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CHAPTER 33
“…You said you’d give it to me if I explained—”
“I lied. You did it too, so why can’t I?”
Riana proudly bent down to pick up her bag to take the memory potion. Just then, she noticed a letter lying next to it.
“Oh right, this thing.”
Actually, it was perfect timing. Riana had planned to rip up the letter anyway, and now she could do it right in front of him while laughing. Even better.
But the letter didn’t say much.
I wish to speak with you.
I’m not forcing marriage on you, so please don’t avoid me.
—Noel Veloci
“Speak with me?”
Veloci rubbed his face with both hands, looking like he was about to collapse.
“You’ve misunderstood something.”
“Misunderstood?”
“No matter how important the prophecy woman is, no one’s forcing you to marry. I just wanted to tell you there’s no need to run.”
Riana stared at him with an unreadable expression. Instead of arguing that she wasn’t the prophecy woman, she took a step closer to him.
“Thanks for saying that.”
Her sharp gaze locked directly on Veloci. It was not the same warm expression she gave when petting her only friend. Faced with that cold stare, Noel Veloci fell silent.
“Then let me clearly state my answer.”
She didn’t have her cat friend anymore.
Now she was facing the male lead—someone she had to cut ties with for good.
“I refuse. No matter your reasons or what you offer, I will never marry you. Not even if I die and come back.”
Her voice struck like thunder. Veloci, now speaking not as an old friend but as a Duke, answered calmly.
“…Understood. I won’t trouble you again with the same request.”
He added, with a calm face,
“I wish you peace.”
Before Riana could throw him out, Veloci disappeared on his own.
As he left, he no longer looked like a 20-year-old young Duke.
Click.
Riana, who had been watching from the window, closed it after confirming that Veloci—who had taken on the form of a cat—had vanished down the street.
“Ah…”
Only then did the tension leave her body, and she collapsed to the floor.
How could this happen?
No—why did this happen?
As soon as her anger subsided, a wave of shock hit her like a tide.
“So it was him all along.”
The moments she spent with the cat flashed before her eyes.
The cat—no, “Noel”—had been with her since he was a tiny furball. She had taken care of him since then. Naturally, she had many happy memories and warm moments with him.
As those memories replayed in her mind, her heart ached and she had no choice but to admit it.
‘Just because I long for my past life doesn’t mean the memories and feelings I made in this life are meaningless…’
Sadness, grief, and a sense of loss mixed together and filled her heart, just as much as her anger had.
Each emotion on its own might’ve been poetic or noble—but all mixed together, it was just one big ugly emotional wound.
“…It was just me being sincere again.”
Well, what did she expect as a villainess?
Riana smirked bitterly, trying to cover up her emotional bleeding with sarcasm. She laughed coldly at those who had hurt her, as if they hadn’t left a scratch.
“He really played me. Ugh, all Dukes are the same…”
And just like that, Killian, the Duke of Droche, naturally came to mind.
“Oh, right…”
Ridiculously, the first thing that popped into her head wasn’t Killian’s handsome face—it was her paycheck.
She had worked for almost a whole month and didn’t even get paid!
She jumped up. Thinking about money gave her energy again. Riana stood and looked around.
The scattered pouches of gold coins proved how poor today’s earnings had been.
“So, that means I can go back now, right?”
Back to Duke Droche’s estate. Back to the Isolation Tower as a maid!
She’d run away only to escape Duke Veloci. But now that reason was gone. Turns out Duke Veloci was surprisingly reasonable. Ironically, it was because she had known him as a cat that she trusted him now.
It was still early afternoon. If she went back now, she could act like nothing happened.
Riana made up her mind.
“…I’m going back.”
To Duke Droche’s estate.
To collect her money.
Clause 7 of the contract:
Maidservants of the Isolation Tower are forbidden from going out. (However, exceptions may be made for special duties with upper-level approval.)
When Riana first read the contract, she didn’t understand why that rule was there. What was the point of keeping Isolation Tower maids locked up during the day?
‘Now I get it.’
It must be because of Killian.
Maidservants couldn’t stand his annoying behavior and probably used “going out” as an excuse to escape. Since crossing the estate gates meant automatic firing, it was probably a warning to think carefully before doing it.
And even with all those rules in place, they still ran off so often that it became her turn—as a scammer—to be brought in.
Meanwhile, that Duke kept trying to get the Isolation Tower maid to leave the tower.
‘Why though?’
Riana decided to figure it out before going back to Duke Droche’s estate.
Why was the Isolation Tower maid even part of the bet between the Duke and the Crown Prince?
Why did she keep triggering villainess flags every time she met Deborah?
Why did Gray end up in another webtoon’s underground prison?
And why did Deborah fall for Gray at first sight? What kind of taste was that?
And Duke Veloci…
“That guy is just suspicious in general.”
It all felt like a result of her not remembering the original stories properly.
So now that she had the chance, she was going to get answers.
After wandering through Alley 11 for a long time, Riana came back only after becoming a full-on expert in memory potions.
“All right, I’m ready!”
She muttered to herself and sat at the desk, opening a book titled Introduction to Tea Blending for Professional Maids. Next to it was the memory potion.
According to her research, the potion allows the drinker to revisit a specific memory for 20 minutes. It was a type of illusion magic.
It was also one of the illegal substances banned by the Magic Association.
The reason? It was often abused for cheating on exams, and many users became addicted. The 20-minute illusion was so vivid that people wanted to live in their happiest memories forever and couldn’t quit.
But Riana had nothing to worry about.
“I’m not doing this to see happy memories.”
She opened the book to the page with the most white space and picked up the memory potion. Placing it to the left of the book, she brought her hands together in a prayer.
‘Please let the answers be here.’
All the questions that had been bothering her until now.
Riana took a deep breath and whispered,
“Cici, I’ll treat you next time.”
With a pen in her right hand and the potion bottle in her left, she silently counted.
‘One, two, three.’
Gulp.
The effect was instant. Even with her eyes closed, she could see constellations spreading across the universe.
But it wasn’t stars—it was memories. Every sight, sound, and thought she’d ever experienced in both her lives scattered all around her.
A normal person might’ve panicked, but Riana was a proud 21st-century Korean.
‘This is basically Google.’
She searched the titles of the webtoons she had entered. Like magic, the stories popped up with perfect accuracy.
The contents played like fast-forwarded video clips.
‘More like YouTube recaps at 2x speed.’
Riana binge-watched everything at lightning speed. Her right hand scribbled nonstop. She needed to jot down anything useful.
Twenty minutes later—
“Gasp!”
Her eyes flew open. Her vision snapped back to the studio.
The vivid memories disappeared instantly. In their place came a heavy feeling of emptiness.
No wonder people got addicted.
Luckily, Riana had her notes.
“What the…”
That was her immediate reaction when she saw them.
“What is all this?”
The messy writing filled up an entire page and continued onto the next. Every sentence ended with a question mark.
In ‘Boss, Please Hire Me,’ there’s no name pun? Where are Ashley and Hurley? They don’t exist??
In ‘The Real Duchess,’ the male lead turns into a beast because of a curse?? Can’t return to human form unless he gets married?? That’s not right???
She even discovered the name of the child-raising story set in the Kingdom of Welcen, which she hadn’t remembered when she was ten.
‘Daddy, Please Don’t Abandon Me Again’
Below that, she had written:
Gray feels connected to the female lead because they were both neglected as kids…
“What? She wasn’t neglected at all!”
Riana stared at her notes in disbelief.
“She calls him ‘Daddy’ and he comes running!”
And the human trafficker who took Gray?
In the original story, he was an old, wrinkly man with pale skin—but in the underground prison, he was a young desert man from a completely different race.
Riana knew that transmigrators could cause changes in the original story.
“But… this kind of stuff wouldn’t change just because someone transmigrated, right?”
She had nothing to do with these weird plot changes!
