“I like you.”

Sella confessed to the woodcutter Rodi.

“That’s a dangerous thing to say. Knowing what kind of person I am.”

Dangerous?

Sella tilted her head at Rodi’s words.

“Dangerous? Rodi, you are such a kind and gentle person.”

Hmm? But at that moment, it seemed like Rodi lowered his head and let out a small smirk.

Had she seen wrong?

“Kind, gentle……. Miss Sella, I don’t think you know me very well.”

Rodi said, a faint trace of a smile still lingering on his face.

“What do you mean, don’t know you! I know you very well. I even know that you are more pure and generous than anyone.”

She had tried to avoid the ending where she would die a meaningless death at the villain’s hands, but somehow, the situation had turned into one where her older sister would be killed by him instead.

She absolutely could not let that happen. She had to protect both her own life and her sister’s from that insane villain, no matter what.

To do that, she had to hold onto this man, the only hope who could help her, no matter what!

“Ah. So Miss Sella is saying that if I were greedy, cold, calculating, and…… devious, you wouldn’t like me.”

“Come on, there’s no way Rodi is that kind of person. And honestly, I like Rodi just as he is, not for any particular reason.”

Saying she liked him as he was, not for any specific reason, would seem more genuine. And she did genuinely like this man, too.

“Aah……. So Miss Sella is saying she would like me no matter what kind of person I am.”

Rodi smiled in a way that looked truly satisfied, unlike anything before.

“Yes. So, Rodi, if it’s alright with you, how about we try dating? If we date and…… grow to like each other even more, we could even get mar…… ried…… No, never mind. Was I too hasty? Then, how about we start with dating first?”

“Dating……”

For a moment, it felt as though something strange flickered in the man’s eyes. Strangely, the back of her neck felt cold.

It was probably nerves, since Sister Betty’s life hung on this man’s answer, right?

“Yes, romance. Let’s be in a relationship!”

“Hmm……. Actually, Miss Sella doesn’t even know my name……”

“Pardon? Come on, Rodi, what are you saying?”

“Rodi, that’s not my name.”

Hmm? Why is he making that kind of joke?

“Rodi, why are you joking…… Ah! Could it be you mean your full name? I thought you were like me and only had a first name. I’m sorry. Then what is your name?”

Surely, he wasn’t a commoner?

“Rodiac Pestrik Gunter.”

“Pardon? Rodiac Pest…… what?”

“Rodiac Pestrik Gunter, that is my name.”

“Aah……. That’s quite a long name.”

“Is it……”

“Yes. Rodiac Pestrik Gunter…… Rodiac Pest…… hm?”

It felt like a name she had heard somewhere before.

Pest…… the black…… plague that kills everyone who catches it?

“Eeek!”

Sella screamed.

“What’s wrong, Miss Sella?”

Rodi, who had risen from where he had been sitting, stepped one pace closer to her and asked languidly. Sella reflexively pulled her body back.

‘Stay away!’

Rodiac Pestrik Gunter!

That was none other than the name of the villain male lead in this novel!

In the arc where he killed everyone around the female lead, he was that terrifying male lead who had even earned the nickname “Black Plague” in the comments, because everyone who crossed him ended up dead!

No, that couldn’t be…… It won’t be, it must be a coincidence. It must be someone with the same name.

Even as she desperately tried to deny reality, Sella’s legs were already trembling uncontrollably.

Of course they were. If things had gone according to the original story, “Sella” would have been swept away when the villain killed everyone, a handmaiden of the female lead whose name had barely even been mentioned properly.

As she was even shaking her head in denial, the man stepped one more pace closer, closing the distance between them.

“No! Wait, wait a moment!”

Sella reflexively thr*st both hands forward to stop the man.

Then she looked over his brilliant appearance once more.

Dark blackish-brown hair, clean and smooth skin, red eyes and lips even redder than those, a strikingly handsome face that seemed capable of bewitching anyone at a glance, that body that could overwhelm whoever stood before him…… Good lord!

It was exactly the male lead’s appearance.

Had she been walking around all this time with the eyes of a dead fish and the brain of a sea squirt?

“Miss Sella?”

Rodi, no, that villain bastard, took yet another step toward her.

“Closer……”

Sella, who had been about to say ‘don’t come closer,’ barely managed to shut her mouth.

“Why, what were you going to say? Come closer?”

The villain asked with a slow smile.

Ah……. That smile had always made her heart flutter before. Right now, it felt like her heart was about to freeze.

“No, that’s not it……”

“What’s wrong? Why are you suddenly shaking like this?”

The man asked, his red eyes gleaming. The red color that had looked s*xy now looked like terrifying bloodshot crimson.

“Miss Sella, you said you would like me no matter what kind of person I am, didn’t you?”

“Pardon?”

“Now you know my name too. Of course, knowing my name doesn’t change anything. Isn’t that right? Because Miss Sella said she would like me no matter what kind of person I am.”

Are you kidding me!

She had been struggling so hard all this time not to get killed by this man!

“No, this isn’t right, this isn’t right……”

Now, not just her legs but her entire body was trembling.

“Not right? What, exactly, is not right……”

It felt like her tongue was about to freeze.

Still, wrong was wrong, so she had to say it somehow.

“D…… dating is off…… actually.”

“If it’s not dating…… aah, so that’s what it was?”

“Wh, what?”

“Miss Sella wanted to get married right away?”

Rodiac pulled up the corners of his mouth, staring fixedly at the horrified Sella.

“What? No, that’s not……”

What are you talking about? Marriage!

But Sella couldn’t finish her sentence. The villain male lead cut her words clean off.

“That’s fine with me. I like marriage.”

A languid voice slipped from between his lips, which wore a brilliant smile as if satisfied.

“……!”

Sella’s tongue froze completely.

***

About three years ago.

Sera, who had been twenty-one, was in a traffic accident and thought she had died, but when she opened her eyes again, she had become seventeen-year-old Sella.

An orphan named “Sella,” who had grown up in an orphanage from the time she was a newborn.

It felt like she had entered some fantasy romance novel, but she had no idea which one. In her memory, there was no novel with a woman named “Sella” in it.

She found out which novel it was just a few days after she turned twenty as Sella, the day the steward of the Seydan Count’s household came to the orphanage looking for a live-in maid.

The orphanage system in this world was somewhat strange, in that people who wanted to adopt would buy orphans from the orphanage for money.

Whether they were truly taking the children to raise as their own, or for some other reason, was none of the orphanage director’s concern. It was quite literally a system where handing over the “ownership” of a child was done in exchange for payment alone.

It was less an orphanage and more of a “shop” where orphans were collected.

The problem, however, was the children who were never adopted. Since these children brought no financial benefit to the orphanage, they were required to pay off their own keep once they came of age.

In other words, the cost of their care up to that point remained entirely as debt, and adult orphans could only become free from the orphanage once they had paid it all back.

So people looking for cheap labor would often come to this orphanage and hire the orphans who had come of age.

For Sella, who had come from Korea, it was an unimaginable system…… but what could she do? Sera, who had lived in Korea, was dead, and she was “Sella,” who had to live here. Whether she wanted to adapt or not, she had no choice but to adapt.

“Sister. Should I apply to that household?”

At the orphanage director’s words asking who would apply, Sella whispered to Betty beside her.

“Sure! Then I’ll start working at the butcher’s shop.”

Betty nodded right away and answered.

Since if Sella got hired as a maid, Betty had already made plans to go work at the butcher’s shop that had been asking her to come work there for a while.

Betty and Sella were biological sisters, which was rare in an orphanage. The two had grown up leaning on each other in the orphanage, and naturally, they were an exceptionally close pair, unlike any other in the world.

Because of that, when they were young, both of them had stubbornly insisted they could never be separated. Thanks to that, neither of them was ever adopted.

Because there was no one who would buy two children at once.

In truth, proposals to adopt only Sella had come in frequently, due to her pretty appearance.

But Betty was devoted to Sella, and Sella didn’t want to be separated from Betty. The director used Sella as an excuse to work Betty even harder.