CH 1. Mrs. Hinckel

Chapter 1 Part 1

“Creator. Why do you give me such trials?”

XX. My life has become a mess.

Iona muttered to herself, messing up her hair.

The people in the cafe didn’t even spare a glance at her, as if they were used to her behavior.

“Oh, Mrs. Hickel. Good morning!”

A passing guild member greeted her.

Iona’s eyes sharpened like an axe when she heard the title ‘Mrs’.

“Don’t call me Mrs.!”

“Well, married women are addressed as ‘Mrs.’ What’s wrong with that?”

“Haha! Leave her alone. She’s always like that. It’s just a way of saying hello. Well yes, I’m glad to see you too!”

“…AAH!”

Iona screamed, pulling at her hair.

Her life had become so tangled up that it was twisted like a pretzel.

Iona crumpled the paper she had been working on and threw it aside, then took out a fresh piece of paper.

Next to her, there were crumpled papers piled up like a mountain.

Despite Iona’s strange behavior, the people in the cafe paid her no attention.

They just stared with eyes that said, she’s always like that.

For the guild master of the Hickel Guild, causing a commotion like this in the cafe every week was part of her routine.

Iona stared at the paper with eyes as sharp as a blade.

The phrase written at the top of the white paper caught her eye.

⟨Divorce Application⟩

“…Oww, my arm.”

How did I end up like this?

She closed her eyes and reflected on the past with a throbbing headache.

Her previous life was relatively ordinary. The problem was that she had lived for 2N years without even touching the shadow of a man!

Without ever holding a man’s hand, she was hit by a truck when she was on her way back after working part-time, and then she fell into a world of novels.

A single woman since birth.

“……”

She clenched her fist and slammed the table in frustration from the momentary rage that surged up from within her in an instant.

BANG!

“Shouldn’t we stop that…?”

“Leave her alone. That’s just how she is. She crumpled the papers and slammed the table, so next time she’ll hit her head.”

The cafe owner, Rosen, casually wiped the dishes and said to the employee.

“But still…”

“AAH!”

At the next moment, the employee flinched with a gasp as they heard a scream.

It was because Iona was hitting her head on the table as Rosen had said.

Bang! Bang!

Each forceful strike of her head gave off a sense of madness.

After pounding her head for a while, Iona stretched her upper body onto the table.

She fixed her gaze on the scenery outside the window. Or more precisely, on the men passing by outside the window.

“They’re handsome…”

Why are there so many good-looking guys in this world? Each passing man seemed to shine.

She wanted to run up to them and hold their hand right away.

But she couldn’t. 

She would be caught by the security guards as an adulterer!

This damned empire was not even in the East, but it was a terribly conservative country.

If I cheat after getting married, → slap on the wrist.

If I’m accused of cheating when I didn’t, → slap on the wrist.

So even if she just slightly flirted with a man, it meant saying goodbye to her wrist.

Why? Because no one on this street didn’t know that she was a married woman!

Yeah. That was the problem. That she was a married woman.

Thanks to her life as a single woman since birth, her goal from the moment she opened her eyes in this world was only one thing.

To be in a relationship. Passionately.

But safely. She didn’t want to suddenly face death like in her previous life.

She had lived her life like that with that determination. And she had lived a life completely unrelated to the main story, to the point that it would be unfair to call her a transmigrator.

Why did she suddenly find herself as a married woman?

“…….”

Suppressing the surging anger, she picked up the pen next to her and wrote on the paper in large letters.

I was scammed into marriage!

She didn’t forget to put an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence.

She held the pen tightly in her hand, which was still filled with unquenchable anger.

Snap!

With a clear and innocent sound, the pen split into two pieces.

“B-boss, that customer seems to have gone crazy…”

“Just ignore her. If you provoke her, she’ll do it again.”

She closed her eyes, ignoring the conversation that she could hear in her ears.

When she closed her eyes, the scenery of a certain day flowed into her mind’s eye. 

The day she found out that she was a married woman.

***

“……”

Johanna, the Duke of Hardin, turned to face her immature younger sister.

“What are you going to do?”

“What.”

“Your debut!”

Bang!

Johanna, whose anger spread to her brain in an instant, slammed the table with her fist.

“Ah. Why are you angry, your temper…”

“……”

Johanna began to seriously consider whether she should drive her younger sister out of her sight right now.

Seeing Johanna’s sunken eyes, Iona cleared her throat loudly, Ahem! and spoke up.

“Sister. You know, you only live once, right?”

“Cut to the chase.”

At Johanna’s cold words, Iona took a deep breath and blurted out fiercely.

“I won’t debut. I won’t get married either.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I’ll just date until I die. Until my teeth fall out!”

…Should I hit this girl?

Johanna seriously considered it.

“How short life is! How wasteful it is to be tied to only one person! Look! There are so many handsome men out there!”

Iona pointed outside the window. Just then, the knights who were coming out of the training grounds passed by.

The knights had trained so hard that they would often shed their heavy armor and thick uniforms when they came out of the training grounds.

Johanna knew that watching them was one of her sister’s hobbies.

While looking at Iona, who couldn’t take her eyes off the knights’ slender bodies, Johanna let out a sigh and said,

“…You can’t date.”

“Huh?”

Iona, who was staring outside with her mouth open, asked.

“You can’t date.”

Johanna handed Iona a document with a stern face.

“What is this?”

Holding the document, Iona quickly scanned through it. The document had the familiar label ⟨Identification Card⟩, but there was a strange name written on it.

“‘Iona Tenebres’… Whose identification card is this?”

She didn’t know whose card it was, but something felt off. The name and address were exactly the same as hers, except for the surname.

Moreover, if it was Tenebres, then it must be a noble’s surname.

“……”

A momentary, ominous feeling brushed through Iona’s mind.

No way…

“It’s you.”

“…What?”

“Hooh. You’re married.”

“…When?”

In my past life? But even in my past life, I was single.

The words she couldn’t utter lingered on her lips.

Iona couldn’t understand what her older sister was saying. Was she just hearing things?

“It’s already been a while.”

“…….”

It felt like a bomb exploded in her head for a moment. At the same time, she felt something snap.

“No way, I haven’t even held hands with a man, and someone decides for me!”

She stood up from her seat and shouted. The surge of emotions inside her prevented her from regaining her composure.

And then, Johanna, whose face had been stiff the whole time, also stood up and confronted her while shouting.

“You! You said you want to get married! You crazy X!”

“……”

And in between the two sisters, Isaac, who had been silently watching, was enjoying his ice cream as if he were watching an amusing play in the market.

The next moment, Johanna threw a piece of paper at Iona’s face.

“Look! Look at this properly! See what you’ve done!”

With trembling hands filled with anger, Iona grabbed the paper and looked at it.

⟨Engagement Contract⟩

“What… what is this…”

“Well, what do you think? You cheap X!”

As soon as she laid her eyes on the paper, her pupils shook violently. At the same time, fragments of memories flashed through her mind.

A day from her childhood…

***