“It’s a miracle! How did they find their daughter after 15 years?”

“I know, right? A miracle happened in the Hemington family. To think they found a daughter they thought was dead!”

The front page of today’s newspaper featured this story prominently, and people gathered in small groups on the streets were all chatting excitedly about Rebecca Hemington.

“My acquaintance’s son’s friend’s younger sibling works at the Hemington residence, and they say that when the daughter returned, the Countess wept and rejoiced so much that everyone watching shed tears.”

“I heard the Count declared he would donate to the temple every year.”

“Fifteen years… where on earth was she all this time?”

“Oh, haven’t you heard? Well……”

Since I already knew the whole story, I walked past the crowded newspaper stand and headed toward the main street.

In our house, there’s a romance novel called “” that only my mother and I can read.

That novel begins with the female protagonist, Rebecca Hemington, being kidnapped and returning to the Count’s family after 15 years.

Just like today’s issue.

She returns home and has an emotional reunion with her family, but the female protagonist’s hardships were just beginning.

Having grown up as a commoner in a poor area, she faces rejection in high society for a while, enduring contempt and harassment. The poor family who raised her shows up, clings to her, and demands money.

The Count’s family goes bankrupt, the Count dies, and other unfortunate events occur, but behind this misfortune lurked a villain.

The cruel villainous Grand Duke who sets traps and drives the female protagonist to rely on him.

“Still, if she endures a little longer, she’ll have a happy ending with the Prince.”

My romance didn’t have a happy ending, though.

I dated Kaien, a brown-haired foreigner from neighboring Magris, for three months.

It was a relationship I started to get rid of a viscount who had been following and harassing me, but when I heard that the Viscount had gone down to his territory, I broke up cleanly with Kaien after three months, with neither of us having any lingering attachment.

I did have lingering feelings, but I couldn’t show them.

He didn’t seem to have feelings for me.

With his handsome face, good manners, and sturdy build that made him dependable, he would have been a perfect lover if we had been in a real relationship, but I couldn’t trust him enough to think about the future.

He said he came to Ingmier’s capital for work, but throughout our relationship, he concealed his personal information. Whenever I asked what he did for a living, where he worked, where he lived, and so on, he would say:

“If I tell you, you’ll have to take responsibility for me.”

He would smile languidly and say such cryptic things.

In the end, he never told me, so I concluded that this person had no feelings for me.

Wouldn’t anyone think the same in that situation?

I decided to end the relationship before my feelings deepened further, and when I told him I wanted to break up:

“While you want me this much?”

He kissed me passionately and lifted the hem of my dress.

His hands moved so quickly that in an instant, he entered my vulnerable spot and began to move.

His enormous c*ck splitting my body.

His hand gripping my br*ast as if trying to seize my heart tightened.

Swept away by the overwhelming sensations, I surrendered my body to him and shook helplessly. I cried out in pleasure. I had to embrace him powerlessly.

“Ivy, I need time to think calmly. Let’s pretend I didn’t hear what you said today.”

After our passionate time together, Kaien left with those words. There has been no contact from him for two weeks since then.

I thought we were quite compatible, but it ended so emptily.

Still, he seemed to enjoy his time with me.

“I thought he would either hold me back or tell me his identity, but it can’t be helped.”

His quite—no, extremely—handsome face and body came to mind.

Though not as rugged as Worden, the unemployed neighbor, his body was firm as if he had trained for a long time.

With his black eyes and appearance that would make anyone turn to look, his cool gaze even when smiling, if his brown hair hadn’t offset that coldness, I would have been reminded of the villain in the novel.

“Nothing is more futile than thinking about a man who’s gone.”

“Construction in progress, please go around through the side alley.”

Suddenly, the workers who had been gathered blocked my path with planks.

The person right in front of me had passed through without any problem.

Though the road was wide enough for a carriage to pass, when I tried to go around to the side, they blocked my way again as if to stop me.

“Oops, sorry. We moved while working.”

“We’re a bit busy, so please go around through this alley. You can go this way.”

Other people were walking around the construction site just fine, so why only me!

Not wanting to argue further, I entered the alley they pointed to.

They had kindly placed signposts for the detour.

Wanting to get out of the narrow alley quickly, I quickened my pace, but at a different fork in the path, I heard a clang, the sound of metal hitting metal.

“Cursed Blemer! Die!”

“Your Grace! Please step back!”

“How amusing. To think you’d dare attack with such meager skills.”

Cursed Blemer? Your Grace?

There’s only one person called that in Ingmier.

The unfortunate Grand Duke who returned alive from the Forest of Demonic Beasts at age 7, and whose parents died in a carriage accident the day he returned.

The Blemer Grand Ducal family has been cursed for generations.

Known as the Black Dragon’s curse, it manifests in another Blemer when the afflicted person dies. Currently, officially, no curse manifestation has appeared yet.

Though people suspected Grand Duke Blemer was afflicted with the curse, without confirmation, they feared him.

No, he’s a person who hides and endures the curse so that people would think that way.

In “The Man of the Lady Who Returned,” the villain who obsesses over and torments the female protagonist is none other than that “Cursed Grand Duke Blemer.”

That person is here?

He should be hunting demonic beasts in Lindal, adjacent to the neighboring country of Magris.

“Well, since Rebecca has appeared, he must have returned to the capital.”

The Grand Duke’s whereabouts attracted people’s attention even if you covered your ears.

When children played, the villain role was always the cursed Grand Duke, and when parents scared crying children, they would say, “If you keep crying, the cursed Grand Duke Blemer will come to take you away.”

Since I had never seen him and he was a character in a novel, I felt curiosity rather than fear.

[He was like a fragment of the night. Even in darkness without a single light, his black hair and black eyes gleamed and flashed.

If there were a demon, wouldn’t it look like this?

As if craving her breath, his gaze swept over Rebecca’s face, stopped at her lips, and rose to her eyes.

Rebecca froze under his cold gaze and could only look up at the man for a while.

Not knowing that she had become the target of a persistent and beautiful hunter.]

The novel described their first meeting in such elaborate detail.

It used so many flowery expressions, saying the word “handsome” wasn’t enough, that when I first read it, I mistakenly thought he would end up with the female protagonist.

“I wonder what he looks like. It would be difficult to be more handsome than my ex-boyfriend Kaien.”

This isn’t boasting but an objective truth based on facts.

Although we broke up, my ex-boyfriend Kaien truly had an unforgettable appearance by anyone’s standards.

His brown hair suited him well, but when he stood in the darkness, his hair looked black, making his presence even more explosive.

“I should at least know his face to avoid getting entangled with the novel’s protagonist.”

Making a flimsy excuse, I peeked my head in the direction of the sound.

Three masked assassins were swinging their swords at a man.

“Die, Blemer!”

Despite the unfavorable situation of 3 against 1, the black-haired man wearing a cloak exuded confidence even from behind.

“Is that the Grand Duke? Dangerous!”

The moment the assassins’ swords all pointed toward the Grand Duke, black smoke extended from his body and attacked the assassins.

Due to the smoke moving like limbs, their necks twisted sideways like dolls, and their legs broke in the wrong direction.

“So that black smoke is the curse!”

I watched with fascination, inwardly impressed.

The imperial family’s curse that originated from defeating the maddened Black Dragon in Ingmier’s founding history.

As clear evidence of being cursed, black smoke appears, and it sometimes shows a fearsome power that can turn living things to ash.

“Oh my, Your Grace. We have a witness.”

At the sound of laughter coming from beside me, I quickly stood up to find a slender man with light brown hair, his eyes smiling like crescent moons, looking down at me.

The man with a delicate face spoke dangerous words while smiling broadly.

“Your Grace, she saw the curse. How should we handle this?”

“I, I……”

I was about to say I didn’t see anything, that I knew nothing, but when I saw the Grand Duke’s face as he turned to look at me, I was speechless.

“Ivy Rabbit.”

Even when I heard it in the alley, I thought the voice sounded familiar.

The cursed Grand Duke Blemer narrowed his eyes and smiled coldly at me with exactly the same face as my ex-boyfriend Kaien Black.

With black hair instead of brown, the face I knew well.

“Well, Ivy. You’ve discovered my identity.”

“Ah, so this is the lady who ‘was’ dating Your Grace. Fortunately, you’ve broken up. It won’t cause much heartache to dispose of her.”

“Hmm, what should we do, Ransel?”

Between the Grand Duke talking as if he knew me and the man called Ransel smiling and threatening to dispose of me, I was even more confused.

As I backed away cautiously, my back hit the wall.

What was Grand Duke Blemer’s full name again?

He laughed and said it was the same name as Kaien…

“Grand Duke Kaien B. Blemer.”

My ex-boyfriend was Kaien Black.

The two names suddenly merged like lightning.

Kaien Black Blemer.

“Ivy, you’ve seen my curse that I’ve been keeping secret. Are you scared?”

He laughed silently.

“This is why I didn’t tell you.”

The Grand Duke spoke as if he were Kaien, my ex-boyfriend.

“Goodness…… Kaien, you’re the Grand Duke?”

Kaien’s eyes, which had been quietly taking in my face, flashed, and I felt the surroundings grow darker.

My whole body trembled as if cold water had been poured over me.

Like a rabbit facing a huge predator, I couldn’t breathe from fear.

“Yes, I am Grand Duke Kaien Blemer.”

He’s the villain!

I turned around and ran as fast as I could. Sweat broke out in fear that a hand would reach out from behind and grab my head at any moment.

I pulled my dress up to my knees and ran for my life.

“Wh-what do I do……”

My jaw trembled so much that my teeth chattered.

When the villain falls in love with the female protagonist, he schemes to win her love.

He approaches her kindly, pressuring her surroundings so she will ask him for help.

He threatens her friends (blackmail),

Causes the Count’s family to fall into ruin (fraud),

Kills the female protagonist’s family (solicitation of murder),

And when he still can’t have the female protagonist, he kidnaps and imprisons her.

In the end, he becomes the worst villain, rampaging and threatening to destroy Ingmier, consumed by the curse.

“He’s going to kill me!”

“Oh my, Your Grace, she’s running away? What should we do?”

The Grand Duke had been hiding the fact that he was cursed, but I saw it.

“Ivy, you cannot escape me.”

Though distant, Kaien’s voice reached me clearly.

That line is the first line showing his obsession with the female protagonist!