Standing there was a man dressed like a medieval knight, with long gray hair worn loose.

He had pale skin, deep shadows beneath his eyes, and inscrutable violet eyes that stared fixedly at her.

‘Wait, this ridiculously handsome guy……? Is he determined to stop me from departing this dream?’

Despite what was going through her mind, Iseo’s eyes moved busily, taking in the man’s face and uniform.

The man, who looked as though he wouldn’t bleed a single drop even if stabbed, spoke bluntly.

“Linia Silva, His Highness Grand Duke Huslan commands you to present yourself at the Grand Ducal estate.”

The moment she heard that name, and the moment her arms were seized by the knights and she was dragged out of the cargo wagon, Linia realized something was wrong.

‘Seeing Huslan again is fine, but this feels way too vivid for a dream…….’

But just then, a single red notebook fell to the ground with a thud. It was a hardcover notebook with an antique design, once famous under names like “medieval notebook” or “magic notebook.”

Linia barely slipped free from the knights’ grasp and picked up the notebook as though drawn to it by some spell.

A fountain pen was tucked into the notebook. With a red feather attached at the back, it was a pen of equally medieval design. Even to her eyes, as someone who collected notebooks and pens in her everyday life, it seemed more than worthy of adding to a collection.

When she opened the notebook, on the very first page, alongside a drawing of a crown that appeared to be made of paper, a message appeared.

「You have been chosen as the ‘Savior’ of this novel. From this moment on, you are ‘Linia Silva.’ Please create a narrative with Grand Duke Huslan.」

At that instant, a white light flowed out and a white paper crown was placed upon her head. The crown quickly turned transparent and became invisible to everyone else’s eyes.

The thoroughly novel-like situation sent a thrill through Linia.

When she sat down on the ground and refused to budge, the gray-haired man apparently took it as defiance and coldly instructed the surrounding knights.

“Bind her with rope and take her in.”

“Yes, Adjutant!”

The knights swarmed toward Mari first and began tying her hands behind her back. Mari’s face went white as she cried out.

“L-Linia, Miss……!”

Seeing her trembling so violently she couldn’t possibly shake any harder, Linia felt a pang of sympathy, and at the same time, her own heart began to race.

On the off chance it might work, she quickly took out the notebook and wrote something before her own hands could be bound, just as Mari’s had been.

「The adjutant takes Linia and Mari to the Grand Ducal estate without binding their hands.」

That very instant.

The adjutant issued a new order to the knights.

“……Never mind. Take them both in without binding them.”

Linia’s eyes went wide.

‘This is actually coming true exactly as I wrote it in the notebook?’

When the knights approached and tried to grab her arms again, she collected herself and spoke with the graceful air of a queen.

“I will walk there on my own two feet.”

Linia walked with a dignified and composed bearing.

‘This is a line I’ve always wanted to say at least once. It’s so cool, the girl-crush female lead.’

The knights seemed slightly taken aback by her attitude and refrained from laying their hands on her.

Linia became fully immersed in the situation and walked alongside Mari, with the knights providing what could only loosely be called an escort, both in front and behind.

The garden of the Grand Ducal estate was dreary, like an abandoned cemetery. Gaunt, bare trees like those in winter were draped in every direction, looking almost like gravestones.

Even as she walked through the desolate garden where it wouldn’t have been strange for a ghost to grab her ankle and pop out to say hello at any moment, her steps felt as light as if she were floating.

This was the most enjoyable dream she had ever had in her life. She didn’t know when it would end, but she hoped it would at least end after she had seen Huslan’s face.

The adjutant and the knights sensed that she was no ordinary woman.

There could not be a single woman in the entire empire who could act this leisurely, as though on a pleasant outing, while being sold off to the notoriously infamous Grand Ducal household.

At last, when they stepped inside the Grand Ducal estate, the knights led the two of them off somewhere.

Soon, Linia sensed once again that something was wrong and blinked.

‘Hm? We’re not going to the drawing room, we’re heading to the dungeon……?’

By the time she came to her senses, she found herself with a blank expression, having been thrown into the dungeon together with Mari.

Linia swallowed hard.

A dungeon. She wondered if there was any other place that could make one’s heart pound quite like this.

Meeting Huslan over a peaceful and luxurious tea time would have been lovely, but a dramatic encounter like this didn’t seem bad either.

Even in a dream, she was fully prepared to dive headfirst into over-immersion.

Mari, who had comically face-planted onto the cold stone floor, welled up with tears and then desperately grabbed both of Linia’s arms, crying out in a voice that cracked off-key.

“Miss, what are we going to do now……!”

Linia quickly took out the notebook and checked it, hoping there might be something written inside. But the notebook was nothing but blank white pages throughout.

‘It told me to create a narrative……? Then if I freely write content here, does the next part of the story come to life?’

Linia picked up the quill pen and took a bold gamble in the notebook. The ink seemed to be running low, and she had to scratch lines several times before faint letters finally appeared, but the completed sentence was more than satisfying.

「Huslan falls for Linia at first sight the moment he sees her!」

It was a struggle to hold back the laughter that naturally threatened to escape.

Watching her smile and leisurely scribble something in the notebook, the guards outside grew even more visibly unsettled.

They exchanged glances with one another before roughly hauling the two of them to their feet and taking them somewhere. Mari cried out in fright.

“W-where are we going?”

“Hush, be quiet.”

At the adjutant’s frightening voice, Mari clamped her mouth shut.

The place they arrived at was an interrogation room.

“Your Highness, we have brought Miss Linia of the Silva Baron’s household.”

“……Come in.”

A low, heavy voice came from within.

As the iron door swung open, Linia’s eyes went wide at the sight of a man seated arrogantly in the distance.

Inside the dim interrogation room, the villainous Grand Duke Huslan sat in his chair with the imposing posture of a predator.

Dressed in all black from head to toe, save for his gray eyes and pale skin, he rested his chin in one hand and cast only a brief upward glance in her direction.

When their eyes met, Linia felt her heart give one great, heavy beat.

Jet-black hair and weary gray eyes. An arrogant, sharp expression. Even the way he sat with his legs spread wide in that haughty manner.

Truly, it was a perfect appearance and bearing.

The sight of him bleeding and dying had been undeniably attractive, but Huslan was at his most captivating and striking when he wore this sort of villainous, decadent look.

The subordinates behind her forced Linia and Mari to kneel before him. Even the sensation of the cold stone floor was vividly real.

Mari had already dissolved into a flood of tears, unable to even look at him, her head bowed as she trembled uncontrollably.

But Linia lifted her head and stared openly at his face.

Feeling inexplicably pleased by his exceptional looks, a smile formed at the corner of her lips without her even realizing it. Seeing that expression, his face shifted in a subtle way.

Immediately, one of the knights standing behind her called out sternly.

“How insolent!”

Only then did Linia obediently lower her gaze.

Huslan looked at her with the languid eyes of a predator sizing up prey placed before it before a meal, and asked.

“Why weren’t her hands bound? Silas.”

The adjutant was slightly flustered.

“My apologies, Your Highness. As they are ladies and not prisoners of war, I did not think it necessary to bind their hands for the escort.”

He bowed his head from behind.

Linia smiled inwardly, remembering that she had made it happen that way.

“Never mind. She’s not a threat, so there was no need to bind her.”

Huslan shifted his posture and sat with his legs crossed in an arrogant manner, then placed a thick cigar between his lips. A subordinate at his side immediately lit it for him.

After exhaling a long stream of smoke, Huslan asked in a slow, low voice.

“So, the wretched old man sold off his only daughter.”

At those words, Linia’s eyes went wide for the first time and her gaze fixed on the floor.

Huslan caught that reaction and asked.

“You didn’t know?”

To think that even within a dream, she had the setting of being sold off by her own parents. Her mood plummeted sharply all at once.

A dream involving Huslan was not supposed to become a nightmare in the slightest……

Watching her expression turn gloomy, Huslan said coldly.

“The Silva Baron’s household has already missed the repayment deadline more times than I can count. I’ve been more than lenient at this point. When there’s no money to repay, it stands to reason that one repays with their body, but to think he would actually sell off his own daughter…….”

He placed the cigar between his lips and let out a laugh of disbelief.

His words had meant to repay the debt even if it meant selling one’s organs, but apparently the baron had found his own body too precious to part with, and had sold his one and only daughter to him instead.

Linia thought of her own parents in reality.

Her father had saddled them with debt and fled abroad, and her mother had left Linia to bear all of that debt along with every living expense on her own.

Could it be that her reality had been reflected in the dream? Linia clenched her fist tightly.

Huslan leaned his head slightly closer toward her and asked in a languid tone.

“I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter, Miss Linia.”

He asked like a gentleman, but his posture was thoroughly improper.

At those words, Linia came to her senses and lifted her head to look at him.

Their eyes met.

But the moment Huslan saw Linia’s light green eyes, his gaze shifted ever so slightly.