‘I need to remember everything about the novel.’

Before transmigrating into this world, she’d read romance fantasy novels and fangirled over various northern grand dukes.

Hungry for new northern grand dukes to obsess over, she’d hunted down every novel she hadn’t read yet and devoured them indiscriminately. From obscure minor works that nobody liked to unpublished free serials.

Trawling through free sites one day, she’d stumbled across a novel with a dismal view count.

[Despair and Regret]

The title was unusual.

She’d clicked on it thinking it might be one of those stories where the male lead regrets everything and the female lead eventually forgives him.

With every chapter she read, she’d pressed a hand to her chest.

‘It really was a complete mess.’

It wasn’t just a frustrating story with a slow, suffocating plot.

The ending had been beyond anything she could have imagined.

[She let go of the last thread holding her and jumped from the cliff. The darkness swallowed her whole.]

[Falling from the cliff, Raelia smiled with her whole heart.]

[I’m finally free of this man.]

[It was a gentle, peaceful happiness.]

[Juan came running too late and screamed.]

[“Raelia!”]

[Darkness pooled thick at the edge where Raelia had jumped, as if waiting to receive Juan too.]

[“How dare you run from me!”]

[Juan raged that Raelia was no longer within his control.]

[He couldn’t forgive her for dying on her own terms. He’d told her to live like a doll, to stay by his side and do exactly that.]

[Raelia had refused. She’d fled into death. And in doing so, she seemed to have found peace.]

[“Find her body. No matter what.”]

[If her life was over, he’d make her into a doll and keep her in his mansion.]

[Even at the very end, Juan had no intention of letting her rest.]

‘Honestly, why did I end up in this novel of all things.’

She should have gone into the world of one of the northern grand dukes she actually loved! She could have had a wonderful time seeing them in person.

Her head throbbed.

‘I really want to cry.’

Alright. Situation assessed.

The original Raelia had been in love with Juan. Happy just to be near him. But Juan had no feelings for her whatsoever. His fixation on her was exactly like a man treating a doll he owned.

Raelia sorted through what she needed to do.

The trip had actually been arranged on direct orders from her father, who otherwise paid her no attention.

The Kaisas villa was where Raelia’s birth mother had spent her final days, so it was a place Raelia had always wanted to visit in spring. She’d assumed her father was finally showing some interest in her.

But that wasn’t all of it.

This trip was her father’s larger scheme to force her into a matchmaking meeting.

‘Juan escorted Raelia to the meeting while apologizing to her. He already had his payment from her father, and knowing full well that Raelia had feelings for him, he pushed her into a meeting she hated.’

His plan was to use Raelia’s feelings against her once she married into a good family, extracting information from her.

A knock came. Juan seemed to want back in.

“Come in.”

Juan opened the door. He stepped inside and studied her carefully, as if reading each of her nerves one by one.

“I’m sorry for being difficult. I came all this way, so I should see the sights.”

Better to go outside and endure a matchmaking meeting than stay cooped up in the villa with a piece of trash like Juan.

“Understood.”

Raelia was about to send him off and call Seria in to help her get ready, when Juan suddenly stepped up behind her and fastened a loose button on her sleeve.

That part had been fine.

But then he took her hand and pressed his lips to the back of it.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Raelia’s startled reaction seemed to genuinely throw Juan off.

“Miss, what’s the matter?”

A fragment of the original Raelia’s memory surfaced. Juan touched her whenever he was in a good mood. Without asking, without her consent.

But the original Raelia had been so deeply in love with him, even though he was just a servant, that she’d never once refused.

The current Raelia was not the original.

And regardless of how the other person felt, this kind of physical contact was not something a servant had any right to do.

“Don’t do that again. What you just did crossed a line.”

Raelia said it plainly, letting her displeasure show as she held his gaze.

She expected him to apologize. Instead, Juan gave a small smirk and let her words slide right off him.

“Since when has there been a line between us?”

Confident. Arrogant.

His gaze was unsettling, like the look a man gives a caged animal he’s already claimed.

It said this had happened more times than she could count.

A chill ran down her spine.

“……”

The words dried up in her throat.

‘His personality is something else.’

Watching Juan’s reaction, Raelia bit her lip.

“Either way, keep your hands off me.”

[Despair and Regret] was not a typical regret story. It was suffocating and cruel to the very last page. The male lead’s regret? By Raelia’s measure, it didn’t even qualify as regret.

She wanted to put as much distance between herself and Juan as possible right now, but it wasn’t that simple.

For most of this trip, she had no choice but to travel with Juan. Her father had commanded it.

Even so, Juan didn’t so much as blink at her firm stance. He simply smiled and left.

The door closed. Raelia bit her lip.

“Wow. He completely ignored me.”

‘Why did the original Raelia ever fall for someone like that.’

She looked down at the wrist he’d touched, then quickly redirected her thoughts.

‘I need to call Seria and change into fresh clothes.’

* * *

Raelia climbed into the carriage at a measured pace. Under normal circumstances she’d have taken Juan’s hand to step up, but things were different now.

“Juan, Seria, sit up on the coachman’s seat. I have things to think through and I’d like to be alone.”

‘That’s not the only reason.’

Raelia looked at Juan.

He’d pretended to give her his heart and his loyalty, but the truth was something else entirely.

‘He was sneaking off to meet another woman.’

The original Raelia had loved him blindly, oblivious to the betrayal.

“Does he think I’m an idiot.”

The heroine of a miserable novel wasn’t obligated to live out her fate. Fate shifted depending on what you chose to do with it.

Her goal in this life was to keep fangirling well into old age and die a contented grandmother.

And trash, as a rule, belonged in the bin.

She had to change this stupid fate.

‘But how.’

Her father wanted to marry her off for the family’s benefit. The original Raelia had despised the idea of an arranged marriage, but the current Raelia felt differently.

‘I need to get away from Juan, even if it means an arranged marriage.’

That meant her next task was finding a husband.

The carriage stopped and Raelia stepped out. Juan drifted quietly to her side and murmured in a low voice.

“Miss, my conscience compels me to tell you. This trip was arranged for a matchmaking meeting.”

Juan, confessing only now, looked sorrowful. He was a man of flawless performance. Anyone watching would have thought he genuinely felt bad for Raelia.

“I figured as much. It’s not like Father would send me on a trip just for my sake. Lead the way.”

Raelia said that and walked into the teahouse.

She’d made up her mind.

She was going to shoot down whoever she met here, decisively and without hesitation.

That was the only way to spite Juan, who’d been tasked by her father with making the match happen.

* * *

Raelia was shown to a private room. The atmosphere was modest, but the enclosed space made the air feel heavy.

‘I’d rather be somewhere open.’

No one else had come into the room yet.

“Did I arrive early?”

Juan nodded at her question.

“Yes, you’re fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.”

“Then let me sit outside for a bit before going in.”

“Understood.”

But when she settled at an outdoor table, Juan moved to take the seat beside her, and Raelia stared at him.

“What are you doing? I’m here for a matchmaking meeting. Go wait outside the teahouse.”

Juan held her gaze for a moment at her firm command, then stepped back. His attitude irritated her all over again, so she ordered something cold to drink.

The afternoon sun was warm enough that after a while, she found herself humming quietly without meaning to.

‘If only this weren’t a regret novel, I could enjoy this tea even more.’

The northern grand duke of this world was rotten to the core.

A world with no one worth fangirling over. It was a world without joy.

She sipped her drink and looked around.

The street was peaceful, people coming and going. Street vendors called out, children ran past.

It was a pleasant, unhurried day.

She was taking it all in when a man caught her eye.

‘Oh!’

Her heart dropped straight to the floor. Her hands trembled and she felt her very soul shake.