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Chapter 2
Even his voice was exactly the same as the one she had heard yesterday. There wasn’t even the slightest trace of sleepiness in it.
He really was awake.
Ritia bit her lip.
The moment she lowered her gaze slightly, Ritia’s face flushed bright red. Then, like a thief caught in the act of running away, she shut her mouth, avoided his gaze, and unnecessarily tugged the blanket up to cover her body.
Last night might have been different, but being completely sober and pressed against a naked man was, at least for Ritia, practically insane.
“Um…”
Even so, the man seemed completely unembarrassed. He even tilted his head, persistently following Ritia’s gaze.
“Hmm? What? Go ahead, say it.”
At his urging, Ritia gave up on trying to escape and squeezed her eyes shut before forcing the words out.
“…You’re too close. Could you move away a little?”
Instead of moving away, she heard him chuckle.
Ritia frowned and opened her eyes again, only to find him even closer than before, so close that the tips of their noses were almost touching and she could feel his breath.
Startled when the tip of his nose brushed against hers, Ritia tried to push herself backward.
But instead, she ended up sinking deeper into the pillow.
“…Yesterday, you told me to come closer.”
“That was…!”
“Hmm. Surely you weren’t trying to run away. Where were you going?”
“……”
“You weren’t leaving because you didn’t like it, were you? You said you liked me. You probably liked me even more the second time. What was it you said again? Ah, wait. Maybe you don’t remember?”
At his teasing, Ritia immediately raised her hand and slapped it over the man’s mouth.
“D-don’t. Don’t do this.”
Because all of last night’s memories had come rushing back, she had realized exactly what he meant by the second time.
Pretty, she had said.
Come closer.
Something about his lips…
Even if she had been drunk, she really had talked far too much.
The man chuckled.
“Hmm?”
The muffled sound of his voice vibrated directly against her palm. Despite squirming from the ticklish sensation, Ritia stubbornly kept her hand over his mouth.
“I said don’t say anything!”
Ritia shouted while still covering the man’s mouth.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.
Her entire plan had gone wrong in an instant.
I really, really didn’t mean for this to happen…
Ritia squeezed her eyes shut.
The day she had first opened her eyes in this body came back to her.
Chapter 1. The Good-for-Nothing Lady Ritia — Inside the Banquet Hall
“You really don’t suit that dress, Princess.”
Splash.
Wine poured from her chest, soaking the dress all the way down to the hem in an ugly stain. Soon, even her undergarments felt damp.
Laughter and mocking voices erupted from all around her.
“C-Cavendish Young Lady…”
Ritia’s voice trembled weakly. Tears welled up in her eyes, as if they were about to spill at any moment.
Roa Cavendish’s eyes widened.
“Oh my, why are you crying? I was only trying to make your dress look prettier. I was helping you, if anything… You have to look good for His Imperial Highness, don’t you? Don’t you think you look much better now?”
“……”
“Oh, goodness. Not again.”
“Why does she go after Montt Young Lady every time she sees her?”
“Isn’t Montt Young Lady strange too, always letting it happen? Maybe she actually enjoys it.”
At the bursts of laughter from every direction, Ritia lowered her head.
I wish I could just disappear…
If it weren’t for the imperial invitation, she would have avoided every banquet and gathering altogether.
She had come here praying that she could simply get through the evening without incident, but now she was going to have to leave without even making it into the banquet hall.
Naturally, she wouldn’t even get to meet the Crown Prince who had sent the invitation.
Ritia and the Crown Prince had been childhood friends.
So, setting the banquet aside, she had wanted to talk with him. She thought that perhaps sharing her frustrations with him would make her feel even a little better.
But once again… this group.
Roa Cavendish, the only daughter of the Marquis Cavendish, led one of the groups of noble young ladies in the capital and regarded Ritia as if she were a thorn in her side.
The biggest reason was Ritia’s beautiful appearance, so sacred-looking that rumors claimed she had been born with the blessing of God.
The second reason was her family.
The Montt family, Ritia’s family, was one of the wealthiest families in the Empire, owning a considerable portion of imperial territory. They were also renowned as the family that had produced the most Saintesses for generations.
The only Duke’s daughter in the Empire, adored by her family.
On top of that, rumors said she was on intimate terms with the Crown Prince.
Yet, despite everything that came with her status, Ritia herself was weaker than a flower grown in a greenhouse, and that made her difficult to tolerate.
At first, Roa had bullied her so subtly that no one could easily notice.
The Montt family was simply too powerful, and she had been afraid of the consequences.
But once she discovered that Ritia even hid her true feelings from her own family, the bullying gradually became more severe and eventually grew so blatant that even the other young ladies could clearly see it.
Still, Ritia chose not to fight back this time either.
She simply gave up.
“…I suppose I should go back.”
“Princess, don’t leave. It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other. It would be such a shame to part so soon.”
Roa laughed as she pushed Ritia right to the brink of tears.
Her goal today was to make sure Ritia couldn’t meet the Crown Prince.
And soon, her plan would succeed.
“I-I can’t help it…”
Before long, a tear slipped from Ritia’s eye.
Her delicate shoulders trembled endlessly.
“Is that so? What a shame. Next time, I’ll make sure to help you properly. All right?”
“O-Okay. I-I’m sorry about today.”
Laughter rang out again.
Roa still wore a triumphant expression.
Unable to endure it any longer, Ritia lowered her head and ran out of the place.
And that night, she threw herself into the lake.
And now.
The person who had opened her eyes inside this body was Yujimin, who had just spent the final moments of her life as a terminally ill patient.
Yujimin, twenty-four years old.
Ever since becoming an adult, she had lived a life in which she could never leave the hospital room.
As the days passed, her illness worsened. Her body had deteriorated to the point where nothing could be done.
And just when she thought that perhaps it was finally time to escape the pain, she closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she discovered that she was no longer in her sickly body.
Instead, she was inside the body of someone she had never seen before.
But of all the possibilities…
That person had to be a character from the novel she had finished reading just before her death.
And among all those characters, she had somehow become Ritia—the pitiful young lady who was pushed around by everyone and eventually died miserably before the original protagonist even appeared.
“My lady has awakened!”
The moment she woke up, a scream loud enough to tear the air apart rang out, and the entire mansion erupted into chaos.
“Haa…”
After the commotion had passed and everyone in the mansion had gathered around her, Yujimin stared intently into the mirror and raised a hand to touch her cheek.
She had complained that her head hurt and sent everyone out, but there was no way to deal with the confusion she was feeling.
Her silver hair was unbelievably soft. No matter how many times she ran her fingers through it, it slipped smoothly over her shoulders and shimmered as it fell.
A face that could only be described as pure and beautiful.
And those eyes.
The piercing blue irises looked as though someone had scooped up the blue of the Mediterranean Sea itself and placed it inside them.
Yujimin had seen descriptions like this very recently.
In the very book she had read before dying.
It had been one of the things her friend had desperately tried to give her in an effort to instill in her the will to live.
She had been grateful for the thought behind it, so she had read the book.
She never imagined that it would bring her a new life.
If she remembered correctly, Ritia was supposed to fall into the lake and die.
But whatever the reason, there was no way Yujimin could simply let herself die again after receiving a life like this.
This body wasn’t sick.
It was the kind of healthy body Yujimin had dreamed of and longed for all her life.
“….”
I don’t want to die again.
I don’t want to suffer like that ever again.
And so Yujimin decided to completely merge into Ritia and live as her.
However, she had thought she would be able to live a different life this time.
Instead, she found herself trapped inside her room, unable to take even a single step outside.
Ritia Eululunie Bellus Montt.
As could be inferred from her grand name and noble titles, Ritia had been born carrying all of her family’s expectations on her shoulders.
But she had been timid and unable to act boldly by nature. She failed to live up to those expectations, and the expectations of others became nothing but a burden to her.
Eventually, that pressure drove her to lose her life.
Which meant that if Yujimin continued living exactly as Ritia had, she would never have a peaceful life either.
So, was there anything else she could learn about this body?
While meeting unfamiliar people in her room, that thought had occupied her mind the entire time.
If I’ve been given this life, I don’t want to live at everyone else’s mercy.
She wanted to take control of her own strength.
She wanted to be free.
“Ah, the diary!”
Once she had adjusted somewhat to her new situation, fragments of the original character’s settings began coming back to her one by one.
Apparently, the original owner of this body, Ritia, had kept a diary ever since she was young, writing in it before going to bed every night.
Things she couldn’t say to other people.
Things she had done well.
Things she had done poorly.
Every little detail of her life.
Because she wasn’t the type to openly express her feelings, it seemed that she had secretly poured her true thoughts into her diary.
She had apparently been incredibly happy whenever she found a pretty diary.
Fortunately, because she was a character who died early in the story, most of these details had been revealed near the beginning of the novel.
But before she could even start looking for it, someone knocked on the door from outside.
“…Who is it?”
Ritia quickly got up from her seat and walked toward the door.
“It’s me, Ritia. Your father.”
Her body flinched at the deep voice coming from outside.
She had seen his face when he came to her during the commotion immediately after she woke up.
There had been something unusually intimidating about the way he looked at her, so she had sent him away under the excuse that she couldn’t remember anything clearly.
And now, after a week, he had come to see her again.
He was also the man who had gotten rid of every single one of Ritia’s attendants.
The day when people had been mercilessly cut down and left lying on the ground came vividly back to her mind.
