VWTI 26

Chapter 26

Where am I? Who am I? And what is this beast standing next to me?

While I tried to ignore reality and blankly traced the patterns on the ceiling with my eyes, a sudden pain shot through my hand as someone squeezed it tightly.

I didn’t scream—thanks to the divine patience granted to me—but realizing he probably anticipated that and adjusted his strength accordingly made me feel utterly disgusted.

Yevgenia, wearing a blatantly drooping expression, spat out crookedly:

“If you do that one more time, I will make you scream for real.”

“……”

“Go on, pretend you didn’t hear me again. As you already know, my reputation is already at rock bottom. It can’t get any lower.”

I had half a mind to clutch my hand dramatically as though it had broken.

Whether he understood my warning or not, the polite escort posture he’d been formally maintaining slowly loosened.

I drifted naturally to the side and tried to locate a familiar, safe face among the crowd.

‘Hm, that young lady? The one whose dress I ripped back in the Academy. That young lord? The one I dumped very harshly. And that lady over there? The one whose hair I grabbed at a banquet once….’

Hopeless.

What kind of life had I lived?

In this enormous ballroom, there wasn’t a single person who wasn’t my enemy.

And the fact that 99.9% of those reasons were Raymond made my head throb miserably.

If only I had lived a life a little less consumed by love.

‘If I had, I wouldn’t have needed to risk my life trying to change my fate.’

In the end, the only place I could safely flee to was the powder room.

Creak—

“Whew. Thank goodness no one’s here.”

Seeing young ladies shriek and flee the moment they saw my face the instant I entered a room… It was shockingly draining.

To some people, I was scarier than wolves, scarier than bears.

If my life goal were to become a walking disaster, that’d be wonderful—but for someone dreaming of peace, nothing could be sadder.

‘It’s too late to fix my ruined image. It’d be faster to go somewhere no one knows my past and start a new life.’

And for that, I needed to cut ties with Raymond first.

…Though it bothered me a bit that my father wasn’t cooperating with that idea at all.

‘If the gentleman escorting his lady has a rotten expression on his face, Father will never get the reaction he wants.’

Attending a banquet together was something only couples or lovers did.

For political marriages, it was normal to maintain a formal distance—escorting a sister, a cousin, or a friend instead.

Which meant, from Father’s perspective, attending banquets with Raymond was the only obvious card to flaunt our relationship.

But considering how bizarre things were between me and Raymond, it wasn’t exactly helpful.

And knowing the reason Father wanted to use that card only made it worse.

‘Father thinks too much. It’s good for a Chancellor, but terrible for a father.’

Of course, it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t imagine his daughter walking off to erase her own Name. Naturally, his thoughts spiraled in the wrong direction.

I might live recklessly and do whatever I want, but even so—I was the empire’s only Princess of a ducal house.

No matter which noble family I was paired with, it would create synergy.

‘And now I’m even engaged to another ducal house… It wouldn’t be strange if the royal family started feeling threatened.’

But all of that required one precondition:

Yevgenia had to be a decent young lady—someone the royal family would actually want.

“We’re already disqualified from that point…. Father really sees me through rose-colored glasses.”

It was sweet that he loved me so much, but in the current situation, it was a massive obstacle.

Thanks to that love, I spent every day suffering from the moment of dressing up to the end of every banquet.

If Father were the only one tormenting me like this, I might have found a way to avoid it all.

But worse than Father was—

“Why the hell is this bastard Raymond going along with all this?”

The reality was that Raymond had no intention of letting me go.

‘Why? In the original story, he didn’t just dislike Yevgenia—he loathed her. My memories match the original perfectly. So why did his attitude suddenly change?’

Even in the original, Raymond and Yevgenia’s engagement wasn’t easily decided.

At first, I thought it was because too many interests were entangled and Raymond—being a second son—and Stella—a baron’s daughter—didn’t have enough power to untangle them.

So I thought if Yevgenia stepped in, the situation would flip easily.

But…

‘Father’s behavior is strange, but Raymond going along with it so willingly is even stranger.’

Maybe the Raymond of the original story had the same idea:

A way to keep Martur’s wealth and power while also keeping his love.

Marriage with Yevgenia; romance with Stella.

Just imagining that absurd scheme hidden in that damn black-haired skull made my blood boil.

And on the other hand… I couldn’t help but be amazed at how pathetically the old Yevgenia must have behaved to make that delusion seem plausible.

‘How much of a pushover do you have to be to get treated like that? Enough to go down in history?’

If Raymond was refusing to break our engagement because he assumed I was still that same pushover…

Then I could also guess why he was playing along with this clown show.

Seeing that I wasn’t harassing Stella like in the original, he must’ve thought he could draw that ridiculous blueprint into reality.

In the original, Yevgenia had crossed the line so far she even tried to kill Stella—so Raymond severed ties for good.

But now, without “Yevgenia the hardship” in their relationship, Raymond and Stella’s love had no chance to burn even hotter.

‘Which led to this—three banquets in a row.’

His love for Stella—blegh—might not fade, but Stella’s feelings worried me.

“She’s the heroine, so maybe she’ll trust him innocently, but still…”

What troubled me most was the sentence I saw in my dream.

End of Part 1.

Which meant Part 2 existed. Part 3. Hell, even Part 10 could exist.

And in Stella’s long, long life story, the male protagonist of just Part 1 sticking around forever seemed unlikely.

Especially if that male protagonist was someone like Raymond.

“…This won’t do. I need Stella to cling tightly to Raymond!”

If Stella dumped him, Raymond would become even clingier—and much more dangerously so.

I was truly sorry, but until the engagement was broken, Stella had to keep holding onto him.

When would Father finally stop suspecting the royal family and give me my freedom back?

“I don’t think I can last a month at this rate… really…”

He had clung to my arm so tightly today that resisting him had exhausted me.

Acting out violently offended the sensible person still alive somewhere inside me, and pushing him off by force only highlighted the huge difference in strength between us.

To solve this situation, Father needed to redirect his suspicions—not toward the royal family but toward Raymond’s conduct.

And for that—

“Stella Ayer…”

In the end, she was the key.

But she was also the one person in the entire world Yevgenia most needed to avoid.

‘If Stella and I even make eye contact, rumors will start that I bullied her, and then the original storyline will come back.’

So all I could do was hope Stella approached me first.

Which she would never do unless she’d gone mad.

As I exhaled a long, despairing sigh, the powder room door creaked open.

“Um… Is anyone in here?”

Peeking in cautiously through the narrow crack was—

“…Ah. Lady Martur…!”

Stella Ayer—
the very person I had been desperately calling for.