Transmigrated Into a Cannon Fodder Phoenix, Stuck With the Ice Dragon Chapter 3: Not A Main Character

"Ah Please God, what the hell is this?"

I sighed after finally finding my way back ho after confirming my address at the police station. Actually I could barely call it a ho, because it was just a small room, cramped, and furnished with the bare minimum, the kind of place where every step echoed off the bare walls.

The walls were a dull beige, the floor squeaky, and the window barely let in enough light to feel human. My bed was little more than a mattress on the floor, and the closet was stuffed with clothes that didn’t quite fit, as if they were all auditioning for a tragedy.

I flopped onto the mattress with a groan. "Ah, yes," I muttered to no one in particular, "back to reality... or whatever passes for reality when you’re a phoenix-defective-who-can’t-cry-tears."

I buried my face in my hands, praying that everything that had happened so far was just a bad dream. Because seriously... how could my life have spiraled into dragons, basilisks, and public police reports all in the span of a single day?

"Hello, Miss Seraphina..."

My eyes flew open. I jerked upright, heart pounding. "Who’s there?!"

"Here..."

"Here—where?" I spun around, scanning the room like a paranoid pigeon.

"Up here."

I hesitated, then looked up.

Floating in midair was a glowing, semi-transparent rectangle... like a holographic screen... smiling at . Literally. It had a yellow emoji face beaming from the centre.

"Hi!" the voice chirped. "Let introduce myself. I’m your system... Maya."

"System?" I frowned.

"Yes, Miss Seraphina. Let give you a brief introduction about this world. This world is inside the book Tad by the Fla: The Pegasus Lord’s Forbidden Love."

I blinked. Once. Then again. And then let out a weak laugh. "Oh great. Am I the main character?"

"No, Miss," Maya said cheerfully, as if announcing a weather forecast. "You’re the cannon fodder who dies in Chapter fifteen."

"What the heck?!" I nearly fell off the bed. "You’re telling I went through dragons, basilisks, and public humiliation just to be an extra with a death scene?"

"Correction," Maya added helpfully. "A tragic death scene. It was very moving. Readers cried."

"Fantastic," I muttered, dragging a pillow over my face. "Glad my misery was soone’s entertainnt." Sighing, I continued, "Now tell , what am I doing here? And how do I get back?"

Maya’s voice brightened, like a tutorial pop-up that refused to close. "Simple! Your mission is to gain the second male lead’s love and to go back you need to die."

I furrowed, "Die? That’s quite easy..."

"Oh, I wouldn’t be so confident about that," Maya interrupted cheerfully.

I froze. "What do you an you wouldn’t be so confident? You literally just said I have to die!"

"Yes," Maya said, her tone maddeningly calm, "but phoenixes don’t stay dead, rember? You’ll just... respawn. Painfully. On fire."

I sat up, clutching my pillow like a shield. "You an I have to die repeatedly until... what? Soone falls in love with ?"

"Correct!" Maya chirped. "Specifically, the second male lead... Lucian Drake, the Ice Dragon CEO. Isn’t that romantic?"

"Woah—woah, hold on! Who did you ntion the second male lead was?"

"Lucian Drake," Maya repeated, as if reading from a cheerful manual. "Age: undisclosed. Race: Ice Dragon. Occupation: CEO of Drake Group. Personality: cold, calculating, emotionally unavailable. Weakness: won’s tears."

I scoffed, throwing my hands up. "Great, just great... his weakness is my disability! How am I supposed to make him fall in love with when I can’t even cry?!"

Maya paused for a beat, as if running a diagnostic. "That... does complicate things," she admitted.

"Complicated?!" I snapped. "That’s like asking a fish to seduce a cat using air bubbles!"

"Still," Maya said, unbothered, "your mission remains the sa. Win his heart, trigger the emotional flag, and achieve your ending."

"My ending?" I echoed, narrowing my eyes. "You an die, right?"

"Technically, yes," Maya said cheerfully. "But only after the emotional flag. Suicide is forbidden. Otherwise, it won’t count."

I dropped my head onto the pillow with a long, defeated groan. "Perfect. I can’t cry, I can’t quit, and the man I have to seduce wants to ice on sight. What’s next, Maya? Am I allergic to oxygen too?"

"Unknown," she replied innocently. "Would you like to run a scan?"

"Don’t you dare," I muttered and closed my eyes for a few seconds before taking a deep breath, "Can you at least explain my background... Am I an orphan here too or at least a divorce parents?"

Maya gasped, sounding genuinely offended. "Haven’t you read this book before, Miss?"

My eyes rolled up. "If I had read this book, would I be asking you this stupid question?"

"But Miss," Maya replied in a hesitant tone, "your best friend did send this book to you earlier this year..."

I blinked. "What?"

"Yes!" Maya chirped, her tone brightening again. "You even left a review on the first Chapter, ’Typical cold CEO story, but I’ll keep reading if the dragon is hot.’"

I buried my face in my hands. "Please tell you’re lying."

"Nope!" Maya said cheerfully. "Five stars and a heart emoji." The holographic screen instantly showed the comnt I left before.

I groaned. "So not only am I trapped in a book I barely rember, I also publicly thirsted over the male lead."

"Second male lead," Maya corrected primly.

"Whatever," I muttered. "Either way, this is already a nightmare. Tell ..."

"Alright, Miss," Maya began in her usual chipper tone, "your na in this world is Seraphina Vale. You are the adopted daughter of the prestigious Blaze family."

"Adopted," I echoed, crossing my arms. "Sounds promising already."

"Precisely!" Maya said brightly. "And because of that, your adoptive parents often treated you as a substitute for their real daughter, Lady Celestia Blaze—the perfect phoenix. When Lucian Drake, the Ice Dragon CEO, agreed to an arranged union to strengthen ties between clans, they feared sending Celestia in case sothing went wrong."

I frowned. "Let guess. They sent instead."

"Correct!" Maya chirped. "You were disguised as Celestia and sent to marry Lucian Drake. The Blaze family believed the deception worked... but—"

I narrowed my eyes. "But what?"

Maya hesitated, her tone softening. "He knew. From the very beginning. He just didn’t say anything."

My heart stuttered. "Wait... he knew and still went along with it?"

"Yes," Maya said quietly. "He played along, pretending not to notice. Everyone believed he accepted the engagent... but in truth, it was a setup. A way to lure out the real heroine."

I froze. "You an—"

"In the end," Maya continued, "soone killed you. And when your body was found, the world believed it was all part of Lucian Drake’s plan. The perfect betrayal to draw out the true phoenix."

I blinked slowly. "So... I died for plot developnt. Amazing. Even in fiction, I’m still the side quest character."

Maya’s voice softened. "A tragic death. You were mourned by no one... oh maybe readers..."

"Oh, fantastic," I muttered. "So I was a disposable body double with a predictable ending."

"On the bright side," Maya said in that infuriatingly chipper tone again, "you now have the chance to change your fate! Isn’t that exciting?"

"Exciting? Seriously?" I huffed. "More like suicidal. I t him earlier, but he didn’t seem to know ... Are you sure about this?"

"Wait—what?" Maya’s voice glitched slightly, like even the system couldn’t process that. "You t Lucian Drake already? As in, the Ice Dragon CEO? Cold eyes, perfect hair, an aura that could freeze a volcano?"

"Yes, that one," I said dryly. "He didn’t recognize at all. Which is weird, considering he’s the one who supposedly killed ."

There was a short pause. "Processing..." Maya said in a robotic tone. Then, a beat later, she gasped. "Oh! That’s unexpected. This must be a divergence in the tiline!"