Chapter 76
Right after hearing his confession—after even receiving an apology from him—a new carriage arrived in front of us.
People who looked like subordinates of Rixion Luhanes rushed over, and amid them, I boarded the new carriage with him.
Still somewhat dazed, I took the hand Rixion Luhanes offered and climbed inside. He followed me in right after.
Until the carriage arrived in front of the Christener Marquisate, we didn’t exchange a single word.
Rixion Luhanes and I sat diagonally across from each other, staring out the window the entire ride.
“Then… please get home safely.”
He finally spoke after we arrived and he helped me down from the carriage.
Before I could even gather myself enough to thank him, I obediently went inside the mansion, just as he said.
“Miss! When on earth—no, how did you even get out?!”
When I turned back while receiving the near–fainting welcome of the old butler, I saw that Rixion Luhanes still hadn’t left. He stood there quietly, watching me enter the estate.
When our eyes met, he returned that same calm, faint smile.
As if being chased, I hurriedly averted my gaze and turned away.
Until the butler closed the door behind me—until I was finally free of his gaze—I couldn’t relax my stiffened body even a little.
Because I had slipped out secretly and returned late at night, the entire household erupted into chaos.
“Are you out of your mind, you little—?!”
Michael, who had already gone to bed, rushed out upon hearing the news and scolded me until my ears rang.
With my mind clearly not in the right place, I kept repeating that I was wrong, over and over again.
Sensing something was seriously off with me, Michael eventually told me to go to bed and that we’d talk more tomorrow.
I returned to my room, changed, washed up, and lay down on my bed.
And until dawn broke, I did nothing but think—again and again—about Rixion Luhanes.
I turned the incident over endlessly in my mind, full of questions and without a single conclusion, until I finally fell asleep just as the morning sun rose.
“Get up right now, Elizabeth Christener.”
It was already past noon when Michael, who had returned home briefly from the trading company, summoned me and delivered another round of scolding.
“If something like this happens even once more, I’ll tie you up and lock you in your room. I mean it.”
I made excuses about sneaking out because I wanted to see the festival, and this time, I even submitted ten pages of a written apology.
That evening, after Michael returned from work, I received a third scolding—and a full twenty-day house arrest.
I accepted the punishment without complaint.
Even then, my mind still hadn’t fully returned from wherever it had run off to.
“…?”
My head was filled with nothing but question marks, and I barely touched my food.
By the time Michael, the old butler, Melitta, and Anne—and eventually all the servants in the household—noticed something was wrong with me…
“Ah—hello!”
I was mindlessly shoveling down cake Melitta had brought for me when an unexpected visitor arrived.
The visitor was someone completely unforeseen. The moment I heard the name from the butler, my half–checked-out mind snapped back into place.
Even though I’d only met her once, briefly, those obsidian-like eyes that had etched themselves deeply into my memory stared straight at me as she spoke.
“Do you remember me? We bumped into each other at the festival a few days ago…”
Ji Eunha.
The female lead of the original work, The Saintess of Erendel, had come to see me in person.
What… what is this? What is actually going on?
Trying to calm my chaotic thoughts, I lifted my teacup and took a sip. Then I set it down and naturally raised my gaze again.
I half-hoped that if I looked again, Ji Eunha—who had come to find me—would turn out to be nothing but a hallucination.
Of course, no such miracle occurred.
Ji Eunha sat across from me on the sofa, making no effort to hide the curiosity in her gaze.
Her eyes scanned me from head to toe, and it was honestly uncomfortable.
But there was no malice in them—only pure, unfiltered curiosity—making it hard to say anything about it.
I stared at Ji Eunha with eyes that still couldn’t quite believe she was really here.
I’d thought this before when I first saw her, but Ji Eunha was truly—unfairly—beautiful.
The world I’d come to was filled with dazzling beauties, but she had an entirely different kind of allure, one that made it impossible to look away.
Perhaps because I was born Korean at heart, if I had to choose between this world’s peerless beauties and Ji Eunha’s K-pop–idol-center-level looks, I’d choose her without hesitation.
This is insane. Seriously. How can someone look like that?
No—calling her “idol center–level” wasn’t enough. Ji Eunha was beautiful enough to crush every idol center I’d ever known and stand proudly at the very top.
Large eyes framed by soft double eyelids, a high, straight nose, full lips tinged with red, and clear, pale skin untouched by makeup.
It was a cliché, but she looked like a porcelain doll crafted lovingly by a master artisan—beautiful and adorable in every way.
Yes. Beautiful enough that no one could help but fall in love with her.
As I stared at her in a daze, I furrowed my brow.
But…
Why was that person—who should have already lost his mind over Ji Eunha by now—not acting like it at all?
Why isn’t he acting that way toward Ji Eunha, but toward me instead?!
Why was I even thinking lines straight out of a K-romance-fantasy transmigrated heroine’s script?
Just when Ji Eunha had finally appeared and I thought things would start following the original story… what on earth was all this?
“I like you.”
“Elizabeth. I like you.”
No matter how many times I replayed it, no matter how often I thought it through, I couldn’t understand it.
Why me? Why?!
And maybe it would’ve made sense if Ji Eunha hadn’t appeared yet—but now that she had, shouldn’t he be looking at her instead? If I were a man and had to choose between me and Ji Eunha, I’d choose Ji Eunha without question!
Wait. Could he have been messing with me? Just trying to tease me or something?
I desperately tried to activate my internal coping mechanism… but soon let my head droop.
I wanted—so badly—to believe that, but it was impossible.
Even the densest, most oblivious person in existence wouldn’t be able to look at Rixion Luhanes’s face back then and think that confession was a lie.
Even someone clawing their way up from hell itself would’ve known his words were sincere.
Ha… how did things end up like this?
Just when I thought I’d escaped the worst-case scenario, the worst of the second-best options appeared right in front of me.
Worse still, something I’d never even considered as a possibility had happened, and my head throbbed.
Rixion Luhanes likes me? Does that even make sense?
I was so stunned I couldn’t even speak.
No—why would the original male lead choose me over the original female lead?!
“Um, you are Lady Elizabeth Christener, right?”
A voice just as lovely as her appearance broke in.
After we’d been sitting across from each other, quietly sipping tea, she was the one who initiated the conversation.
“Sir Eric said it would be fine to address you like this. Is that correct?”
“Ah—yes. ‘Lady Christener’ is fine.”
I quickly answered, letting go of the teacup I’d been fidgeting with.
“That’s a relief. Everyone here has such long names—I was worried I wouldn’t remember them properly.”
Ji Eunha smiled shyly, clearly pleased by my response. Then she hesitated, glanced at me cautiously, and added,
“And also… to be honest, I was really nervous because Lady Christener is so beautiful.”
At her words, delivered while she lowered her gaze to her teacup as if embarrassed, I made an awkward expression.
I wasn’t exactly lacking in looks myself—but being praised by Ji Eunha of all people made me wonder if she actually meant it.
I decided to let that uncomfortable compliment slide.
“But how did you know to come here?”
Since we’d exchanged introductions, I asked the question that had been bothering me since the moment she’d shown up at our mansion.
At my question, Ji Eunha rolled her large eyes around and made a troubled expression.
“I asked Sir Eric and the others to look into you for me. I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable. But I really wanted to meet you somehow…”
Sir Eric and the others? The knights who’d come with her earlier?
I’d assumed Rixion Luhanes had told her about me, so I tilted my head in confusion.
Her subtle attitude when explaining how she found the place, and the fact that Rixion Luhanes wasn’t among her escorts earlier, suddenly struck me as odd.
As far as I knew, Rixion Luhanes was under imperial orders to stay close to Ji Eunha at all times as her guard.
So the fact that he wasn’t by her side, even though she’d left the palace, was strange.
“What about him? Why did you only come with the knights?”
“Him?”
“The Duke of Luhanes.”
When I asked bluntly, Ji Eunha’s already large eyes widened even further.
“Ah.”
And then, she quietly averted her gaze.
