Manhwa / The Lady's Butler

The Lady's Butler^List From left: Lancelot, Charlotte (Woori) and Duke Vesita

Seo Woori has a crush on the hottest man in the world: Lancelot, the second male lead of her favorite novel "The Flower Raised Her Sword". He's the female lead's butler who had a one-sided love for his mistress. But the female lead's own one-sided love for the villainous Duke Vestia devolves into tragedy, and poor Lancelot dies after the female lead is killed by Duke Vestia. Woori goes to bed that night heartbroken and enraged, but she's woken up the next morning by Lancelot himself...and discovers she's in the body of Charlotte Reinout, the female lead!

Woori vows to make Lancelot happy in order to save him from his fate. But this isn't quite the story Woori remembers, and there were a few details left out of the story. Like how Lancelot is an all-powerful leader of the Magic Tower, or that he already figured out that the soul now living inside Charlotte is not his mistress!

The Lady's Butlerbegan as a web novel written by HA Yaeji, before being adapted into a manhwa by Cheomji. The manhwa adaptation was published in English by Tappytoon and is completed with 90 chapters and an epilogue, consisting of 5 chapters.

The Lady's Butler contains examples of:

• Ascended Fanboy: Woori is a huge fan of Lancelot (and the novel in general), so when she ends up in Charlotte's body, not only does she get to meet her favorite character, but he's also her butler now.
• Afterlife Antechamber: The original final fate of the original Charlotte. She was supposed to be locked within Heaven's prison for eternity, but was able to escape and finds Duke Vestia's soul in The Lifestream. After getting the amnesiac Vestia to say he loves her, her soul dissipates for good.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Lancelot, the original Charlotte, Duke Vestia, Fatima, and Mephisto all have unrequited loves that don't pan out in the long run, but Lancelot, Duke Vestia, and Fatima are able to overcome their feelings to move forward with their lives, while Charlotte and Mephisto are unable to and get consumed by their obsessions. Specific examples:
  • Lancelot and the original Charlotte: Lancelot loved his mistress after she complimented his magic and brought him into her home as a servant. She found him to be "tiresome" and left him behind when she left her body to become Princess Sierra, making the poor man fall apart. However, Lancelot is able to move on to a mutual romance with Woori, while Charlotte continues to obsess over Duke Vestia to the point of giving up everything to get his attention. It tragically doesn't work out for her.
  • Charlotte and Duke Vestia: Both characters make a deal with Mephisto so that they can pursue their desires. However, Charlotte's obsession with the Duke leads her to give away everything she has to get the Duke's attention, to no avail. While he also obsesses over Woori, Duke Vestia learns to love her genuinely, sacrificing himself to save her.
  • Fatima and Mephisto: Fatima fell in love with Casper while his brother, the man who would become Mephisto, fell for Fatima and killed Casper to get to her. Both characters held a torch for the one they loved over the next few centuries. However, Fatima has slowly moved on from Casper, only wishing to bring Mephisto to justice. Mephisto continued to pursue the Candentia so he could have the power to reunite with Fatima once more, believing this would bring her to him.
• Alternate Timeline: Woori believes she entered the novel before all the tragic events in the novel occurred, but it turns out to be far from the case. The original timeline still happened, but in his dying moments, Lancelot turned back time. The amount of magic he used to Time Travel to the past allowed Mephisto to slip back into the world and made his deals with the original Charlotte and Duke Vestia.
• Battle Butler: Lancelot is Charlotte's loyal butler, but he is also a powerful wizard who leads the Magic Tower with an iron fist.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Princess Sierra presents herself as a gentle, polite young lady. But Woori soon discovers her body is being possessed by the original Charlotte, who is a spiteful, haughty, and envious. Thankfully, the real Princess Sierra is nothing like Charlotte.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Several of the characters have this as part of their backstory:
  • Woori's parents divorced when she was younger, and treated her and her brother as a nuisance until they were old enough to leave. She had to work hard at her job to make a decent income, resulting in her being ill and tired all the time. She only found comfort in the web novels she read, like "The Flower Raises Her Sword".
  • Lancelot's parents abandoned him on the streets when they found out he was a magician. He was then picked up by Fatima, who left him after a couple of years at the magic tower to become their leader. He wandered around searching for her shortly after until he met Charlotte and became her butler.
  • As a child, Charlotte was bullied by other children for her mastery in swordsmanship, calling her a monster. While meeting the Duke was a brief Hope Spot for her, Charlotte's parents and brothers were killed because of Duke Vestia's machinations. Her territory isn't doing all that well either, in part because Charlotte is too busy gathering allies for a revenge revolt to properly look after it.
  • Fatima lost the love of her life, Casper Reinout, to his twin brother, Mephisto, causing her to spit fire over half the kingdom for ten days in her grief. She has spent the centuries after hunting down the demon responsible.
• Didn't Think This Through: Princess Sierra (aka the original Charlotte) tends to make impulsive decisions without thinking about the long-term consequences. The biggest example comes when Duke Vestia gets kidnapped by Lancelot and Woori. Charlotte wants to rescue him right away, even though Mephisto can smell the trap waiting for them. Charlotte ignoring his warning leads to both of their downfalls, as well as Duke Vestia’s death.
  • Even in the original novel, Charlotte’s vengeance revolt is commented on by Woori as being short-sighted, as Duke Vestia had the royal family and several high-ranked officials backing him compared to Charlotte’s underwhelmed army (even with Lancelot waiting in the wings with his magic).
• Foil: Woori and the original Charlotte (Princess Sierra) are. Both of them fell in love with a handsome man and are highly driven people willing to do what it takes to get what they want. But Woori is sincerely in love with Lancelot and wants him to find happiness in his life, with Lancelot mutually falling in love with her as a result. Charlotte's love for Duke Vestia leaned more towards obsession, and goes overboard with how far she's willing to go to "protect" him and give him everything he wants. He barely cares about her, and only grows more disgusted by her by the end of the story.
  • Charlotte and Mephisto: Both characters are obsessed over their one-sided loves and use as much demonic energy as they can to get what they want. But Mephisto is more cautious than Charlotte, biding his time patiently for right moment to strike, and will retreat if his plans do not work out. Charlotte throws herself into situations without thinking about the consequences, losing control over herself over time.
• Formula with a Twist: What would happen if a love interest found out about the main character's transmigration early on? Lancelot discovers that Charlotte’s soul has swapped out with someone else. While he initially becomes depressed when he realizes he’s been abandoned by his loved one again, Woori’s kindness touches him and he starts to fall for her instead, wishing he could get to know Woori as her true self. Woori only finds out he knows later on.
• Freaky Friday Sabotage: The original Charlotte forcibly took Princess Sierra's body and put her soul in a necklace so she could chase after Duke Vestia. In response, God put Woori's soul into Charlotte's body so she could fight the demon and save the world.
• Grand Theft Me: The original Charlotte does this to Princess Sierra. The former coerces the latter into taking a potion for "eternal sleep", then taking her body for herself. The princess is horrified by the time Woori finds her and returns her soul to her body.
• Important Haircut: What Woori does after finding out what happened to the original Charlotte. Woori didn't like her, but thought it was proper to send her off as it was because of her Woori could meet and be with Lancelot.
• The Jeeves: Lancelot does his duties as a butler flawlessly, to the point where all the other servants of the Reinout house see him as their leader.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Princess Sierra, aka the original Charlotte, is definitely an antagonist, but only does her actions because she wants to be with Duke Vestia, even if she abandoned her family and Lancelot to do so. Despite that, her envy and bitterness towards Woori grows intensely, until she kills the Emperor, uses her newly-acquired citizens like a demonic battery, and absorbs Mephisto to become a demon herself to get back at Woori for Duke Vestia's death.
• Knew It All Along: Lancelot finds out as early as CHAPTER 6 ^* of the manhwa that Charlotte's soul was replaced by Woori. He also figures out that the original Charlotte ended up in the body of Princess Sierra. Woori doesn't find out that he knows about her secret until much later.
• Love at First Punch: Duke Vestia hardly noticed the original Charlotte, only using her to get the Candentia. When Woori take over her body, her insults towards the duke make him fascinated by her, turning to an actual crush. Woori is not pleased by this.
• Media Transmigration: Woori falls asleep after reading the final chapter of "The Flower Raises Her Sword" and crying over the loss of her favorite character, and wakes up in the body of the female lead, Charlotte, by her favorite character before his death.
• Mysterious Past: Woori knows that Lancelot first met Charlotte when they were young, and that he learned magic from Fatima. What she didn't know was that he was the master of the Magic Tower, something the original novel didn't mention for some reason.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Fatima, Lancelot's mentor, is a dragon, but is mostly seen in her human form. Her powers as a dragon, however, are strong enough to set almost an entire country on fire.
• Second Love: Lancelot fell in love with the original Charlotte because she took him in when he had nowhere else to go. After she leaves her body to become Princess Sierra and go after Duke Vestia, he grows to love Woori instead.
• Sole Survivor: Charlotte is the only survivor after her parents and her brother are killed by Duke Vestia. She still has a crush on him despite all that.
• Soul Jar: What ended up happening to the original Princess Sierra. The original Charlotte lured her into a deep sleep, taking her body while storing her soul inside a necklace. While giving the final blow to Charlotte in her demon form, Woori sees the Princess begging for help, and breaks the necklace while striking Charlotte, allowing the princess to return to her body.
• Stalker with a Crush: Charlotte's obsession with Duke Vestia is so great that she entered Princess Sierra's body so she could have a chance with him. Also counts as a Psycho Ex, as they were formerly engaged before Duke Vestia broke the engagement off.
  • Duke Vestia and Mephisto are this towards Woori and Fatima respectively. Neither of them are as obsessed as Charlotte is, however.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Lancelot did not get together with Charlotte in the novel because she’s in love with Duke Vestia, who kills her at the end of the novel. Lancelot kills everyone in his rage and turns back time in the process.
• Unrequited Tragic Maiden: The novel portrays Charlotte as this. She loves Duke Vestia, even though he’s the one who destroyed her family. He doesn’t love her at all, only faintly interested in her due to her lineage, and then drops his engagement with her to marry Princess Sierra so he can take over the country. This marks the beginning of all the tragic events to follow. In the new timeline, while still tragic, she’s become the main antagonist to Woori because of jealously— for wooing Duke Vestia (even though she hates him) and for having a better love life than her.
• Villainous Crush: Both Duke Vestia and Princess Sierra are this. Duke Vestia falls in love with the new Charlotte because she now hates him and doesn't take any of his crap, which just makes him fall harder with her. Meanwhile, Princess Sierra (aka the original Charlotte) is obsessed with Duke Vestia. Everything she does is to get him to fall in love with her, despite him finding her to be annoying at best.
  • Mephisto is also this way with Fatima. He became a demon in order to overpower and take the Candentia from his brother, Casper, but also so he could have Fatima for himself.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Mephisto's deals often lead to this: He is able to use his client's souls for his own needs, such as hiding his presence by spreading himself in a crowd of his clients.