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Chapter 2
Knock, knock.
After knocking, Marin opened the door and entered the room, holding a tray with both hands.
On the bed, her mother, Roenna, lay weakly.
Her once lustrous golden hair was now streaked with gray, and her cheeks had sunken in, showing clear signs of illness at a glance.
Marin suppressed the sadness in her eyes and called out in a bright voice.
“Mom.”
Roenna’s eyelids trembled slightly as they slowly opened.
“Marin.”
She slowly raised her upper body and leaned against the head of the bed.
“You look more vibrant today. I think you’ll recover soon.”
At Marin’s lighthearted words, Roenna managed a faint smile despite her pale complexion.
“Thank you. But at your age, when you can marry anytime, how long will you keep calling me ‘Mom’?”
“Oh my! Even when I’m your age, I’ll still call you Mom.”
Marin widened her eyes as if to say, “What are you talking about?” and then smiled brightly.
“Aigoo, who could ever stop you? Your brother or….”
Roenna smiled in response, but suddenly froze and couldn’t continue her words.
“Mom! Your unstoppable daughter has brought you some not-so-delicious medicine soup.”
Marin pretended not to notice and proudly held up the tray.
Roenna glanced down at the soup, then lifted her head with a dark expression.
“Did you eat?”
“Of course. I just had two bowls.”
Although she had been fasting since yesterday, Marin deliberately puffed up her stomach and acted full.
Roenna, who had been watching her with sorrowful eyes, turned away and lay back down on the bed.
“I have no appetite. You should eat my portion as well.”
It was a single bowl of soup made by scraping together whatever ingredients they had in the house.
She couldn’t bring herself to eat something so precious instead of her sick mother.
“Mom…”
“I really have no appetite.”
Seeing through her lie, Roenna spoke firmly.
Once she became stubborn like this, there was no persuading her.
“Mom, then should I read to you?”
This was one of the most effective ways to comfort Roenna.
“Aren’t you busy today? I haven’t been able to sleep well lately. When you read to me, I fall asleep more easily.”
Hope flickered across Roenna’s face.
“You should have said so earlier.”
“I didn’t want to burden you when you’re busy.”
“I’ll read to you. But you have to eat the soup.”
Roenna weakly shook her head as if to say she couldn’t accept that.
Bang, bang, bang.
Just as Marin was about to speak further in an attempt to persuade her mother, knocking sounded at the hut’s door.
“Mom, it looks like someone’s here. I’ll read to you later. I’ll leave the soup on the table, so eat it if you get hungry, okay?”
“…”
Leaving Roenna’s silence behind, Marin exited the room. She passed through the small kitchen and opened the hut’s front door.
The landlord, Giorno—a middle-aged man with a belly as large as a pregnant woman’s—grinned broadly at the sight of her.
“Marin.”
“Mr. Giorno. Hello.”
Suppressing her displeased expression at the unwelcome visitor, Marin greeted him politely.
“Yes, I’m always doing well. How have you been, Marin?”
“Fine. What brings you here?”
Giorno burst into hearty laughter, as if he had just heard something amusing.
“What do you mean, what brings me here? Between us?”
Marin clenched her fists at his lecherous gaze, which openly sized her up.
Despite being a married man, he always looked at her like that.
Should she punch him once? Then run away?
Thinking of her sick mother lying inside, Marin trembled and hid her shaking hands behind her back.
“If you don’t have any business, I’m busy.”
As Marin coldly spoke and moved to close the door, Giorno smirked and grabbed the door firmly.
“The rent has tripled starting this month.”
“What…?”
Marin looked at him in shock.
“You’ve been paying your rent on time all this time, so I didn’t raise it before. But other houses raised theirs long ago. The rent is due in five days, right? I’ll come collect it myself. If you don’t have the money, you’ll have to leave.”
Giorno glared at her, issuing a threat.
“How am I supposed to suddenly come up with that much money if you triple the rent? Could you give me a little more time?”
Marin bowed her head and pleaded.
Winter was approaching soon. If she and her sick mother were evicted from here, it would be disastrous.
Giorno smiled knowingly and leaned his face closer.
“Of course, it’s not like there are no other options…”
Before he could finish his insinuating words, Marin slammed the door right in front of his face.
“Ah—my nose!”
Serves you right. Marin locked the hut door tightly and leaned her back against it.
Rattle, rattle.
As Giorno grabbed and shook the doorknob, her body shook along with it.
“Hey! Open the door! Did you think I’d go easy on you? You dried-up broomstick! Tch, spit.”
After shouting loudly, Giorno finally left.
Marin swallowed a sigh and looked toward Roenna’s room. She was certain her mother had heard all the commotion.
Her mother was already frail—Marin worried that this would only worsen her mental state.
She walked to Roenna’s door and raised her hand to knock, but then lowered it again.
Could she comfort her mother?
Could she honestly say that everything would be okay?
Marin hung her head and opened the door across from her—the door to her own room.
The hinge made a loud creaking sound.
Marin glanced at it with dissatisfaction. The rusty hinges were long overdue for replacement.
Inside the room, there was only a worn-out bed and an antique vanity.
The vanity was the only piece brought from her former estate.
Her father’s face flashed in her memory, asking her to treasure it because her grandmother had used it since childhood. She couldn’t bring herself to throw it away.
“I need money.”
Marin muttered to herself quietly. Truly, desperately, she needed money.
A sick person needed proper nutrition, yet every time she had to give her mother thin soup without any substance, it felt like her heart was being torn apart.
On top of that, the rent had tripled. It was one misfortune piled on another.
“Damn landlord.”
Marin slumped into a chair and carefully took out a piece of paper hidden in the corner of the vanity drawer.
The paper was densely filled with text that only she could read in this empire.
Her gaze settled on the first line.
“The Western Duke’s Bluebird Does Not Sing.”
She realized she was living inside a novel after the carriage accident.
She had hovered between life and death for over a month. When she finally woke up, she realized like a bolt of lightning that this world was the setting of a novel she had once read.
Was it because she was the protagonist?
No.
It was because she had been born and raised in the western region, where the novel took place.
Anyone born in the west would know of the House of Vines.
The story of The Western Duke’s Bluebird Does Not Sing was simple.
The male protagonist, the Western Duke, loses his sight due to a monster attack and falls into despair. He then meets a female protagonist, a genius in herbal medicine, who cures his blindness. After that, the two fall in love in this romance fantasy novel.
She had read many northern duke stories before, but chose this one simply because a western duke felt fresh and interesting.
To think she had reincarnated into that world and had been living here all along.
“How absurd…”
She was an extra character who didn’t even appear in a single line of the novel. A background existence who was meant to do nothing and simply exist.
If time passed as it was, she would naturally hear about the duke’s happy ending. His marriage would become the wedding of the century, widely celebrated.
But the problem was money.
“I need money.”
She didn’t have time to be confused by the fact that she had been reincarnated into a novel.
Her family had fallen into ruin, and financial hardship had immediately followed.
The Schwentz viscount family had once been prosperous, with vast lands and inherited wealth.
However, after the carriage accident, it was revealed that her father had accumulated enormous debts.
They had to sell off all their land, property, estate, jewelry, and dresses.
With the last remaining expensive dress sold, they barely managed to rent this two-room hut at the edge of the mountain.
Since then, Roenna had been bedridden.
Marin had to do something.
Being a viscount’s daughter who had lost her family and never debuted into society was no help at all.
“I need money.”
She repeated the words again like a self-hypnosis.
Otherwise, her resolve to stay out of the protagonists’ lives might waver.
Until now, she had struggled to live while avoiding any involvement in their story. But now, she had truly reached her limit.
Her delicate, sprout-like green eyes stared intently at the paper in her hands. It was filled with key information from the novel.
She already knew things related to the duke—the male protagonist of this world.
It was time to use her only weapon.
