The Villain's Sickly Wife Dislikes Being Overprotected - Chapter 1 .1

I was born with a weak constitution.

Even doctors couldn’t diagnose my condition. No matter how many tests they ran, they couldn’t find the cause.

There were no similar cases to mine, and the test results were always clean.

It was as if I alone suffered from a disease that didn’t exist in this world.

Without even a name for the illness, naturally, there was no known treatment.

It was a life where I never knew when or where I might collapse with a nosebleed or coughing up blood.

Still, except for these intermittent symptoms, I was fine, so I managed to adapt and live on.

Then one day, I had a dream.

“Don’t you want to escape this wretched illness?”

It was a Western man who looked like he had jumped out of a romance fantasy novel I had read recently.

What’s with that dazzling, almost transparent silver hair and medieval attire?

I must have been too immersed in the novel. To the point of even dreaming about it.

He was a man who shone as if under a spotlight in a space as black as the universe. His silver hair fluttered in a breeze from somewhere unknown. He reached out his hand to me.

“Isn’t it hard? I can help you get better. I’ll solve your problem.”

What’s this all about, out of the blue? It sounded like something a con artist or loan shark would say, making me wary.

I alternated between glaring at his outstretched hand and his handsome face.

“I’m managing to live, even if I’m sick.”

“Then I guess you don’t need my help?”

As if you could help, being just a character in a dream.

“In novels, people who say things like that always end up betraying you.”

In my dream, I scoffed at the silver-haired man making suspicious claims.

“Well, if that’s how you feel, there’s nothing I can do.”

The man shrugged his shoulders as if he wasn’t disappointed and turned around.

“Let me know if you change your mind. When we meet next time.”

That was it. He disappeared gradually, promising a next meeting, and I woke up.

What a strange dream. I should be wary of getting too immersed in novels for a while.

The brief dream with the silver-haired man was thus forgotten, dismissed as insignificant.

And a few days later.

On my way to the hospital, I was hit by a possession truck.

***

Even before opening my eyes, the bed felt unusually soft and cozy.

My bed at home doesn’t embrace my body this comfortably.

Thinking it strange, I slowly opened my eyes. It was an unfamiliar ceiling.

“W-what’s this?”

Sleep vanished in an instant. I sat up abruptly in bed, trembling.

The place where I was lying was a large, antique-style room. A European-style room full of intricate decorations, frames containing paintings you’d expect to see in an art gallery, a huge bed in the center of the room…

Wait a minute. I’ve seen scenes like this many times before.

Could it be, a romance fantasy cliché…?

Waking up startled in a large medieval-style room is such a standard romance fantasy trope.

I traced back my memories from before waking up.

I was on my way to the hospital for a regular check-up, following the familiar route.

Having let my guard down on a path I’d traveled all my life, I ended up being hit by a fast-approaching truck.

Did I possess a romance fantasy character because I was hit by a truck? Then was that silver-haired man in my dream some kind of precursor to possession?

I glanced down slightly. Sure enough, instead of my original black bob, I saw lustrous blonde hair that was dazzling to look at. I really had possessed someone.

Wait a minute… What did that silver-haired man say? Something about freeing me from this wretched illness?!

My hand, which had been fiddling with the ends of my hair, went limp.

Ah! I finally understood the true meaning behind that con artist’s words.

He meant he’d free me from my illness by having me possess someone here!

Isn’t that right?

Usually, in romance fantasy possessions, you live in a completely different world with a new appearance and a new body. The pains of your past life become just that – the past.

Suddenly, I felt invigorated. Now my body wouldn’t be the weak one from my past life, but the robust body of a novel character!

Filled with expectation, I properly examined my surroundings again.

Judging by the lavish room, I must be a noble. Healthy and rich? It couldn’t get any better than this.

On the bedside table, there was a small frame. Inside was a couple and a young girl, all with the same blonde hair as me.

Given the similar hair color, it seemed to be a portrait of me as a child with my family.

Just in case, I opened the drawer of the bedside table. Fortunately, there were no medicine bottles or anything like that inside. I must be a healthy person.

After this initial reassurance, I pulled the bell cord. It was time to confirm exactly who I was.

As soon as I pulled the cord, a maid entered immediately.

“Are you awake?”

Judging by her respectful attitude, I felt hopeful that my life in this world would be comfortable.

“You know my name, right?”

“Pardon?”

“Could you tell me my name?”

Her eyes filled with confusion.

“Your name?”

“Yes.”

“My lady, why are you being so scary… Are you feeling unwell?”

The maid’s words grated on me like a foreign object.

Unwell? This body is newly born.

“Not at all, I’m not sick in the slightest. So please answer my question.”

The maid still looked like she couldn’t understand what was going on.

“You’re the Duchess Ekette Dermond…”

Ekette… Dermond?

I don’t quite remember the name Ekette.

I pondered over the romance fantasy novels I had read recently, and then let out a small exclamation, “Ah!”

I remember Duke Dermond. Kyron Dermond. He was the villain in a novel I read recently, wasn’t he?

I still can’t forget the shock when he, who was thought to be a supporter of the female protagonist, the saint, until the middle of the novel, was revealed to be the villain.

But did that duke have a wife? I couldn’t quite remember because she was hardly mentioned in the novel.

Still, as a Duchess, she must have lived in a good environment and be healthy.

I decided to be satisfied with that.

In the novel, Duke Dermond is someone who severely betrays the female protagonist, the saint, and even kills the second male lead.

He was probably so busy playing the villain role that he didn’t even have time to sit down and eat face-to-face with his wife.

From the start, the time he spent at the duke’s mansion was extremely short. He was always outside, plotting and executing his plans.

So, the Duchess was a character with zero presence, who hadn’t even properly appeared in the novel.

Aha, so I’ve possessed the wife of a busy and indifferent husband.

“Not bad.”

As I muttered to myself, the maid who was still beside me became flustered again.

“W-what is?”

“Just something.”

Rich and healthy, and even able to live quietly without getting involved in any incidents.

Moreover, the husband rarely comes home.

That means I can do whatever I want in this mansion. Without anyone’s interference or health constraints!