The Adopted Princess Hopes to Escape the Genre

Standing there, thinly dressed and drenched, my brain could barely function.

Looking down, I noticed that my hands seemed smaller than usual.

My hands were already on the smaller side, but they had never been this short and thin… they looked like the hands of a child.

Standing there, dressed in rags and soaked by the rain, I resembled a helpless beggar more than any tragic heroine.

I considered the possibility that this was all a dream, but the pounding rain, the shivering cold, and the vivid sensations told me otherwise. This was no dream.

Thinking about it realistically… Actually, f*ck it. How was I supposed to think rationally about suddenly waking up in a strange place after working on my assignment?

So, I decided to approach it from a fantasy perspective.

After a one-second deliberation, I came to a conclusion…

I think I’ve possessed someone’s body.

But wasn’t it a rule that if you were possessed, you’d wake up in a bed with a ceiling covered in artwork that looked straight out of a museum? Why was I out here, wearing rags and getting soaked by rain?

I shielded my face with my hand to block some of the rain, then walked toward a nearby puddle.

The reflection in the water looked like a child, maybe six or seven years old. At most, eight.

The continuous rain caused ripples on the surface, making it hard to make out the face clearly.

In the puddle, only a faint reflection of green and pale purple colors appeared.

I roughly tidied my hair, which was soaked and hanging limp, quickly wiping the water off my face before seeking shelter under a tree to escape the rain.

It was clear I was experiencing possession, but… why? I didn’t meet any of the typical criteria for this to happen.

I hadn’t been hit by a truck, hadn’t taken my own life, hadn’t encountered a robber, hadn’t been abused by my family, betrayed by a friend, bullied, or dumped by a guy.

I hadn’t fallen asleep while listening to or reading a novel plot, wasn’t a subscriber to some unpopular flop of a novel, and never cursed or pitied a novel’s main character.

I’d never left hate comments for an author, criticized their plot choices, participated in experiments, fallen asleep while gaming, developed a game, or secretly been the author of a novel myself! How on earth did I end up possessing someone?

One thing was certain: I hadn’t died.

Sure, I’d thought “I don’t want to live,” but it wasn’t serious. It was just a brief complaint about my situation, a habit I’d picked up—nothing more.

Could a phrase I carelessly threw around have somehow taken root? My short twenty-four years of life, spent entirely on studying, had ended like this, only for me to open my eyes in a new body. If I’d known, I might have lived a bit more recklessly.

No. No, it was too early to despair. Now, more than ever, I needed to stay focused.

I quickly assessed my situation and felt the gravity of it all.

For now, judging by the fact that this body was still young, I was likely not in a situation where I’d have to divorce a husband or break off an engagement. This much was still manageable.

Above all, there might be a way to return to my original world from here.

If I am possessing someone, then there’s likely an original storyline, and once the story reaches its conclusion, the method to go back home should reveal itself.

The problem was that I had absolutely no idea where, or in what kind of story, I’d ended up.

Was it romance fantasy? Lately, possession didn’t adhere to genre boundaries—BL possessions were common too, so I couldn’t be too certain.

To be honest, novel possession was outdated. And, of course, game possession was also a passing trend.

So, I couldn’t completely rule out the possibility that this wasn’t possession at all. Maybe I had genuinely been dropped into some past era. If that were the case, I’d have to be even more cautious, as places like this made it all too easy to lose one’s head—literally.

Typically, if I could remember the events before arriving here in detail, it was likely possession. If my memories were fuzzy, it could be regression or reincarnation. But I remembered everything clearly, and I was certain I hadn’t died. I hadn’t been standing on a road; I’d been sitting in a café on campus, working on an experiment report—hardly a life-threatening activity.

Just then, a hypothesis flashed through my mind.

Could I have died of natural causes from sheer stress over my assignment?

I’d been half-joking about having to bury my professor, after all. Did they think I only attended their class?

A sudden wave of irritation toward my professor surged within me, but I managed to suppress it.

With a calmer mind, I took another look around and noticed that the once heavy rain had eased to a drizzle.

It seemed the best course of action now was to find a village where people lived, to gather clues about this place.

Questions about this world kept flooding my mind, but I needed to move first. Putting aside the stray thoughts, I headed toward a faint light in the distance.

I desperately hoped this was just another typical setting from a run-of-the-mill novel.

‘Yeah, once I get closer, I’ll probably figure out the genre soon enough. There’s no way I’ll actually lose my head… right?’