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Prologue
Was it the sixth or the seventh time?
No, it seemed like the eighth.
It was a day when I was forced to smile and chat at a gathering I had no interest in or desire to attend, wasting my precious time.
It was a boring blind date that was going nowhere.
A blind date that was nothing more than my overly concerned uncle’s self-satisfaction.
There was a little bit of guilt and conscience mixed in there.
Because it was undeniable that all I had done for the past 23 years was eat, sleep, excrete, and laze about in bed.
“Do you want to order more food?”
No, but… still.
“I heard that Lady Kristenner eats a lot, so I came here with a full wallet today.”
This can’t be real.
At the man’s words, I slowly lifted my gaze from the end of the table where I had been staring blankly.
Silver hair and blue eyes caught my eye first, and then a beautiful face that was smiling gently at me.
No matter how many times I saw it, it was a pretty and wonderful face that made my strong appetite disappear.
I stared blankly at Lyxion Luhanes’ face again, then looked away awkwardly and replied, “Oh, haha… I don’t have much of an appetite today.”
“Is that so? That’s too bad. I really wanted to see you eat ten plates of steak.”
How did this person know that?
Surely he’s not asking me to split this marble table in half, is he?
I felt a little uneasy.
What if he really tells me to do it? Should I just turn the table into dust? Or should I pretend to be disgusted again?
Which one would make him hate me more?
I fidgeted with my hands under the table and thought seriously.
This is strange. Am I more famous than I thought?
How did the story of my blind date spread to Lyxion Luhanes’ ears? He seems to know almost everything.
“Well, it’s not like this is the only day we’ll meet.”
The man’s voice, which still sounded like it belonged to someone else, reached my ears. No matter how many times I heard it, I couldn’t get used to it.
‘No, what do you mean by that? Why are you talking like we’ll meet again?’
Unconsciously, I narrowed my eyes and looked at the man in front of me with suspicion, wariness, and doubt. Then he smiled again, his eyes crinkling pleasantly.
Goosebumps broke out on my skin from my hand to my forearm, and I rubbed my hand on my skirt.
Why is this man doing this to me?
Is there anything more frightening than receiving incomprehensible kindness from someone with unknown intentions?
And why does he act like he knows me so well, like he has feelings for me?
‘What’s his purpose?’
I kept doubting, being wary, and trying to figure out his intentions, but I couldn’t come to a conclusion easily.
I don’t know what he wants, but there’s one thing I know for sure.
I shouldn’t be captivated by that beautiful face.
I know.
No matter how kind and loving he may seem with that pretty face, there’s a brutal and terrifying monster inside that beautiful shell.
And I know how cruel and desolate the romance fantasy novel ‘The Saintess of Erendel’ is, set in the Kaiden Empire where I live.
Lyxion Luhanes, the head of the Luhanes dukedom.
He was a man who couldn’t truly love anyone. All he had was that beautiful face and a possessive desire for others.
The man in front of me kept his lover locked up even when she cried and begged to go home.
Not only that, but he even caught the heroine who had escaped and killed everyone who had helped her escape, one by one, right in front of her. He was a psychopath.
‘Ha…’
I swallowed a deep sigh and stared at the teacup on the table.
How did things turn out like this?
Why am I, who didn’t even exist in the original story, on a blind date with the male lead of the original story???
And why did my encounter with the male lead, which I thought would end in one meeting, keep continuing?
‘Ah, I shouldn’t make that kind of mistake at that time.’
I suppressed my urge to tear my hair out and thought back to when I first met this man.
* * *
“You should go on a blind date.”
It was an ordinary day.
I was lying leisurely in bed, reading the quite famous gossip magazine called ‘Today’s Social Circle’ and shaking my foot as usual.
Starting with a scandal about a baron’s affair, the imperial family and the temple’s discord that was slowly rising to the surface, and the fact that Princess Ileina’s artwork, which she had purchased at auction for 3,000 gold, turned out to be a fake.
The gossip magazine was filled with interesting articles that made it hard to take my eyes off of it.
Of course, that didn’t mean I would read it while proudly sitting upright like a general who had come to cut off the enemy general’s head and ignoring the master of this house.
I placed the gossip magazine that I had been reading with great interest on my chest and looked up at my older brother, Michael Kristenner.
Michael was looking down at me with an expression that was somewhere between anger and contempt.
It was a familiar expression that I had seen many times.
He must’ve really wanted to throw a tantrum because he felt frustrated, depressed, and ashamed of me, but he couldn’t just abandon me because I was his younger sister.
He was holding on tightly, but it seemed like he wanted to lash out every once in a while.
But what did he just say to me?
I blinked, as if asking, ‘Did I hear you wrong?’
“I can’t tolerate your listless and lethargic behavior anymore.”
Michael’s handsome face, which was pointing at me with his finger, looked quite fierce.
I felt a sharp pain inside, so I couldn’t say anything back and quietly avoided his gaze.
I was already twenty-three years old.
In the Kaiden Empire, twenty-three was an age that was well past the marriageable age for women. Usually, most people met a good person and got married between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one after debuting in society.
So, a noblewoman who couldn’t get married during the marriageable age was often seen as having some kind of flaw.
In addition, the head of the family that the noblewoman belonged to was often seen as incompetent for not being able to marry off their precious daughter.
Furthermore, the atmosphere in this country was such that women’s greatest happiness was to meet a good person, get married, and start a family.
This was because of the closed-minded and anachronistic ideology that had been deeply rooted in the empire for a long time.
So, what had I been doing for the twenty-three years of my life as a noblewoman in this empire?
I had to go back a long way to tell that story.
That is, twenty-three years ago.
I was born in this romance fantasy novel, ‘The Saintess of Erendel’.x
