Chapter 04…
If even a small crack appeared in the mask, Desdemona would scream and cause a scene, so it had to be handled very carefully.
Fiorentia’s mask covered her entire face. The design hid all expressions. It made not only the people looking at her uncomfortable, but also the person wearing it.
But without this suffocating thing, she could never step outside her room.
It was the order of the head of the family, Desdemona.
—Never show your face. Do you understand?
Servants who had seen Fiorentia’s bare face were mercilessly killed by Desdemona.
That was why, in the Marcellar Ducal House, the servants called her the “Ghost Lady.”
The mask itself looked eerie, but the nickname also came from the fact that anyone who saw her real face might die.
The mask was decorated generously with milky-white pearls, gold thread, and lace.
“Desdemona really has bad taste. Giving something this expensive to someone she hates.”
Fiorentia gave a small laugh as she turned the mask around in her hands, then placed it on the dressing table.
Her half-sister hated her deeply, yet sometimes she would throw her expensive gifts as if giving charity.
It was probably because they had the same face.
Desdemona treated Fiorentia like she was her mannequin.
Since they looked exactly alike, if Fiorentia wore something shabby, it probably felt to Desdemona as if she herself were wearing it.
Well, that didn’t matter right now.
“That’s not what’s important.”
Fiorentia shook her head lightly, trying to clear her messy thoughts.
“Sigh… So this day has finally come.”
She closed her eyes tightly, as if she wanted to turn away from her dark reality.
This place was the world inside an adult, dark romance fantasy novel titled Honey of Despair.
She realized she had transmigrated into this world one month ago.
One day, for some reason, Desdemona was in a bad mood again, and Fiorentia was being beaten as an outlet for her anger.
In the inherited memories of this body, such things were normal. So she didn’t even bother thinking about why she was being hit that day.
But the blows were harder than usual. Fiorentia lost her balance and staggered.
As she fell face-first onto the floor, she felt a chilling sense of something being very wrong.
‘Why am I like this?’
With that thought, she saw something white rolling on the floor in front of her.
It was the mask Desdemona had given her.
The moment she saw it, it was as if lightning struck her. She realized she had transmigrated into a novel.
At the same time, memories that had never been written in the original book flooded her mind like waves—the memories of the body’s original owner.
Her name, her status, her personality, all the unfair treatment she had suffered, and her emotions.
She was drowning in an overwhelming flood of information.
Then she heard Desdemona screaming as if she were having a fit.
—You! Put the mask on right now! Aaaah! Put it on!
Ah. Right.
When she had been hit earlier, the mask had flown off.
—Put the mask on!
The sharp, piercing screams hurt her ears.
Even though she was confused and shocked, Fiorentia crawled across the floor toward the fallen mask.
She hurriedly put it back on her face.
Only then did Desdemona stop screaming.
Remembering that day, Fiorentia let out a cold smile and clicked her tongue.
“Still… ‘Honey,’ huh.”
Just thinking about the childish and embarrassing title made her laugh faintly.
‘Even if I go back to my original world and tell this story, I’d be too embarrassed to even say the book’s title.’
She had lived her previous life under the name Jo Miyeon.
She didn’t feel much attachment to that life.
She had been an orphan from the start. There was no one to help her, and life had only been harsh.
To make things worse, the deposit she had saved with great effort was lost to a rental scam. She also failed the exam she had prepared for a long time.
—How can life be this harsh? How am I supposed to live from now on?
After complaining about her situation, she spent her last remaining money on alcohol and drank heavily.
While walking home drunk, her legs suddenly gave out. She stumbled and fell—right into the road.
‘It seems I died in a traffic accident without even having time to avoid it.’
And of all things, she transmigrated into a novel she had read just for fun.
Life was truly unpredictable.
Anyway, Honey of Despair was categorized as a romance fantasy.
But you could barely find any “romance” in it. It was an extremely dark and depressing novel.
The male lead, Theodore, never ended up loving the female lead.
The female lead might have loved him, but he did not love her.
He had another woman in his heart—his so-called “true love” that he could never forget.
Because he buried that woman in his heart, the two leads were destined to never have a happy ending.
‘Even I, who usually enjoy reading trashy but cozy stories, couldn’t finish this one. It drained me too much.’
According to the keywords in the novel’s introduction, in Part 1 the female lead dominated the male lead, but in Part 2 the male lead took control and pressured the female lead. Since the main theme was a kind of revenge, their power dynamic eventually reversed.
As far as she remembered, neither of the main characters had even a small trace of kindness.
Before transmigrating, she had thought that was fine.
There are all kinds of people in the world, after all.
Why must only kind and righteous people be main characters?
So she accepted that the protagonists of a novel could be different.
But these two moved only by selfishness and revenge.
They endlessly destroyed each other, and in the end, they met ruin together.
And the male and female leads of Honey of Despair were none other than Fiorentia’s half-sister, Desdemona, and the man who had just beaten her brutally—Theodore Beringham.
Fiorentia let out a heavy breath and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
‘Honestly, this is all because of Desdemona’s madness. How can the head of a noble house imprison that man?’
If she hadn’t known his identity, it might be different.
But she recognized the intruder in the mansion from the very beginning.
Normally, in cases like this, the person would be detained only until their family formally protested and offered proper compensation.
But Desdemona didn’t even notify the Beringham Ducal House that their second son had caused trouble.
She didn’t say, “Your second son trespassed. Apologize and pay compensation if you want him back.”
Her family was neither poor nor lacking in power.
She simply decided to keep Theodore by her side.
—You’re too beautiful.
—Love me. I want your love. I want you to belong entirely to me.
The reason was simple.
His appearance was exactly her type.
Desdemona was obsessed with beauty—a true aesthetic fanatic.
In that regard, she could practically be called insane.
Because of that obsession, Theodore suffered extremely humiliating days in the Marcellar Ducal House.
No matter how much effort Desdemona put in, Theodore never opened his heart to her.
Hurt and furious, she eventually wanted to turn him into a living doll that could do nothing but breathe.
In other words, she planned to separate his soul from his body.
This was an experiment the Marcellar family had researched for generations for the sake of the imperial family.
The magic experiments were conducted in a place called the “breeding ground,” not far from the annex where Fiorentia stayed.
It was where Desdemona’s cursed dolls were kept.
The cursed dolls were vessels that absorbed and stored the madness and poison taken from the emperor, who had been cursed by a dragon.
They looked similar to the dummies knights used for sword practice.
If someone was cut or injured by these dolls, the poison would seep into their wounds.
That poison had the ability to destroy and torment a person’s soul.
Using that property, the heads of the Marcellar family had repeatedly conducted experiments to separate souls from living bodies.
But every test subject had simply died. Not once had they succeeded.
Desdemona believed the reason was that they had only used ordinary people.
However, it was not easy to find someone with physical abilities close to superhuman.
Then Beringham fell into her hands.
At first, she had no intention of using him for the experiment.
But because he refused her love, Theodore was turned into a sacrifice for her magical research.
The more he fought the cursed dolls, the more he gradually lost his sense of self and reason.
And during that time, the one who cared for Theodore was Fiorentia.
‘In other words, this body is the male lead’s first love.’
Unfortunately, she was also the one who would die and exit the story—only to push the male lead further into madness.
