[Eshkaran Empire — Imperial City]
When Seyra opened her eyes, the first thing she saw—POP!!! --- was the face of the same old man hovering directly in front of her.
"Ahhhh! Pervert!" Syra gasped.
The people surrounding them immediately turned to look. The old man’s face went pale. "Seyra! How can you call me a pervert?! I am your old man, your grandpa."
Seyra blinked as she looked at the old man again, then glanced around.
The unfamiliar streets, the strange clothes, the people staring at her, her tiny hands, and her tiny feet. Her mind, which had still been struggling to process the fact that she had apparently survived being hit by a truck, suddenly went completely blank.
Wait. Tiny hands?
Seyra looked down at herself.
The torn clothes hanging from her small body were filthy, her arms were thin, and her bare feet were covered in dust. She stared at them for several seconds before slowly lifting one hand and turning it over.
This wasn’t her body, wasn’t her world, and judging from her current appearance, she wasn’t even a normal citizen.
She was a beggar.
Seyra’s expression slowly darkened.
’You have got to be kidding me.’
She had died once already. Was the universe really going to make her suffer a second time?
At first, Seyra had assumed she had simply been reincarnated into another world. Considering how many novels she had read about reincarnation, transmigration, and protagonists waking up in bodies that weren’t theirs, she had accepted the possibility surprisingly quickly.
What she hadn’t expected was for her new life to come with an entirely different era, an unfamiliar empire, and absolutely no money.
For days, she had simply tried to survive, until one particular day, beneath the blazing midday sun of the Imperial City, she noticed a magnificent carriage approaching from the distance. Several armed knights surrounded it, their presence enough to make the merchants and pedestrians instinctively move aside.
But it wasn’t the knights that caught Seyra’s attention. It was the emblem carved onto the carriage.
The moment she saw it, the realization hit her harder than the truck had.
She is trapped inside a web novel. Seyra stared at the carriage as it passed, her mind racing as fragments of memories began falling into place.
She couldn’t remember the title anymore. She had read far too many web novels in her previous life for every title to remain in her memory. But the story itself?
That, she remembered very well.
It had been the first straight novel she had ever read, which was probably why she remembered it so clearly.
The story had everything she could have expected from a fantasy web novel: a powerful male lead, a beautiful female lead, noble families, political schemes, elemental powers, romance, betrayal, and, of course, a villain.
Except this villain had been rather... unusual.
He was gay and he was hopelessly in love with the male lead. The man had spent practically the entire novel following the male lead around, helping him, protecting him, and suffering for him despite being rejected again and again.
Seyra had read his scenes and thought his life was unbelievably pathetic.
Now, standing in the middle of the Imperial City as a starving four-year-old beggar, she found herself sympathizing with him a little.
Because she understood one thing very clearly, she didn’t want to live a pathetic life on the streets. She was already dead once, and she had absolutely no intention of spending her second life starving in an alley.
So, after putting together what she knew about the novel, Seyra made what she considered to be a perfectly reasonable decision.
She would cling to the male lead.
It was simple.
The male lead was powerful, wealthy, influential, and capable of protecting himself against almost anything in the empire. If she could somehow become useful to him, or better yet, get him to take responsibility for her, she would never have to worry about starving again.
Of course, there was one small problem.
The male lead was also terrifying, but Seyra was willing to accept a little danger in exchange for food, shelter, and a future.
Besides, she had already prepared herself for rejection; after all, what other choice did she have?
And if everything went completely wrong, Seyra had even come up with one final plan.
’If I die by the male lead’s hand, maybe I’ll go back to my world.’
It was a ridiculous thought, but at the time, Seyra genuinely believed it might work, and that was how she approached the most terrifying man in the Eshkaran Empire.
That was how a four-year-old beggar decided to cling to the male lead, and that was how Seyra ended up standing in the middle of the Imperial City and boldly declaring that she was willing to become his daughter.
What she hadn’t expected was for Azram Vaerum Veyrath to actually accept her. Not only had he accepted her, he had given her his name.
Seyra Vaerum Veyrath.
And just like that, the plan Seyra had made to survive by clinging to the male lead had taken a turn she had never imagined.
And judging by the expression on Vaerum’s face when he carried her away like a muddy sack of potatoes... Seyra had a feeling her second life was going to be much more troublesome than she had originally planned.
Still...at least she had wealth now.
That thought alone made her feel considerably better, but there was just one problem.
She still couldn’t understand why Vaerum had accepted her.
CLOP!!! CLOP!! CLOP!!!
The carriage moved steadily through the Imperial City, its wheels rolling over the broad stone road. Beyond the carved wooden windows, the golden towers and sandstone buildings of Eshkaran passed beneath the afternoon sun, while the distant bells of the temple district echoed through the city.
Inside the carriage, however, everything was strangely quiet.
Vaerum sat opposite her, leaning lazily against the side of the carriage near the window. One arm rested against the carved frame, his silver eyes watching the streets outside. His expression was as calm and unreadable as ever, as though he hadn’t just adopted a random four-year-old beggar in the middle of the Imperial City.
Seyra narrowed her eyes with suspicion and finally asked, "Why did you adopt me?"
Vaerum’s silver eyes shifted toward her; for a moment, he simply looked at her, then the faintest smirk appeared on his lips.
"What do you think?"
Seyra frowned and crossed her tiny arms and began thinking seriously.
Perhaps he had seen her potential? Or had he felt some mysterious connection between them? Or he was secretly a soft-hearted man who simply couldn’t abandon a starving child?
Seyra immediately rejected that possibility.
This man had called her muddy and stinky; he had literally carried her by the back of her clothes. There had to be another explanation.
She continued staring at him, and her little face became increasingly serious as she considered every possibility.
"Maybe because you’re impotent."
. . .
. . .
A crow flew past the carriage window.
CAW!
Another followed.
CAWWWW!
Silence, a complete, absolute silence. Even the horses outside seemed to lose the rhythm of their steps for a moment.
Vaerum’s expression finally changed; his silver eyes widened slightly, and now the famously composed Azram Vaerum Veyrath looked genuinely incapable of understanding what he had just heard.
"Are you certain you’re two years old?"
Seyra blinked.
"Four." She puffed out her cheeks indignantly. "I am four years old."
Vaerum stared at her for another moment, saying, "I know."
And then Seyra folded her arms again and continued, completely unconcerned.
"And what conclusion did you expect me to come to? You accepted a random beggar as your daughter. Don’t people adopt children for that reason?"
Vaerum’s brows lifted slightly, and Seyra nodded firmly, clearly convinced by her own logic.
"If you didn’t want children, you wouldn’t have adopted me, and if you do want children but can’t have them..." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Then there’s only one reasonable conclusion."
Another silence.
Vaerum looked at her. Seyra looked back, and the corner of his mouth twitched, and he said calmly.
"My only child is smarter in the head but filthy with the mouth." He tilted his head slightly, studying the tiny girl sitting opposite him. "Life is going to be interesting."
"He sees me like entertainment." Seyra stared at him for a moment and turned toward the carriage window.
"At least I don’t have to live a wretched life anymore."
Outside, the Imperial City stretched beneath the afternoon sun. Golden sandstone walls glowed in the light, temple towers rose above the crowded streets, and banners bearing the symbols of ancient houses stirred gently in the warm breeze.
Seyra watched the unfamiliar city pass by; she still couldn’t believe it. She had been an ordinary office worker in 2026, complaining about her boss and worrying about unpaid overtime.
Now she was sitting inside the carriage of the male lead of a novel she had once read, wearing filthy clothes and apparently possessing the world’s strangest adoptive father.
Her circumstances were absurd, but at least she had escaped the streets. That was enough for now.
Vaerum glanced at her; his gaze lingered as the little girl was staring quietly through the window, her dark hair slightly tangled from days spent on the streets. Her face was still dirty, and her torn clothes looked painfully thin against the afternoon breeze.
And then there were her eyes, those unusual violet eyes.
Vaerum watched them for a moment longer, then he reached for the dark cloak resting beside him, and without saying anything, he leaned forward and placed it around Seyra’s small shoulders.
Seyra looked down at the cloak. "I don’t need one."
Vaerum leaned back against his seat. "I don’t want another dead body inside my carriage. It’s hard to clean up."
Seyra gave him an annoyed little tch. "You’re really bad at being nice."
"I wasn’t being nice."
She pulled the cloak tighter around herself anyway; it was warm, far warmer than she expected.
The fabric carried a faint scent of wind and something distinctly Vaerum, clean, cool, and strangely comforting.
Seyra settled deeper into the seat, wrapped in the enormous cloak; she looked absurdly small. The dark fabric nearly swallowed her entire body, leaving only her little face and tangled hair visible above it, like a tiny bird that had somehow fallen into a very expensive blanket and decided it was now a nest.
Seyra watched the Imperial City through the window for a little longer.
The golden streets gradually blurred, and the voices outside became distant, and the rhythmic sound of the carriage wheels rolling over stone began to lull her into a strange sense of safety.
And since waking in this unfamiliar world, she didn’t feel the need to remain alert.
Even if her new father was a terrifying man who carried her around like a sack of vegetables and apparently considered insulting her an acceptable form of conversation.
Seyra’s eyelids slowly grew heavy; she shifted beneath the cloak, curling into the warmth, and within minutes, her breathing became soft and even.
She had fallen asleep. Vaerum remained silent, his silver eyes moved toward the tiny figure sleeping beside him, completely wrapped in his cloak.
For a moment, he simply watched her, then his gaze returned to the window.
The carriage continued through the golden streets of Eshkaran, carrying the Azram of the empire and the little girl who had somehow become his daughter.
Neither of them knew it yet, but from this moment forward, the course of their lives had changed.
The empire had gained a new daughter, and Vaerum Veyrath had gained the one person who would eventually turn his perfectly controlled life into complete chaos.
For now, however, there was only the quiet rhythm of the carriage...and a tiny girl sleeping peacefully in a cloak far too large for her.