- #1
The FL is Iris Elaine. She's an adult woman, 29 years old, but is EXTREMELY sheltered. I'm not gonna complain too much since that's very purposeful for the plot of this novel. She's an extremely talented magic user who was taken by the magic tower when she was young and kept isolated from the outside world. If it doesn't have anything to do with magic, she knows very little about it, if nothing at all; most notably her s*x education is incredibly lacking (she thinks oral s*x is enough to make babies). She's naive, trusts her teacher, Elaine, more than any one else on earth, and is scared of everything because she's gone from living a very quiet, sedentary life to the ultimate sensory overload.
[collapse]Her story starts when, after a series of strange events, she ends up switching bodies with her country's hated but beautiful queen, Rosemary, and is forced into living a life with the king, Sidrain, who is the ML.SpoilerThe ML is Sidrain. He's the nation's king, 35 years old, and is generally your classic aggressive, scary, and volatile ML, at least at first. His marriage to Rosemary was arranged, and they hate each other's guts more than anything. Sidrain tried to at least be amicable to Rosemary, but she made it clear she was disgusted by his touch, and if they weren't obligated to have s*x with each other, she would avoid him like the plague, most noted by her large harem of men that she'd much rather be with. Sidrain really despises Rosemary, so when Iris first switches bodies with her, he becomes enraged by the massive mess she created and even slapped her. Yikes, but I'll get into that in a second. Turns out that Sidrain is actually very much in love with Iris. He met her at the magic tower when he was a teen, and since then has been quietly thirsting for her, calling her the "Princess of the Magic Tower." He actually slapped 'Rosemary' (actually Iris) because the real Rosemary had tried to kill Iris, and that's the event that caused them to switch bodies.
[collapse]Sidrain finds out that it's actually Iris in Rosemary's body surprisingly early on. I was convinced that little story tidbit was gonna go on for longer than that, but Sidrain catches on almost conveniently fast. Once he knows 'Rosemary' is actually Iris, he goes on to treat her extremely lovingly. He wants to separate her from her teacher (for understandable reasons, the teacher is SUS) and gradually get her more used to the outside world, and by extension, him too. Man is horknee af for Iris, but he's not pushing it too much, so points there.After that, the only real frustration in that regard is Iris not knowing that he knows. But what's confusing is that she goes back and forth on this matter. Sometimes she'll think 'Oh, does he know?' only to switch back and think 'Oh, he must be in love with Rosemary, and that's why he's treating me like this', which then descends into guilt because she feels like she's tricking him.For now, 3.5/5 stars, rounded down to 3 (because 4 seems like too much right now) feels like a fair rating for what this story is. I can't tell if it's the translation or if the novel was designed like this, but it feels like things jump around a lot. The translation is very smooth and readable, so I'll assume that's just how the novel was written. One minute they're making out in bed, and another, Iris is by herself, writing a letter to Sidrain.It's a little hard to follow at times, but I'm interested to see where the plot's gonna go. However, the reason why this is a 3 star for now is because it doesn't feel like the overall plot is going anywhere. I feel like the last 20 chapters have just been examples of Iris' naivete. The only plot relevant thing we've gotten so far is proof that her teacher is a little suspicious and kind of unlikable, and that perhaps his 'fatherly' feelings towards Iris might just be an excuse to monopolize her and her powers. That part is an aspect that I liked about the novel since the teacher, Elaine was originally shown as being the only trustworthy person for Iris, but even she's starting to have her doubts about him. Hopefully the novel will go back around to that at some point.