Except for the fact that I had been abandoned, I was just an ordinary citizen of South Korea.
Ah… maybe that alone already made me far from ordinary.
My parents never felt something called “love” for their child as I grew up, and when I turned five, they abandoned me at an orphanage.
After that, I practically raised the younger kids at the orphanage while somehow managing to get a job myself.
That day too, I had been harshly scolded by my boss and was only getting off work close to 11 PM.
“Doesn’t he have his own hands and feet?”
Maybe he’d fought with his wife that morning, because he was especially irritable today.
Not only did he dump paperwork and errands on me, he even ordered me to pick up his son from the academy. Because of that abuse of power, my work piled up and overtime became unavoidable.
“Ugh, screw you!”
I flipped off the night sky with a middle finger that would never reach my boss anyway.
That was when it happened.
Honk— Hooonk!
A horn blared in a quiet alley where such a sound should never have been heard.
When I turned my head toward the noise, I saw a motorcycle with no visible driver.
“Uh… huh?”
The motorcycle sped toward me without slowing down at all, and in the next moment my body was flung into the air.
At that moment, I thought:
“My life seriously sucks…”
And then everything went dark.
1. Becoming Roxina Tanzeric
“Ugh…”
I shivered from a coldness no dead person should have been able to feel.
Even though my entire body was wrapped in soft blankets, chilly air seeped through tiny gaps, forcing my eyes open.
And the luxurious sight before me left me speechless.
“Where… am I?”
Gasp!
The childish, slurred voice startled me so much that I immediately covered my mouth.
‘Is this some aftereffect of the accident?’
That seemed like the most reasonable explanation, so I tried speaking again.
But the strange pronunciation remained.
“What the heck…?”
Knock knock—
“Miss, may I come in?”
A young woman’s voice came from outside the door.
Startled by the unfamiliar voice, I instinctively curled up, but the woman—unaware of my panic—knocked again after receiving no answer.
“Miss, are you still asleep?”
‘What should I do?’
I still didn’t even understand why I was alive. Meeting a stranger felt unsettling.
‘If I stay quiet, maybe she’ll just leave.’
Thinking that, I pulled the blanket over my head.
But then I heard the door open.
‘Huh?!’
The woman’s voice grew closer. Even as I sensed her approaching, all I could do was tremble under the blanket.
“You can’t oversleep today. It’s the day you’ve been looking forward to so much, so you need to wake up quickly.”
‘A day I was looking forward to?’
There had never been such a thing in my life.
I never celebrated birthdays because I considered them the beginning of my misery, and Christmas without Santa was nothing to welcome either.
So what was she talking about?
Curious about her mysterious words, I finally peeked my head out from under the blanket.
“Miss, you’re finally awake!”
The first thing I saw was a foreign-looking woman with brown hair braided neatly into twin braids.
Her uncommon appearance and fluent Korean shocked me enough to make me stutter.
“Wh-who…?”
“Miss, there’s no time for jokes! The Duke will arrive soon!”
‘Miss…? Duke…?’
The woman helped me up while saying things I could barely understand.
“Please hurry and get up. Even starting now is cutting it close.”
She smiled brightly and pulled a cord hanging beside the bed.
Immediately, three more women wearing identical clothes entered the room.
“There’s not much time. Hurry!”
Under the direction of the first woman, the three maids began changing my clothes.
I was so stunned that I could only stand there with my mouth hanging open.
“All done!”
The women finally stepped back, their faces full of satisfaction.
“Miss, you look just like a doll!”
The youngest-looking maid held up a square mirror, and my eyes widened at the reflection inside.
‘This is… me?’
When I widened my eyes, the child in the mirror widened hers too.
Round pale cheeks, jet-black hair, and vivid blue eyes no Korean could naturally have.
She was even more delicate and beautiful than the expensive doll a classmate once bragged about at school.
‘What happened…? I definitely died after getting hit by that motorcycle.’
Even in my confusion, I touched my face as if possessed.
The maid must have thought I was still half-asleep because she set the mirror back down.
“Ah…!”
“You can’t stay in your room today. We just heard the Duke passed through the mansion gates!”
She sounded genuinely panicked, so I couldn’t continue admiring my unbelievable appearance and could only click my tongue in regret.
“Wow…”
Following the maid, who seemed anxious about being late, I stepped out of the room.
High ceilings, dazzling chandeliers, and corridors covered in burgundy wallpaper stretched before me.
Staircases sparkled as though dusted with gold powder, while antique portraits and landscapes blended seamlessly into the walls.
While I was distracted sightseeing around the mansion, the maid hurried ahead and gestured for me to follow.
“Miss, quickly, this way.”
Inside the grand hall stood rows upon rows of people dressed exactly like the maids.
Some nervously bit their lips, while others bowed politely with practiced smiles.
The countless servants lining both sides of the carpeted marble floor resembled the inauguration ceremony of a company chairman straight out of a drama.
“M-Miss? Why are you here…?”
A man standing nearby widened his eyes in surprise just as the massive doors opened.
Light poured through the doorway in a dramatic backlit glow, and everyone lowered their heads.
“We greet Duke Heinox Tanzeric, head of House Tanzeric.”
‘What?’
Heinox Tanzeric.
The familiar name instantly sent chills down my spine.
Because that was the name of the hidden villain from the novel I had read right before dying:
Please Don’t Pluck That Flower.
The empire’s hero and the overwhelmingly powerful Duke of House Tanzeric had opposed the male lead—the First Prince—who struggled to strengthen imperial authority and claim the throne.
Probably because he feared losing his influence over the empire once the First Prince became emperor.
‘So the man standing in front of me is Heinox Tanzeric? Then this really is the world of the novel?’
As I pieced together the situation, the woman beside me whispered urgently:
“Miss, you need to bow!”
The hand pressing on my back forced me downward, and my forehead bonked against her leg.
Following her trembling gaze, I slowly looked up.
A towering silhouette cast a shadow over me.
I squinted to make out the figure, and soon his face came into view.
Cold. Terrifyingly cold eyes.
“What is that?”
…“That”?
Excuse me?
No matter how frightening a villainous duke was, how could he refer to someone he’d just met as “that”?
Memories of constantly being ignored unless I raised my voice surfaced in my mind, and before I realized it, I shouted back:
“That’s so rude!”
The air around us instantly froze.
“Did you just say I was rude?”
The maid beside me trembled violently as she tried to defend me.
“T-The young lady is still very young… Please forgive her.”
What was she talking about? What had I done wrong?
No matter how terrifying the duke had been portrayed in the novel, someone who had literally died a few hours ago had nothing left to fear.
Instead, his arrogant attitude reminded me of my old boss, and I unconsciously stepped forward.
“I’m not a kid!”
Unfortunately, my awful pronunciation still ruined the effect.
“Not a child…?”
The duke’s lips slowly curled upward.
“Yes! You look perfectly fine, but you’re super rude!”
My words carried some personal resentment, but since I’d always dreamed of saying something like this to my boss, the complaints poured out effortlessly.
“Rude, you say…”
Was this the cold smile described in the novel?
His low voice made cold sweat run down my back.
Ah… I’m dead again, aren’t I?
The maid beside me looked ready to collapse from fear.
“I wonder who the truly rude one is.”
The voice above my head made me think:
‘Am I about to die again?’
Would he execute me on the spot?
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“To speak that way to the father you haven’t seen in so long.”
…Father?
At that unfamiliar word, my eyes snapped open and I looked up at the duke again.
Blue eyes.
Jet-black hair.
Features almost identical to this body’s.
And then I remembered what the maid had called me earlier:
Young Lady.
“Gasp!”
I stumbled backward in shock, but the duke only curled his lips slowly.
