TACSS 01

CHAPTER 01

Prologue

“Come here.”

A lazy voice, like a late-spring nap, echoed through the neatly kept garden.

Su lifted her head and looked at the man calling her, snapping his fingers.

Damn it.

Just seeing that face tilted slightly with a faint smile made the omelet she had eaten yesterday feel like it was coming back up.

That—horribly handsome face. If only she could smash it once, she’d have no more wishes in life.

“Come here. I won’t say it twice.”

Unlike his angelic appearance, his personality was brutally cruel—she knew it down to her bones.

Su no longer hesitated and stepped toward him.

The closer she got, the stronger the rose scent coming from him became.

At that sickeningly sweet fragrance, Su frowned.

“Smile.”

Seeing her expression, the duke immediately gave an order. Su quickly changed her face and put on a blissful smile, as if she had everything in the world.

Like a newlywed bride. Controlling her expression was easier for Su than breathing, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed this.

No one would believe it, but she preferred honest people. At least when it came to marriage, she had wanted a stubbornly honest man.

An unhidden—no, deliberately unhidden—sigh slipped out of her mouth.

“Why did I end up doing this…?”

No, how did she even meet this devilish man in the first place?

Su smiled as she tried to trace her memory.

It hadn’t even been a month since she met the duke, but so many things had happened all at once that it felt like a whole year had passed.

“Lift your head.”

The duke quietly ordered, staring at the back of Su’s bowed head.

Su realized it was the same line he had said the first time they met. Did he remember it too?

Probably.

Not because it was special or precious to him, but simply because his memory was damn good.

01. The Fraud Lady and the Duke

Ardel, the city of pleasure, was where Su was born and raised.

Noble elites from the capital, Baha, often looked down on it as vulgar and low-class, but Su liked Ardel.

What did they think was feeding the barren lands of Baha?

She shook her head at the ridiculous superiority of those well-bred nobles.

“Deal the cards.”

At Su’s words, the dignified nobleman from Baha—clearly out of place—twisted his face in humiliation.

He had already lost five rounds in a row to her.

And in Rekat—a card game commonly played among nobles—for gambling, no less.

To a common girl barely twenty years younger than him.

Seeing his jaw twitch violently, Su sighed inwardly and, pretending to make a mistake, played a wrong card.

The noble’s face brightened immediately. How simple.

Su clicked her tongue inside.

He didn’t even realize she had intentionally kept the stakes low this round.

The gambling had started at sunset, but by now, looking out the window, the sun was already peeking back up.

The golden waves covering white Ardel were beautiful enough to move even Su, who saw it almost every day.

Even without calling it her hometown, Ardel was a city capable of enchanting her.

Pleasure, gambling—and the piles of gold coins blooming like flowers among them.

She liked money. There had been more than a few times she nearly gave her heart to its sparkle, but what was good was good.

Whether it was her nature or the harsh life she had lived that made her this way, even she could no longer tell.

She loved money.

“Let’s stop here for today—”

“You are under arrest for illegal gambling!”

Su’s attempt to end the sentence was cut off by men suddenly storming in.

Seeing the insignia on their armor, her face turned pale.

What the hell!

‘The patrol was supposed to be in another district today…?’

She crouched for only a moment before quickly throwing off her robe and slipping behind the other gamblers.

It was a motion she had done countless times. The guards were busy checking the nobles’ faces first, so it wasn’t hard for her small body to slip out unnoticed.

She brushed her silver hair aside and scanned for an exit while pretending to observe the guards.

Damn it.

The gambling house was newly established, so there was no prepared escape route.

Her own failure for not investigating properly.

If she got caught and sent to jail over something like this, she wouldn’t stay long—but getting out would cost money.

And compared to today’s earnings, that loss would feel like bleeding out.

Soon, she gently grabbed the sleeve of one of the guards.

He looked the most naive and easygoing.

“U-um…”

Her voice trembled as if she might cry if touched.

The guards, who had been rough with the nobles, finally noticed her.

A small, fragile-looking girl trembling while clutching a guard’s sleeve looked pitiful.

Pale, delicate face.

Large brown eyes that curved softly like a wet puppy.

A face that had absolutely no place in a gambling den.

The guard—convinced she had wandered in by mistake or been forced—softened his expression.

“What’s wrong, little one? How did you get in here?”

“I—I came out with my brother… but I lost him… sob…”

If anyone knew her situation—no parents, no brother—they would be tearing their hair out.

And Su was twenty-four. Far too old to be crying about getting lost.

In fact, she had never even cried about being lost as a child.

Her story about getting lost and wandering into a gambling den made no sense, but the guard was already swayed by her innocent face.

“I followed someone who looked like my brother, but… it wasn’t him… I tried to leave but…”

“You were stopped because the game had already started.”

Another guard answered for her as she struggled to speak through tears.

“Yes… gambling is bad… do I have to go to jail too? I’m scared of jail… sob…”

She grabbed the guard’s hand and began crying loudly.

So pitiful that the young guard—Paul—felt guilty for making her cry.

“Th-there, there. Don’t cry. We know you didn’t do anything wrong. Why would we arrest you?”

Paul stroked her silver hair, comforting her.

Su lifted her head through tears and looked at him.

“Then… can I go home?”

“Of course. Our guards don’t trouble innocent peo—”

Before he could finish, Su had already grabbed her robe and slipped away.

She moved like a cat—so fast even Paul, a former knight, couldn’t catch her.

Contrary to her claim of being lost, she clearly knew the backstreets very well.

It would take the naive young guard Paul quite some time to realize that the small silver-haired girl he just let go was the infamous “Con Artist Roland.”

And that he had just lost the chance—so easily—to arrest the most wanted fraudster in Ardel, the dream and obsession of its security force.

A young man watching from the upper floor of the gambling house quietly smiled as he observed Su leaving the building.

The faint curve of his lips vanished as quickly as it appeared, leaving no trace—so much so that the women who adored him could only swallow hard in awe.

“How interesting.”

As his red lips parted, a voice like melted sugar flowed out.

Despite his dry tone, his voice was sweet enough to feel like honey dissolving on the tongue.

“What is, my lord Shantak?”

The woman speaking wasn’t truly curious.

No—she didn’t even have time to be. She was simply trying to catch his attention, intoxicated by his beauty.

The man shook his head, brushing his hair back.

Even that small gesture was so graceful it made onlookers dizzy regardless of gender.

He looked like all the world’s beauty had been crushed and rebuilt into human form.

Just watching him made one’s eyes ache.

His hair, his eyes, even his clothing—everything was dark and muted, yet he radiated such overwhelming brilliance it was almost painful.

If something was excessively perfect, it became almost sinful. And so, this young man was sin itself by existence.

Dioneir Shantak de Casa Miramonte.

One of only two dukes in the kingdom.

He had inherited his title less than three years ago, and since the other duke was much older, people often called him young—almost too young.

In truth, people still more often called him “Sir Shantak,” since he had been known as a knight before.

There had been… some unpleasant events—things nobles loved to gossip about—leading to his succession, but anyone who met him agreed those rumors were false.

“An angel descended from heaven!” they would say. “Sir Shantak could never have done such things!”

And so they concluded his brother’s death had simply been an accident.