Chapter 3

A few days after asking Ikanuel to break off their engagement—

Isabella was having breakfast in the dining room when a headline on the front page of the daily newspaper caught her eye.

<After Years of Engagement, Will the Future Duke Lasseles and the Baron’s Daughter Finally Tie the Knot?>

“…You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Her elegant brows immediately knitted together, and an outraged cry burst from between her lips.

“Who says I’m marrying Ikanuel?! Me? Why on earth would I?!”

Crushing the newspaper in her hand, she waved it furiously through the air.

Had anyone been watching, they might have scolded her for such improper table manners during breakfast.

But she was the only person in the vast mansion.

Ever since her engagement to Ikanuel, her parents had been living in their barony, too busy managing the territory to visit the estate for years. Her younger brother was living in the Academy dormitories.

“Miss, please calm down.”

Standing faithfully beside her was Selly, the devoted maid of House Redia. She gently fanned Isabella with a hand fan as she spoke.

“Selly, do I look like someone who can calm down right now? I have absolutely no intention of getting married, so why is there an article like this?!”

“Well, Miss, that’s because you dropped quite the bombshell in that café full of spectators a few days ago.”

Pouring cold water into Isabella’s empty glass, Selly answered calmly.

Meanwhile, Isabella, suffocating from reading an article that completely distorted the truth, pounded her chest with her fist.

“I deliberately made the breakup public! So why is the article talking about marriage instead?! Why?!”

She shook the crumpled newspaper wildly as though grabbing Ikanuel by the collar.

“No, seriously! I said I wanted to break off the engagement! I was the one who brought it up first! So why did that part conveniently disappear?!”

Wasn’t Ikanuel supposed to be the one happy about the engagement ending?

The situation was so incomprehensible that Isabella felt like crying.

Thinking back on it, Ikanuel’s reaction that day had bothered her from the start.

After she had finally said everything she wanted to say and turned to leave, he had spoken more firmly than ever before.

—I will never agree to breaking off this engagement.

Honestly, what was wrong with him?

Why insist on maintaining an engagement he had never seemed to care about before?

The moment she remembered his words, fresh anger surged through her.

A bright crimson blush spread across her fair cheeks.

“Oh dear… at this rate your face is going to explode, Miss.”

“Selly, are you making fun of me right now?”

“Of course not!”

At some point, Selly had prepared a linen handkerchief soaked in cold water.

As she gently cooled Isabella’s flushed cheeks, a thought suddenly crossed her mind.

“But why do you think His Grace refuses to end the engagement? After all the trouble he’s put you through over the years.”

“I’d like to know that myself. Why is he suddenly acting like this now?”

As the two pondered the mystery behind Ikanuel’s strange behavior, Selly suddenly raised a finger.

Apparently struck by inspiration, she adopted the tone of a detective solving a grand case.

“What if… the young duke has secretly liked you all this time?”

Isabella stared.

“He was just too shy to admit his feelings! One of those awkward men who can’t express what’s really in their hearts!”

After listening seriously to Selly’s theory, Isabella immediately looked deflated.

“Oh, come on. As if that’s remotely possible.”

“Still! You’ve spent ten whole years together. And you were in love with him all that time, weren’t you?”

“That’s all in the past now.”

Without hesitation, Isabella tossed the infuriating newspaper into a corner.

Then she picked up her fork and resumed breakfast.

She speared a bite-sized sausage, topped it with mashed potatoes and rich gravy, and took a bite.

The savory juices burst in her mouth.

Almost immediately, some of the anger that had been swelling inside her began to ease.

“Ahh…”

For years she had survived on little more than salads in order to maintain a flawless figure.

Now, after so long, she was enjoying a proper breakfast with actual fat and flavor.

It felt wonderful.

Stuffing her cheeks like a squirrel preparing for winter, Isabella chewed contentedly.

Her gaze drifted toward the window.

A dazzling blue morning sky stretched endlessly beyond the glass.

“Honestly… I can’t believe I suffered through all that for an engagement.”

The article could be corrected later.

And once the engagement with Ikanuel was officially broken off, it would all become a thing of the past.

She had woken up early and started the day in a good mood.

There was no way she would let a ridiculous newspaper article ruin it.

Determination blazed in her hazel eyes.

Clenching her fist like a knight preparing for battle, she vowed silently:

Did they really think I’d just sit back and take this?

I have Haeyoon now—the cutest and most amazing person in the entire world. No, the entire universe! Even if dirt fills my eyes, I’ll still break off this engagement and go to South Korea!

If one were to ask how Isabella had come to know the idol Haeyoon of South Korea—

The story began three months earlier, on the day before her twentieth birthday.

That morning, she had been reading a short letter delivered alongside a bouquet of flowers.

For a moment she had been pleased.

Then, as she read further, her expression darkened.

“So in the end… he’s not coming to this birthday either.”

The letter ended with a simple line:

I’ll greet you properly next time.

That was all.

No matter how many times she reread it, the contents stubbornly refused to change.

No hidden words appeared.

No miracle occurred.

“Ha…”

Her eyes reddened as she spoke bitterly to herself.

“You expected this, Isabella. So why are you disappointed?”

Deep down, she had known her fiancé wouldn’t attend her birthday celebration.

After all, Ikanuel was the future Duke of Lasseles.

The man destined to help the Crown Prince govern the Empire.

No one knew better than his fiancée just how relentlessly busy he was.

“But surely you could spend one birthday with me…”

Years of public criticism and Ikanuel’s indifference had left her battered and exhausted.

The feelings she had stubbornly protected for so long had become chains wrapped around her entire body.

She was sick of it.

Sick of constantly watching what others thought.

Sick of living quietly and carefully, making sure no one could criticize the fiancée of House Lasseles.

Whenever Ikanuel sent one of his brief letters, Isabella always replied.

Perhaps because of habit, she rose from her seat to write back.

Then she paused.

A reply? To a letter saying he won’t attend?

A self-mocking laugh escaped her lips.

She sank back into her chair.

What was the point anymore?

Would things be easier if I just gave up? The engagement. The unrequited love. Everything.

Like the ashes left behind after a blazing fire had burned itself out.

The moment her lingering affection finally faded away, everything she had been desperately holding onto collapsed like a sandcastle struck by waves.

Perhaps she had simply spent all those years avoiding reality.

For ten long years, Isabella had maintained a hopeless one-sided love that everyone else viewed as foolish.

That was how deeply she had loved Ikanuel.

Unable to bear the suffocating frustration any longer, she left the mansion and wandered the city without any destination.

The cool breeze brushed against her skin.

For the first time all day, she felt she could breathe.

Eventually, her steps led her to Central Lake Park near the city square.

Finding a bench beside the water, she sat down and stared blankly at the lake’s reflective surface.

Lost in thought.

How can life be this boring?

Just then—

“‘Am I really going to live like this and die an ordinary death?'”

A voice suddenly rang out.

“Hey, you over there who’s thinking exactly that!”

“…What?”

A man wearing a deeply pulled hood had appeared out of nowhere.

It was as though he had read her mind.

A gust of wind swept past.

For a brief instant, the hood lifted.

Beneath the shadow, a pair of transparent silver eyes sparkled like those of a mystical fairy.

The man didn’t seem concerned at all that part of his face had been revealed.

Instead, he continued speaking.

“Wouldn’t you like to travel to a new dimension?”

“A new dimension?”

When Isabella repeated the words, the man smiled as though he had been waiting for the question.

“Exactly what it sounds like. A completely different world. A place unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before.”

He spoke with the smooth confidence of a salesman.

“This is your chance to begin a brand-new life in a brand-new dimension! Wouldn’t you like to seize it, miss?”

With a flourish, he produced a small black object from inside his cloak.

Calling it a box felt inaccurate.

It was much smaller than that.

Made of metal, it was unlike anything Isabella had ever seen before.

Apparently, it was called a smartphone, a device used in another world known as South Korea.

Before she could react, the man forcibly pressed it into her hands.

Then—

He vanished.

As if he had never been there.

“What kind of person was that?”

Was he even a person?

Or had she somehow encountered a ghost?

Suspicious, Isabella pinched her own cheek hard.

It hurt.

Normally, she would have left such a bizarre object behind and returned straight to the mansion.

Yet for some reason, that day, curiosity overwhelmed her.

The moment she returned home, she rushed to her room and began examining the strange device.

Pressing the buttons along its side one after another, she finally succeeded in turning it on.

Light flooded the black screen.

Colorful images appeared.

Unknown characters flashed across the display in bright white text before disappearing again.

Isabella stared at it in bewilderment.

“…What on earth is this?..