“Lady Belita, the carriage is ready.”
“I understand. I will be out shortly.”
At the words of Mary, the maid, I rose from the sofa and stepped out of the room.
After crossing the vast hallway and descending the stairs, I continued to organize today’s tasks in my head until I reached the carriage standing in front of the mansion.
Today was a very important day for me.
Therefore, I reaffirmed my resolve, as I absolutely could not afford to make a mistake.
It had already been six months since I arrived here—more accurately, since I possessed the body of a noble lady named Belita.
Who would have known?
That after dying in a car accident, I would be the one to enter the world of a novel.
The initial chaos, confusion, anxiety, worry, and so on—the “Who am I and where is this?” phase—had faded to the point where I was now well-adjusted to this place.
However, if there had been a way to return, I would have gone back long ago.
But what if the ‘me’ in my previous life is truly dead?
Then what becomes of me?
Is there really a place to return to?
In the end, I couldn’t find a way, and as those terrifying thoughts began to spiral, I reached the conclusion that living here isn’t all that bad.
Though, there was one condition: “If I can avoid death in this world.”
The First Law of Novel Possession.
Of course, no such thing exists; I just made it up.
Anyway, the First Law of Possession as I see it is this: if the possessor acts differently from the original character, the people around them will go, “Huh? What’s up with them?” and start taking an interest.
No matter how I think about it, isn’t it strange?
Is it even possible for someone who never had an ounce of affection for you to suddenly have a change of heart just because you changed overnight?
It might be possible, or it might not, but this novel was not a suitable place to test that with my damn curiosity.
Because the male lead of this novel, Kane Maxius, was not a character special or charming enough to warrant that kind of effort.
‘Love and War of the Three Families’
This romance fantasy novel I possessed was a story about the intertwined love among the people of three ducal families, each possessing unique powers.
The reason I could recall the title of the novel instantly after possessing this body was precisely because of the setting of each family’s power.
Among them, the House of Hates—Belita’s family—had prospered for generations using the power of fire; the male lead Kane’s family, the House of Maxius, used the power of water; and the female lead Adela’s family, the House of Bayon, grew their family using the power of iron.
On the surface, it seemed as though the Imperial Family reigned over the three ducal houses, but the reality was different.
In fact, the three ducal houses held greater power than the Imperial Family, thanks to their unique abilities.
To fend off the monsters that periodically invaded various parts of the continent and the empire, their power was absolutely essential.
Among them, the House of Bayon, the family of iron, possessed the most vital power in this era of frequent warfare.
The creation of powerful weapons.
By using the power of iron to produce mass quantities of weapons and armor, they enjoyed the absolute trust of the imperial citizens and the Imperial Family.
Thus, the House of Hates and the House of Maxius formed an alliance to keep the House of Bayon in check.
And they knew well that the best way to solidify that alliance was to bind their bloodlines.
Fortunately, children were born to both families around the same time; as luck would have it, a girl was born to the House of Hates and a boy to the House of Maxius.
Consequently, the two were engaged since childhood, and their marriage was set to take place after Belita and Kane’s coming-of-age ceremonies.
In the original work, the story of their childhood rarely appears.
It is simply mentioned in passing that Belita fell in love with Kane at first sight and followed him around constantly from a young age.
In contrast, the story persistently emphasized that Kane found Belita annoying and gave her no attention whatsoever.
This was likely done to justify the way Kane would eventually be drawn to Adela.
It depicted a perfect love where a man, who gave his heart to no one and lived locked in his own world, accidentally saw a beautiful woman at a banquet held in the Imperial Palace and fell in love instantly.
However, Belita was not a person with a personality that would allow her to cheer for their love and quietly step down from her position as his fiancée.
After learning of the relationship between Kane and Adela, she used every means possible to try and harm Adela.
Yet, every time Adela faced a crisis—
perhaps due to male lead “buffs”—Kane appeared without fail to save her, and each time, their love only grew stronger.
Eventually, in the end, the villainess Belita is executed by Adela’s younger brother, Aiden Bayon, and the novel concludes…
‘It’s unfair. I’m dying of unfairness!’
It was unfair enough that a life—lonely as it was in its hamster-wheel existence, but still worth living—ended in a single car accident; but to not only possess a character in a novel but also be placed in a situation where I’m destined to die again is just absurd.
But as I said before, I had absolutely no reason to act like a reformed person to win his heart.
And above all, I did not want to change the flow of the novel and significantly impact this world.
The story in the book that I know is only valid “when things flow according to the original.”
I already know the ending like a prophecy; if the future gets twisted, I’m the only one who loses out.
Fortunately, Belita’s memories remained intact, so her words, actions, and thoughts were transmitted directly to me.
Using that to my advantage, I maintained ‘Belita’s’ behavior so that I could be dumped by Kane according to the original plot.
If I could just get the engagement broken quietly, I wouldn’t have to be involved in their lives anymore.
However, since I had to avoid dying, I decided I would absolutely never do anything to harass Adela.
Of course, Belita peacefully breaking the engagement and not bullying the female lead is essentially destroying the original work, but I couldn’t just sit still knowing I would die.
So, to avoid dying again, I began to rationally judge what I needed to do moving forward, which led to the current situation.
As soon as I boarded the carriage, it departed quickly with the coachman’s vigorous shout.
“My Lady, what is that bottle in your hand?”
Mary, who was sitting opposite me, asked cautiously.
“This?”
I held up a very small bottle, no larger than two knuckles, and smiled complacently.
“What do you think it is?”
“The red liquid… it looks like blood.”
Mary had an expression of disbelief even as she said it.
“That’s right.”
“Pardon?”
“It is blood.”
At my words, Mary’s face turned pale in an instant.
“W-why would you… I mean, w-whose blood is it?”
She even began to stutter, seemingly flustered.
“It’s my blood, of course.”
“What? Oh, My Lady…”
“They say if you put blood in a bottle like this and hide it under someone’s bed, that person will fall in love with the owner of the blood.”
In truth, this wasn’t even my blood, and it was obviously nonsense.
However, it was actually a method Belita used in this novel to try and make the male lead love her.
Well, in the end, the male lead fell in love with someone else, so it was a useless act that had no effect.
“B-but… if the Duke finds out…”
“That’s why I have to hide it secretly.”
I even hummed a tune, pretending to be in a good mood like someone who truly believed this spell would work.
And Mary glanced at me with eyes full of pity and fear until the carriage reached its destination, the Duke’s mansion.
As soon as I arrived at the Maxius estate, I looked for Kane.
Fortunately, the butler informed me that I would have to wait quite a while because he had a guest, so I cheered inwardly and headed toward Kane’s bedroom.
“My Lady, the Duke is extremely reluctant to have anyone else enter his bedroom.”
But the butler hurriedly blocked me.
“The Duke specifically gave me permission for this. If you don’t believe me, go and ask him.”
I replied with a confident expression, and at my attitude, the butler looked like he didn’t know what to do.
“I told you, go and ask him.”
“Then… I will be back shortly.”
The butler disappeared quickly toward the office where Kane was.
As soon as his back was out of sight, I didn’t even wait for him and quickly opened the door to enter the bedroom.
Since I had no intention of waiting from
the start, I felt no pangs of conscience whatsoever.
Stepping into the room, the bedroom was just like him—neat and like a boring man’s room.
To finish the job before the butler returned, I hurriedly pulled out the small bottle I had hidden in my clothes.
It was the same bottle Mary had been curious about in the carriage.
Then, I slid the bottle slightly into the space under the bed, ensuring that anyone could see there was a bottle there at a glance.
It would be best if Kane discovered it first, but it didn’t matter if the servants of this mansion found it and reported it to him.
Either way, the point of this action was to make Kane aware of this bottle’s existence.
‘Success!’
Today, I once again succeeded in accumulating an obsessive, clearly crazy act, and I left the bedroom to head toward the drawing room.
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
