Of all times.

He anxiously bit his lips while worrying.

After gathering his courage to use a love potion on Leah, the target had left the capital.

‘If only she hadn’t gone for recuperation, I could have caught her this time!’

The plan was perfect.

While out for night entertainment with a noble trying to gain his favor, he found a vial in that person’s pocket. The Baron believed it to be either a love potion or an aphrodisiac.

He stole the vial and made his plans.

Following Peirlily around, he bought cookies from her favorite bakery and applied the love potion to just one of them.

‘Since Peirlily said she eats two bags of these cookies… I should only put a little so it won’t be noticed.’

It wouldn’t be noticeable among the other cookies.

Then he bribed a maid from the Duke’s household with money. He ordered her to place these cookies in the noble lady’s room right before the annual royal ball.

Then Leah would unknowingly eat them while busy preparing for the ball, and by the time she felt strange, the ball would be in full swing.

‘I was planning to drag her to the terrace and finish the deed then… After that, what could Peirlily or the Piert Duke’s family do?’

Hehehe.

Baron Durford rolled his eyes as he let out a lecherous laugh.

Suddenly Peirlily went for recuperation, making the plan fail, and the cookies’ whereabouts became unknown.

‘What if Peirlily ate the cookie with the potion…? If she eats the love potion and meets another man…’

The Baron became anxious.

‘What if she’s hooking up with some random guy at the recuperation place after eating that?’

***

If Leah had known the Baron had tampered with the cookies, she would never have touched them.

But the cookies brought by the traitorous maid had already disappeared into her mouth, and the liquid from the vial quickly overtook her weak body.

She gasped while tightly gripping Helix’s arm.

“Save me…”

Helix looked down at her in his arms upon hearing her desperate voice.

“The villa… at the bottom of the mountain… please take me there…”

Leah’s head drooped as she tried to speak while trembling. She had fainted.

“My lady.”

He called out to check, but there was no response.

Helix glared at the bag of cookies she had dropped. Nothing had happened when he ate them, so why did this happen as soon as Leah ate them?

And why did this familiar sensation come from Leah who had collapsed after eating these cookies?

‘If my guess is right, this lady’s life is in danger.’

It was practically lethal poison to humans.

Helix grabbed her wrist to check her pulse.

“…”

The pulse was barely detectable, like an ant’s eyelash.

“…Is she even alive?”

Helix looked again at Leah who had lost consciousness in his arms. Her pale face was damp with cold sweat.

“In all my life, you’re the first person I’ve seen alive with such a condition.”

She was the weakest being he had seen in his long life as a guardian.

And that request just now.

‘Save me…’

Twitch.

The muscles in his arms holding Leah tensed.

Helix was weak to pleas for help from the vulnerable.

After all, a guardian had to protect the weak and maintain world order fairly.

“My lady, rest assured.”

His gray eyes flickered with a sense of purpose he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“I will save you no matter what.”

***

‘I can’t die like this.’

Leah felt wronged.

‘I was going to do everything I wanted and live well in this life.’

This was her second life.

In her first life, she lived ordinarily in Korea, forced into the role of the eldest daughter and overwork. Then she died meaninglessly in an accident.

It was so absurd and unfair that she was probably still angry even in the moment of her accidental death.

‘If I had known this would happen, I would have lived more on my own terms!’

But then she woke up in the body of a duke’s daughter in a world with a Western class system.

At first, she wondered if this was like those romance fantasy novels she used to read, but she had read so many during those late nights of overwork that she couldn’t tell which one it might be, or if it even was a book possession at all.

Maybe she had to give up on having the advantage of knowing the future as a possessed character.

Though that point was depressing, she quickly adapted.

After all, the body she possessed was that of seven-year-old Lady Leah Piert.

She was young, hadn’t been abused, had no secret birth circumstances, was fairy-like beautiful, and was the beloved only daughter of one of only three ducal families in the kingdom.

‘My goodness. It couldn’t be more perfect. What kind of luck is this? I didn’t even save the country in my past life!’

She made a promise.

That now that she had caught such luck, she wouldn’t let it go. That in this life, she would enjoy a leisurely life backed by her family’s power and live off their wealth. That she would live as she pleased.

‘Playing, resting, and eating delicious food! I’m going to live eating caviar with golden spoons!’

However, her happy ambitions were shattered in less than three days.

High fever.

Loss of appetite.

Unexplained pain.

It wasn’t for nothing that the original Leah had lost consciousness and passed away at age seven.

‘Dammit……!’

What she thought was a golden spoon turned out to be a poisoned one!

Feeling sick and cheated, she cursed at the world.

‘Dammiiiit……!’

Seeing their young daughter struggling between life and death and even cursing, the duke and duchess turned pale and called for doctors.

The doctors hesitated while reading the room.

‘The young lady was born very weak……’

‘Her qi and meridians are much weaker than normal people.’

Only one stern-looking doctor bravely drove the point home.

‘My lady’s metabolism isn’t that of a seven-year-old. It’s at the level of a seventy-year-old!’

Seven years old with a physical age of seventy – was this for real?

She was dumbfounded at the dark reality.

She had ended her last life young, and now in her second life when she thought she’d gotten a golden spoon to enjoy, she turned out to be the weakest of the weak.

The duchess was already wailing as if she had lost her daughter.

‘Our Leah, what sin could this young thing have committed!’

The duke, with reddened eyes, asked with a gloomy face.

‘Leah, our daughter…… is there anything you want to do?’

No, wait.

She snapped out of getting swept up in the atmosphere.

……These people are already trying to put someone in a coffin?

‘Mother. Father.’

When she called, both the duke and duchess fixed their gazes on her.

Her heart tingled, receiving such parental attention for the first time.

‘I really can’t die like this.’

At her words, the duke’s face looked like he’d been struck.

‘With money and effoort! Even if we can’t buy health, couldn’t we buy life?’

As the duke and duchess stared at her with round eyes, she tried hard to manage her expression.

I know. This isn’t something that should come from a seven-year-old girl’s mouth. But in this situation, can I afford to be picky about such things?

‘The doctors said there isn’t anything specifically wrong, just that I’m weak overall. Then we should try harder! Use lots of beneficial medicinal ingredients!’

The stern doctor interrupted.

‘Your body won’t be able to handle the energy from medicinal ingredients.’

‘But being weak isn’t a disease! With proper management, I can live long!’

‘That’s correct.’

‘T-then?’

To the duke who was holding onto hope, the doctor said.

‘We might be able to extend what would be five years to ten years.’

‘Oh no, Leah!’

The duchess wailed again.

Leah clenched both her small fists and looked down at them.

She looked around at the kind duke and duchess and the luxurious room.

She remembered her past life.

Rough hands unsuited for her young age.

Parents who demanded sacrifice while showing no interest in her.

The dark studio apartment she had escaped to, where cockroaches frequently appeared.

‘……’

Indeed, she couldn’t die like this.

She hadn’t lived out her full years in her past life either, and who knew if there would be a next life.

Would she ever get another chance to live loved and wealthy like this?

‘I’m going to live for a very long time.’

‘Your determination is truly admirable, but……’

Leah, who had gotten fired up, cut off the doctor’s words.

‘What will you do if I live more than twenty years?’

‘That would be impossible……’

Leah whirled around to face the duke.

‘Father!’

‘Yes?’

The duke unconsciously stepped back at her intensity.

‘Please make this doctor my personal physician!’

‘Really?’

‘Me? You mean me?’

Both the duke and the indicated doctor were surprised.

But Leah’s declarations weren’t over yet.

Her soul was a fresh possession from Korean capitalist society.

Those memories were telling her.

That while money couldn’t do everything, it could do many things.

That while money couldn’t buy health, it could buy life extension!

Leah shouted.

‘If I live past twenty…… please set up a clinic for this doctor.’

She drove her point home.

‘The best in the capital!’

The doctor unconsciously fell to his knees.

‘I will do my utmost!’

***

And twelve years passed until this year.

Leah Piert, nineteen years old.

The personal physician had become a slave to capital and worked diligently.

The ducal family’s money was invested generously in extending Leah’s lifespan.

A life saved with blood, sweat, tears, and money money money!

But despite everyone trying their best so earnestly, Leah was still weak as could be.

‘At this rate, the premium clinic in the capital’s prime location will slip away.’

The anxious personal physician convinced the ducal family and Leah to come for recuperation.

But on the first day of recuperation, Leah disappeared.

“The lady is missing!”

At the maid’s cry, the villa was turned upside down.

“The lady?”

The face of Knight Biden, who was responsible for security and protection, turned pale.

“Have you searched everywhere?”

“She’s nowhere to be found!”

“Where could someone so weak have gone? She shouldn’t be able to go far!”

Among the fretting employees, one knight spoke gravely.

“……Are we sure the lady left on her own?”

“If not on her own, then?”

“The hunters say that the strange sounds sometimes heard in this area are monster cries!”

“What?”

The personal physician’s face turned white. The others were the same.

If a swift monster had snatched Leah away, taking advantage of the busy situation with everyone running around the large villa…..

They shuddered as they imagined the lady covered in blood.

‘No!’