“You will marry the duke, Laritte Brumayer.”

The older man had adopted a habit of the previous head of the house, tapping on his desk with his finely crafted quill as he spoke. Laritte stared at the gloved hand holding the quill.

Memories from her childhood rushed to her head, for Laritte feared those white gloves. Any mistake she made resulted in a beating.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Of course, father.”

She replied to the Count in a clear, meek tone with no hint of malice. Her half-sister, Rose, stood behind the Count and observed the situation.

She burst into a fit of laughter.

“Did  you ever dare to dream that you’d become the duchess? You’re an illegitimate child… be grateful to father.”

Laritte, who’d only been watching the Count’s hand, finally looked up. Her strange yet sparkling blue eyes stared at Rose.

Rose hated those eyes. Those eyes were of a color that did not belong to the Brumayer family, and yet they felt so piercing.

‘Laritte will answer obediently, as she always has.’

That was the type of person this illegitimate child was. No matter what Rose did, in the end, Laritte would always respond obediently. She was like a straw doll with no choice but to remain in its house, even if that meant it would be torn and broken by its cruel owners.

But this time, Laritte reacted differently and retorted in a clear yet soft tone,

“Of course. Thank you, father. The Duke I will marry has been robbed of all his wealth, accused of treason, and has died on the battlefield. How can I dare to be devastated about my marriage to such a ghost Duke?”

For the first time, the doll rebelled against its owners.

Rose’s eyes widened, expression panicked. Laritte laughed at her.

‘Are you shocked?’

They really believed she’d continue to act stupid though she no longer had any obligation to be obedient to this family.

This was it. Laritte Brumayer’s life would soon end. Because, just as they said, her marriage was a lost cause.

Rose, who was a year older than Laritte, was originally marrying the Duke.

Unlike the bastard child Laritte, Rose’s mother was the Countess and Rose was the beloved daughter of the Brumayer family. She fell in love with the Duke at first sight and proceeded to ask her parents to marry him.

At that time, Duke Reinhardt was someone everyone respected.

A minor flaw of his had been that he had no interest in any woman before his marriage. But Rose was sure she could melt his heart with her beauty.

The Count’s family struggled day and night to fulfill their daughter’s request, and at last the marriage contract arrived.

But there was one problem.

As a swordmaster, Duke Reinhardt spent most of his time on the battlefield. Adding to that, he had been killed by a prisoner while preparing to come home from the war. Rose had only just been married legally, but ended up losing her husband before she could begin to live with him.

This wasn’t the end.

A butler brought forth evidence of the Duke Reinhardt’s plan to rebel.

Fortunately, the Brumayer family was cleared of those charges. However, the Brumayers had already received a huge sum of money from the marriage contract. Count Brumayer wished to expand his business, and in order to invest, he needed this marriage contract to be fulfilled.

In order to uphold the contract, he had to send a bride. But the household couldn’t let their precious Rose go.

That was why Laritte would be getting married instead.

She had been born to an unknown mother and was neglected by the Count. Laritte spent her whole life as if she were an uninvited guest trying to eat at a dinner.

Now, Laritte would no longer be tormented by her half-sister. Instead, she would spend the rest of her life alone with a dead husband.

Rose didn’t even feel an ounce of guilt for her sister. Rather, she was glad that the bastard child she had seen as a speck of dirt would be leaving the house.

Therefore, she didn’t even hesitate to hit Laritte who spoke back to her.

“Are you using a sarcastic tone with me? You lowly wench!”

Pak! Smacked by the furious Rose, Laritte’s cheek turned red. However, no one in the office was surprised.

Since the beginning, the option to ‘hit Laritte’ had always been there for her family. Although there were words unsaid, even the maids had never dared to strike Laritte before.

It was then–

Shockingly, Laritte who had lived under the Count obediently for seventeen years, had done another unexpected thing.

She clenched her slender hand before striking Rose right on the head.

“Ack!”

“I’m not the lowly one here. It has always been you who hits people recklessly, Rose.”

Laritte no longer needed to obey her. Marrying a ghost of a Duke meant death. It meant being kicked out of this house with nothing. Laritte was sure this family would not give her any support.

“You are absolutely insane!”

Rose flew at Laritte. The two pulled and yanked on each other’s clothes before the Count jumped out of his seat. He grabbed at Laritte’s hair.

“We fed you and gave you a roof to sleep under, yet you dare touch your sister?! You know nothing about respect!”

“Kyaa!”

The Count dragged Laritte who was screaming over the carpet and started beating her. He mercilessly stomped on her with his feet.

“Dad, beat that wench until she’s on her last breath!”

Rose was heaving in her fury, unable to control her breathing. Laritte bit the Count’s ankle as he approached her.

“Aak!!”

“I wonp mwet anywann weat ee ike dog swit no mwar! (I won’t let anyone treat me like dog shit no more!)”

Laritte put all of her strength into her jaw as she bit down.

The Count violently stomped on her head with his other foot and she fell off of him with an unidentifiable lump of flesh and blood mixed in her mouth.

 Ptui! She spit it out as she glared at him with a blue glow in her eyes. Now, Laritte Brumayer was a beast that no one could  touch.

The Count and Rose sat in confusion as they witnessed Laritte’s transformation. She was no longer the meek girl who accepted being treated like trash.

After that, Laritte became the Duchess.

Laritte arrived at a house placed right in the heart of a mountain of a secluded, rural region.

This old and abandoned house was the final estate left to the Dukedom. Larritte had to live here alone.

“Hey, get your luggage.”

The Count’s coachman threw the baggage to Laritte’s feet. Before she could even reply properly, the coachman scurried back to the carriage and spurred the horse.

Used to being ignored, Laritte didn’t give it much thought. She had just decided to leave, so she had few belongings.

Laritte picked up a large stone from the ground and threw it at the carriage’s wheel.

“Hiiiiing!”

“Uwak!”

Both the carriage and the driver toppled to the ground. Terrified, the horse got loose and fled. With no idea what caused the carriage to flip, the coachman gave chase and limped after the horse.

“What the everlasting ****! Asshole, where are you running off to?!”

She watched the back of his head and listened to his insults before walking over to the house.

‘It’s not as bad as I thought it’d be,’ she thought.

Her husband was accused of treason, though his estate itself did not disappear.

The Reinhardt estate was punished by the imperial family after the Duke died, on grounds of treason. Some of the involved family members had been executed, and most of the estate’s assets confiscated.

Of course, it was to set an example.

The Reinhardt family’s servants were fired and forced to scatter. Since the Duke’s wife could not produce an heir, Laritte was on her own.

Anyways.

The royal family didn’t ‘seize all the estate’s assets’ since this two story villa still belonged to the Dukedom!

‘This is my house. My very own house lies here.’

Even if it took half a day to get to the nearest village. Even if the house itself was old, filled with cobwebs, kinda leaky, and a little drafty since no one had lived in it for a time.

Where’s the roof though?

Thinking it wasn’t as bad as she expected, Laritte moved in.

620 years ago, the Iyasa continent unified and the Empire was born.

The Brumayer family supported the Imperial family in their rise to power and accumulated enough accomplishments to be considered a founding contributor to the Empire.

However, the current generation of Brumayers lacked power, as seen in their current status of Count.

But now, with a daughter married to Duke Reinhardt, a man second in power only to the Imperial family, the Brumayers hoped to see the light once more.

‘…That’s what I thought.’

Count Brumayer felt regret when he thought of the current situation over dinner.

On the table was the family chef’s ‘Beef Steak’, magnificent enough to be called one of a kind. It shone brightly yet he couldn’t bring himself to lay his hands on it.

Rose, too, felt depressed about their situation.

Everytime she closed her eyes, she could see Duke Reinhardt’s shimmering form, just like how he had appeared to her three years ago.

When the continent of Iyasa had unified for the first time in history, the Empire prided itself so highly that it kept the name.

In the heart of the palace laid the first banquet hall.

The ceiling in the corridor leading to the banquet hall towered above the banquet goers. The intricate carvings on the ceiling was, in royal fashion, decorated brilliantly with gold.

Below that ceiling, Rose encountered the Duke for the first time.

‘…Ah!’

His hair was so black it seemed to absorb all the light, standing out in that bright corridor. Beneath his hair were the world’s purest gold eyes, appearing aloof and detached. Though his eyes were narrow, their masculine beauty matched well with the finely tanned muscles outlined by his shirt.

“I can’t believe such a Duke passed away…”

Rose lamented and tormented the steak with her fork.

Although there were some women who had never seen the Duke, it was said that all women who’d met him would fall in love with him.

The few swordmasters in the Empire were nicknamed ‘the murderers’, but the Duke did not care for such things as others did.

“I’m confident I could have melted his heart.”

“Quit speaking of the Duke! We should not even be using that traitor’s title!”

The countess, who had been quietly eating, put down her salad fork as a threat.

“But mooooom…none of this makes sense? He was killed by a barbarian in the western sea! Plus, the war was nearly over!”

“There were various circumstances involved in his death. We have to let him go. Your father was able to circumvent the marriage contract thanks to that illegitimate child.”

“Ahem!”

The Count deliberately interrupted the conversation by clearing his throat. The Countess wiped her mouth with her napkin but continued to speak.

“Who would have guessed that lowly wench none would consider a Brumayer could be so useful? She resembles that crude dancer from head to toe. With her fulfilling the contract, we won’t have to return the Duke’s money to the Imperial family.”

Laritte had been sent to the Reinhardt dukedom for no reason other than to allow the Brumayers keep the Duke’s money.

“That’s right! She must be rotting in a ditch somewhere, right?”

All that remained to the dukedom was an old villa in some corner of a mountain. Laritte had been sent there with no support. All she had to do now was die a miserable death.

Rose was extremely happy.

‘Laritte was the only stain on the otherwise happy Brumayer family.’

Rose may have disliked her father who sired an illegitimate child, but she loathed Laritte even more.

It annoyed Rose to no end that Laritte lacked the typical Brumayer characteristics. Rather than red hair and freckles, Laritte resembled her dancer of a mother with her pale skin and silver hair. And those were traits that any noble girl would envy at some point in their lives.

‘Adding to that, her eyes…’

Her blue eyes resembled the ocean, yet they felt so similar to Duke Reinhardt’s golden eyes. It was that cold look, as if she were looking down on you! That expression had been the reason why Rose tormented Laritte more in the recent days.

“I can’t wait to get rid of the corpse.”

No one at the table knew that Rose was talking about Laritte. But still, no one scolded her for her choice of words. It was clearly demonstrated here how Laritte had been treated.

Surprisingly, for the first time in her life, Laritte was able to spend her time relaxing. She already knew what the first thing this abandoned house needed was: firewood to fight off the chill of the night. So, with all the money she had left from the Brumayers, she purchased firewood before leaving for her new home.

“Look, what a complete fool, right? Hahaha!”

That’s what Rose told her as she was leaving. Rose was aware that she was heading to the mountains where trees were plenty, so why would she need firewood?

Rose ignored Laritte until the very end. In truth, Rose was the one who didn’t know what the outside world was like.

In the Empire, it often drizzled. If Laritte were to pick a branch off the ground, even the smallest bit of dampness would have made it impossible to light with a flint.

If that happened, Laritte would be fighting the cold on her very first day in the mountains.

‘It’s autumn and already this cold…’, Laritte thought as she entered the house and lit the fireplace using her wood.

She had already realized this fact when she was six years old.

While living with her birth mother, Laritte had to pick herbs from the mountains in order to make money.

Most of the herbs had been useless weeds, but she couldn’t help it. The alternative was to be home, where her mother could bear her.

And once, just once, Laritte had gotten lost in the mountains.

As a little girl she’d somehow managed to gather enough branches to survive the cold. But one day, a violent storm wet the branches. They could no longer catch fire.

She had clung to those branches for dear life, succeeding in lighting them and starting a fire only when she was on the brink of death.

“Phew…”

Larrite, who had been distracted by her old memories, looked around. The inside of the villa was very dusty and had a spooky feeling. The furniture was old, so it would have been unsurprising if a ghost popped up out of nowhere.

She felt drowsy as she sat on the wheelchair, doused in sunlight. There was no other heaven than this to her.

With both her biological mother and the Brumayers, Laritte had always felt like an uninvited guest and never spoke up about her treatment.

“I should start cleaning before having dinner,” she mumbled as she lifted herself from her seat.

However, she wasn’t foolish enough to use the villa’s kitchen. It looked as if it hadn’t been used for decades.

This was the chance for the second item she had prepared to shine. Laritte dug through the luggage that the coachman threw at her.

In the bag that Count Brumayer gave her were some lumps. They were potatoes.

But these potatoes weren’t for ordinary people. They were great potatoes that even aristocrats would not have been bored of to eat as a side dish.

Potato salad, cream and caviar garnished with baby potatoes, potato pizza, gnocchi… there were infinite recipes she could make, but unfortunately Laritte could not afford that luxury. All she’d managed to steal from the Brumayers were some potatoes and some spices.

Instead, Laritte made ‘roasted potato’, a substitute of a meal that farmers often ate. Laritte sprinkled salt and pepper and let it cook by the fireplace.

Laritte held the potatoes to the fireplace and watched as they cooked, staring at the fire with an empty look. Before long, she stretched herself.

“Up we go,” Laritte said to herself.

While the potato was cooking, she felt like she needed to do something else.

In fact, Laritte had a lot of work to do.

Washing was a non-issue since there was a stream in the valley nearby. But people ate three meals a day, and Laritte didn’t have an infinite supply of potatoes.

So, like what the Brumayers and Laritte originally believed, she was supposed to die here. But that wasn’t going to happen.

She looked around the villa. There were treasures hidden under a gray layer of dust so thick that it even hid the original colour of the items.

Laritte walked past an old rug that was about to fall apart and stood in front of a cabinet filled with spider webs.

Originally, it had been a cabinet that held expensive dishes. All the priceless items it once held had already been confiscated by the Empire, so all that remained was bowl shaped dust.

But her ‘treasure’ was still intact. It was the storage cabinet itself.

“Look at this nice design,” she mumbled. She swept her fingers across the wood inside the cabinet that must have belonged to the Duke before. If she sold it, she definitely would have enough money for a month’s worth of potatoes.

Unconsciously, she hummed as she explored the living room to see what other furniture she could sell.

“You’d be worth fifty pieces, twenty pieces, thirty-five pieces…What’s this? I’ve never seen anything like it before. Wonderful, that’d be seventy pieces.”

Everything would at least be enough for her to live off of before she found another means to make money.

Now, food and shelter were settled. It would have been quite embarrassing if Laritte ran into Rose and the Count after she’d thrown herself at them like a maniac. But Laritte would never regret what she did that day.

To reach the nearest village, Laritte would have to walk along a one-way road on her tiny feet. She considered disassembling her furniture and returned to her spot beside the fireplace.

Before she’d even realized, the potatoes were emitting a strong aroma, announcing that they were ready to be eaten. Laritte used a skewer to grab one of her cooked potatoes.

“Ack, hot.”

While waiting for the potatoes to cool, Laritte cut the steaming potatoes in half. She watched as the soft inside dribbled out of the golden, baked skin.

After starving all day long, her parched mouth finally felt sweet relief. The well-seasoned potatoes kept Laritte occupied for quite a while.

Coming back to her senses, Laritte realized that the potatoes she had prepared for tomorrow were no more.

“When have I ever eaten this much?”

While living with her birth mother, Laritte considered herself lucky to even eat one meal a day. But usually, those meals her mother fed her were bad and left her sick and throwing up for the rest of the day.

“I’m fed up with this disgusting leech!”

Laritte’s mother screamed those words the day before she disappeared and abandoned her to the Brumayers.

She’d been abandoned when she was eight years old.

Although she didn’t have the Brumayers’ signature red hair or freckles, the Count had still recognized her as one of them. The younger Laritte believed they were good people who accepted her.

But they weren’t good people. They took her in simply because the nobility had a means of identifying illegitimate children and their fathers.

But at least, from the moment Laritte entered the Brumayer household to when she left, she had never gone hungry.

On special days or when Rose was feeling generous, she’d get to sit at the table. However, most of the time, she ate alone in her small, secluded room. Sometimes, if the Countess was in a bad mood, Laritte’s meals were their wasted food. She had stolen food from the kitchen once as well, avoiding eye contact with the servants.

But it hadn’t been all that easy. The servants were no strangers to seeing Laritte with a stomach ache, but helping her was inconvenient for them, and so she would be ignored.

Laritte ate with the Brumayers only because those meals were her only chance to be served fresh meat. She would have no other opportunities to eat anything as nice.

Laritte patted her stomach, too full from eating today’s and tomorrow’s potatoes, and got up to go find water. It was her first relaxing and full meal in a long time.

The last few weeks had been the most peaceful time of Laritte’s life, despite her sore feet from trekking to the nearby village.

She wasn’t too bothered lugging her wares down to the village, and felt the same way about today.

Laritte hummed while she walked back to the villa with her newly purchased vegetable seeds, planning to grow around the house. If the soil doesn’t freeze, these seedsy might grow some roots. Laritte decided to give it a try as a past-time.

Laritte felt like she’d aged wonderfully when she opened the door to her villa. She was greeted by a burning candle illuminating her house. Gone were any traces of cobwebs, dirt, and bugs.

This was the result of her constant cleaning.

Though the villa was quite large and spacious, Laritte had already given up on the second floor early on in her stay. While the first floor was inhabitable, she couldn’t say the same about the rest of the house.

She hastily and skillfully checked around the house before preparing for the night.

“Winter is approaching quickly,” Laritte murmured as she opened a window to ventilate the villa.

Before Laritte knew it, fall was nearly over. This meant that she would finally be able to put to use the firewood she’ds been collecting over time.

She tossed some firewood into the fireplace and decided to make herself some stew to celebrate the long day.

The cooking method was simple. Taking out a rusty but still functional pot, she removed all the blood from meat she recently bought.

Laritte shook her head when she thought of how many potatoes were sacrificed to buy this piece of meat. After peeling the potatoes and carrots, Laritte took out her secret weapon.

She believed that the most important thing in beef stew was the spices.

While taking out the bay leaves and the pepper, she remembered what the market lady had told her.

“Listen up, newly-wedded lady. If you add this, it’ll taste real good. Ya gotta stir-fry the meat and vegetables and add in this bay leaf…”

So she took the lady’s advice and plucked some of the leaves.

Kwang! A knock sounded at the door.

No one besides Laritte ever came to this house. She was so surprised her heart nearly stopped. She wiped her hands clean and ran to the living room.

“Who is it?” She murmured, it was an old habit she couldn’t let go.

It couldn’t be someone from the Brumayers, right? At this time, they must have believed she already died and sent someone to clear her dead body.

Unfortunate for them, she was still breathing.

Not too long ago, Rose had yanked on her silver hair for a good amount of time. Today, her hair was as shiny as a gland of honey.

And Laritte’s arms? She finally gained enough weight to be considered human. Thinking of the Brumayers erased her current healthy image of herself, bringing back memories of her once bony self.

If the Count were to find out how well she’d been living, he might take away her house. Laritte placed her dishcloth on the table as she agonized over the situation.

“Do I need to mess up my hair?”

Suddenly, Laritte noticed something.

While she worried, there had been no additional sounds coming from the front door. Perhaps it was just a mountain animal passing by.

Laritte approached the door with trepidation, pressing her ear against the crack of the door. There wasn’t a single sound to be heard, but her thoughts did not calm in her happiness.

“Maybe a sparrow lost consciousness after hitting itself against the door?”

Actually, that might be it! She didn’t know whether or not she could help the bird though, because she really just owned potatoes. Cautiously, she opened the door.

And in front of her was… a man.

Her first impression of the man was ‘big and tall.’ So tall that even if she were to lift her head, she would barely be able to see his face.

Then, the smell of rusty iron penetrated her lungs. The man was covered in a mixture of fresh and hardened blood.

Is he alive? Is he dead?

He stood there unmoving, and even his fingers were completely still. It was as if he was a knight standing in the middle of a battlefield.

After a few seconds, he opened his mouth slightly.

“……”

A small, scratchy sound came out. Laritte narrowed her beautiful eyes and listened closely to catch what he was saying.

“……”

At that moment, Laritte saw the dark and gloomy man’s eyes.

Golden eyes! Those were one of the traits of the Iyasa Empire’s Imperial family. Before her was a man with golden eyes, dark eyebrows, and thin eyes. Laritte had a feeling she knew just who this person was.

He might be her husband. Just like the Imperial family, Duke Reinhardt also had a long lasting history–

He was a figure who stood on the battlefield as the Empire’s very few swordmasters. His reputation had been tainted when evidence of him staging a rebellion was brought forward at the time of his death…

‘Traitor.’

“Nanny…?”

While she was thinking, he spouted out this word. His voice was husky and he sounded like he hadn’t spoken in weeks.

The man’s eyes were blurry and seemed out of focus. He was certainly looking at Laritte, yet muttered a name for someone else.

His body, which had been standing tall like a tower, suddenly stumbled. The man slowly fell forward.

Without thinking, Laritte caught him. His body felt frozen, perhaps due to the late autumn night. She was only able to keep him upright by holding onto him with all her strength. Then, he murmured something in her ear.

“I…”

A strange sensation came over her.

Though his voice felt so dry, he sounded like he was crying.

“I didn’t do it… nanny.”

By the end of his sentence, he was completely unconscious.