‘……What’s with that look?’
Although they looked like they had been through the wringer, Susan reported to me with steadfast resolve.
“Um, Duchess-To-Be, the young ladies… especially Baroness Cleria… have been begging me to ask you just one more time. They claim they have something urgent to discuss regarding the banquet…….”
Once, twice. I had already made it clear I had no intention of meeting them.
However, seeing the persistence conveyed through her report, I furrowed my brows. Moreover, observing Susan’s disheveled state shifted my resolve.
“Show them to the drawing room.”
“Pardon? Oh……. Yes, understood.”
Susan bowed, then hesitated before turning. A flicker of internal conflict crossed her face, but she soon spoke with a determined expression.
“Um, are you alright, Duchess-To-Be?”
“What?”
“……It seems you do not wish to see them. I apologize if I have dared to misinterpret your intentions.”
It wasn’t a misinterpretation.
‘It’s a perfect bullseye.’
I didn’t want to see them. I truly didn’t. If I met them, they would likely be cracking open bottles of alcohol the moment they sat down. Given the weight of Charlize Alzbeit’s status, they wouldn’t dare force their will upon me, but that didn’t stop my irritation.
“If I refuse, won’t you be the one to suffer? Just let it be.”
I stood up, my mind already occupied with strategies to evade their inevitable drinking. While I was at it, I plotted how to chase them away as quickly as possible.
‘The claim that they have something to say about the banquet must be nonsense, too.’
The members of this ‘total disaster’ group from my memories were all equally hollow. Most were simply scions of wealthy families or black sheep from prestigious households—people who knew nothing but how to act like scoundrels.
‘They’re like those figures in Korean news reports: the children of high-ranking officials causing a scene, over and over.’
I draped a robe over my shoulders, sensing a gaze from the side. As soon as our eyes met, Susan bowed her head and hurried from the room.
‘Why is she like that?’
I suppose she must have suffered under the pressure of those young ladies. Charlize had rarely concerned herself with the struggles of a mere maid, and though the memories were sparse, I was certain the household staff had endured a great deal under her previous self.
“Duchess-To-Be!”
When I finished my preparations and reached the drawing room, my suspicions were confirmed—
Several young ladies, including the group I had seen previously, were waiting. They had already set up the bottles of alcohol they’d brought themselves upon the table.
‘These people…… aren’t they just too predictable?’
I was bewildered, but mostly, I clicked my tongue.
“It is an honor to see you, Duchess-To-Be!”
“Oh my, Duchess-To-Be, it’s been so long.”
“Why haven’t you called for us? We’ve missed you so, so much……!”
The gorgeously dressed young ladies greeted me in turn. Most were veterans of the last gathering, though I spotted a few new faces. I gave a curt nod and approached the curtains.
Mistaking my movement for an intention to fetch glasses or mixers from the cabinet, they began to whisper amongst themselves. They didn’t even bother to lower their voices, their chatter carrying clearly through the room.
“Ugh, that’s why I told you my nail almost flew off, right? The maid was just so incredibly incompetent.”
“Oh my, and nail care is so important……. Ah, my maid can’t even clean up a spilled drink properly, you know?”
“Young people these days are just so lazy, aren’t they?”
*Giggle, giggle.* The laughter-filled voices poked incessantly at my ears.
Most of them were slandering their personal maids or servants, mocking them for their incompetence.
“Oh, you know the drill. Break a bottle. Then tell them to stand on the shards while they clean it up.”
“Oh my?”
“Then next time, they’ll clean it up without leaving a single trace, won’t they? Vile things… you have to make them suffer.”
“Hahaha, if they’re stupid, they have to learn through their bodies. That’s brilliant. Thank you!”
*Throb.* A sudden wave of pain forced me to open my hand.
Ah. I must have gripped the handle of the cabinet too hard.
‘Ha, Yoon Ji-Hoo. If you graduated from a local university, shouldn’t you at least be good at your job?’
‘Tsk, being stupid makes your body suffer.’
I clenched and unclenched my throbbing hand.
It felt as though a massive wall had been erected between me and these people, who were sharing their cruelties as if they were helpful tips.
I grabbed a bottle and turned away.
When I returned to the table, there was not only the alcohol they had brought but also a small bag resting on the surface.
‘A bag?’
I tilted my head, not recognizing it, when I felt a subtle gaze fixed on me.
I turned to find the young lady I’d seen at a previous gathering staring at me with a coy expression.
Her eyes were filled with a strange sort of expectation.
‘Ah, that young lady… what was her name?’
Goodness, had Charlize really not even bothered to memorize the names of the people she committed wicked deeds with?
I only realized she was the daughter of the House of Rotaria after hearing someone address her by that name beside me.
“Ah, did you see this too, Duchess-To-Be?”
She spoke with a look of vanity, casting a stealthy glance in my direction while covering her mouth with a delicate hand.
“My fiancé, the one I am to be wed to, gave it to me as a gift, you see?”
“Oh my, if it’s the fiancé of the daughter of the Count of Rotaria… then he must be the young master of the House of Arus.”
“Isn’t this a color that only three were released in the capital? How…!”
“If it’s the House of Arus, they have a territory famous for iron ore. That’s marvelous.”
What is this, exactly?
I looked back and forth between the bag and the daughter of Rotaria, who wore a bashful yet strange expression.
‘…Your fiancé doesn’t buy you things like this? Is that the implication?’
As I sat down and observed them with a detached air, the daughter of the Count sipped her drink and spoke with feigned shyness.
“Oh my, I told him I wouldn’t accept it because it’s a limited edition, but my fiancé said that to prove his love for me, something like this was nothing at all, so he bought it for me, you see?”
I wasn’t particularly angry.
I had already grasped from the last meeting that these people harbored a toxic mix of jealousy, resentment, and admiration for Charlize all at once.
As I listened half-heartedly to their ‘love equals limited edition’ chatter, something suddenly drifted into my mind.
An event from my past life. Back when I was still ‘Yoon Ji-Hoo’, before I died.
“Everyone’s lining up to buy it these days, they say.”
“Right… am I the only one not interested? No, actually, I kind of want one too…”
Before I died, Korea saw an unprecedented surge in the demand for luxury goods.
Because of this, even those who weren’t interested would pay attention, thinking, *Hmm, instead of going on a trip, should I buy this?*
At a school reunion I attended during that time, in the midst of various conversations, the focus shifted to someone’s belongings.
It was the bag of a friend who had recently been promoted.
“Wow, isn’t this worth over ten million won?”
I didn’t know what kind of bag it was, so I just thought, *Oh, I see.*
But one friend who was particularly interested recognized it and brought it up.
“My parents bought it for me.”
“Ho-ho, so that’s worth a few million won, huh.”
“Well, they got angry, saying that if I’m promoted, I should update my wardrobe to match. So, I just took it. You know how it is.”
That day, without realizing it, thoughts of my parents—who had passed away only shortly before—drifted into my mind. At the same time, I reflexively pulled my bag toward me, hiding its worn-out bottom corners, frayed from years of constant use.
In truth, even if my parents were still alive, they weren’t the sort of people, nor did they have the temperament, to buy me such things.
For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to join the conversation my friends were having so nonchalantly.
When I regained my focus, the group of scoundrels was still cooing over the Count’s daughter’s new bag.
“Truly, you must be so loved.”
“I’m so envious.”
The way they kept glancing at me suggested they were itching to bring up the topic of my own fiancé.
But it seemed they had at least learned their lesson from last time.
They didn’t dare bring it up carelessly.
*Scoundrels with a capacity for learning, I see.*
As I watched them, my hand moved toward a bottle of alcohol before I could stop myself.
Bright, expectant eyes followed the movement.
“Oh my, Duchess-To-Be, are you having a drink?”
“Let’s have a toast. A toast!”
They raised their glasses as if they had made a silent pact.
I offered a faint smile, left the bottle where it sat, and instead reached for the one I had brought myself.
“I’m not drinking today.”
“Oh… pardon?”
I opened the bottle and poured the beverage.
It was similar in hue to wine, but possessed a paler, rose-tinted clarity.
*Oh, it’s pretty.*
“I’ve commissioned a dress for the banquet commemorating the Goddess’s Blessing. I’m abstaining from alcohol for the sake of maintenance.”
Surprisingly, Charlize was thorough about her self-care.
It seemed ironic to speak of maintenance while holding a bottle of alcohol, but digging through my memories, it appeared she did have her own version of a diet.
It was entirely unexpected.
I spoke, my expression indifferent.
“Where would you find an idiot who thinks about drinking with such an important occasion just ahead?”
At my taunt, the young ladies exchanged glances, sensing the tension, and hurriedly scrambled for a different topic of conversation.