🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 1
I blinked my eyes.
No matter how many times I blinked, the man standing in front of me didn’t change.
Wow… whose son is this? He’s unbelievably handsome.
His high, straight nose and perfectly sculpted jawline looked sharp enough to cut paper. His blue eyes, like a moist, shimmering lake, and his dazzling golden hair that lightly covered his pale gold eyelashes made him look like a jewel.
Even I—who prided myself on being used to this man—found myself zoning out and staring at his stunning looks every now and then.
“Riena.”
The low, heavy voice that flowed from his apricot-colored lips sent a tingling sensation through my ears.
I reflexively tried to escape, but his strong arms had completely trapped me. Running away was impossible. In the end, I swallowed dryly and forced an awkward smile.
“W-Why… why?”
I’m not usually this timid. If anything, in my relationship with this man, I could confidently say I’d always had the upper hand.
But today, something about the way his blue eyes flickered and the seriousness in his expression made it impossible for me to speak casually.
It felt like my heart was pounding so loudly it might burst out of my mouth. I covered my lips with both hands.
This isn’t… a confession, right? No way…
“I want you to date me—with marriage in mind.”
“W-What?! C-Cough!”
A real confession?!
I was so shocked that I burst into coughing. And honestly, it made sense. This man was just a guest who had opportunistically taken over one house in our village while constantly eyeing a hoe I’d happened to pick up.
We’ve done nothing but fight—when on earth did he start feeling this way about me?
There was absolutely no moment between us where romantic feelings could have taken root. None.
“Cough! Cough!”
My coughing wouldn’t stop. As I shook from it, a rough palm touched my lips. Then a lazy voice whispered right by my ear.
“Slowly.”
“…!!”
This time I was so startled I nearly hiccupped. I bit down hard on my lip. The blue eyes facing me curved gently.
“You’re cute.”
This time, the chill that ran through me was for a completely different reason. I pushed his chest with both hands—he was standing far too close.
“W-Wait a second, Kamin.”
And then I immediately regretted it. Even through a single layer of shirt, his body heat was unbelievably warm.
“Ugh.”
It felt like I was being seduced by an incubus with my entire body. Just as I desperately clamped my mouth shut to stop myself from blurting out nonsense—His chest muscles are insane! Isn’t he too handsome?!—Kamin misinterpreted my silence.
His eyes sharpened.
“…You still can’t forget your former fiancé?”
Huh? No, I forgot him ages ago. Until you just brought him up, I couldn’t even remember his face.
But before I could answer, sparks flew in Kamin’s eyes.
In a voice like a growling beast, he whispered,
“If you want, I’ll bring you his head.”
That’s a dangerous thing to say! Do you even know what kind of person my ex-fiancé was? His personality was trash, but his lineage was absurdly powerful.
Honestly, he deserves to die—but what if Kamin gets hurt because of that bastard?!
Afraid Kamin might actually go and chop off that man’s head like a carrot and get himself killed, I hurriedly waved both hands.
“N-No! There’s no need for that! It’s not like I have anywhere to hang it up!”
What am I even saying?
This isn’t a hunting trophy, you know.
As self-loathing crept in over my rambling, Kamin’s eyes curved again.
“Right. No need to look at something that filthy. Riena only needs to look at me.”
Ugh, why is he so seductive?!
Is this really the same aloof, catlike man who said he’d quietly leave if I just handed him a hoe?
With a tearful expression, I recalled the day I first met him.
The day I—once the noble daughter of Duke Pond—came to farm in this tiny rural territory.
“Why farm after getting into college?! Who goes to college just to become a farmer?!”
That was what my mom said as she smacked my back when I came home holding my acceptance letter to an agricultural university in Seoul.
“What do you mean ‘why’? What’s wrong with farming?! Don’t you know the future of the country is in the land?”
“I don’t care! Why is someone like you worrying about the future of the country?!”
“Hey! That’s harsh!”
I wonder how Ms. Park Ok-hee is doing these days.
Anyway.
See, Mom? Learning agriculture was the right choice.
As I planted seeds and firmly covered them with soil, I chuckled softly.
She could never have imagined that the daughter she hit for going to agricultural college would end up sparking an agricultural revolution in another world.
My name is Riena.
Just an ordinary reincarnator.
I came to my senses in a very bad situation.
A dazzling chandelier, colorful beautiful flowers, and elegant people dressed in gowns and suits.
Standing in the center, a man glared at me and said,
“I’m breaking off our engagement, Riena.”
Breaking off… the engagement?
I blinked stupidly. Just moments ago, I’d been making coffee in the office pantry.
I think something exploded all of a sudden…
Why had the pantry suddenly turned into a ballroom? As I stood there bewildered, I clutched my head.
“Ugh!”
Memories tangled together chaotically—my life as Park Ok-hee’s daughter and the twenty years I’d lived in this world as “Riena Pond,” the duke’s daughter.
W-What is this?
I blinked as new memories flooded in.
My name is Riena Pond. Today was my twentieth birthday—and the day I was supposed to receive a proposal from Crown Prince David, my fiancé.
But instead of a proposal… what? A breakup?
I looked forward with distorted vision. David, holding a fragile black-haired girl in one arm, sneered at me.
“You’re pretending to be sick to escape the situation again, aren’t you? But tricks like that won’t work anymore.”
“That’s not—”
Pretending to be sick? Do you think sweating bullets like this is easy?
Pointing blankly at the black-haired man hurling insults at me, I asked,
“…Crown Prince David?”
“Now you’re pretending not to recognize my face? Stop with the fake act. I only got engaged to you because of my father’s wishes. From the beginning, you made my skin crawl.”
“Hah…”
With the humiliating annulment and the merging of Riena’s memories with my own, I finally understood.
This world I’d lived in for twenty years was actually the setting of a novel I’d read in my previous life.
It was a romance fantasy called I Became a Saintess in Another World. And just as the title suggested, the protagonist was a girl from another world.
The very girl with black hair currently clinging to David’s arm—Kang Sena.
Like in every other romance fantasy, she was quirky and lovable, surrounded by countless admirers.
And the obvious villainess who disliked her, constantly nitpicking etiquette and humiliating her, was me.
No way! Why me of all people?!
And on top of that, an engagement annulment—thrown into the worst possible scenario without any preparation!
Is this the destruction route already? The villainess duke’s daughter, Riena Pond, being cast out as a commoner?
But wait—I hadn’t even done anything villainous yet!
In the original story, Riena did terrible things, sure. But at this point, I hadn’t done a single one.
This isn’t like the original! I didn’t scold her over etiquette or ruin her by wearing the same dress!
None of that had happened yet.
And sure enough, instead of listing my misdeeds, David merely said I disgusted him.
How can he annul the engagement so arbitrarily?
This was a pact between families!
Dumbfounded, I looked around. But David only stared down at me coldly, while Kang Sena looked at me tearfully, as if she were the victim.
I realized instinctively—this situation was completely stacked against me.
What’s the point of regaining my memories now? There’s nothing I can undo!
Just like that, I was disgracefully cast aside by the crown prince. In the carriage on the way home, I clutched my head and screamed internally.
“Why do my memories come back at a time like this?!”
There was nothing else I could do but wail.
And things didn’t improve when I arrived at the Duke Pond estate.
My strict father stood at the door and scolded me.
“How disgraceful, my daughter.”
“Father…”
“I will erase your name from this family. If you have any last words, speak them now.”
I rolled my brown eyes slowly. Right—this was the part in the original where Riena stubbornly talked back, enraged the duke, and was immediately thrown onto the streets.
But I can’t survive in this place with no money.
Here, commoners didn’t visit doctors when sick—they went to shamans. Doctors’ fees were outrageously expensive.
I still remembered, at age five, seeing maids take someone with a raging fever to a shaman. The shaman, claiming to treat them…
“Khak! Ptui!”
Spat on the patient’s face.
That was when I truly learned that being poor meant you absolutely couldn’t afford to get sick.
Anyway—
There’s no way someone raised gently like me could survive that life!
So I cried shamelessly. The proud Riena would never have done this, but I was a corporate underling who used to drink late-night coffee in the pantry. I could kneel without hesitation.
“Please don’t cast me out, Father! I’ll live quietly! I’ll be good!”
“Heh.”
The duke laughed hollowly, clearly surprised. Then, pointing outside with his chin, he said,
“Throw her out at once.”
Damn it!!
My tearful performance meant nothing to him. All the attendants bowed their heads.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Father!”
In the end, I was kicked out with nothing but a small bag of personal belongings.
Unable to even take money with me, I let out a deep, ground-shaking sigh.
I’m finished. Completely finished. It’s almost impressive how badly this went.
