* * *
The carriage suddenly stopped, and the sound of the horse snorting was heard.
Jian shrank back and groped for the carriage wall when the door opened.
A man in armor bowed his head slightly, showing respect to Jian.
“We have arrived, Your Highness.”
“Wh-Where?”
Jian raised his voice in surprise, and the man, still bowing, tilted his head and continued.
“This is the secondary border point. You must proceed alone from here.”
What nonsense is that?
Jian looked at the man with wary eyes, and the man straightened up, his mouth firm, looking troubled.
“Please do not force me to commit the disloyalty of dragging Your Highness out.”
It was a threat that he would pull him out if he didn’t get off willingly.
Jian, who was instantly annoyed, was about to say something but closed his mouth again.
He didn’t want to cause trouble with a stranger when he hadn’t even figured out the situation yet.
In the end, Jian, dressed in the uncomfortable uniform, stepped out of the carriage.
The forest seen with the naked eye, not through the window, was even more bizarre.
Unidentified animal-like growls kept coming from everywhere, and the trees and grass that should have been green were filled with black and purple.
“Then, may you be safe.”
The man bowed once more and turned around.
Jian watched the man’s retreating figure in a daze.
When it seemed like he was actually going to drive the carriage back, Jian spoke up.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
“No one is permitted to enter beyond that point except for the Fourth Prince, Your Highness.”
The man’s eyes shone with a hint of contempt.
“You know this, don’t you, Fourth Prince Hayden.”
“Who?”
The man sighed deeply, looking annoyed, and brought up the unfamiliar name again.
“Hayden-nim, stop this.”
He truly sounded like he was leaving and drove the carriage back the way they came.
Left alone in the gloomy forest, Jian watched the back of the carriage, absentmindedly repeating the name.
‘Hayden?’
It was clearly the name of the character from the novel he was reading just before he died.
The extra who took up half of the prologue and the guy who stabbed his own heart with a knife.
Hayden Garner Triat.
The Fourth Prince of the Triat Empire, a troublesome prince notorious for extravagance and wicked behavior.
A young man whose rudeness and ferocious temper were proportional to his beautiful appearance.
He would needlessly torment his servants, and after his father, the Emperor, cut off his funds due to his excessive spending of imperial wealth, he even tried to sell off imperial treasures.
It was, in a way, natural that Hayden was selected as the member of the imperial family to be offered.
He was the eccentric twenty-three-year-old who made Jian completely lose any sympathy after only three lines of dialogue in the prologue.
Jian felt he would have offered this guy up too.
‘Ha.’
Jian let out a silent, hollow laugh.
The last thing he saw before he died wasn’t his life flashing before his eyes, but his ‘ideal type.’
He really was something else.
If Jian had been a little less realistic, he would have accepted this situation as transmigration or something similar.
After all, Jian had read many novels, even if they were only BL.
However, despite his rich imagination, Jian was extremely realistic.
He was a thoroughly cynical modern person who kept imagination strictly to the realm of fiction.
Jian, who had just been scoffing, rolled his eyes to look around the gloomy forest, then dropped his gaze.
Well, even if it was the path to his final rest, he should at least enjoy what he could of this ‘ideal type’ experience before he went.
Usually, this kind of thing was all up to the imagination of the dreamer.
‘Let’s see.’
First, he should check the faces of those Seven Demon Lords.
And if possible, what they had down there.
Grrrk.
He was quickly figuring out the sequence of things since he didn’t know how much time he had left, when an ominous sound came from in front of him.
Jian carefully turned his eyes, and something in the nearby thicket was glowing with bright red eyes.
‘I didn’t say I wanted to have sex with a wild animal…’
A shadowy figure leaped up over Jian, who had momentarily entertained that weird thought with his stunned mind.
Jian only barely managed to duck his body and avoid it without even screaming.
The beast grazed past him, its sharp claws tearing at Jian’s shoulder.
“Ugh!”
The clothes ripped far too easily, and Jian shook his body in a daze, feeling the burning pain clearly.
‘No, no. The direction is all wrong.’
What’s wrong, my ideal type.
The wolf that had disappeared into the thicket across the way and was now slowly baring its teeth was a form he had never seen in his life.
The wolf, with its thick, dark-blue fur, like the color of the deep sea, bristling, and its bright red eyes flashing, thrust its savagely grown fangs forward.
The drool dribbling from beneath its jaw looked as if it was savoring the prey in front of it.
No, isn’t this supposed to be the ideal type shown just before death?
Isn’t it a dream?
Then it should show me what I want.
An ideal type is the perfect world a person dreams of.
Of course, for Jian, the ideal type was a place where seven strong Demon Lords with muscular bodies and impressive packages lived.
Not a confrontation with a wolf that looked ready to butcher his flesh and chew his bones.
And also.
‘It hurts too much…’
The spot where he was just attacked was very sore and painful.
Jian pressed the area near the wound and lowered his gaze.
The ripped white uniform was stained bright red.
The blood flowing inside the uniform terribly soaked his arm, and a throbbing pain rose from the wound.
Something was wrong.
Jian panted slightly and blinked slowly.
Even though he wanted to skip this moment, the situation didn’t change, and every time he blinked, he saw the wolf watching him warily.
He felt the distinct sensation of his body turning cold, and his vision was wavering dizzyingly.
He felt like he was about to lose consciousness again.
No.
This wasn’t a dream showing his ideal type.
‘Transmigration.’
Jian, who finally recalled the one word appropriate for the situation, gritted his teeth against the pain that made him feel like fainting.
‘I actually became Hayden…?’
Hayden?
The Hayden who was about to stab a knife into his own heart?
Jian let out a breath in disbelief but then, seeing the wolf preparing to pounce, he snapped back to reality.
First, he had to put the thoughts aside, and if this wasn’t a dream, survival was the priority.
That was instinct.
The human desire to live.
Jian started running without looking back.
His sprint towards the opposite direction from where the carriage had turned back was quite quick.
He was called a wayward prince, but perhaps he did some kind of exercise after all.
Though the wolf was quickly closing in behind him.
“Hah, hah…”
He ran for only a short distance, but he was already out of breath.
‘Of course.’
He was only fast, but his stamina was nil.
The Seven Demon Lords would absolutely not come to save Jian.
They were the ones who ignored him even when he was about to stab his own heart.
There was no way they would bother to step in to save a mere human being offered as a sacrifice.
‘I won’t die in a place like this…!’
* * *
