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Chapter 05
My brain raced to find an answer.
Was there a scene like this in Villainous Oppa?
‘I don’t remember a single thing.’
It couldn’t be helped. No matter how popular Villainous Oppa was, I had only skimmed through it once, just like any other novel.
“Melissa.”
Grand Duke Karditza called her name without offering any further explanation.
“You shouldn’t cause any more trouble for Deputy Director Harrington.”
I swallowed hard.
One thing was crystal clear: Grand Duke Karditza didn’t hate Melissa, nor was he indifferent to her. If he were, his face wouldn’t have crumpled in pure relief the moment he laid eyes on her.
‘Still…’
Good intentions didn’t guarantee good results.
Even if the Grand Duke truly cherished his sister as family, Melissa was terrified of him—so much so that she hid behind me, a stranger she had met for the first time today. And then there was that icy, blunt tone of his.
‘There’s definitely a problem here.’
If things stayed like this, the future of their relationship was as clear as day. Considering their age gap and circumstances, they were barreling straight toward a catastrophe.
‘I can’t just let them walk away like this.’
Even if Grand Duke Karditza weren’t the villainous mastermind destined to plunge the empire into flames, I couldn’t have turned a blind eye to Melissa.
Overnight, she had woken up in a completely different body, in a completely different world. She had lost her mom, her dad, and even Choco—with zero chance of ever going back.
‘This child needs me.’
Releasing the right hand that Melissa had been gripping tightly against my skirt—hard enough to break my heart—I took her tiny hand in mine and squeezed it gently. The child’s little palm was drenched in cold sweat.
‘…What on earth are these adults doing to a little kid?’
Looking Grand Duke Karditza straight in the eye, I spoke up.
“I happened to run into Lady Melissa by chance. And for reasons I cannot fathom, the young lady seems to feel quite comfortable around me.”
“…Let’s speak outside.”
After barely managing to soothe Melissa, who was on the verge of tears again, I obediently followed Grand Duke Karditza out of the balcony.
The Grand Duke slammed the door shut with a heavy BANG and turned to glare daggers at me.
“What sort of trick did you use?”
I had anticipated a confrontation, but he was far more intimidating than I had imagined.
“The young lady is going through a very difficult time right now. So, though it may be meddlesome of me, I couldn’t help but care. It was entirely out of concern for her, so I hope Your Grace might view it with leniency.”
“You are answering a completely different question than the one I asked. I clearly asked what trick you used.”
“I simply listened to what the young lady had to say.”
I tried my absolute best to politely convey the sentiment of ‘If you had listened to your own sister, things wouldn’t have gotten this bad, you bastard,’ but it didn’t work in the slightest.
“There is no way it was something so trivial.”
The Grand Duke openly dismissed my words.
“Over the years, I have brought in the empire’s most renowned nannies, tutors, and even academy professors. Every kind of person imaginable. Yet not a single one managed to win Melissa’s heart.”
He took a menacing step toward me.
“And yet some commoner who rolled in from nowhere, who couldn’t even wear a proper dress to a ducal ball… managed to capture Melissa’s heart?”
Cold marble hit my back.
Before I even realized it, the Grand Duke had slowly cornered me, pressing me against the wall until I had to look straight up at him towering right in front of my face.
A peculiar scent drifted past the tip of my nose. A cold, unfamiliar metallic fragrance, as if it had naturally soaked into him from handling metal for a long time.
My stomach churned.
Was it because my heart fluttered?
No.
It was out of pure, primal terror!
Every single instinct screamed at me to run, but in this situation, that was impossible.
‘Is this… no way.’
Did I just trigger a death flag without even realizing it?
Wasn’t it a basic requirement for a romance-fantasy villain to casually slice up extras? And I was the ultimate extra among extras! If he decided to chop me up right here, who on earth would even care?
Director McGuffin would probably just click his tongue once. My former colleagues at the Ministry of Finance, on the other hand, would probably throw a party.
Before I knew it, the Grand Duke’s shadow completely blanketed me, closing whatever distance was left. As my eyes darted frantically around, his hand bracing against the wall caught the corner of my vision—pale, bloodless, and firmly tense.
If that strength were misused for even a fraction of a second, my life would vanish in an instant.
It was a desperate, life-or-death crisis. Clearly, I ought to be begging for my life, and yet…
‘This is so overwhelmingly unfair!’
Why on earth did I have to be threatened like this?!
Instead of showing gratitude for comforting his crying little sister, he was oozing deadly hostility. It made zero sense!
In the end, the thoughts inside my head spilled right out of my mouth.
“Have you ever properly listened to your sister even once, Your Grace?”
“…?”
For the first time, a flicker of bewilderment crossed the Grand Duke’s fierce, bloodthirsty eyes.
…It was subtle, but it was definitely there.
‘Wait… this actually works?’
I felt like I understood just a tiny bit of what kind of person Grand Duke Karditza was. Without showing any sign of fear or fluster, I pressed on.
“The young lady is extremely lonely. Everyone caters to her, yet no one actually takes what she says seriously.”
“…Do not act so smug as if you know everything after exchanging a mere few words with my sister.”
I smiled.
Broadly.
As smugly as I could muster.
“Then do you know the young lady well, Your Grace? Well enough to be certain that I am wrong?”
“Ha.”
Grand Duke Karditza took a step back, though his sharp, piercing gaze never left me for a single second.
For a few seconds—a silence that felt like eternity drifted between us.
The one to break eye contact first was Grand Duke Karditza.
He glanced briefly toward the door where Melissa was waiting, then turned back to look at me—his gaze softening ever so slightly.
“I will give you a chance. If you truly know Melissa so well, and if you truly care for her…”
It was strange.
I should have been terrified, yet I wasn’t. Because his voice threatening me sounded, somehow, like the voice of someone desperately crying out for help.
“Prove it.”
“R-Really? You’re really going to make fried rice for me?”
“Of course.”
I flashed a wide grin at Melissa.
It was the first weekend after the ball. I was staying with Melissa at the Grand Duke’s villa in the capital.
Fortunately, the Grand Duke had granted my request to dismiss all the servants and leave just Melissa and me alone. He still held a suspicious glare, but when Melissa earnestly pleaded with him, he seemed unable to refuse her wish.
“Since you brought me so much precious rice, I have to cook it properly.”
“U-Ugh… I tried to explain it to them, but no one could make it. They just scolded me for asking for strange food…”
Well, obviously.
In this world, rice was treated as an extremely luxurious ingredient, consumed almost exclusively in the form of rice pudding. It would be hard for anyone here to imagine what Melissa described as plain “cooked rice.”
“We don’t even have a rice cooker. How are you going to cook it?”
“A pot will do the trick.”
‘Come to think of it, it’s been ages since I last cooked rice.’
It was only during the first year or two after reincarnating that I frantically made familiar dishes because I missed home and Korean food. After that, I was too busy surviving to even touch a stove. Even back when I cooked passionately, I had never actually made fried rice before.
I wondered if a proper plate of fried rice would even come out of this… well, we’d figure it out somehow.
‘The important thing is building a bond with Melissa.’
Honestly, even though Melissa had desperately clung to me that day, we weren’t truly close yet. Melissa was still trying terribly hard to stay on my good side, blurting out promises she couldn’t even keep.
Just like right now.
“I’m going to be really good. Really… I’ll study hard, too.”
“You don’t have to study hard. You don’t even have to be good.”
I replied while chopping green onions with heavy, rhythmic thuds. Any feeling that the knife was slamming onto the cutting board harder than necessary was purely an illusion.
“But…”
Melissa carefully searched my face.
“If I’m not good, you’ll leave me too, Unnie. Just like all the other unnies, oppas, ladies, and mister tutors…”
“Unnies and oppas?”
“Uh-huh. The count’s daughter… But she left, saying she’d never seen a child as weird as me. The professor mister who came after her did the same… He called me stupid.”
…The hand holding the knife froze mid-air.
Thud, thud-thud-thud, thud.
Unable to even pull the child into an embrace, I simply chopped the green onions on the board with even greater aggression.
…Telling myself that the sting welling up in my eyes was entirely because of the onions.
When the fried rice was finally finished, Melissa’s eyes widened in amazement.
“It’s real fried rice!”
“Did you think it would be fake?”
Melissa, still staring at the fried rice with round eyes, began to chatter softly.
“I… I really like fried rice the best. Even at Chinese restaurants, I only ever order fried rice. Dad used to tease me all the time, saying he was gonna steal my shrimp…”
Melissa’s head drooped, and she scooped up a spoonful of fried rice, chewing slowly.
After a long silence, she suddenly blurted out:
“…But Dad always gave me extra shrimp from his own fried rice.”
“…”
A lump formed in my throat.
It wasn’t the fried rice the child missed—it was the memories of her family.
‘Should I not have made this?’
Maybe we should have just eaten ordinary pasta or stew, and spent the time drawing or doing puzzles together. Come to think of it, that would have made far more sense if the goal was to get closer.
‘…I shouldn’t have made a dish that triggered memories of a place she can never return to.’
Just then—
“B-But…”
Melissa spoke through her tears.
“Your fried rice… tastes even better, Unnie. Really…”
