a beautiful appearance that would make you want to bite, suck, and lick just by looking at his face.

However, for Yul, who knew how much trashy actions he would commit in the future his handsome face only felt terrifying.

“Levi, what is this?”

“It’s a doll.”

In response to Archduke Orlov’s question, Levi did not take his eyes off the document he was looking at.

Even in the novel, Levi was portrayed as a character who was very indifferent to the Archduke. As set in the novel, Levi didn’t even pay attention to what the Archduke, and even his superior, were talking about.

“Right, it’s a doll.”

At Levi’s short, cold reply, the Archduke followed his words like a parrot and muttered.

Looking at it, Yul understood a little how a man with a half personality ended up going crazy over Levi. Levi was the only one who treated the Archduke himself like that, so he must have wanted to get his attention.

Meanwhile, Levi did not give the Archduke a single glance. The Archduke even sat down on Levi’s desk, but he didn’t care.

‘Oh, Levi you punk. You’re so great, aren’t you?’

""

At first, it felt hopeless to possess a doll in the novel “Red Prison”, but it was quite fun to actually see the main characters in the novel.

It was at the moment when Yul was trying to feel the immersion like watching a performance in the first row while listening to the conversation between the two.

“By the way, Levi, why did you bring the doll? Did you like stuff like this?”

“Ah, it’s the Archduke’s birthday present.”

‘… ?!!!’

At Levi’s words, four eyes turned to him. Two belonged to the Archduke, who had been watching him all the time, and the other two belonged to Yul. The big, round blue eyes grew larger as if they were about to fall out.

‘Hey, dude, are you crazy?! Say it isn’t, say it’s a joke!’

“Take it.”

Despite Yul’s earnest wish, Levi passed Yul’s ownership over to him indifferently.

Yul turned his anxious gaze over to the Archduke.

Say no, say you don’t want to receive this!

“Giving me a doll as a present for my birthday… Isn’t this too much?”

‘That’s right, good job! Well done!’

For the first time since reading “The Red Prison”, he supported Archduke Orlov.

He didn’t want to fall into that human’s hand. Of course, it was impossible that Archduke Orlov was interested in dolls and would play with Yul, but from Yul’s point of view it was horrifying to fall into the hands of such a psycho.

“What’s too much?”

“It’s not sincere, is it? For Levi’s birthday, I prepared a present with much more care.”

“Diamond rings, ruby ​​pendants, black horses, pearls, perfumes, clothing, shoes, armour, swords, gold, premium quill sets and inks, various books, rugs, etc. This year, the Archduke received gifts from the imperial family and social circles.”

“… Right.”

“This doll was the only gift I could give from my side, without overlapping with so many gifts.”

Levi’s gaze, who was reading the list of gifts without taking his eyes off the documents, turned to the Archduke for the first time. Then, Archduke Orlov looked at Yul and Levi alternately, and then raised the corners of his mouth. Yul, who got an ominous feeling at that smile, looked up at him nervously.

‘Don’t tell me, it can’t be. Don’t fall for that kind of sweet talk! You bastard Levi!’

“Alright. Levi is the only one who really thinks of me like this.”

‘Aaaaaaaah, you crazy bastard!!!!’

This time too, a shout that he could not bear to shout lingered in Yul’s mouth. Unable to understand Yul’s heart, the Archduke picked up Yul with a satisfied smile.

“I’ll cherish it.”

He didn’t forget to say those words to nail one more time into Yul’s heart, who was in despair.