The next morning the Duchess called her into her office. There was no one in her office but her so they were alone.
“Edith. I was told that you had a hard time.”
“I had no troubles. I was comfortable in my room.”
“Isn’t the hardship of the mind more difficult than the hardship of the body?”
She couldn’t deny that in the end. The tip of her nose twitched for no reason, and she took a deep breath.
“Just in case, I didn’t really steal the documents. I could risk my life on that truth.”
The Duchess quietly nodded her head.
“I know you won’t believe me. It doesn’t matter if you have more doubts. I really…”
“Edith.”
The Duchess warm hand held her.
“Believe me. I trust you.”
This… Tears came to her eyes when she heard such words in this situation…
“Huh… eh…”
“How hard has it been for you? You really worked hard, Edith.”
“No one believed…”
“I believe. I know that you did your best to help me and that you are trying to fit in in this house somehow. How can I not know that? It’s something I’ve been through in the past…”
The Duchess understood her from the perspective of a daughter-in-law. After getting married and living in an unfamiliar house, the days of trying to get a good impression and adapt to her somehow occupied a large part of her life.
“I don’t know who pulled this vile prank, but I do know it wasn’t you.”
“Heh, heh, heh, thank you…”
After falling into this damn world, she was overcome with emotion at the first ‘understanding’ that she had, and tears poured down endlessly. She wanted to answer in a more mature way, but as if something had gone wrong, the tears didn’t stop and she couldn’t breathe properly. Crying like a child clinging to the patting hand, she thought of one hope.
‘Perhaps… The Duchess might believe it.’
If it were the Duchess, she would believe her even if she told her about her situation in the Rigelhof family. Even then, it seemed like she wouldn’t kick Edith out. So she decided to confide in her, as she thought she would be able to survive this situation if even one person would understand her.
“Mother. I’m actually…”
“Yes, Edith.”
“I’m from the Rigelhof household… in fact…!”
“…Edith?”
“Ugh… Heo-eok…”
“Edith! What’s wrong! Edith!”
It was strange. The moment she was about to tell the Duchess about her situation, her eyes became yellow and her breath stopped. Her tongue didn’t move, her tinnitus rang, and her head hurt like it would break. Suddenly, everything stopped and se was engulfed in darkness. And after a while, from somewhere in the still darkness, a tidy and emotionless voice like a morning news announcer was heard.
[Edit Riegelhoff is banned from talking about herself until the 3rd stage exception conditions are met…]
At first it sounded like a hum, but as she concentrated, the voice gradually became clearer.
[Edit Riegelhoff cannot reveal hidden settings about herself until she meets the 3rd stage exception.]
She heard it clearly, but it was difficult to understand its meaning.
‘What? Step 3 exception condition? What was that?’
But nobody explained it. It was just an emotionless voice repeating the same thing over and over again.
[Edit Riegelhoff is banned from talking about herself until the 3rd stage exception conditions are met…]
The more she listened, the more frightened she struggled to wake up from the dream. Thanks to giving her body strength for a while, she was able to come to her senses with her teeth clenched.
When she opened her eyes, she was on the bed in her room, and Anna was standing guard by her side.
“Not… me…?”
“Miss! Are you awake?”
“Why me…”
“It seems like you’ve been wasting a lot of energy. The doctor said you fainted as the tension was released…”
It seemed that the doctor had already been there.
“Me… How long have I been lying down?”
“My lady, you just woke up after two days.”
Omg. She slept a lot longer than she thought. And now she was kind of hungry. Maybe it was because she had slept for a long time or just because she was hungry, but her head was a bit blank, since the dream she had earlier was strangely vivid.
‘I can’t reveal hidden settings about me until I meet the 3rd stage exception conditions?’
She didn’t know what a level 3 exception was, but she knew for sure that she couldn’t reveal her truth right now. It was too strange to dismiss it as a dream, so she told Anna as a test.
“Anna. Me, actually.”
“Yes, speak, lady.”
“I, Rigelhoff… Whoa…”
“Miss!”
The tinnitus rang again, beeping, and her tongue stiffened.
‘Okay! I won’t talk! I won’t!’
As soon as she thought about it, her tinnitus disappeared and her tongue loosened.
“Huh, huh…”
“Miss. You are still unwell. Don’t try to force yourself to talk. Take a good rest. I will be by your side.”
“Thank you…”
“It’s my job.”
“Perhaps, Killi… No, no.”
She was about to ask if Killian had come and gone, but hurriedly turned away. He couldn’t have come and she didn’t have to feel bad about confirming that fact.
Following Anna’s advice, she sighed again and finally woke up late at night.
‘I slept too much, so I couldn’t sleep more.’
Her mind was buzzing. While she had nothing to do, she calmly thought about the time she had spent the past three months or so possessing Edith Rigelhoff. When she first woke up in Edith’s body, she thought she was the main character and not the evil woman of a romance novel. She thought that if she was the only one with a good heart, she would be able to escape from death like other romance stories and get a great male lead. That false hope was shattered in less than a week.
After that, she gave up her husband and vowed to live without worrying about money as the daughter-in-law in a rich family. It seemed pretty good too. Strangely, however, the original episodes progressed steadily, and no matter how she twisted it, the results were the same as the original. And the document leak incident gave her one certainty.
‘It’s the law of survival for Romance possessing a villain, and I’m just possessing a villain who dies. I can’t change this story.’
She wanted to grab someone and argue about where this kind of possession was, but she just misunderstood it on her own in the first place. For Edith Rigelhoff, this novel couldn’t be a happy ending romance. Edith and she weren’t the main characters.
‘There’s no way I could be the main character… My dreams have become wild.’
After pondering the whole story for a while, she decided to stop struggling and accept death. After all, if you die once, can’t you die twice? It wasn’t about giving up or committing suicide. She just accepted her fate as a terminally ill woman. Of course, it was scary to have her throat cut, but wouldn’t it be over soon if she closed her eyes?
Since Killian said he’s a great knight, he would probably cut it in one shot so it wouldn’t hurt.
At the same time as such a thought, a strange misconception was born.
‘If you’re going to die anyway… I should at least try to act like Edith in the original. Right?’
The episode she was thinking of was the episode where Edith tried to seduce Killian with her body. Feeling threatened by the leaked documents, Edith sneaked into Killian’s bedroom at night and kissed him while he was sleeping.
When he woke up, she tried to seduce him by taking off her flimsy bedclothes, but she was only kicked out in shame, much to Killian’s colossal scorn. The guards who were on vigil caught her and she was shamed for it, maybe?
‘So let’s just kiss, kiss only.’
At first, she thought it was a ridiculous idea, but as time went by, she changed her mind to ‘what can’t be done?’ The thought itself seemed to be the flow of the original work, and since she couldn’t change the original work anyway, she had no choice but to follow the flow. Besides, it shouldn’t be unfair to possess a villainess extra without that much merit and suffer dog death. So she decided to try it right now, so that the horn was also sweet.
In the original version, Edith wore only a gown and a sultry bed linen that shed all her flesh, but otherwise it would be like showing her naked body to men outside. She just put on a gown over the bed linen she was wearing. Then, putting on soft fur slippers, she carefully came out of the room without making the sound of her footsteps.
Everyone was sleeping, but not a single ant nested in the hallway.
‘If not now, when else will I ever try to hit a handsome man on the lips? When I die… even if I die, I have to keep a good memory with me.’
Taking a deep breath, she hurried silently and reached the front of Killian’s room. She was nervous that it might have been locked, but the door was left open for the progress of this episode.
‘The great flow of the original work. First of all, thank you.’
She was nervous for no reason, so she moistened her lips with her tongue.
‘Oh, it’s a little dirty.’
She wiped her lips again with the sleeve of her gown. She intended to turn away with only a warm, innocent, and dry kiss that never gets soggy… To be honest, Killian wouldn’t allow more than that. Unfortunately.
As she approached Killian’s bed stealthily, even breathing, she saw Killian asleep in a sculpted form. Even the top half of the body was undressed.
‘And… It’s a face I’m never used to… It’s new every time I see it, really.’
Hearing her heart sound, the middle of her chest pounded so much that she wondered what would happen if Killian woke up. Her heart was only the size of two fists, but why was the itst sound so loud?
‘Don’t wake him up! You only have one chance. I’m just aiming for the lips quickly and accurately. Okay?’
She didn’t know if what she was doing was a crime, but if she was going to die anyway, she would rather commit a sin than die innocently, right? She looked at his handsome face and naked upper body as if fascinated, then took a deep breath and approached his lips.
As she got closer, she heard low, even breathing. From then on, she thought she was probably holding her breath.
‘I’m sorry for stealing your first kiss, Killian. I really tried not to like you… I guess I failed.’
She even apologized in her heart and put her lips to his mouth.
How do you feel?
