Silver growled with a starved face. To me, it felt like a desperate desire for work. So I spoke in an appealing voice.

“You’re desperate right now too! You weren’t understood, but you want to work regardless of that. I heard your skills are amazing.”

“……”

“I’m sorry for suddenly showing up and saying presumptuous things.”

“For someone who knows that……”

“I know a way for us to succeed together.”

At those words, Silver raised his head for the first time and looked straight into my eyes. He finally seemed ready to talk.

“Hah, come in for now. You’re really pushy.”

Ah, thank goodness.

I let out a sigh of relief and withdrew my leg. Then I brushed off my slightly dirtied hem.

Silver’s house, which I cautiously entered, was very simple. The atmosphere was similar to a Korean young professional’s studio apartment.

“I’m sorry I have nothing to offer you.”

I sat in the chair with an unbothered expression. I heard a creaking sound, but it didn’t seem like it would break.

I swept my hair back and made a resolute expression.

“I don’t have time, so I’ll be direct.”

Silver nodded as if almost giving up.

“Yes. Please speak.”

“I’ll invest 500,000 euros in you.”

At the absurd amount, Silver’s pupils dilated. His face looked like it had almost left the real world.

“……Wh-what?”

His mouth and jaw dropped open so wide that drool might fall out. Seeing his shocked appearance, I wore a relaxed expression.

※※※

After roughly finishing my conversation with Silver, I returned to the residence late at night.

In the hall stood Alpheus, his red hair swept to one side, with a cold expression.

‘Ah, here we go.’

This household’s tyrant. The cruel bastard who beat Roa far more than Marquis Seraphina and Patricia.

I looked up at him with as calm an expression as possible. As if to say, speak first if you have something to say.

When I met his eyes directly, Alpheus tilted his head.

“How strange. You’re looking into my eyes.”

‘I knew it.’

I smirked and raised my eyebrows.

“I have perfectly good eyes, so where else should I look?”

‘At your tiny d*ck?’

Not wanting to lose to him, I sneered inwardly. That way, I felt like I was winning a little.

Blue veins stood out on Alpheus’s forehead. He let out a hollow laugh.

“Father was right. You’ve lost all fear. Or you’ve gone completely insane.”

“This scene is so clichéd.”

“What?”

“You’re about to hit me again.”

Alpheus was already unable to contain his anger, clenching both fists. He gripped them so tightly his knuckles were red.

How much pain must Roa have endured all this time?

Over Roa’s image, my biological father who had grabbed my body overlapped. He had a flushed face, drunk on alcohol, shedding crocodile tears.

「Let’s die! Let’s die together! Things like us have no point living!」

He screamed and grabbed my throat. My airway was blocked and my body floated up. It was the most terrible sensation in the world.

‘No. Get a grip! I’m not the old me anymore!’

I bit my lip and took a deep breath, but uncontrollable sadness welled up in my eyes.

I straightened my body and poured out everything I had.

“Do you think…… I’ll do what you want just because you hit me?”

At my words, Alpheus relaxed his fists and sent a meaningful look. Something was strange.

‘What is he trying to do?’

Alpheus sneered wickedly.

“Right now, it would be better to hit the maid who follows you than you.”

What?

Alpheus immediately struck Belta’s abdomen as she stood quietly beside me.

Thwack!

I was shocked and knelt down following Belta as she collapsed to the floor. Belta trembled with a bloodless face.

“Alpheus! What are you doing!”

I raised my head and shouted. It felt like lasers would shoot from my eyes.

“You fixed your stutter and acted all confident, but nothing’s improved, so what should I do?”

“You crazy bastard!”

The curse came out naturally. Alpheus’s madness was truly extraordinary. To think of hitting Belta again.

I supported Belta, who was smiling weakly as if she was fine, and climbed the stairs. I had to get away from Alpheus quickly.

My heart kept swelling up. The fact that I still had to stay in this residence after being treated like this was infuriatingly hateful.

I felt my head throbbing painfully and said to Belta.

“I’m sorry.”

If only I had been hit instead, it wouldn’t be this hard.

Belta clutched her abdomen and exhaled heavily.

“Haah…… I’m, I’m fine.”

“Nothing in the world is fine after being hit. I’ll pay him back dozens of times over.”

Boiling rage wrapped around my entire body. Roa’s situation, my past, and the present mixed together dizzily.

Chapter 2

Six hellish months passed like that.

The marquis and his wife, who thought I was strange, called a healer to check my physical condition. But the healer couldn’t detect the existence of my soul that had transmigrated into Roa’s body.

When told there was nothing wrong, they looked at me even more bizarrely.

Right. They wouldn’t be able to believe it.

Even I sometimes flinched when I heard that I must have been drugged. Because it was true, and also because the current situation felt dreamlike.

So I considered acting like the original stuttering Roa, but that would be too miserable. I had no intention of disparaging disabilities either.

‘Ah, forget it! I’ll do whatever I want!’

During this time, I strutted around the residence with eyes that said I’d destroy anyone who messed with me. Perhaps intimidated by that attitude, the servants no longer treated me carelessly.

If there was one fortunate thing, it was that Alpheus, busy with business, had returned to the capital.

Patricia, who did nothing but dress up and hold tea parties, honestly wasn’t much of a threat, and I tried my best to avoid encountering the marquis.

And Rosana, the mistress of the marquisate who was absorbed in attending salons, was more the type to ignore me rather than insult or hit me.

Home wasn’t a place of rest for me—it was practically a battlefield.

“Just because I’ve hidden them for a while doesn’t mean my claws are gone.”

I picked up the letter opener and made an expression like a majestic tiger who’d become the boss. Belta looked at me and laughed, showing her white teeth.

“What? Why do you seem to be laughing at me?”

“Not at all. It’s because you’re cute.”

“……Me? Are you sick or something?”

Belta seemed to think we’d gotten closer, and her old habits from dealing with Roa came out. I briefly wondered what to do about this.

But Belta remained cheerfully oblivious.

“Haven’t you heard that before? When I watch you, you’re really cute.”

“Stop.”

I cut her off sharply with a serious expression and took out the letter from the envelope I’d neatly opened with the letter opener. The letter was from Silver Croughton.

It had already been a month since Silver opened his boutique.

The reason I could immediately give him the investment money was because he had already prepared to open his boutique before collapsing like this. Fortunately, even while living like a shut-in, he hadn’t completely given up on his dream.

When I gave him the large investment, he immediately got to work. Silver revered me, who had invested the large sum, almost like a god.

Well, I’d be incredibly grateful too if I were him.

I read the letter with a languid expression.

[……The opening sales are substantial. When we announced the 20% discount event, I was actually quite worried, but it was unfounded. The complimentary badges were also very popular.]

Oh?

I raised the corners of my lips contentedly. It was truly good news.

“That’s why marketers exist.”

I was a designer, so I only did the work of setting concepts and making clothes, but I had witnessed the process of launching brands countless times, so I knew enough. The consumption habits of people here were ultimately similar.

I widened my eyes as I looked at the last part of the letter.

[Thank you so much for trusting me with this. I’ve prepared a small personal gift.]

A gift?

As I tilted my head, Belta brought over a large box with an excited face. When I untied the ribbon and opened the box, I saw a dress that Silver had painstakingly handcrafted stitch by stitch.

It was an intensely impressive outfit that captured the splendor of the Rococo era. The style was somewhat different from my elegant and delicate clothes. It seemed like the clothes I would make could be released separately later.

“Looks like I’m going to make a lot of money!”

I grinned while touching the dress.

※※※

The people of the Marquis Seraphina household prepared to go to the Imperial Palace’s grand banquet hall.

Whenever there were important events, they hadn’t brought the Roa from the book, using the excuse that she was unwell.

This time was no different. They loathed the idea of me, with my completely changed personality, coming to high society.

“Well, you have no way to come anyway. Stay quietly cooped up at home.”