“N-no way!”
What?! I bolted upright from my seat.
‘No, my coin! I have to go back!’
The Duke looked startled, but his expression quickly shuttered back into its mask of cold indifference.
“Hmph. If only you had conducted yourself properly, as I’ve told you so many times.”
“N-no, Grandfather. Absolutely not!”
Refined savagery flickered across the Duke’s face.
I heard his voice clearly in my head: ‘To think she’d speak so brazenly when she has nothing to her name…’
“I have no intention of allowing the engagement to be broken. Don’t you go saying useless things; keep your fiancé in line.”
“Y-yes, yes!”
After dismissing me, the Duke turned his head toward the person beside him, who had been secretly eyeing me with disapproval.
“Surely the Duke of Remut has some sort of background for confidently demanding a broken engagement. Find out immediately.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Whether they found anything or not, only one fact was spinning in my mind.
Just one year. I only need to maintain the engagement with that man for one year…!
But the other party is desperate to end it.
‘I must meet that man, no matter what.’
While I was steeling my resolve, the Duke’s gaze shifted back to me.
It was a look heavy with disdain.
“You may continue to do as you please, but don’t you dare accept a breakup just because you’ve fallen for his handsome face. Though, you wouldn’t have the money to pay him back anyway.”
I could feel his iron will; he would never permit a broken engagement under any circumstances.
Will, you say? What a stroke of luck this is.
In my eyes, he looked like an angel with wings.
My goodness, you look like an angel sent to return my coins to me.
I nodded resolutely.
“Yes, Grandfather!”
At that, the Duke paused for a brief moment, looking at me with a bewildered expression.
* * *
Life as a villainess was quite affluent.
Naturally.
Charlize Alzbeit was, by default, the world’s greatest heiress and a pampered, beloved daughter.
Moreover, as far as I knew, her relationship with the male lead—the tyrant—was quite good.
And so, I had become a selfish, extravagant brat of a villainess who couldn’t rest easy unless she got exactly what she wanted.
‘I died without being able to spend those billions, only to open my eyes with a diamond spoon in my mouth.’
It’s a wonderful premise, but…
That is, unless this villainess is a terminally ill patient about to meet her end.
Once the female lead appears, this villainess is destined to die for the karma she has accumulated!
Simply put, she has already made too many enemies.
On top of that, I woke up in this body not long before the female lead’s arrival.
‘A year… I’m in a situation where I need to work hard to maintain that engagement while avoiding all the bad karma this body has built up.’
But the man who is my fiancé is nowhere to be seen, demanding only that we break off the engagement.
And the bad karma this villainess has piled up could surface before me at any moment.
This was why I couldn’t fully enjoy the few days I’d spent since waking up with such a magnificent diamond spoon.
Fortunately, as the days passed, various memories of Charlize surfaced. By now, enough had returned that there was no major problem in living as her.
Though I was surprised, wondering how on earth she had managed to pile up so much karma in one life.
I toyed with the necklace in my hands.
“My daughter, my son. You two siblings must get along, alright? Otherwise, Mommy will be angry.”
This was the necklace left to Charlize by her mother, the late Empress.
For some reason, she had fervently urged Charlize to wear it always, and Charlize had kept that one promise, wearing it around her neck even on the day I woke up.
‘Anyway…’
I turned my head.
“……”
The moment my gaze reached her, the maid standing there hiccuped.
“I-I am sorry, Young Lady!”
The maid fell to her knees with a thud.
1.
In my hands, I held the envelope and the letter the maid had handed me.
“P-please, spare me, Young Lady!”
I turned the letter over and over. This was meant for my fiancé—a man I had yet to even meet. I had sent him an invitation, begging for a single meeting to discuss the breakup he had so fiercely refused.
It had returned just as it was. Unopened.
‘My, what a refreshing rejection.’
The maid who had delivered the news was kneeling on the floor, trembling violently. It wasn’t her fault, and I had no intention of reprimanding her, but I maintained a blank expression nonetheless.
“…Was there no other answer?”
“I-I was kicked out from the doorstep…”
My, my. Kicked out, too? I sighed at the reality that my fiancé despised me far more than I had anticipated.
As someone who had read this book, I understood perfectly well why Askin Remut loathed ‘Charlize.’ Charlize possessed an obsessive love for beautiful things, and in her eyes, Askin was the most exquisite creature in existence—right alongside her own biological brother.
She had exploited his desperation. When Askin needed a large sum of money, she pestered her maternal grandfather to leverage the family’s power, forcing a massive loan upon him in exchange for an engagement. Duke Alzbeit had gone a step further, attaching predatory interest to the debt. It was a slave contract; he was forced to pay interest for the rest of his life or offer his martial strength in its place.
Askin had accepted the engagement and signed the contract simultaneously. The reason was simple: though he was the strongest swordsman in the empire, his own house was teetering on the edge of ruin. He had been forced to use his brilliant subordinates—who remained loyal despite the lack of pay—and his own unmatched abilities as collateral.
The catalyst for this ruin? His only sister, who suffered from a terminal illness. With no known cure, a staggering amount of money was required simply to keep her alive. The funds he received through his engagement to the Alzbeit family had gone directly toward the medical expenses needed to pull his sister back from the brink.
“Should I go visit him in person…”
“S-should I get things ready?”
The maid looked up, her expression filled with a pitiful hope.
Right. Strike while the iron is hot. I should at least see his face once. I was just about to rise from my seat when a sharp knock sounded. The door swung open, and another maid entered, her face deathly pale.
“Y-Young Lady! H-His Majesty the Emperor has arrived!”
I froze, halfway to standing.
The Emperor? The tyrant?
He was the male lead of this book and Charlize’s brother. While many of Charlize’s memories had returned to me, those involving my tyrant brother or my fiancé remained frustratingly hazy.
‘What do I do about this…’
I propped my chin in my hand, pondered for a moment, and turned my head.
“Tell him I won’t see him right now.”
“…Pardon?”
“And Grandfather?”
“T-the Duke is out on urgent business today.”
Damn it. I couldn’t use Grandfather as a shield.
“Then just tell him I’m not receiving visitors.”
I didn’t remember how Charlize used to treat her brother, and I couldn’t risk acting awkwardly and raising suspicion. I really did want my coins back, after all.
“B-but Young Lady, that is…!”
“There is no need for that.”
A low voice cut through the air. I turned my head, startled.
“Because I’ve come to see you myself.”
A man stood leaning against the doorframe. Jet-black hair and deep red eyes, the exact shade of Charlize’s own.
The Emperor. My brother.
And the male lead, Loxidian.
‘Why does he look so savage?’
Charlize was a beauty, and as the male lead, he was naturally an incredibly handsome man, but he gave off the aura of a wild beast rather than a human.
He looked at me and grinned, baring his teeth.
“Hello, little sister?”
See that? His eyes aren’t smiling at all.
At that moment, a memory exploded into my head. Charlize’s memories were so vivid that it was strange they hadn’t surfaced until now.
“Princess?”
“Don’t call me that!”
Oh, now that I recalled it, it seemed Charlize hadn’t particularly liked being called a princess.
Technically, she was a princess, but it seemed she despised the fact that she wasn’t living in the imperial palace.
“Don’t call me that.”
No sooner had I said that than Loxidian strode in.
Then, with that same grinning face, he thrust his sword toward me.
……A sword? You lunatic!
“Haha, how dare you defy your brother, who is like the heavens? Shall I fix your manners again today?”
And then, everything came flooding back.
For some reason, unlike what I had read in the book…… this man showed no signs of being an overprotective brother. Why?
Fortunately, he held it to my throat while it was still in its scabbard, but how could one remain calm when a tyrant from a book was doing this?
‘……Wow, he was a nutcase in the book, but he’s a true madman.’
He was the kind of person who seemed more villainous than most villains, committing such insane acts that he made me wonder why on earth he was the male lead.
I just hadn’t expected him to direct that erratic behavior toward his own younger sister.
And judging by the memories currently surfacing, it seemed Charlize’s personality wasn’t one to back down, either.
Loxidian chuckled and pulled the sword back.
Then, he naturally plopped down onto the sofa.
He even stretched his legs out and propped them up on the table as if it were his own living room.
“Oh, I’m stiff. So stiff.”
Seeing him stretched out languidly, I didn’t find myself admiring his long limbs or his face; instead, I was speechless.
‘……What is this? This sense of déjà vu.’
Something was on the tip of my mind—no, my heart—teetering on the edge of memory.