Lauvil's manga / #Novel World(143)

113, off

Donga is in love with his classmate Sungwoo, though he desperately tries to hide it. However, he finds that their eyes constantly meet and one afternoon Sungwoo confesses. It should've been the beginning of their relationship - a sweet first love - but it was never allowed to bloom. For someone had taken a video of the lovers and posted it online. Though only Sungwoo's face was visible. Terrified that people around him will discover that he's gay, Donga therefor proceeds to throw Sungwoo under the bus. And the relationship ends here. He never sees Sungwoo again, until he receives a mysterious package from Sungwoo in the mail; A novel that Sungwoo wrote, and apparently inserted Donga into. Soon thereafter, Donga is in a car accident and when he wakes up he finds himself inside the novel as that world's Donga. This Donga is an unfortunate young man, coming from a rich family, but having a stepmother who wants to kill him. Furthermore, the novel is set 85 years in the past, so everything is unfamiliar to him. Everything except Sungwoo. For Sungwoo also exists in this world, though going by the name Yujin, and he has no recollection of their time together in the modern world. So, when Donga pleads with him to send him back, he (and everyone else) thinks the young master has finally gone insane. Donga is not giving up, though. He believes Yujin is the key to return to his old world and he is going to get closer to him by any means necessary.

It's a bit cringy and over the top at times, but overall pretty entertaining. A 23yo Korean woman dies from an incurable disease, which robbed her of all senses before killing her. When she wakes up she's inside the novel she read before she lost her sight, reincarnated as the Villainess, Ariel. Ariel is a genius perfumer, but has a rotten personality. She forced the ML into a relationship with her, by holding hostage the special perfume, that only she can make, which keeps the ML's curse/madness at bay. In the novel Ariel's villainous actions gets her killed. So, to destroy her deathflag the new and improved Ariel's first action is to break it off with the Duke. Next she plans start her own perfuming business to stave off her father's plans to marry her off to someone awful.

Kyla is the eldest child of the noble Vesta family. However, in actuality she was an ordinary Korean woman, reincarnated into a BL novel she once read. Her brother is the protagonist of the story, who throughout it is pursued and abused by several men. Thanks to the obsessive love interests, his family is killed and his house brought to ruins. So, to prevent that, Kyla's first objective is to bring him home from the knight academy, get his sword-power transferred to her, and then take his place as the family's knight and successor. She's much more suited for it anyway, and her brother would rather become a scholar than a knight. So, this way she can protect both him and her family. ———————————— It looks promising so far. The FL is a actually a strong and independent woman, not just someone who poses as one. Strong mentality, strong physicality, knows swordsmanship, takes the reigns of her own life, protects her brother. I also like the added layer of guilt she holds towards her younger brother from a previous life, which we've only just glimpsed in one of the characters. It holds the promise of character and relationship development. Reincarnation novels have become abundant, and many of the plots have been seen before, but I hold the hope that this one will be different. Even if just slightly. The genre of the novel she was reincarnated into, is different at least. The strong character of the FL, also promises a different kind of story, than those about noble ladies who have to rely on a fiancée to survive and thrive.

Paused ch. 23