🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 1
“So then, did the two of you marry for love?”
In a way, it was a rather rude question.
The ladies invited to the estate didn’t even bother with pleasantries and instead began firing off their various curiosities one after another.
Johannes Schultz—who had left behind countless rumors and then vanished—had reappeared.
And what’s more, he had taken a common woman as his wife.
Of course they would be curious.
The gazes of the ladies, openly brimming with interest as they looked at me, were quite burdensome.
“Yes. We’re completely wrapped up in our newlywed life.”
I didn’t show any reaction to their excessive attention. I simply gave a suitably vague answer and took a sip of my tea.
“To think you married Duke Schultz, the idol of everyone. You must be so happy, Duchess.”
“I always dreamed of living in Müssen. Müssen is such a wonderful place, isn’t it?”
“I’m curious about your first meeting. Where and how did you two meet?”
At that last question, everyone’s eyes focused on me.
Surrounded by ladies with sparkling eyes, I fell into thought.
How on earth was I supposed to explain this?
“Our first meeting? Well… how did we meet again…?”
When I hesitated to answer, the ladies waved their hands lightly and urged me on.
“There’s no need to be shy.”
“That’s right. We all grew close in much the same way.”
“To think the Duke, who never kept women by his side, fell for the Duchess—what part of you could it have been?”
They seemed to think I was simply the shy type. But I wasn’t someone who blushed easily or avoided things out of embarrassment.
It was just that this was a truly awkward situation where speaking carelessly would be dangerous.
“Ha ha…”
I answered by drinking my tea instead.
They looked a little disappointed, but brushed it off lightly, saying, “There will be plenty of chances.”
At least I’d gotten through the immediate situation safely—was that something to be grateful for?
Hiding my unease, I offered them a faint smile, hoping they wouldn’t ask any more troublesome questions.
Then, carrying emotions I couldn’t even define myself, I cast a hazy glance out the window. Letting out a thin sigh that no one noticed, I once again thought of the subject that had disrupted my perfect daily life.
These days, I was living with a husband perfect by anyone’s standards, enjoying a newlywed life that left nothing to envy. And yet, one worry had arisen.
I think my husband might be a murderer.
This is not the world I used to live in.
I realized that not long ago.
At a time when I was objectively enjoying a perfect married life, something I would rather never have known suddenly resurfaced in my mind.
It was exactly a week ago, in the middle of a conversation with my husband.
“Prim Wood—what do you think?”
My husband wanted to give the estate a nickname. As we tossed around various ideas, the name that would become the root of everything came up: Prim Wood.
“Prim Wood…?”
“After your name. And since the estate is right in the middle of a forest.”
He said it with a smile, but I felt a strange sense of déjà vu. I couldn’t remember clearly, but I was certain I’d heard that name somewhere before.
…And in a very, very bad context.
I pushed that feeling aside and cautiously tried to dissuade him.
“After my name? But this is the Schultz family estate. And we haven’t even been married that long yet. We don’t know how things will turn out—isn’t it a bit too soon…?”
“What—are you saying we’re going to get divorced?”
His reply was dry. Cutting me off, he asked again with a slightly stiff expression.
His extreme example caught me off guard, but it wasn’t hard to understand. After all, we had to appear perfect on the surface.
I quietly tried to calm him.
“That’s not what I mean. I’m just saying we can think about it slowly. And naming the estate after my surname—if the late Duke were to find out, wouldn’t he be quite taken aback?”
“The opinion of someone who no longer exists in this world doesn’t matter.”
“But—”
“Edith Schultz.”
He called my name firmly.
I didn’t know why he was so insistent on my “original” surname, but it was difficult to break his stubbornness.
“…All right.”
In the end, the estate was named “Prim Wood,” but I still didn’t like the name. Even though it was taken from my surname, it gave off an oddly chilling feeling.
I wanted to dismiss it as mere imagination, but the sudden sense of unease showed no sign of fading—not even when I returned to my room and lay down on the bed.
I tossed and turned all night, trying to find the reason behind the tremor that name stirred in me.
And when the name lodged itself deep in my mind, the hazy fog slowly lifted, and memories from my past life came rushing back.
The Kingdom of Dochillia, a modern nation leading the way in the railway industry.
Among it, the most beautiful city—Müssen.
The Duke of Schultz, guardian of Müssen.
And…
Prim Wood, the Schultz ducal estate.
“My God. Johannes Schultz.”
My heartbeat, which had been fairly steady, began to race, and I felt dizzy, as if the ground beneath my feet were falling away.
How had I not realized it until now?
This place is inside a novel.
To be precise, inside a novel I had read in my previous life.
It was so long ago that I couldn’t remember the details clearly, but I was certain. And my husband, Johannes Schultz, is the male lead of that novel.
Some might think, ‘Isn’t that a good thing, if he’s the male lead?’
But I could stake the rest of my life on the fact that it absolutely isn’t.
“Johannes Schultz is…”
Johannes Schultz is a mad serial killer.
Deceived by his kind and perfect façade, no one but the female lead ever noticed—but the number of women he killed was countless.
Of course, later on, he truly falls in love with the female lead, and the story ends in a happy ending. But…
“…That’s not me.”
My face crumpled.
Did I drop the story midway…? I couldn’t remember exactly, but I did recall there being a lot of debate about the ending.
I jumped up from my seat and began pacing the room with restless steps.
“I must be insane.”
I stopped abruptly, smacked my head, then started walking again—over and over.
“What was so good about walking straight into this crazy place?”
“Good family, tall, even handsome. He’s perfect, right?”
“No, Johannes is kind.”
“No—can you be sure? What if it’s all an act?”
I asked and answered myself, like a madwoman.
But I was serious—dead serious. This was a matter of life and death.
“I could be the female lead.”
At last, I even tried forcing myself into optimism.
“That’s impossible.”
The thought vanished almost immediately, because there were several reasonable grounds proving I wasn’t the female lead.
First, my name is Edith Prim. The female lead’s name is Joanna Tennet—not a single letter matches.
Second, the female lead is described as having an extremely delicate appearance. I don’t. I’m fairly pretty, yes, but “delicate” is a stretch.
And finally, third.
The estate named Prim Wood existed long before the female lead appeared.
Johannes named it Prim Wood after my surname, which means the female lead won’t appear for quite some time yet.
No one knows when his murders began. In other words, he might kill me—or he might not, but…
“The chances are high that he will.”
This is insane. I walked into hell of my own free will.
With a dazed expression, I moved forward. My trembling hand gripped the frame of the mirror.
The face reflected there looked, no matter how I saw it, like that of someone about to die.
Long brown hair, emerald-green eyes.
They were the traits all the women Johannes Schultz killed had in common.
