Why am I the Princess?

“Ah… this hurts like hell.”

The death I had witnessed countless times and inflicted upon others, I was now experiencing for myself. As my consciousness began to fade, flashes of my life raced past me in what people call a “life reel.”

Memento Mori. I lived every day with the awareness of my own mortality, knowing that one day I would die. I struggled desperately to survive—no parents, no family, no money—fighting to prove my existence before the world erased me.

Memento Mori. Now, standing on the edge of its meaning, I hear a desperate voice pulling me back.

“Boss… You have to survive…!!”

A man on the verge of tears looked down at me.
A face I had seen countless times—a face I considered one of the few ties I could call family.

Park Ki…

His pleading voice began to draw me back from the abyss I was slipping into.

The suffocating sensation in my throat forced me to spit out the liquid pooling there. It wasn’t saliva—it was blood.
Seeing the red fluid dripping from my mouth, my mind became sharper, and I began to recognize the situation around me.
But the more I realized the truth of it all, the more absurd it felt.

And so, I laughed.

“Ha… haha… shit… Do you think… I can really survive?”

I had lived my whole life this way, and even at the very end, the only thing I could give these men were curses.
They seemed relieved, perhaps thinking my swearing meant I still had some strength left in me. But their relief stopped short of genuine hope.

“…..”

Park Ki wiped his tears and spoke firmly.

“Carry the boss.”
“Yes, sir.”

As one of my men bent down to lift me, I muttered weakly, “Leave me.”
“But…!”

When I extended my hand, Park Ki immediately understood what I wanted.
He pulled a cigarette from his pocket with trembling hands.

“Park Ki.”
“Yes…”

Slumping to the ground, I placed the cigarette in my mouth. Park Ki, his fingers still shaking, lit it for me.
These men, who had never shed tears even in the face of losing their closest comrades, now gazed at me with watery eyes, grief written all over their faces.

Five of them stood before me, their expressions filled with sorrow.
These were the men I had raised, the ones who treated me as family—and the ones I, in turn, considered my own.

“It hurts like hell…”
“…..”

As memories of our sweat-stained, blood-soaked days together flooded my mind, I watched the cigarette burn, its ember consuming the last moments of my life.

A fleeting moment of burning, releasing a noxious stench, harmful and destructive, sometimes even driving people to their deaths… cigarettes.
I couldn’t help but feel how much they mirrored my own life.

Cough… “Still… feels kind of refreshing…”

I let out a faint laugh, staring at the cigarette between my fingers, when one of Park Ki’s men shouted.

“Those bastards! They’re already here, boss!!!”

Park Ki, standing tall in his suit, drew a dagger at the report.

“Boss, you need to run.”
“Ha… you punk… even now… cough… I gotta admit… I raised you well, didn’t I?”

The metallic floor beneath us trembled, vibrating with the sound of numerous footsteps quickly closing in.

“Park Ki.”
“Yes, boss?”
“Get out of here while you’ve still got all your limbs.”
“Even if you kill me… even if you die… I’m not leaving you behind, boss. Not even your body.”
“You damn idiot… fine then, just die with me, you moron…”

The vibrations on the floor grew stronger, the sound of approaching footsteps growing louder.

“Jae-hyung.”

Lee Jae-hyung. I raised him alongside Park Ki. Took him in back when he was just wandering aimlessly.
Unlike his usual grumbling self, he answered seriously this time, understanding the gravity of the moment.

“Yes, boss.”

I grabbed him by the back of his neck and pulled him close to me.

“You… you want to live, don’t you? I get it… cough… I understand. Take Park Ki and run.”

Jae-hyung stared at me, silent, his eyes serious, before suddenly breaking into a loud laugh.

“Ha! Hahaha! Twenty years together and you still don’t get it, huh?”
“…..”
“That’s disappointing as hell! It’s always ‘Park Ki this’ and ‘Park Ki that!’ Boss, you ever stop to think about me? Huh?”

I looked at Jae-hyung as he grabbed my shoulder, his grip firm.

“I can’t leave you behind either. Not with your body lying here like this.”
“You damn fools… cough… fine then, all of you just die with me, you brain-dead bastards.”

At my words, everyone turned to face the hallway with grim determination.

In the dimly lit corridor, the hounds of S Corp—the bastards who had been hunting us—finally came into view.

Without a word, the clash of blades began.

The cigarette I had been holding burned to its very end, leaving nothing but ash.

Park Ki, with a gaping hole in his chest, collapsed in front of me.

“I’ll follow you… to the very end,” he muttered weakly.

A tattooed man kicked Park Ki’s lifeless body aside.
Jae-hyung, his face broken and bloodied, slumped against the wall, his breath shallow as he muttered under his breath.

“Sur… survive…”

Around me lay dozens of corpses, the result of my subordinates’ desperate struggle.

“Wow… they said only monsters were left around you, and they weren’t kidding.”

A voice came from behind as a man shoved aside the tattooed head of one of my fallen enemies.

“So, Kang Han-seong, even you’re about to die, huh?”

The burly man awkwardly held a knife, bringing it to my chest as if testing its weight.

“How many of us had to die just to take you down? It’s absurd.”

He seemed to hold some important position, but his face didn’t stir any recognition in me.

“Say something, will you? You monster of Taebaek.”

I recited a line from a movie I had once enjoyed.

“Who are you…?”

The room grew quiet, the man’s voice oddly reminiscent of the deep tones in an old commercial. For some reason, it reminded me of pan-fried dumplings.

“…..”

As the man tried to plunge the knife into my chest, I moved instinctively, grabbing his wrist and twisting it sharply, forcing the blade into my grasp.

I ran my fingers along his wrist, severing every visible tendon in one fluid motion. It couldn’t have taken more than a second before the man, realizing what had just happened, screamed in agony.

“Arghhh!!!”

As he tried to pull his arm away, I thrust the knife between his wide-open eyes.
Using his collapsing body for leverage, I pulled myself upright.

The moment I stood, the room froze, a palpable fear rippling through the remaining fighters.

“Haa…”

Without a word, they all charged at me. But it didn’t take long for terror to grip their expressions.

Among the pile of bodies, only a few remained standing, trembling in disbelief.
I was bleeding from countless wounds, my body riddled with holes. For a fleeting moment, it felt like I was looking at myself from a third-person perspective.

“I’ll admit it. Fine. But for the love of God, just die already!!!”

A blade swung down toward my head. I instinctively moved to dodge, but my body no longer responded as it once did.
A 15cm-long knife lodged itself into my shoulder, but I felt nothing.

The man yanked the blade from my shoulder and, in the same motion, kicked me hard. My body, limp and unresponsive, crumpled to the floor.

…I don’t remember much after that.

What I do recall is the searing pain in my crushed head, the burning heat of my body cooling to a frigid cold, and the sharp, stinging sensation as if my exposed skin were being battered by a relentless wind.

That’s all I felt. That’s all I remembered.

Muted sobs, voices breaking with grief, and the guttural wails of a man who had just lost the woman he loved.

When my eyes finally opened, I couldn’t comprehend the situation around me.

A man, towering like a giant, gazed down at me, tears streaming down his face as he wiped them away.

It didn’t take long for me to realize the truth—he wasn’t a giant.

I was a newborn baby.

What… what the hell is going on here?

The man’s sobbing drew the attention of a nearby woman, who spoke softly, her voice full of warmth.

“The princess is so beautiful…”

…What?

I had never believed in reincarnation, past lives, or regression. Those ideas always seemed like nonsense to me.
My life was too consumed with the present to spare even a second for such fantasies.

But now, I’ll admit it. I’ll accept that those things might exist.
If people believe in them, if there are words for them, then maybe they hold some truth.

God? Buddha? I don’t believe in them, but I won’t deny their existence either.

And now, the me who had always been grounded in reality had to confront this absurd situation:
I had been reincarnated.

This wasn’t just some fairy tale or daydream anymore—it was my new reality.

But a princess? Seriously? No. No way. This has to be some kind of mistake.

I wanted, more than anything, to move my head and check for… well, that. Something to confirm that I wasn’t what they said I was.
But this tiny, feeble body, completely lacking in strength, made even that simple action impossible.

No, this can’t be right. I’m a prince, right? I have to be. Say it. SAY IT, DAMN YOU!

“WAHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

…Instead, all that came out was a loud, helpless wail.