“I cannot accept your offer.”

Johann’s low voice hovered around the ball hard. Dahlia looked up at his face in surprise.

A shabby piece of parchment rolled about the table. It was the divorce papers that the man just threw away.

Dahlia blinked with an expression of disbelief. He had a cold impression, but he looked embarrassed.

“Why, Johann? It was definitely a contract to divorce when the revenge was over.”

The contract was simple.

Helping Dahlia’s revenge. Dahlia will also help Johann’s revenge.

Until then, they will fulfil their marriage as partners, but when the revenge is over, they will return to their own lives in a clean manner.

“Because my mind is different from back then.”

However, Johann refused to ask for a divorce at once.

In the past, how much of a crisis the two of them have been through.

How many times did the two of them share their heart and minds each time they resolved a problem?

Johann had a hunch that my mind would not be different from his.

“I don’t think there’s any reason to divorce my beloved wife.”

It was a bland confession. It was a voice full of sincerity, but Dahlia’s face was tinted with mud.

‘No, we must get divorced.’

Everything. It was an embarrassing situation.

Dahlia knew the truth of this world better than anyone else.

Also, she hoped that the truth would not end as long as Johann did.

Johann wanted to have a happy future without knowing anything.

That was the choice of Dahlia who fell in love.

‘Johann will be left alone anyway.’

She tried not to love. However, it has come to an end.

So it was an inevitable choice.

God said, ‘The moment revenge is over, there’s only one person left in this world.’

From the moment she heard the oracle, she tried to somehow drive Florre into a hellish life.

She wanted to rest now, and leave Florre in this hellish world.

What Dahlia wanted was the end of Florre’s stay in this world and pay for her evil deeds.

‘I can’t stay here.’

Only when she left this place could she leave Florre in this world.

“I’ll send you the documents again. Please make sure to stamp it then.”

The back of Dahlia, who turned around pretending to be cold, looked graceful and elegant.

Even at this moment, Johann bit his lips gently as he responded without blinking an eye.

She was always elegant and cool and had no hesitation in her choice.

“I told you I wouldn’t stamp it.”

Johann, who trudged along, stood in the way of Dahlia.

It was a husband standing in the way of his wife, but at first glance, he looked so desperate that he was reminiscent of a slave to his master.

It felt even more so when a man was doing this to the whole empire, as cold as frost.

“Then I’ll ask for a trial.”

Dahlia was as cold-hearted as he was.

“Dahlia!”

In the end, Johann raised his voice.

He hated himself for losing his coolness when he kept standing in front of her, but he had no choice but to admit it.

‘I love Dahlia, Margaret.’

‘I can’t let you go because I love you.’

“Are you really going to break up?”

The desperate voice shook Dahlia’s eyes.

It wasn’t common for her to see a man wearing such a grim face.

She was well aware of the fact.

“There’s no way you don’t know my heart. You know it better than anyone!”

She also knew Johann’s mind. But Dahlia shook her head firmly.

“No, I don’t know.”

If she was not confident of accepting it, it was right to turn away from his love.

“I don’t want to know Your Highness’s thoughts in detail.”

A large palm held the woman’s sleeve.

The small, thin wrists were about to break.

Dahlia’s head dropped under the hard grip.

“Dahlia.”

“Johann, let me go now.”

A calm whisper pushed Johann away.

Dahlia shook his arm, and his hands helplessly fell far away.

She shook her head without a trace of regret.

“Now that I’ve had my revenge, I have no regrets about this life any more. Thank you for being so kind.”

You’ve been kind. It was a word that tightened his chest.

Johann had never been friendly to Dahlia.

The actions she said were friendly, distanced herself from Johann.

‘I’ll never fall in love with her.’

‘When the moment of decision comes, don’t let love distract you.’

But the wheel of fate led Johann to this situation.

To the future of loving Dahlia.

“I love you”

Dahlia raised her head in surprise. The man’s face, seen at a distant height, was awfully plain. That’s why it was sincere.

“What…?”

“I said I love you, Dahlia.”

Dahlia could not take her eyes off the face of a man, who was as straight as a sculpture, for a long time.

‘I never thought the day would come when he said love with his lips.’

In Dahlia’s mind, reflectively, the past time came up one by one.

Everything she went through in this world.

The day she tore the bookcase of this novel with her own hands and rebuilt it.

* * *

“Hey, did you hear the story?”

A maid, who was cleaning the long hallways, spoke to a colleague beside her.

”What story?”

“I mean Lady Dahlia.”

The two continued to clean the floor and exchanged conversations. The topic of conversation was a rumor that caught the most attention in the mansion in recent years.

“If it’s Lady Dahlia, she was sick a while ago. With fever.”

The maid glanced around her surroundings. It was to check if there were any secretly listening ears.

“I heard she’s changed since she got sick. It feel like she’s a totally different person or something.”

“What’s changed about her?”

The maid with glasses snorted and laughed.

“You know……”

Her head beckoned, asking her to come closer. As she listened, a secret whisper came.

“She’s….. become very nice!”1

It was an unexpected remark.

“What?”

The maid raised her glasses and soon laughed as if all she had heard were funny stories.

“Hey, you gotta lie right! Lady Dahlia has become a good girl? Rather, say the Earth is flat. Who believes that?”

Dahlia Margaret, the most prominent evil woman in society.

A woman who is second to none in society because she is as filthy as her beautiful appearance.

Even the two sides of the world could never change her dirty personality.

“Really? Yesterday Susan broke the vase by mistake, and that’s what she said…..”

The maid, who was fiddling with her hair, swallowed dry saliva. She looked very solemn.

“She just stepped on it with her feet!”

In front of the shocking confession, the face of the maid in glasses hardened.

“R, really? Did she break just a piece of the vase or did she not spill the water? The Lady didn’t even slap her cheek?”

She tried telling her all the imaginable evils, but the maid shook her head neatly.

“Yes! I just screamed and kicked her out of the room! Susan cried saying she didn’t know she was such a good person. I thought it was a lie too.”

“Is her fever still running?”

“The doctor said no. Since she was ill, her physical strength has weakened, so her temper may have softened due to it”

“Hey, you two.”

A familiar voice interrupted the noisy chatter.

Ack, the two maids looked back, hardened like stones.

“What’s so funny that you’re talking about it while cleaning?”

Deep night, moonlit rum glistening silver hair hung over the river.

A violet-colored pupil, as subtle as a rain flower, bloomed before dawn and dew.

Sharp eyes and elegant figure that remind you of a noble cat.

“M, miss.”

No other modification was enough to embellish the beauty of Dahlia Margaret.

The appearance was noble and holy enough to even forget about her nasty temper for an instant.

“Hurry up and clean up every nook and cranny, because my cough is severe.”

Quite a cold shot, Dahlia left with a calm gait.

The two, who had been struck, gradually blushed their frozen faces, and then went on a rampage when Dahlia disappeared behind the pillar.

‘Did, did you just see that?”

“I saw it, I saw it!”

The two of them made a fuss. They looked as bright as if they had seen the face of an angel from heaven.

“I can’t believe she just passed by! Of course I thought she’d kick the bucket or point out to look at the dust!”

“She must have gotten really nice. Oh, my God, that’s good. Did Goddess Sueton offer her a blessing?”

Dahlia, who had been hiding behind the pillars far away, was pale and fed up of their shuddering taunts.

‘No, when the hell did I behave nicely?!’

She felt crazy and her arms were crossed.

It’s only been a week since she decided to play Dahlia Margaret perfectly.

After that week, she was struck by surprisingly strange rumors.

The rare evil woman, Dahlia Margaret, became good after her fever.

‘What is the criteria for being good? Are you saying I have to get worse than this?’

Dahlia Margaret. She was a supporting character with only an explanation that she was famous as an evil woman.

Therefore, it was hard to know exactly what kind of evil she committed.

I tried to commit bad deeds in my own way, but compared to Dahlia’s previous moves, I wasn’t even able to get it on my fingernails.

‘How bad was she?’

Did she really have to slap the maid in the face? That didn’t suit her taste.

Dahlia walked out of the corridor in all sorts of agony.

‘It’s only been a week since I’ve been reincarnated in this rough world.’

Still, she had more to learn than she knew about the woman called Dahlia Margaret, who she had reincarnated as. Even though it was a book she had read to the very end.

Because Dahlia Margaret is not the main character in this world.

While interfering with the female protagonist, she was destined to die desperately, by being abandoned by the male protagonist she loved.

In short, she was an extra villain that will disappear forever, although she is quite important. It’s pretty miserable, too.

‘You think someone’s going to go with the original story?’

However, the current version of “Dahlia” had no intention of dying like the original version of the novel.

‘Ending my life pitifully was good enough in my previous life.’

“You’re here, Father.”

Dahlia hurriedly ran to his front. Count Videl laughed as he touched his moustache.

“I’ve been looking for you for a long time. I asked you to come to the reception room, why are you in the library?”

“I stopped by because I had a book to find. What’s the matter?”

He brought up a thunderbolt before Dahlia could sweep down her startled chest.

“What do you mean, I brought your sister. I told you last time, right?”

Dahlia’s eyes flashed.

Finally, the real heroine of this novel appeared.

“Has she arrived at the mansion?”

I imagined the face of the main protagonist and got lost in my head.

I didn’t remember the whole story.

Still, I couldn’t forget the appearance of the princess, who appeared repeatedly.

“I wanted to let you meet her in the reception room because I thought it would be nice to say hello first.”

Count Videl brought out an unexpected remark. Dahlia was stunned and hardened.

“You mean you brought her here? So where is she now?”

Count Videl nodded and looked back.

“Come on, come in this way.”

The sound of shoes echoed over the wide-open door.

The first thing she saw was a neat, plain green dress and Mary Jane shoes that appeared below it.

A small ribbon hung over the round brown-nosed shoes.

The shoes had all kinds of decorations, and they were clearly different from Dahlia’s shoes.

“Dahlia, this is Florre. Your younger sister, who’s going to use the Margaret’s last name from now on.”

The woman, who approached Count Videl’s side, raised her head with a shy face.

Dahlia took a deep breath and greeted the real protagonist of the story.

Dark brown hair like black tea and feverish chestnut-colored eyes.

She is so thin and clear-cut as if she would fly away even if the wind blows.

A voice sweet like honey, a soft touch like a bird’s wings.

She was as gentle and calm as she was described in the novel.

“Florre was living at the Western Galleria Farm. There are many things she doesn’t know about the life or manners of the nobleman, so please guide her well.”

Flore was born the only daughter of a commoner who was working in the Galleria Farm.

Her mother was a poet at an inn when she was a child, and had Florre while serving Count Videl, who had visited by chance.

She was a daughter, he did not even know existed until now because Count Videl was not meticulous enough to remember the one-night entertainment.

“Oh, hello. My name is Florre. Please take good care of me, Lady Dahlia.”

Florre, who lived as a commoner only a few days ago, naturally used honorific titles.

Dahlia looked at her appearance quietly.

If Florre was the main character anyway, she didn’t have to be harsh because she was so violent in the original. On the contrary, it might be better to help her get along with the male lead after being nice to her.

“Hi, Florre. You can call me sister.”

Therefore, Dahlia chose a different dialog than the original one.

As she carefully extended her hand and smiled, satisfaction came Count Videl’s face.

It was because Dahlia, who was his daughter, was vicious and prideful, he was inwardly worried about how she would receive Florre.

“Ah…. “

Florre hesitantly smiled at the greeting.

Florre’s hand, stretched out into the air, wandered without catching Dahlia.

Only then did Dahlia recall the setting that Florre Margaret had poor eyesight due to a chronic disease.

It was a symptom of fog in the field of vision.

“My hand is here.”

She smiled kindly and held Florre’s hand and asked for a handshake.

Florre also smiled, closing her eyes in a straight way to express gratitude.

It was the moment when the first meeting was about to end in such harmonious and gentle manner.

“……Huh?”

Dahlia’s gaze was momentarily fixed onto Florre’s sleeve.

Her beautiful face was suddenly distorted by shock.

She couldn’t recognize it at first as it was a completely different look and voice.

However, there was a scar on the back of Florre’s hand that only Dahlia could notice.

It was a scar that she left on the back of her hand a long time ago when she fought against Lee Su-yeon.

“What… is this?”

Dahlia unable to hide her trembling voice, blurted it out.

Florre, who smiling while shaking her hands, tilted her head.

“Yes?”

“There’s a scar, are you hurt?”

The moment she mentioned the scar, her smile, which was like an angel, disappeared without a sound.1

Florre was cold-faced and took away her hand. Her expressionless face was as dull as a mask.

“Oh, this is…..”

But that was only for a short time. Florre smiled awkwardly and replied as if nothing happened.

“It was a wound in the past, but it left a scar behind. It looked so bad that I was covering it with a sleeve.”

Of course, in Dahlia’s ears it was not seen as a normal reason.

“How did you get hurt?”

A cold intuition flowed. Dahlia instinctively began to doubt Florre in front of her.

‘So it turns out, Florre was supposed to meet me later in the original. Why did you meet me so suddenly?’

She recalled the original story gradually, mixed up in confusion.

In the original work, Florre was not brought to the library by her father’s hand.

Obviously, they had a proper meeting in the reception room, but they weren’t dressed up as ordinary people.

Only then did Dahlia feel that something was going wrong.

“Why do you ask that?”

Sure enough, Florre even said words that she would never say in the original.

“Is it strange as an older sister to wonder about her sister’s wounds?”

Dahlia hid her doubts that had begun to bloom and forced her lips up.

Count Videl, who was listening to the conversation by his side, also raised his eyes when he found something he did not like.

“Your way of speaking is impudent.”

Florre’s face stiffened with a heavy and firm remark.

“No matter how much you grew up among the common people….”

The treatment of Dahlia, who was reputed to be a beautiful and elegant lady, and Florre, who grew up as a commoner, could not have been the same.

At the statement of Count Videl, Florre flinched and gave a wistful look.

The drooping shoulder and brown hair reminded her of an abandoned dog.

“To be honest, in the past…..”

Florre had no choice but to confess the story she had been forced to hide.

“I once got stabbed in the back of my hand while arguing with a friend. This is the scar that was left behind.”

Immediately, Dahlia’s eyes widened. It was just a story that she couldn’t let go of.

“I apologize for answering so impudently because I was embarrassed. I can’t see anything, so when someone suddenly touches me….. I get scared.”

Florre wiped away the tears that had not formed, pretending to be his wife, and stamped the edges of her eyes with her sleeves.

Count Videl coughed out in vain at the reaction of Florre, who bowed her head.

On the other hand, Dahlia bit her lips with a sharper and more terrifying face than before.

‘I wasn’t wrong.’

It was because one hypothesis was confirmed by the recent attitude and the scar on the back of her hand.

The hypothesis that Lee Su-yeon might have reincarnated as Florre in front of her.

* * *

Come to think of it, it was an obvious and simple hypothesis.

Just as Cha Min-joo was reincarnated as Dahlia in the novel, the same could’ve been for Lee Su-yeon.

It was also a more plausible hypothesis because the two died together at the same time.

‘But this is too much!’

Dahlia entered the room alone and locked the door.

The hard-bitten lips were red and plump.

It was just as if a big bell had fallen over her head.

“I still feel like I’m going to die of injustice, and now you’ve been pretending to be clean as if you’ve forgotten everything?”

Lee Su-yeon imitates the behavior of Florre, forgetting all the bad deeds of her previous life.

Even being a heroine, waiting for a happy future.

It was difficult for Dahlia to admit that fact without a hitch.

Fortunately, Florre had poor eyesight.

Thanks to that, she didn’t recognize Dahlia at all.

“If I were careful to not expose the scar on the back of my hand, I can fool you like shit.”

Dahlia lowered her sleeve and hid the wound in the same position as Florre.

She too, had a different appearance from her previous life, so there would be no way to recognize her.

“If I stay calm… it will flow like the original story.”

Ever since she came into this world, she’s thought about it everyday.

To live a good life. To live happily. She didn’t have any of those futures.

‘If the opportunity comes, I will end my second life faithfully only for revenge.’

‘If I can, I will sweetly accept the role of villain Dahlia.’

God might have listened to her earnest prayer.

‘Now is that chance.’

Unexpectedly, Lee Su-yeon took part in the stage.

As long as she was on stage, she could not come down from the platform unless the story was headed to the end.

“How can I change my development?”

Dahlia looked down at the empty teacup on the table with a nervous face.

She didn’t intend to sit still and watch the story flow according to the original novel.

Somehow she had to dig a hole in the gap.

To hit the back of Florre’s head, who will be busy adapting without knowing anything.

‘But how?’

Dahlia stood up and approached the desk.

There were parchment paper and pens neatly laid out in the corner of the desk.

She opened the parchment and began to write calmly with a pen.

It was about a few events that she remembered clearly from the original work in her head.

“Will there be a debutant dance for the time being? Because that was the beginning of the story.”

A few days later, the debutant was to be held at the Imperial Palace.

According to the original prologue, Florre meets the male lead, the Emperor, there.

‘Shall we stop Florre from meeting the Emperor?’

Since she’d become the villain, there was nothing more she couldn’t do.

It was a good way to persuade my father to stop Florre from going to the ball.

“The problem is the Emperor and the Grand Duke.”

Dahlia, frowning, wrote the names of different men on the parchment.

Noel Hartor Cervian.

Johann Descartes Cervian.

Noel was the Emperor, and Johann was his brother and the Grand Duke.

‘Everyone, here and there are from the soybean flour family.’

(Note: Soybean flour family means a broken/dysfunctional family)

Dahlia thought it was funny, so she stomped her foot.

Dahlia and Florre are half-sisters, Noel and Johann are half-brothers.

Perhaps because it was a novel, the family tree was heated in Jung-gu District.

(Note: Jung-gu is the name of a district in Seoul)

“Noel, the Emperor, was supposed to meet Florre for the first time at the ball.”

That was the first meeting between the two main characters.

Noel becomes interested in the pure and honest figure of Florre.

The story of Florre, who figures out his qualities of a tyrant, was also going to slowly influence Noel as the story progressed.

“Who’s gonna let it flow like that?”

Dahlia crumpled the paper while recalling the original story, which was dotted with cliche.

She had to stop Florre from going to the ball at all costs.