Chapter 1

In my dreams, I was always some fantasy-world lady, in a way that felt almost too consistent to be a coincidence. The details vanished the moment I woke up, but still.

So when I found myself transmigrated into someone else’s body, I wasn’t particularly shocked. As far as I was concerned, this was basically winning the lottery.

“Hooray!”

The reason for the transmigration didn’t matter. Lightning doesn’t need a reason to strike you on the street, and the lottery doesn’t either. It’s just luck.

Homesickness for my old world? Fortunately, none of that.

The company I’d worked at was a venture startup that made a dating app called ‘Dibs‘¹T/N: for context, the name of the app is 찜콩 (Jjimkong) in which 찜 means “to claim,” “reserve,” or “dibs” while 콩 is a cute sound effect. Three years of my life, gone.

A salary so pitiful it made you want to cry, and even that came in months late…… That’s all I’ll say about the place. I’m getting sad just thinking about it.

On top of that, my parents had zero interest in their daughter. They took every last coin of my hard-earned paycheck and funneled it into my brother’s civil exam prep, because he was the only son in three generations.

For the record, that guy was on his tenth attempt this year. Wasn’t it about time to give up?

Anyway. Thanks to all that, I had absolutely no attachment to my old life.

First things first, I investigated what kind of world this was. I’d consumed enough content across enough genres to feel confident I could place it immediately.

Surprisingly, this was not a world from any story.

The Kingdom of Alastair, famous for its magitech engineering? Never heard of it. The magitech manufacturing industry developed at a breakneck pace. The most famous trading house among them, Datinggale? Also an unfamiliar name.

And yet my name was ‘Raphindel Datinggale.’

“So I’m the daughter of a wealthy trading house master?”

At first, I was simply thrilled. Besides, the unwritten rule of transmigration is that you land in the body of the prettiest girl around, and I was, without question, the prettiest lady of them all.

What does that mean? Love with a dashing male lead…… Oh, right. This isn’t a story.

Still, even without a male lead, the odds were high I’d end up dating someone devastatingly handsome.

I punched my pillow with glee.

“Kyaaaa! Oh no, I’m too happy!”

Romance, something I’d never managed in my previous life, was finally within reach.

Yes. If I’m being honest, after the transmigration my head was full of nothing but thoughts of love.

I’d become the youngest daughter of a wealthy merchant family. What was the point of working? The only business worth pursuing was the business of romance.

I kept smiling, too happy to stop. Not a single doubt crossed my mind that a wonderful love story awaited me.

As I said, Raphindel was genuinely, breathtakingly beautiful. Allow me to give a brief introduction to the beauty of Raphindel Datinggale.

Soft pink curls that brought cherry blossoms to mind, porcelain skin, rose-colored eyes, and a voice as clear as a skylark’s song.

In a word, Raphindel was a head-to-toe, pink-and-lovely young lady.

What man could possibly not fall for her? As if to prove the point, marriage proposals were already arriving from every direction.

Which meant I could freely pick whichever man suited my taste and date to my heart’s content.

Woohoo!

……Or so I naively believed in those early days after the transmigration. A few days later, my hopes were shattered without mercy.

❀❀❀

It was an ordinary day of eating, playing, and sleeping. My father called for me out of nowhere.

“Raphindel, a suitable marriage prospect has come in for you.”

Not exactly shocking news. I already knew plenty of men had proposed, captivated by Raphindel’s beauty.

He’d said nothing about it until now, so I’d assumed he had no intention of marrying off his youngest daughter so soon.

‘How suitable are we talking?’

Honestly, I was a little curious. What if he turned out to be completely my type? In that case, I supposed I’d have no choice but to marry first and fall in love after. I smiled to myself.

Then my father placed a photograph on the table.

“This is Duke Vientai Manzajak.”

A chill ran down my spine. He was famous enough that even I, a transmigrator, recognized the name.

I grabbed the photo quickly. Nearly fainted.

Not because he was ugly, no. W, well, he could have a beautiful soul. But a middle-aged man? That was too much!

“Why are you making that face, Raphindel. Marry this man and you become a duchess.”

“……I believe the Duke divorced not long ago.”

He’d even been the one to commit adultery, which was why he’d been divorced. My father’s reaction suggested he saw nothing wrong with that.

“A man having many women is no flaw.”

“He’ll be sixty the day after tomorrow!”

“There’s no problem whatsoever with producing an heir. Didn’t he father a child out of wedlock just recently? A girl, I hear, but still.”

My vision went white. I’d thought this was a lottery win. It was not.

The reason the match was Duke Manzajak of all people was obvious. Father wanted to expand the business by benefiting from the kingdom’s largest mana crystal mine, which the Duke owned. Not to mention the connection to a noble house.

The Datinggale trading house master was the kind of man who used his own daughter as a business tool. If he’d been a doting father on top of everything else, this would have been a perfect lottery. Instead, it wasn’t just a losing ticket. It was a bomb.

“The Duke will visit tomorrow. Do not disappoint me.”

And he truly did come the very next day. Duke Vientai Manzajak.

He looked even worse in person than in the photograph. And he was far ruder than the rumors suggested.

“Scrawny thing. Looks like she’d be no fun to hold, let alone bear an heir. At least the face is passable.”

How could anyone say something like that? My jaw dropped in disbelief. And my father, that man, did nothing but fawn over him.

“She’s a healthy girl. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Mm, mm. And any men she may have been involved with previously……”

“Absolutely none.”

A wedding date was set. Two months away.

In that moment, the last thread of reason in my mind snapped clean. Rich family’s daughter or not, this was not happening.

‘I need to run.’

Of course, that would require money. What on earth could I do in this unfamiliar world?

‘Most magitech business ideas have already been claimed by our own family……’

Then it hit me. What I’d been doing before the transmigration. Dating app development.

The communication magitech of this world was severely lacking. It could shorten the delivery time of letters, but real-time conversation was completely impossible.

Of course, even with the knowledge I had, building a communication network connecting every citizen of the Empire from scratch would be impossible. But what if it were limited to a very small number of users?

People like unmarried adults dreaming of choosing their own partners in love. Surely many of them suffered under political marriages, just like me.

‘……I never thought the day would come when I’d be grateful to you, Dibs CEO.’

I’ll be borrowing Dibs. You did steal my paycheck, after all. Consider this repayment.

A very brief prayer concluded, I ran straight to our trading house’s magitech research lab.

❀❀❀

The Datinggale trading house’s main product line was magitech. The research lab was staffed with a number of skilled magitech engineers.

The most talented among them, in my eyes, was the lab’s youngest researcher, Asid. One year my junior, he had just turned nineteen.

Meeting him had been entirely accidental. I’d wandered into the lab looking for handsome men worth pursuing, and walked in on Asid being beaten up by his colleagues.

“Having someone like you as a coworker is genuinely embarrassing!”

His bangs covered half his face and gave off a gloomy vibe, his posture was too hunched, his stutter was irritating…… Every reason was more absurd than the last.

Nobody in the trading house cared. As long as the requested magitech kept coming out, what happened between the researchers was none of their business.

That was the kind of man the Datinggale trading house master was. But I was not.

Watching Asid get hit, the blood of justice flowing through me boiled over. How could anyone look away from the bullying happening right in front of them?

So I started showing up at the research lab constantly.

“Asid, are you busy right now? The clasp on my necklace broke, come fix it for me!”

Every time, I made up some excuse and pulled Asid out of there. I applied medicine to his injuries and put snacks in his mouth.

“That must have hurt.”

“I, I’m fi, fine.”

Each time, the half of his face that showed turned red as he bowed over and over, thanking me. He was unbearably adorable. I wondered if having a little brother would feel like this.

Then one day, stopping by to drop off snacks, I witnessed something astonishing.

Alone in the lab, Asid was effortlessly assembling a complex piece of magitech.

“Asid, that’s incredible! I heard that’s supposed to be extremely difficult?!”

“Pl, please. Wh, what you saw today, ke, keep it a se, secret. Miss!”

The situation, summarized briefly, was this.

His direct senior had been dumping his own work onto Asid all along. The man knew Asid was a genius. He also knew Asid was an outcast in the group.

He’d exploited that, consistently presenting Asid’s work under his own name. Which was why, until now, not a single person had known our boy was a genius.

I dug up evidence that the senior had been embezzling research funds and had him thrown out of the trading house. But I said nothing about Asid’s genius. Because Asid didn’t want me to.

At the time it felt maddening, but looking back, that was the best decision I ever made.

Because I planned to make Dibs with Asid and use it to escape this place.

I told him I was being made to marry a perverted adulterer. Asid’s pale face went even paler.

“H, how could they……”

“That’s why I’m asking you, Asid.”

I began explaining the concept of ‘Dibs,’ or more precisely, a dating app.

Being a genius, he grasped it perfectly even though apps were a concept that didn’t exist in this world at all.

“So, so to put it simply, it’s a ma, magitech device for me, meeting a partner through ch, chatting.”

“Exactly, that’s it. You really do catch on fast!”

My precious boy. Tell him one thing and he understands ten. I patted him on the head. Asid startled violently.

“M, Miss……?!”

He clearly wasn’t used to being praised. My heart ached. I’d have to give him plenty of it from now on.

I passed on every piece of knowledge I had about the app to Asid. Leaving out the part about another world, of course, and covering with a vague explanation.

Thanks to my clever Asid, Dibs development went smoothly. A sample device was expected to be ready before long.

All of this was possible because the trading house people paid Asid so little attention. Too bad for them when they eventually beat their chests in regret over losing a genius magitech engineer.

But a few days later, a shocking turn of events made the reason to continue the Dibs business disappear entirely.

My fiancé, Duke Vientai Manzajak, was suddenly and brutally murdered by someone.