Chapter 1

My faith was solid. Because it was built meticulously, questioning every little detail from start to finish.

I never thought that tower built with bricks of trust could collapse in an instant.

No, perhaps I pretended not to know because I was too afraid to think about it.

“We only kissed.”

My voice sounded calm as I spoke.

“It’s the truth.”

Almost defiantly so.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

The pendulum clock’s second hand echoed like heartbeats, making my head throb. Those ticks sounded so loud, as if my heart had been placed inside the clock, pounding forcefully: thump, thump, thump.

A slight ringing filled my ears along with the sound of my own breathing, while my eyes burned fiercely even as my chest grew cold.

“Demian.”

“……”

“We haven’t even kissed yet. But with that woman……”

“Bri!”

“Ugh……”

The only reason my body didn’t crash to the floor when my vision suddenly blurred was because his hand caught me.

He still possessed everything I loved. The perfect male protagonist, kind and understanding.

If I hadn’t known that this perfect husband had kissed another woman.

If I hadn’t known anything, I would have been grateful that he caught me when I was about to fall.

Now it just feels like insects crawling on my skin.

“Taking a mistress is common. So……”

“Demian, the conditions of our marriage included a clause that you wouldn’t take a mistress. That’s why I agreed……”

“Bri. Don’t act like a child. Before marriage and now aren’t different.”

“Demian.”

“If a kiss is the problem, let’s do it now. We need to produce an heir anyway.”

His golden eyes, which once seemed as precious as gold, now feel detestable and horrifying. The deep love I once saw in those eyes now appears like a Venus flytrap.

“Did that woman tell you to say that?”

“Bri!”

That woman who kissed my husband, Delilah.

She was the true female protagonist of this novel, the one who should have been with my husband from the beginning.

“Let’s divorce.”

I couldn’t bear it anymore, so I said that and turned away.

“You think I’ll let that happen?”

Demian’s hand grabbed me roughly.

“Let go!”

As I tried to shake him off.

“Ahh!”

“Bri!”

I tumbled down the stairs.

⁕⁕⁕

I realized I had transmigrated when I was very young. On my fifth birthday.

In my previous life, I died from overwork. I was an ordinary office worker forced to work for passion pay. I often thought I was paid too little for the intensity and hours I put in. Still, I worked hard believing that someday things would get easier if I just kept at it.

The problem probably wasn’t that I had stayed up for two nights straight. I thought I died suddenly because I chronically couldn’t sleep for days on end.

The document I saw before dying contained urgent matters I needed to handle. Suddenly my vision blurred and the white paper with black letters refracted strangely, then blood from my nose poured onto it.

As the document seemed to draw closer.

When I opened my eyes, I was here.

And here was inside a book called «Delilah: Mistress of the Grand Duke’s House».

I remembered it because it was the only romance novel I had ever read.

The original story went like this: The protagonist Delilah, a commoner by birth, was a genius. Because of her genius, she was admitted to an academy that only nobles could enter.

There, she became entangled with Demian as rivals and fell in love with him through their bickering.

Delilah developed feelings for Demian, who looked down on her yet helped her in times of crisis, and who saw her as a woman.

After their relationship teased along ambiguously, love blossomed on the battlefield where they were deployed together, and they eventually married.

The genius Delilah revived the declining Grand Duke’s household, and though she was thought to be a commoner, she turned out to be the Emperor’s lost child.

It was a book where everything worked out only for Delilah’s happiness.

The problem was that I had transmigrated into the villain of that book.

“Ugh……”

Looking around, I saw no one. Where had all the servants gone?

When I tried to stretch my arm, it hurt too much. Probably from falling down the stairs yesterday.

Fortunately, nothing seemed broken. When I pulled back the bed sheets, dark bruises were visible on my legs through my negligee. Looking closer, there were bruises on my arms too.

My stomach hurt so much that I lifted my negligee to check, and there was a large bruise there as well.

“Ha……”

As I carefully tried to turn my body to get out of bed.

“Ugh!”

I fell straight to the floor.

“Ah… really……”

It was truly miserable.

The reason Demian and I fought yesterday was because of the female protagonist, Delilah.

I didn’t want to live as a villain according to the original story, so I had tried not to marry Demian. In the original work, Briseyes appeared as Demian’s fiancée and was the villain. She made Delilah’s life miserable.

Then, after seeing the two return from the war, she tried to kill Delilah.

In the end, she died at Demian’s hands.

But perhaps because I tried not to follow the original story, Demian treated me well instead. He did his best to earn my trust.

Though I appeared to be five years old on the outside, inside was someone who had lived much longer. So I thought all of Demian’s actions were sincere.

What was even more fortunate was that Delilah, the original female protagonist, hadn’t appeared until Demian and I entered the academy.

So I let my guard down.

Because I acted differently, the original story had completely changed.

I thought nothing would happen even if I got engaged to Demian as in the original story.

Unlike the original, Demian went to war to earn military achievements, and because of that deployment, we had an unexpectedly early marriage.

However, we hadn’t consummated it.

‘If I die on the battlefield, forget me and be happy.’

‘How could I do that?’

‘Please do this for me. If Bri can be happy, that’s enough for me.’

That was why. He said he didn’t want to embrace me before a war where he might die.

Fortunately, he returned victorious.

The problem was that when he returned victorious.

“Ugh……”

He also brought back Delilah, the female protagonist.

“Ha……”

The bell pull was too far away.

No matter how much I stretched my arm, I couldn’t reach it.

And so I passed out again.

⁕⁕⁕

“Where is Demian?”

“The master has gone to the academy.”

I unconsciously frowned at those words.

A week had passed since I fell down the stairs and regained consciousness.

“And Miss Delilah?”

“…She went with him.”

The servant averted her gaze as if unsure what to do, which made this reality feel even more real.

The scene I had witnessed.

During an academy party, I rushed over when I heard Demian had returned.

What I saw was Demian kissing Delilah.

‘Your Highness, have you always been this good at kissing?’

‘You’re my first. I keep wanting to find ways to impress you. That must be why.’

Demian’s gentle voice, and Delilah’s high-pitched voice.

All of it was real.

“I want to go too.”

“But, Your Highness.”

“I’m going to the academy too. Please prepare for me.”

I stretched out my arm asking for help, and my maid Ella looked flustered before taking my arm.

“Ugh……”

“Perhaps it would be better not to push yourself……”

I shook my head at Ella’s words. Ella sighed worriedly and said:

“It will be difficult for you to walk like this. You have so many bruises……”

“Did the doctor say anything?”

“No, he only said they were contusions……”

With Ella’s support, I sat at the dressing table. Seeing Ella’s tearful expression in the mirror made me a bit calmer.

“I’m fine.”

“I’m not fine, Your Highness. You were injured. And you were unconscious for a week……”

Ella was a maid I had brought from the Philia Marquis household, one I had cherished since before my marriage.

“Please help me get ready.”

At my words, Ella nodded and assisted with my appearance.

In the mirror, I saw myself with red hair and sky-blue eyes, looking flashy and villainous to anyone who saw me.

“Could you make me look gentle?”

“…Yes.”

I couldn’t help saying that as I recalled Delilah’s impression from yesterday.

Gentle eyes, brown hair, and golden eyes like gold.

Compared to her gentle and kind-looking appearance, I truly looked evil and fierce. Perhaps that’s why I felt intimidated.

“Not too flashy, please.”

“Yes……”

Ella became increasingly gloomy at my words, as if she had sensed the emotions I was feeling.

After finishing my appearance, I immediately wrote a letter.

“Please send this to Attorney Jeronis’s office.”

Ella nodded with a solemn expression. Attorney Jeronis’s office was known for specializing in divorces.

⁕⁕⁕

When I arrived at the academy, it was barely time for the first period to begin.

Wearing the white academy uniform, I had to focus on my steps to avoid falling.

I was climbing the stairs to reach Class 1, where I belonged.

“Bri?”

The voice calling me by my nickname belonged to someone not at all close to me.

“I heard you fell down the stairs. How did you manage to come?”

The person coming down the stairs toward me was Delilah, wearing a perfect academy uniform.

“Ah, I guess it was just a fake illness?”

Strangely, there was no one else around. This was usually a time when many people would be going up and down the stairs.

Suddenly, this scene felt similar to one from the original story where Briseyes pushed Delilah down the stairs.

“You’re so naive.”

At that moment, Delilah pushed my shoulder.

As I fell backward, I saw her smiling face.

“How stupid.”