I was a 23 year old normal woman in my past life but now I’ve become the 5 year old princess of the Scarlet Empire. There is not much a 5 year old can do in this world, especially a royal. Several days have passed since I came to this world as Princess Mia. I quickly adjusted to my new way of life, much due to my lack of another choice for the matter but I also wanted to find some meaning in my second chance at life. This is my new reality and the quicker I come to terms with it, the better chances I have at living a good life, this is the least I can do for the God that reincarnated me. And I thought I would be able to enjoy my new life but... Why is everything so boring? For the past few days, I met with many doctors that checked my health and condition, all of them were puzzled by my sudden recovery and called it a miracle. If I wasn’t meeting doctors, I would be in bed getting taken care of by the maids at June’s orders. In the case of a sudden relapse of my illness, they made sure I was receiving complete bed rest for a week. I took that opportunity to gather my bearings and tried to note down what I knew about the world through Mia’s memories.

Mia is the beloved princess of the Scarlet Empire, the only princess, and youngest amongst her siblings, her four older brothers. Mia has no tragic backstory, unlike the webtoons I have read, she is the entire empire’s darling, a true heir born to the Emperor and the late Empress, everyone adores her. The people see her as a symbol of hope and prosperity for the Empire, mostly due to the belief of an urban legend. The legend is cumbersome but basically a vicious war had occurred in history, one that devastated the land of the people, droughts took over the land, illness and disease took over the people, and despair took over their hearts. When all hope was lost, the first princess of the Empire at the time, Nadia, led a massive magical ritual to appease the Gods of the Land. Nadia’s devotion and pure heart during the ten day ritual brought her the favor of the Holy Spirit of the Land, the Great Ryhamark, a mystical and powerful beast said to be the protector of the Empire who takes the spiritual form of an owl. Because Nadia dies after the ritual due to her poor health, Ryhamark is impassioned by her sacrifice and love for her people, so he bestows his blessing upon the land with his great magical powers. Ryhamark’s blessing brings immense fortune to the Empire, the droughts end after years by rainfall which also heals the people of their ailments by its mystical healing properties. And so forth, the first princess of the Empire is now called the Holy Maiden of the Empire who receives the favor and protection of the Great Ryhamark. And as an homage to Nadia’s sacrifice, a 10-day festival, called the Farvadin Laelynn Festival, is held in her honor every year during which the Holy Maiden conducts a ritual to appease the Gods and bring an end to the dry season with rainfall on the last day. The legend itself is reason enough to love the first and only princess of the Empire. But there is another reason why Mia is the most cherished heir of the Emperor. It’s because the Emperor and princes are all insane.

The Emperor is a cold-hearted belligerent bastard who killed all his siblings to usurp the throne after the previous Emperor, his father, was killed by an assassin from an enemy kingdom. Initially, the Scarlet Empire was modest in size but ever since the current Emperor took the throne, the Empire has increased 5 times its previous size due to his war-crazed personality. Ever since he became Emperor, the Empire has been in a state of war constantly. Some people blame it on his insatiable greed for land, others blame it on his psychotic thirst for blood and death. Even the people of the palace don’t know his true intentions but everyone can agree that the Emperor is a cold-blooded murderer. And considering how blood runs deeper than water, his four sons are the complete epitomes of their father. The princes have all taken part in wars, emerging victorious on many battlefields and developed violent tendencies in the way they behave. All of them are ruthless as they can be, coming back with the head of their enemies to present Father as a gift, killing all kinds of people regardless of age or gender. Those despicable bastards… but unlike the rest of her family, Mia was a true angel by her nature. She was kind to everyone, benevolent and empathic towards everyone, even towards her cruel brothers and father. Though her family looks down upon her for this very reason, she still tried to win their love. Even though she wasn’t lacking love from others, she just longed for the comfort of a family. Unlike in webtoons where the main character goes through abuse by her family, here her entire existence is being ignored, I guess that is pitiful in its own way. But now that I am Mia, I don’t care about winning them over, in fact, I’d rather stay away from those troublemakers as much as I can. Aside from that, this life seems to be a rather amazing opportunity! I’m rich, pretty, young, and popular! What can’t I do?! Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a better hand of cards! So I remained positive and found a way to pass my time. As of now, I only know what the five-year old sheltered Mia knew about this world, which wasn’t much. I need to learn more to figure out what I should do next. So I made it my priority to visit the palace library daily, June was delighted to know I was taking an interest in my education so it wasn’t a protested choice. I spent hours on end in the library when I wasn’t occupied with visitors or meals. This world used a different language than Korean, it’s called Alden, but I was able to understand most of what I read due to the basic knowledge of the language Mia knew. Mia’s vocabulary was not as distinguished as mine is but knowing the alphabet and archaic style of the language did help me in mentally translating most of the text to something discernible. It seems the world is much like Victorian Europe with it’s stagnant class system. At least I’m on the top of the food chain. There are lots of parallels between this world with my own, which is comforting to know, though the STEM academic disciplines have bounds of progress to be made. It’s more as if I had taken a time machine and travelled back to a time before the industrial revolution and enlightenment. And the political structure of the Empire is restricting and prejudiced for any true development to occur by the exchange of ideas and solutions, knowledge and ingenuity are two things that do not prejudice between rich and poor so to keep the poor from being able to advance in society and help the society progress in turn is really stunting the growth of not just the economy but of the society as a whole. Sigh~ And here I thought I would finally live a worriless life. At this rate I’d have to uproot the entire political and economic system of the Empire to be satisfied. That got me thinking. Actually, that isn’t such a bad idea. There is one reason for the lack of development of the Empire, and much of the whole world, and that is the dependence on magic. Magic is the one upper hand this world has as compared to mine, which frustrates me to think how little this world has developed considering this. Imagine all the possibilities! Magic can replace all the eras of technological advances that my world had to go through to provide the lifestyles that magic so easily provides here. The steam engine, electricity, cars, even telephones are of no need due to the magical counterparts serving their purpose. Energy, teleportation, and magical items for communication are all commonplace. Even a commoner is able to produce magic scrolls for weak spells at street markets. If magic were combined with technological advances, there would be nothing impossible left. Medicine would be all the more efficient and cost-effective if healing magic were applied with the proper medical procedures, that way even the most common of people would be able to afford the most expensive treatments currently, that is only to say because healing magic requires large amounts of energy and thus is uncommon and costly. The more I think about it, the more unsettling it is and dissatisfied I feel. I have to do something about this. It seems I have no other choice but to change the very foundations of the Empire to bring about its potential. Afterall, it’s no fun to live somewhere you know you can make even better, it’s like living in an untidy bedroom. And that is how I decided to domina– I mean, change the world for the better.