Do Not Recklessly Rehabilitate Beasts - Chapter 1

Prologue

Melody frowned at the throbbing sensation. It was a terrible hangover. As she groaned and sat up, an unfamiliar sight came into view.

‘A hotel…?!’

A lavish chandelier. Bed sheets gilded with gold. Her last memory was of a shabby bar, so she had no idea how she’d ended up here.

Melody stared blankly down at her naked body, then turned her gaze to the window.

Reflected in the glass was a woman with disheveled light green hair, dark green eyes, and delicate features.

So yesterday, she had definitely—

‘I escaped from the capital, the setting of the novel.’

Melody had realized one day, through a chance event.

This world was inside a 19+ rated reverse harem romance novel, The Private Affairs of Lihellin, and she was a background character with no presence, who ended up caught in a rebellion and beheaded after working nonstop.

That character was Melody herself.

So, to avoid death, she had to escape the novel. After months of preparation, she finally rode away from the capital without hesitation yesterday morning.

And to catch her breath, she stopped by a tavern at an inn in a nearby village.

“Where are you going?”

She had been caught immediately. By Male Lead 1.

A man with blond hair, violet eyes, and armor as white as snow—a sculpture-like figure—Holy Knight Ahwin approached her and knelt.

“Miss Melody.”

With a devout expression, he raised both hands. In them, he held a pure white whip. Under the gaze of everyone in the tavern, he spoke.

“Lord Ahwin, how did you find this place…”

“Please strike me until your anger subsides.”

“Pardon? I’m not even angry…”

“If you’re not angry, then why did you leave without a word?”

“If I had said anything, I wouldn’t have been able to leave. I never imagined you would come after me…”

“If you must leave, then please take me with you, so I can stay by your side and tend to your wounds whenever you are hurt.”

She told him it wasn’t necessary, told him to go back, but he refused to listen. Frustrated, she suggested having a drink, and downed a few.

Before long—

“What is this filthy place? Did you leave the capital just to come to a dump like this?”

Male Lead 2 appeared, chasing away the innocent patrons—Crown Prince of the Valkaras Empire, Ryan. He was dressed far too extravagantly for the rundown tavern.

With delicate features and pale blue eyes over blue hair, her vision grew even hazier.

“A servant of the goddess tailing after a woman—what a sight.”

With a sneer aimed at Ahwin, his fierce gaze turned to the luggage beside Melody.

“If you thought I’d be desperate just because you said you were leaving, you were wrong.”

Ryan spoke with a face full of desperation. With an irritated gesture, he had the servants behind him set down what they had brought. Boxes full of lavish dresses and jewel-studded ornaments.

“I was going to toss you a few jewels from the palace.”

He sneered.

“You’re mine. So say you won’t go anywhere.”

“Your Highness, I’ll just accept the jewels as a farewell gift.”

Melody thanked him and pulled the jewel box toward herself. Then, to break open the sturdy lock, she brought down the whip.

“What if you hurt your hand accepting something like that?”

A chilling voice fell beside her ear.

Out of the darkness appeared a man exuding a decadently sinister air. Beneath his disheveled silver hair, his languid crimson eyes were stunning.

He was Male Lead 3, Duke Theonis Theodel Valkaras of the Valkaras Empire.

With a snap of Theonis’s fingers, the whip in Melody’s hand turned to ashes and vanished. It happened in an instant.

“You dare use magic in front of me?!”

“Step away from Miss Melody at once. I can’t allow someone as dangerous as you to stay near her.”

In this world, wizards were feared.

The moment Ryan shouted, Ahwin drew his sword and pointed it at Theonis.

‘If you don’t keep an eye on me, I might kill someone. Perfect timing—I’ve been in the mood to kill someone anyway.”

His eyes, menacing as they stared at Ahwin, softened as they turned to Melody.

“I was wondering just how much more insane I could go after you disappeared without a word.”

Trying to stop the fight, the inn vanished altogether. And after that—

‘What happened?!’

There were no memories… actually, there were.

“In magical tool crafting, what really matters isn’t the magic formula, but the hammer. It’s got to have a good grip to get that solid strike… wait, why is this thing so big?”

Melody was trying to grasp something warm and thick. It was a man’s forearm.

“Stop groping me.”

“Can I bite it to test the metal’s hardness?”

“…You’re going to bite me?”

“No, the hammer. Excuse me for a moment.”

As she sank her teeth into the man’s smooth forearm, a low, pleased chuckle followed.

Lips sliding down his skin. Damp heat. A sharp sting. Then a dizzying rush of pleasure. Memories of last night flickered vaguely, and she involuntarily held her breath.

‘What on earth did I do?!’

After a moment’s hesitation, Melody looked beside her. The man who had driven her wild the previous night still lay there.

She pulled down the sheet covering the man’s face, and the revealed profile was stunning. From the forehead to the bridge of his nose, down the jawline—everything was perfectly sculpted, even down to his vivid red lips.

Seeing Theonis’s face, Melody gasped and yanked the sheet back over him.

“This is insane.”

All she had done was try her best to escape death in the novel. But of all people, she had ended up entangled with the most dangerous man.

‘Was it because I tried to tamper with fate?’

To understand how it had come to this, she had to go back about six months.

***

Grand Temple of Light. In the basement of the massive, snow-white building, there was a department no one knew existed.

[Magical Tool Development Department]

A space strewn with corpses of monsters. Magical tool developers, exhausted from overwork, mechanically etched magic formulas written in runes onto pitch-black magic cores.

– Let there be light.

One of the developers working on a lamp chanted a spell in the ancient language, and the square lamp lit up brightly. Tossing the finished product into a box, the developer moved on to engraving another.

And under a dusty desk in one corner of the department lay a woman with green hair, sprawled out. It was Melody.

“Melody, wake up!”

“What’s going on?”

“I dropped the hammer we use for magical tool crafting, and it landed right on your head…!”

A few developers working nearby surrounded Melody with worried faces.

As she showed no sign of getting up, the one who had hit her looked about to cry.

“She’s not going to stay unconscious like this, is she? Should we contact her family?”

“Ah… she doesn’t have any family. Her mother left when she was little, and her father’s gone now too. She lives alone in an inn near the temple. Seems like no one’s really looked after her—she’s from the slums, after all.”

“Goodness. No wonder she was saving money like crazy. She was all alone.”

“Instead of wasting time, shouldn’t we call a priest? We can’t let her die without treatment.”

Melody’s eyes shot open just as the worried voices continued.

“No!”

Her dark green eyes trembled.

“No priests. Never. One gold coin is more than two months of my salary.”