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Chapter 2
The day of the first meeting between Milter and Duke Casiar finally arrived.
The appointed time to meet Duke Casiar was fast approaching, yet I still hadn’t left the marquis’s estate. Instead, I remained locked in my room, clutching my head in frustration.
Arhen Milter is dead?
How could the female lead of the novel already be dead?
My mind refused to accept Milter’s death and was drowning in confusion.
The conversation I’d had with Count Arhen after hearing the news of her death came back to me.
“I still can’t believe something like that happened to Lady Milter. Did she suffer from some kind of chronic illness?”
The Milter in the novel had always been healthy and full of life.
She was a strong, steadfast woman who protected her love no matter how much Duke Casiar tried to persuade or tempt her.
Yet she had died so meaninglessly.
Even with the protagonist’s plot armor.
The story had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
I wanted to know more about Milter’s death.
Maybe she had only faked her death and was still alive somewhere.
She was the heroine of the novel, after all.
What couldn’t a heroine do?
It sounded like something straight out of a melodramatic soap opera, but if there was even the slightest possibility, I wanted to cling to it.
If she truly disappeared from this world, then someone with the same ability as Milter—me—would inevitably be captured by Duke Casiar.
“She had always been a healthy child, even sparring with knights. But after she turned thirteen, she began saying strange things and gradually wasted away.”
Count Arhen’s face filled with sorrow as though reliving those memories.
“What do you mean by strange things?”
“This is the first time I’ve told anyone this. That child claimed she had lived the same life over and over again. She said that no matter how many times she repeated it, she couldn’t change the tragic ending. She even said she wished someone would end the endless cycle she was trapped in.”
Milter had repeated her life several times?
Did that mean she knew the ending of this novel?
But the novel I’d read wasn’t a regression story.
Still, I couldn’t dismiss the possibility outright.
Just as Milter’s death wasn’t part of the original story, perhaps she’d lived through several lifetimes that the novel never described.
If she really had repeated her life enough times to know the ending, then maybe she’d desperately tried to prevent the destruction awaiting everyone.
“Hard to believe, isn’t it? I felt the same. She must have realized I didn’t believe her, because she never spoke of it again. I thought everything had settled… but a few days before she died, she brought home a strange mirror, saying she’d found a way to change fate.”
A way to change fate?
What could that mean?
Was the mirror some kind of magical artifact?
“That very night, after bringing it home, my daughter suddenly died. A child who had never even caught a common cold.”
She died without any warning?
“So… they never determined the real cause of death?”
“There was nothing else wrong with her. Her heart simply stopped, so they ruled it cardiac arrest. Perhaps it’s just a father’s lingering attachment, but I can’t shake the feeling that there was another reason behind my daughter’s death.”
Count Arhen struck his own chest with a clenched fist, unable to hide his anguish.
How unbearable must it have been to lose the daughter he loved overnight?
I felt devastated too.
“What happened to that mirror?”
At the moment, it seemed like the only clue connected to Milter’s death.
“She died the very day she brought it into the house. We considered it an ominous object and smashed it.”
I couldn’t blame Count Arhen for that decision, but I couldn’t help feeling disappointed.
That mirror might have been the only clue to uncovering the truth.
“Do you remember what the mirror looked like? It might be something I recognize.”
“It was made of a material I’d never seen before. Rectangular, small enough to sit on a table. On the back was a picture of a girl with black hair and black eyes, smiling in a short dress that exposed her legs. It was an unsettling image.”
Wait…
Could it be?
“Did it happen to have something like this written on it?”
I scribbled a few letters on a tissue and showed it to Count Arhen.
“That’s right. Those exact letters were engraved beside that creepy picture. How did you know?”
My suspicion had been correct.
The words I’d written were:
Lee Juhye.
My name from my previous life.
“Lady Milter once showed me that mirror. It was so unusual that I remembered it.”
“I see.”
That was a lie.
I’d never met Milter before.
But I knew exactly what kind of mirror Count Arhen had described.
A small rectangular tabletop mirror with a photograph attached to the back.
It was the mirror I’d used in my previous life.
Back when I was a student, I’d bought the cheap thing for one thousand won at a shop that sold everything imaginable except the things you actually needed. I’d attached my own photo to the back.
Since I kept losing it, I’d engraved my name on it.
To think Count Arhen’s impression of my old photo was that it looked creepy…
As someone who had once wished for a doting father like Count Arhen, the thought stung a little.
But there were more important things to worry about.
How had Milter gotten hold of my mirror?
Was it connected to the reason I’d entered this novel?
Maybe there was something I’d overlooked.
What exactly had happened just before I came to this world?
Lying on my bed with my eyes closed, I carefully retraced the memories of my previous life. Ever since awakening those memories, the events of that day remained strangely vivid.
I’d come home from work, read the novel…
Then fallen asleep.
What happened after that?
Then I remembered a faint voice I’d heard in the darkness.
The dream!
I bolted upright.
That’s right!
After falling asleep while reading the novel, I’d had a dream.
In that dream, I’d heard the voice of an unfamiliar woman.
“You who possess the strong will to change fate… may blessings accompany the path you walk with this power.”
In the endless darkness, where I couldn’t even see her face, the woman pressed her forehead against mine, passed something to me, and vanished.
That was the end of my memories from my previous life.
From then on, I’d lived as Alios Riel.
If that was the moment I inherited Milter’s power…
Then was that woman Milter herself?
But why me?
Come to think of it, she’d called me…
“One with the strong will to change fate.”
Did she mean the countless times I’d wished I could rewrite the ending of the novel?
Was that really why Milter had brought me into this world?
Even at the cost of her own life?
If I could turn back time, I’d stop my past self from ever reading that novel.
No.
I’d never even install the app in the first place!
I’d stay as far away from novels as possible for the rest of my life!
I sat there on the verge of tears over a misery I couldn’t possibly explain to anyone before suddenly realizing how much time had passed.
The meeting time with Casiar had come and gone.
He knew I belonged to House Alios.
If I failed to appear, he’d undoubtedly come looking for me.
“Milter, how could you leave me behind? If you go like this, you’ll never even get to see Hotsen, the man you loved! I can’t let you go like this!”
I cried out into the empty air.
If I didn’t vent somehow, it felt like my head would explode.
With every clue fitting together, I could no longer deny that Milter was truly dead.
After sitting there in a daze as though my world had collapsed, I jumped off the bed.
I refuse to take the heroine’s place, get tangled up with Duke Casiar, and end in ruin!
There’s still time.
I’ll board the first ship leaving the Empire and disappear.
I’ll use the business skills I’ve built up over the years to make a living and quietly survive.
I’ve saved enough money from managing the trading company to get by for quite a while.
Like a criminal preparing for a midnight escape, I hurriedly stuffed whatever I could into a large travel bag.
“That should be enough! Let’s go!”
After grabbing the safe containing my emergency funds, I threw open the door and hurried toward the drawing room.
“Oh my, Riel. You’re finally awake?”
At the end of the hallway stood Mother, smiling gently.
“Mother.”
Even if I was leaving, I should at least say goodbye.
With tears in my eyes, I ran into her arms.
“Oh my, what’s gotten into you? Did you have a nightmare?”
I wish it had only been a nightmare.
One that would end the moment I woke up.
I’d believed I could spend the rest of my life happily as the daughter of House Alios, but now I might never see my family again.
Tears blurred my vision.
If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve spent more time with them instead of working.
I’d always assumed my family would be there whenever I wanted to see them.
So I kept putting it off.
One day.
Then another.
By the time I took over running the trading company, we hadn’t even gone on a simple family trip together.
“Mother… thank you for raising me.”
“Oh, you silly child! Why are you saying something so sudden? And what’s with all those bags? Don’t tell me you’re planning to run away from home already?”
How did she know?
Granted, I looked exactly like someone trying to flee in the middle of the night, but Mother sounded as though she already knew why I intended to leave.
“You… knew?”
“Of course. I heard enough to understand the situation. We had a guest while you were asleep.”
A guest?
Only then did I notice Mother was dressed far more elegantly than usual.
Whenever an important guest visited, she always wore her treasured ruby necklace.
It was around her neck now.
If she had worn that necklace, then the visitor must have been someone deserving of great respect.
But who would come looking for me?
As a child I’d learned the trading business, and once I grew older I’d been too busy managing the company.
I didn’t have any close friends who would visit the estate for personal reasons.
I’d already left the business in Byut’s hands, so it couldn’t be work-related either.
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with anyone.
“I can’t think of anyone who would…”
My gaze naturally shifted toward the sofa in the drawing room.
The moment I saw the man sitting there with perfect composure, leaning comfortably against the sofa, I barely managed to swallow my scream.
Why are you here?
“So the saying that beauties love to sleep is true after all.”
There sat Duke Casiar.
Calmly sipping tea.
And, incredibly, sitting face-to-face with my father as though he belonged there.
But why was he looking at me like that?
At first, I was simply shocked by his presence.
Now what bothered me far more was the look in his eyes.
“It must be true, considering how such a beautiful woman sleeps so soundly.”
Duke Casiar smiled at me warmly.
He looked at me as though I were the woman he loved—
As though he was completely captivated by me.
