I Reincarnated Just to be Unemployed

The next morning I expected the same miserable day. Wake up, hit the snooze button three times, hug my pillow like it owes me money, one leg tangled in the blanket, scratch my butt without an ounce of shame, and question every life decision that has led me to another Monday.

A perfectly normal morning, except... Why did I feel...warm? Not my usual "blanket burrito" kind of warm.

"Mmm..." Half asleep, I rubbed my face against the pillow. "What the..."

Since when was my mattress this comfortable? Mine usually felt like it was one bad day away from qualifying as a medieval torture device.

This felt illegal and dangerously comfortable like one of those five-star luxury hotel beds that made people consider bankruptcy just to take the mattress home.

Slowly, I cracked one eye open, and everything looked blurry; for a second, I genuinely thought I’d gone blind.

Then my vision cleared...and I froze.

I stared at a ceiling.

An outrageously expensive ceiling decorated with intricate carvings and painted dragons that looked so lifelike.

. . .

. . .

For one beautiful, hopeful, absolutely delusional moment, I convinced myself this was all a reward from my company.

Maybe my boss had finally grown a conscience. Maybe he’d doubled my salary. Maybe he’d promoted me. Maybe pigs had evolved, started flying, and opened their own airline.

. . .

. . .

’What a rediculous delusion.’

I slowly stretched with a satisfied groan. "Wow... now this is what employee appreciation looks li—"

I froze and blinked.

"Why do I sound..." I cleared my throat. "Ahem, why do I sound like an expensive Disney princess?"

That voice, it was soft, smooth, and ridiculously pretty, like if silk somehow became a sound.

I frowned, but before I could process that nightmare, my eyes finally wandered around the room. My brain shut down.

DAAAAAAA-DUNNNNNNN!!

I was lying in the middle of the most outrageously luxurious bedroom I had ever seen; the bed alone probably cost more than my annual salary. No, scratch that, probably my salary for the next twenty years. I immediately grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around myself like it was body armor.

"Where the hell am I? And why do I sound like a woman who gets paid to narrate meditation apps?"

My eyes darted around the room. The bed? So soft, I was ninety percent sure angels handcrafted it. The sheets? Silk, the kind of silk that whispered, ’You’re too poor to touch me.’

The air? Lavender, not the ₹299 room freshener from the convenience store, but real lavender. The curtains gently swayed in the morning breeze. Even they looked expensive.

"Why do the curtains have better financial stability than me?" My gaze slowly drifted back to the ceiling.

Those dragons.

"Yep. I’m definitely somewhere I can’t afford."

This entire room screamed... If you accidentally break something, your next ten generations will still be paying for it.

I closed my eyes shut, and five seconds later... I cautiously opened one eye.

. . .

Same room.

. . .

"Damn it."

I threw the blanket aside and then immediately picked it back up carefully. I folded it as neatly as I could because if I wrinkle it, someone’s probably going to charge me for emotional damages.

Only after respectfully placing the blanket aside did I climb out of bed.

"Seriously, who kidnaps a salaryman while he’s sleeping? What kind of business model is this?"

And the moment my feet touched the floor, my legs suddenly gave out. I took one step and then—

"Whoa—" My body suddenly tilted forward. "Wait, wait, wait, wai—"

THUD!!

My face kissed the polished floor with enough force to make me reconsider all my life decisions.

"Gosh...that hurt..."

I groaned and pushed myself up. Except something soft and noodly landed across my face. "What the hell is this?"

I grabbed whatever it was, silky, smooth, and very long. I lifted it in front of my eyes; blood-red strands shimmered under the morning sunlight.

"Seriously, what’s going on and whose hair is this?"

Silence.

I looked at the hair, then at my hand and then back at the hair. "Why is it attached to me?"

I stood up too fast, flinging the hair away like it had personally insulted me, and took a shaky step back.

Then I froze because something was wrong, very wrong. No, not wrong.

Gone.

I looked down, paused, and then looked down again.

. . .

. . .

"No way." My face drained of color. I patted myself once, then twice, and then in complete panic, I checked again with the desperate energy of a man searching for his dignity in a disaster.

I conducted an emergency system check. My right hand slowly descended in between my legs: nothing.

. . .

I tried again because maybe... I had missed, but still nothing.

I blinked once, twice, and three times. Then my movements became increasingly frantic.

"Where is it? WHERE IS MY LITTLE BRO?!"

I patted around with the urgency of a man searching for his wallet five seconds before getting off a train. Left, right, front, and yet nothing.

"No...no, no, no, no, NO!" I looked around the room as if the missing object had simply rolled under the bed.

"Did somebody steal it?! WHO STEALS SOMETHING LIKE THAT?! What kind of psychopath breaks into a man’s room and says...’You know what? I’m taking this.’"

I gasped.

"Black market? Organ trafficking? IS THERE EVEN A MARKET FOR THIS?!"

I clutched my head.

"This has to be a dream, a really weird dream. I’ve finally snapped; years of overtime have officially fried my brain."

I took a deep breath.

"Okay, Minato, stay calm. Panic solves nothing. Think rationally, EVEN IF YOU TALK LIKE A WOMAN!!!"

That’s when I saw it. The mirror, standing proudly in the corner of the room. I shuffled toward it like a condemned prisoner walking toward the execution platform. Each step felt heavier than the last.

And Froze.

The person in the mirror wasn’t me.

Long, blood-red hair flowed past her waist; golden eyes sparkled beneath elegant lashes. Her skin looked so flawless it was probably illegal. Her face looked like she’d walked straight out of a fantasy painting.

"Who’s that?"

Silence.

I blinked; she blinked. I slowly raised my left hand. The woman raised her left hand. I raised my right hand. She did the same. I leaned to the left. She leaned to the left. I leaned to the right. She leaned right. I played peekaboo with the woman in the mirror...played peekaboo too.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

I stumbled backward so violently that my own feet betrayed me.

THUD!!

I landed flat on my butt, and the mirror seemed to be judging me. I stared blankly at the ceiling.

"Did I seriously die in my sleep? What kind of pathetic death is that? I didn’t even get hit by Truck-kun. No heroic sacrifice, no dramatic last words. I just...expired?"

I rubbed my temples and sat calmly (trying to be calm.)

I slowly looked back at the mirror; the stunning red-haired beauty looked back, and then I looked in between my legs.

"My manhood!! MY BEAUTIFUL, HANDSOME, GLORIOUS MANHOOD!! WHERE DID YOU GOOOOOO?!"

I dropped to my knees dramatically, raising both fists toward the heavens.

"RETURN HIM!! HE DIDN’T DESERVE THIS!! He was innocent! We’d been together for wonderful years! We survived puberty together! We survived public bathrooms together! We survived skinny jeans together, and THIS is how our story ends?!"

Tears welled in my eyes.

"My little brother...I couldn’t protect you."

I sniffed loudly. With the solemn dignity of a warrior attending his comrade’s funeral, I lowered my head.

"Rest in peace. You’ll forever remain the greatest bro I ever had. You were there through every awkward zipper incident."

A dramatic silence filled the room as I wiped away my tears like a fallen soldier who had finally accepted reality.

Then—KNOCK. KNOCK.

The massive door creaked open ever so slightly, and a young woman in a black-and-white maid uniform cautiously peeked inside. She couldn’t have been older than twenty, the moment our eyes met she visibly trembled.

"M-My Lady Lucielle...I-I heard screaming...A-Are you...alright?"

I stared at her with the empty, lifeless eyes of a man who had just buried his own masculinity.

"Now, who the fuck is Lucielle?"

The maid froze, her face instantly turned pale, and she dropped to her knees so fast I was genuinely impressed.

"I-I apologize! My tongue slipped! P-Please forgive this servant! You are Her Grace...Lucielle Ashcroft."

Silence.

"Ashcroft?" My brain stopped working. Then like an ancient computer from the early 2000s...It slowly rebooted. Loading...10%...

Ashcroft...32%...

Red hair, golden eyes...67%...

Reina and that stupid novel...99%...

. . .

100%.

. . .

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!! " I clutched my head and collapsed onto the carpet again.

The poor maid looked like she was about to faint.

I, Minato, a twenty-seven-year-old office worker and professional victim of capitalism, woke up as Lucielle Ashcroft.

Yes. THAT Lucielle Ashcroft.

The one Reina practically kidnapped me to tell me about yesterday.

The novel’s title?

[The Lily and Her Crown Prince.]

A painfully cliché romance: a sweet baron’s daughter catches the attention of the cold crown prince. The man who was supposedly allergic to every woman in existence until he met the heroine because that’s how romance novels work.

But the Crown Prince wasn’t the only man obsessed with her; there was another. A monster. The empire’s greatest war hero. The man whispered about in every corner of the continent.

Grand Duke Cassian Ashcroft.

The Grim Grand Duke.

A psychopath who could order an execution while calmly sipping tea, a lunatic who, according to the rumors in the novel...would casually separate a man’s head from his shoulders...then kick it across the battlefield like he was playing football.

Now...where did Lucielle fit into this grand story?

Nowhere. She wasn’t the heroine, she wasn’t the villainess, and she wasn’t even important enough to be hated. She was a background information.

A footnote, a woman whose entire existence could be summarized in one sentence.

"The Grand Duke’s first wife died from poison shortly after their marriage."

That’s it.

She drank poisoned wine, coughed politely...and died.

The end.

. . .

. . .

"WHO THE FUCK SENT ME TO THIS WORLD?!"

The maid nearly sobbed.

"Your Grace, please don’t yell—"

I looked down at her with the expression of a man who had discovered he was standing on top of a landmine; her knees visibly shook.

I could not even blame her. I was also shaking, just with more rage and less grace. I dragged both hands down my face and muttered to the god, shooting laser beams at god, "I seriously feel like poking those eyeballs out, whoever you are."

The maid was pale.

The room was silent.

And I, Minato Takahashi, now Lucielle Ashcroft, stood in the middle of a palace bedroom looking like a man who had just been sentenced to death by the universe itself, and then, very softly, I whispered:

"...I am so screwed."

The maid swallowed hard. "Your Grace... should I call for the physician?"

I stared at her, then stared at the luxurious room and then stared at my own reflection in the glass beside the bed.

I let out a long, trembling breath.

"No," I gave the maid a crooked, hopeless smile. "Call for a lawyer...I am absolutely suing God first."

And that was the moment I knew. My second life had begun, and it had already started trying to kill me.

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