She only knew about half of what would happen next, the people around her believed she had amnesia, and now she had to marry Luke and obstruct his future… Karin’s path ahead was fraught with obstacles.

‘I said I wanted to meet Luke, but… I need to figure out what’s going on first.’

Karin went over the original story’s development again.

The original novel was a romance fantasy about Alicia, a commoner, sharing love with Luke, a duke. 

Luke becomes engaged to Karin from a rival family due to circumstances, but in the process meets Alicia, who is Karin’s maid, and soon falls in love. 

Karin was the villainess who found Luke and Alicia’s relationship distasteful and constantly interfered with them. This was because Karin pretended to dislike Luke but actually liked him.

In the last part she had read, Luke declared his engagement to Karin broken, and the enraged Karin was plotting to trap Alicia and set fire to k*ll her.

‘No way, I won’t do it. I absolutely won’t!’

‘Karin’ had no intention whatsoever of killing someone for such reasons.

Moreover, following the typical flow of romance fantasy web novels, the ending would be the female lead Alicia’s happy ending, there would be a satisfying conclusion, and that satisfaction would likely be the villainess Karin’s devastating downfall. No, it definitely would be.

Knowing all this, why would she need to charge toward destruction like a mad cow?

‘First, let me get Alicia and Luke to meet face-to-face. Then they’ll naturally stick together on their own.’

It was quite a simplistic plan, but it was also a certain plan. This was inside a novel, a world where fate – someone’s predetermined story – existed.

If she knew that fate in advance and prepared for it, she wouldn’t become a sacrificial lamb for the satisfying conclusion like the original Karin.

‘Good. Let’s try that.’

Karin steeled her resolve.

When Luke’s side accepted the meeting with Karin, it was arranged immediately. It happened two days after Karin brought up the topic.

The maids helped Karin dress up. She wondered if there was any need to dress up when he wouldn’t even glance at her anyway, but if she went looking too rude and he refused to meet her, that would also be a problem. So Karin sat quietly while the maids applied makeup, changed her clothes, and combed her hair.

“How is this, Miss?”

The maids showed Karin the three-way mirror at the dressing table and asked in tense voices.

Now it was time for Karin to get angry, saying the eyeshadow color on her eyelids wasn’t to her liking, the blush was redder than she wanted making her look like a country bumpkin, the lip color was too toned down, and why hadn’t they carefully applied powder all the way to her neck.

But Karin barely glanced at the mirror and turned to the maids.

“Oh, it’s fine. But…”

This was a new pattern the maids were experiencing. Was she going to nitpick about why her hair looked so disheveled? The maids were swallowing nervously when it happened.

“Bring me the list of attendants accompanying me today. Include all the maids and servants without exception.”

“Yes.”

This was a completely new pattern of attack. Everyone except Karin tensed up, thinking she was now going to find fault with the attendants. One maid hurried out and soon returned with the attendant list from the butler.

“Here it is, Miss.”

“Mm. Thanks. Good work.”

Not noticing how the maids were startled by those words, Karin took the list and read through it carefully.

‘Alicia… Here she is.’

But it wasn’t Alicia Devrill as she remembered, but Alicia Ludden. The surname had changed.

‘Am I remembering wrong…? Or is there another Alicia?’

However, there was only one Alicia on the list.

Could she be a completely different person? When Karin looked at the maid with that thought, the maid who had been watching Karin closely flinched and quickly bowed her head.

‘Why are they acting like this? They haven’t done anything wrong.’

“Um, how many Alicias are there among the maids in this mansion?”

“That is… I don’t know the details, but among the maids serving you, Miss, there’s only one Alicia – Alicia Ludden.”

“Could you bring that maid here?”

The maid wondered why she suddenly wanted to see a maid right before departure, but quickly left before Karin could throw a tantrum.

Shortly after, the maid returned with a maid who had dazzling blonde hair neatly tied up in a single bun.

“I’ve brought Alicia Ludden, Miss.”

“Good work.”

Karin said perfunctorily and went toward Alicia, regardless of whether the maid was anxious about Karin’s continued strange behavior.

Alicia stood quietly with her densely lashed eyelids lowered and her hands clasped in front of her. She was a beauty with delicate facial lines and exquisite features harmoniously arranged.

‘Looking at her face, this must be the right Alicia.’

It was because Alicia was such a great beauty that even the ice-cold Luke had initially taken interest in her. Karin stared intently at Alicia’s face for a while, and what was meant to be a thought accidentally slipped out of her mouth.

“Why Ludden instead of Devrill?”

At those words, Alicia bowed her head slightly. She thought the question was directed at her.

“I apologize, Miss. I originally had the surname Devrill.”

‘I knew it!’

“Really? Then why did you change your surname?”

Karin asked without thinking. But Alicia’s complexion turned pale, and the maids looked at Alicia with disapproving eyes.

‘Huh? Did I say something wrong?’

“I have committed a mortal sin, Miss.”

Then Alicia knelt in front of Karin and bowed her head low.

Karin was dumbfounded. How was changing one’s surname a mortal sin?

“Why are you doing this? What’s this about?”

“As a maid serving you, Miss, I had no choice but to leave my post for personal reasons on the day when something unfortunate happened to you.”

“No, what does that have to do with changing your surname?”

When Karin asked in bewilderment, a maid who had been reading the situation approached and whispered in Karin’s ear.

“This woman got married while you, Miss, were hovering between life and death from your accident.”

“Oh, right, a wedding, what’s that… what?”

Marriage?

The female lead?

Karin’s thoughts momentarily stopped. The female lead got married? To some other man, not the male lead?

“What are you talking about? Why did you get married?!”

“Truly, I have committed a mortal sin!”

A scene unfolded where neither understood what the other meant, with one side shouting and the other apologizing. Karin finally realized this.

“No, getting married isn’t the problem…! Though getting married is a problem! That’s not it! Anyway, I’m not blaming you! But why did you get married?!”

“…Miss?”

The maids stared at Karin in horror, thinking she was possessed by a ghost, shouting contradictory things.

Regardless, cold sweat was running down Karin’s back. She had planned to toss the female lead to the male lead and enjoy watching the novel’s development while relaxing in the background, but what was this situation?

Karin jumped up and down until her feet hurt from the heels, then stopped and asked Alicia for confirmation after calming down somewhat.

“What’s your husband’s name?”

“…Anton Ludden.”

Alicia replied gloomily. Then the maid beside her whispered again.

“He was your guard knight, Miss, but was demoted for getting married at an inappropriate time.”

Karin knew that too. Anton was a sub-male lead who loved Alicia in the original story.

…And he had a passionate personality.

Passionate enough that she worried he might stab Karin if he found out she had pushed his wife in front of another man.

‘This is ruined.’

Hadn’t she dug her own grave?

Karin urgently looked around at the maids.

“Do I really have to go today?”

“Pardon?”

“That’s… a bit…”

The maids exchanged glances, clearly troubled while fearing Karin’s reaction upon return. Karin frowned and clicked her tongue.

‘Well, of course.’

When two rival families were getting married, they couldn’t create any grounds for criticism. Even if Karin threw a tantrum about not going after bringing up the meeting herself, it couldn’t happen.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

The maids braced themselves for Karin’s outburst, but Karin walked out of the room without saying anything.

The maids were bewildered by how quietly Karin had passed by, then hurriedly followed her out. One maid gave a hint to Alicia, who was still kneeling.

“What are you doing? Follow us out.”

Alicia also hurriedly got up at those words and followed behind the maids.

The meeting place was set at the Hurion ducal mansion. Since Karin’s body hadn’t fully recovered, the Aselidia side had made the concession.

However, Luke didn’t appear in the Hurion ducal mansion’s reception room for quite a while. Only Karin, anxiously wondering what to talk about, was going nearly insane.

‘Why isn’t he coming? Did he get an upset stomach or something?’

While Karin was having such thoughts, the reception room door suddenly opened and Luke walked in. Karin was startled and tried to stand up, but seeing that the maids weren’t moving at all, she remained seated.

Luke, with short wheat-colored hair and red eyes, strode over to the sofa and plopped down across from Karin. Then he looked at Karin with cold eyes, offering no apology for being late or self-introduction.

He just stared. With eyes that seemed slightly bored, looking at her like she wasn’t even worth harboring hostility toward.

Though her heart fluttered slightly at being looked at that way by a handsome man who seemed like he could blind you just by looking at him, the situation was bad enough that she quickly forgot about it.

‘Is this a game where whoever speaks first loses?’

Karin looked around at the suffocating atmosphere in bewilderment, but couldn’t find any decent solution.

“The roads must have been quite congested.”

Finally, the conversation began with Karin throwing out a pointed remark.

Luke chuckled.

“Well, I suppose the horses were considering the position of having to indulge an immature young lady’s tantrum. They were quite reluctant to move forward.”

‘Who’s immature?’

However, seeing how her parents, maids, and servants were surprised by her simply acting normally after entering the book, she could well imagine how widely known Karin’s ‘immature’ behavior was.

Karin momentarily frowned slightly but soon relaxed and actually smiled.

“Really? Is wanting to meet one’s marriage partner before the wedding an immature tantrum? Rather, isn’t it more like immature stubbornness when someone can’t even show the minimum courtesy of keeping appointment times with their marriage partner?”

Luke’s expression didn’t change at all. Encouraged, Karin pressed on.

“You already know that I dislike you. And you dislike me too. When people who dislike each other don’t want to meet face-to-face for discussions, that’s mutual, but if we must discuss things anyway, wouldn’t it be better to finish as quickly and thoroughly as possible? Am I talking about things that only work on adults?”

Karin paused there to catch her breath and took a sip of her drink. Luke stared at Karin like that and chuckled.