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Chapter : 01
My trust had been firm. It was a belief built carefully, from the smallest detail to the biggest, by doubting everything and stacking it up piece by piece.
I had never once thought that the tower made of those bricks of trust could collapse in an instant.
No… maybe I was simply too afraid to think that way, so I pretended not to know, even though I did.
“We only kissed.”
The voice that came out was calm.
“It’s true.”
Calm enough to sound almost confident.
Tick, tock.
The sound of the pendulum clock rang loudly in my head like my heartbeat. It was so loud, as if my heart had been placed inside the clock—thumping, pounding, echoing heavily.
A faint ringing filled my ears along with the sound of my own breathing. My eyes burned as if they were on fire, yet my chest felt cold.
“Damian.”
“….”
“We haven’t even kissed yet. But with that woman…”
“Bri!”
“Ah…!”
For a moment, my vision spun, and my body almost collapsed. The only reason I didn’t fall to the floor was because his hand caught me.
He was still the man who had everything I liked. A perfect male lead—kind and understanding.
If I hadn’t known that this perfect husband had kissed another woman…
If I had known nothing at all, I would have been grateful that he caught me.
Now, it only felt like insects crawling on my skin.
“It’s common to take a mistress. So…”
“Damian, the condition for marrying me was that you wouldn’t take a mistress. That’s why I agreed…”
“Bri. Don’t act like a child. Before marriage and now are different, aren’t they?”
“Damian.”
“If a kiss is the problem, let’s do it now. We need an heir anyway.”
His golden eyes, which once looked like treasure, now felt disgusting and horrifying. The deep love I once saw in them now looked like a trap, like a carnivorous plant waiting to swallow me.
“Did that woman tell you to say that?”
“Bri!”
The woman who kissed my husband—Delilah.
She was the true female lead of this novel. The one who was originally meant to end up with my husband.
“Let’s divorce.”
I couldn’t endure it anymore, so I said it and turned around.
“Do you think I’ll let you?”
In an instant, Damian grabbed my arm roughly.
“Let go!”
As I struggled to shake him off—
“Ahh!”
“Bri!”
I fell down the stairs.
❖ ❖ ❖
I realized I had transmigrated when I was very young. It was on my fifth birthday.
In my previous life, I died from overwork. I was an ordinary office worker, but I was forced to work for unfair pay. I often thought I was paid too little for the amount of work and time I gave.
Still, I believed that if I worked hard enough, one day I would have an easier life.
It probably wasn’t just because I stayed up for two nights straight. I had been living with chronic lack of sleep, so I figured that’s why I died suddenly.
The last thing I saw before dying was a document I had to process urgently. My vision blurred, the white paper and black text warped strangely, and then blood poured from my nose onto it.
As the document seemed to come closer—
I opened my eyes here.
And this place was inside a book called “Delilah: Mistress of the Grand Ducal House.”
I remembered it because it was the only romance novel I had ever read.
The story went like this:
Delilah, the main character, was a genius born as a commoner. Because of her talent, she was admitted into an academy meant only for nobles.
There, she met Damian. They constantly argued like rivals, but gradually fell in love.
Delilah was drawn to Damian—who looked down on her, yet helped her in danger, and saw her as a woman.
Their strange relationship slowly blossomed, and after going to war together, their love fully bloomed, leading to marriage.
Delilah, the genius, revived the declining grand ducal house. And though she seemed like a commoner, she was actually the emperor’s lost child.
It was a story where everything existed only for Delilah’s happiness.
The problem was—
I was the villainess in that story.
“Ugh…”
When I looked around, no one was there. Where had all the servants gone?
I tried to move my arm, but it hurt terribly. I must have been injured from falling down the stairs yesterday.
Thankfully, nothing seemed broken. When I pulled back the bed sheets, I saw dark bruises all over my legs beneath my nightgown. Looking closer, my arms were bruised too.
My stomach hurt badly, so I lifted my nightgown slightly—there was a large bruise there as well.
“Ha…”
As I struggled to turn my body and get up from the bed—
“Ugh!”
I fell straight to the floor.
“Ah… really…”
It was miserable.
The reason Damian and I fought yesterday was because of the female lead, Delilah.
I didn’t want to live as the villainess from the original story, so I tried not to marry Damian. In the original, the villainess Briseis was his fiancée and bullied Delilah.
Later, after the war, when the two returned, she tried to kill Delilah.
In the end, she died by Damian’s hand.
But because I didn’t follow the original story, Damian treated me well instead. He tried his best to earn my trust.
Even though I looked like a five-year-old on the outside, I had lived much longer inside. So I believed everything he did was sincere.
What was even more fortunate was that Delilah didn’t appear until Damian and I entered the academy.
So I let my guard down.
Because everything had already changed from the original story.
I thought that even if I got engaged to Damian, nothing would happen.
Unlike the original story, Damian went to war to earn achievements, and because of that, we married earlier than planned.
However, we didn’t spend our first night together.
“If I die on the battlefield, please forget me and be happy.”
“How can I do that?”
“Please… if you can be happy, that’s enough for me.”
That’s why. He said he didn’t want to be with me while he might die in war.
Thankfully, he returned victorious.
But the problem was—
“Ugh…”
When he returned from war,
he brought the female lead, Delilah, with him.
“Ha…”
The bell rope was too far away.
No matter how much I stretched my arm, I couldn’t reach it.
And just like that, I fainted again.
❖ ❖ ❖
“Where is Damian?”
“Master has gone to the academy.”
At those words, I frowned without realizing it.
It had been a week since I fell down the stairs and woke up again.
“What about Miss Delilah?”
“…She went with him.”
The servant avoided my gaze, looking troubled, which made it feel even more real.
The scene I saw—
When I heard Damian had returned during the academy party, I ran there.
And what I saw was Damian kissing Delilah.
“Your Highness, are you always this good at kissing?”
“You’re my first. I wanted to impress you, so I kept trying to learn.”
His gentle voice, and Delilah’s bright one.
It was all real.
“I’m going too.”
“But, Your Highness…”
“I’m going to the academy too. Prepare it.”
I stretched out my arm, asking to be helped up. My maid, Ella, hesitated before holding it.
“Ah…”
“You really shouldn’t push yourself…”
I shook my head at Ella’s words. She sighed worriedly.
“You can barely walk like this. You’re covered in bruises…”
“Did the doctor say anything?”
“No, they said it’s just bruising…”
With Ella supporting me, I sat in front of the dressing table. Seeing her teary face in the mirror calmed me a little.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m not fine, Your Highness. You were hurt. And you didn’t wake up for a whole week…”
Ella was a maid I brought from the Philia Marquis household, someone I cherished even before marriage.
“Please help me get ready.”
At my words, Ella nodded and began.
In the mirror, I saw myself—red hair, sky-blue eyes, a face that looked undeniably glamorous… and like a villainess.
“Can you make me look softer?”
“…Yes.”
I remembered Delilah’s appearance from yesterday.
Soft eyes, brown hair, golden eyes.
Compared to her gentle and kind look, I looked harsh and cruel.
“Not too flashy either, please.”
“Yes…”
Ella looked more and more downcast, as if she understood how I felt.
After getting ready, I immediately wrote a letter.
“Send this to the Jeronis Law Office.”
Ella nodded with a serious expression. The Jeronis Law Office was famous for handling divorces.
❖ ❖ ❖
When I arrived at the academy, it was just in time for the first class.
Wearing the white academy uniform, I walked carefully, putting strength into my steps so I wouldn’t fall.
As I climbed the stairs to go to Class 1—
“Bri?”
The voice calling me by that nickname belonged to someone not close to me at all.
“How did you come when you fell down the stairs?”
The person walking down toward me—
was Delilah, dressed perfectly in her academy uniform.
“Ah… were you just pretending to be sick?”
Strangely, there was no one else around. At this time, the stairs should have been crowded.
Suddenly, this scene felt similar to the one in the original story—where Briseis pushes 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.”
