Chapter 2

So I didn’t know he liked me? That was impossible. Why else would I have tormented Gizelle? It was all because I liked him, and he liked Gizelle.

And I had thrown tantrums at him many times. After all that, if he still didn’t know I liked him, that would be absurd.

“…Then I’m sorry I didn’t know. Anyway, I’ll be going now.”

But now it hardly mattered. Whether he knew or not, he would never come to love me.

“Take care, Kirill.”

“……”

I was the one who stood up first and left the coffee house. It was the first time I had ever left before him.

The one who always left first was never me—it was Kirill. Though that was before I openly began to hate Gizelle.

Fortunately, no tears came. If anything, I felt relieved.

Falling for him had not been my choice, but at least stopping was. And for that, I supposed I was lucky.

* * *

It was a refreshing night—having been rejected by the man I had loved unrequitedly for ten years. The future of the original story was no longer mine. As of today, I was as good as freed from that future.

‘Of course, I can’t be certain yet.’

The surest way was to leave Erdona. There was no better way to stop living as Gizelle Erdona’s supporting character.

Lying on my stomach on the bed, I opened the catalog that my maid Jessie had brought me.

It was a catalog of estates for sale in small provincial towns far from the capital. It was mainly used by nobles for investment, but I was different. I planned to live there myself—leaving everything behind.

Leaving Erdona was not so difficult. There was nothing here I was attached to. Even if there were, with my life on the line, foolish sentiments could not be allowed to get in the way.

“You’re going to wear that catalog out, my lady.”

Just as I was poring over it, my dear maid Jessie came in carrying the laundry. I quickly beckoned to her.

“How about this one? Too rural?”

“…Hmm, it does look peaceful. But it’s so remote that the travel costs would be higher.”

“Right? What a shame. The house is pretty.”

I nodded in agreement. It was not easy to find an estate that truly caught my fancy. Perhaps because I was thinking of it as the home I would live in for the rest of my life, I had become picky.

“Did you go today?”

“……”

My hand stopped dead at Jessie’s words.

“Yeah. Of course. It’s all settled.”

“…Are you all right?”

Jessie only knew that I had ended a long unrequited love.

If she knew that this confession had freed me from a future in which I would be murdered, she wouldn’t be making such a sad face.

“I’m better than I thought. Maybe I didn’t like him as much as I believed.”

Jessie nodded as if she understood.

Jessie was the only one on my side in this Erdona estate. The servants who knew I was adopted did not want to wait on me. The estate’s countless servants and the butler Gothman existed solely for Gizelle.

‘This whole world is for Gizelle, so it’s hardly surprising.’

I had to endure their contempt with my whole body. Then one day, I caught Jessie stealing my money in the street.

I, too, had spent a childhood similar to hers. Perhaps that was why I felt a strong pull toward her the moment I saw her.

And so Jessie became my maid. Of course, it was not easy for her either. The butler Gothman was not about to accept a maid he had not chosen himself.

What kept Jessie by my side was Gizelle’s mockery. Her sneer—that we were alike and would surely understand each other—was what allowed Jessie to remain here.

Jessie had a young brother and a grandmother she had to feed. Being a maid was far better than picking pockets in the streets. She clung to me desperately. Until, in the end, we became each other’s most precious people.

I intended to take Jessie with me. Naturally, her brother and grandmother as well.

Because Jessie was the only person I had in this hellish place.

“But why are you back so late? You left in the morning.”

“Ah… I had some things to do.”

I evaded her sharp question.

My outing today had not been solely to confess to Kirill and rid myself of all lingering feelings.

If only confessing were all I had to do to escape. Unfortunately, I had a few more matters to settle.

Among them, breaking off my engagement to Redic Bangeger was the most troublesome.

Of course, that matter was already resolved as well. It had required such extreme measures that confessing to Kirill had felt like child’s play in comparison…

For the sake of Jessie’s kind heart and her affection for me, I chose to keep my mouth shut. If Jessie knew, she might foam at the mouth in shock.

The next day at dawn, the newspaper arrived at the Erdona estate. I, who had been enjoying a rare deep sleep, opened my eyes at the commotion.

“My lady! Wh-what on earth is this!”

Jessie burst into my bedroom and threw the door open. Already knowing what it was about, I took the newspaper from her without concern.

On the front page of the newspaper was written:

‘Shocking Private Life of the Red Erdona! Exclusive: Secret Meeting with Her Lover!’

Beneath the enormous headline was a picture of a woman who was unmistakably me, kissing an unknown man.

The quality was better than I had expected. This was worth the money.

“Hmm, I suppose I’ll have no choice but to break off the engagement. Won’t I?”

“My lady!”

Despite Jessie’s fuss, I was simply delighted.

* * *

Several hours had passed since the article about my affair was published.

My fiancé, Baron Redic Bangeger, was surprisingly quiet. He was the type to raise hell the moment he saw the article, so his silence was strange.

I did not know when he would come, but I needed to hurry to the guild and pay the balance.

“Ouch.”

As I was calculating the balance to pay at the guild, I cut my hand on a piece of paper. A bright red line appeared. The wound was only the length of a fingernail, but it stung quite a bit.

‘Perhaps my luck is bad today.’

I did not say it aloud for fear of jinxing myself, but misfortune had already arrived at my door.

“Are you insane?”

It was not a pleasant thing to hear first thing in the morning.

Gizelle appeared before me in her gown, not even having shaken off sleep. Even so, she was every inch the pure-white Erdona.

People called Gizelle and me the pure-white Erdona and the red Erdona. Though in my case, it was said with a sneer. It referred to our hair colors.

Gizelle took after the late Marquise Erdona’s silver hair and blue eyes, giving her the impression of a lily in bloom.

I, by contrast, had reddish-blonde hair and hazy green eyes—the exact opposite of hers.

“No.”

“Is this something a sane person would do? You cheated?”

“Well, you shouldn’t have engaged me to a man like that in the first place.”

Conversations with Gizelle were always like this. She treated me as though I had no right to anything, no matter what it was, and I responded to her words shamelessly.

‘Now that I think about it, you may have had a point.’

Her words were true. In this world, I truly had no right to anything. Everything belonged to Gizelle. Only to Gizelle.

“Go and explain yourself this instant. Get on your knees to the baron if you have to!”

She grabbed my wrist and forced me to my feet, causing the pouch I was holding to fall to the floor.

“I’m going to break off the engagement.”

“You’ve lost your mind. I won’t stand by and watch the Erdona name be tarnished because of you! Go and apologize at once!”

Gizelle huffed as she looked at me. The one who always lost her temper and shouted was usually me, not Gizelle. Perhaps that was why the servants only watched Gizelle’s outburst with curious eyes, unable to intervene.

“If you break off the engagement like this, you’ll never be engaged again. Or do you want to be sold to some old lecher?”

“Isn’t that just what you’d like—to be rid of me?”

“…Why you!”

I had always envied Gizelle.

I could not accept the fact that everything came easily to her. Every time I realized that what was so easy for Gizelle was something I could beg for until my knees wore out and still not achieve, I trembled with rage.

But they say it is easier once you give up. Now I wanted nothing. At least, not in Erdona. Repeating that fact to myself no longer made me as angry as before.

“I’ve been lenient long enough. If you don’t want to be thrown out of this house…”

“I was going to leave on my own two feet anyway.”

“…What?”

Gizelle let out a hollow laugh at my words, then sneered. It was a sneer that held the belief that I could never survive outside this house.

“So let’s stop wasting our energy on this tiresome bickering, please.”

At last, I shook off her hand and walked past her.