The Materialist Lady
Han I-rim
Episode 1
Chapter 1. Somehow, a Duke’s Daughter
“In my next life, I want to be born the daughter of a rich family.”
Any poor university student in Korea—no, any person at all—must have had that thought at least once.
“At least those people won’t be miserable because they’re poor.”
On a merry Christmas, instead of going to a party, I was on my way to my part-time job, staring up at an outdoor digital billboard as I thought that.
“People like that are practically the aristocrats of the twenty-first century.”
The conversation of other people looking at the billboard drifted to my ears.
Aristocrats, like the ones who appeared so often in the novel in my backpack, Fragments of Emotion. They said the class system had disappeared, but those people were practically no different from the nobles in that novel.
I wanted to throw away this life of struggling with student loans, rent, and living expenses, and live elegantly like an aristocrat too.
“Kyaaaah!”
Before I died after being hit by a car on Christmas, that was what I had been thinking.
***
“No, what on earth is going on…”
I was on the verge of fainting from shock. The sight of two moons shining brightly in the sky was truly staggering. At first, I thought I’d been kidnapped.
“My teeth! My kidneys! No, did they harvest my liver?”
But there was something far more important than that.
“Where in the world would they have to kidnap me for there to be two moons in the sky?”
“Huh…?”
It was an utterly strange experience. My head suddenly felt as if it were floating, and then a whirlwind raged inside me. As if anesthesia were wearing off, as if senses I had lost had suddenly returned.
Yes, it felt as though I were melting into this world.
“Asna…?”
And then, all at once, the names of those moons flashed through my mind. The larger one, giving off a bluish light, was called Asna. And the comparatively smaller yellow moon was called Zen.
“No way…”
This place was inside the romance fantasy novel Fragments of Emotion.
“I’m Roselia Kanev…”
All kinds of information surfaced in my mind at once, as if someone were forcibly injecting the knowledge of this world into me.
For a moment, my vision blurred, and I staggered without realizing it before grabbing the terrace railing.
“The Duke of Kanev’s family…”
Even amid the chills and confusion, I was able to pinpoint one despairing truth.
“Of all people to transmigrate into, I had to become the daughter of a poor ducal family!”
If the Duke of Kanev’s family had been rich, I wouldn’t have felt this hopeless.
“Lady Rose!”
Someone who found me collapsed, practically leaning against the railing, shouted. I had no time to care about that.
“Then what about my bank account? My paycheck…”
“My lady! Look at this sweat. I must call the master!”
The woman supported me and dragged me to the bed. None of that mattered. Between the bank account I’d left behind on Earth and the poverty here, I had already lost my mind.
“Send me back to Earth!”
I decided to faint.
***
I was sick for a full week. My head hurt as if it would split open from the information about this world that had suddenly been injected into my mind, but that information began to arrange itself neatly, as though tended to by an excellent librarian.
“I can’t remember what my original name was. I do remember I was twenty-five, though.”
My name from Earth had been erased from my memory. And Roselia’s life came to me vividly, as if it held true meaning. But that was that, and the shock of transmigrating into a book did not easily fade.
“As expected, reading is the root of all evil…”
There was a saying like that. Something about how if you did things you normally didn’t do, you’d die—or transmigrate into a book.
“Why am I Roselia Kanev?”
That sentence made me sound like a philosopher searching for the meaning of existence. But this was nothing more than resentment. Then who would make a good target for that resentment?
Yes, let’s resent myself for putting a novel I was going to return into my bag, going to my part-time job on Christmas, and getting hit by a car…
I grew a little more depressed.
The sound of metal clashing came from outside, and an elderly maid entered.
“You’re awake. The spring sunlight is especially warm today.”
The elderly maid’s name was Verdi, and she was a person who remained loyal to the utterly ruined Duke of Kanev’s household, despite its lack of money or power.
“Your fever has completely gone down. You have no idea how much of a fuss the master made all this time. He’ll be home soon.”
I recalled the young man I had glimpsed while suffering from a high fever. He was surely the head of the Kanev family, Roselia’s older brother, and the second male lead of Fragments of Emotion—Leiji Kanev.
“I’m all right now.”
I answered as I sat up in bed.
“Was it some kind of transmigration fever, maybe? Like a teething fever.”
I had secretly hoped for some kind of commemorative buff or reward for crossing into another world, but I didn’t feel any special power.
“Buff, my foot. I transmigrated into the worst possible circumstances.”
“Then shall I comb your hair for the first time in a while?”
Because this was a poor ducal house, there wasn’t even a dressing table, but a large mirror that seemed over one meter wide was attached to the wall.
It was my first time looking in a mirror since crossing into this world. With my heart inwardly pounding, I looked at the mirror. And at the sight of myself reflected there, my mouth fell open without my realizing it.
“…Goodness.”
“What is the matter?”
Verdi tilted her head as she approached with an old wooden comb.
“It’s nothing.”
I answered in a daze, then sat down and slowly studied the mirror.
“…My hair is lavender.”
How could a person’s hair be lavender? My pale skin and jewel-like blue-green eyes did not look like those of an ordinary human.
As Verdi combed my hair, she said,
“Whenever I’m here, I often feel as though I’ve stepped inside a fairy tale.”
“Why?”
At my question, Verdi chuckled and answered.
“With beautiful masters, a mansion built by the only dwarf in the world, and the Denbridge territory overflowing with vitality—wouldn’t anyone feel that way?”
This hair and these eyes were proof that elven blood flowed through me. My ears were not pointed like an elf’s, but apart from that, I had a fairy-like appearance that made it difficult to conclude I was human.
“The first Duchess of Kanev was an elf.”
When the Eradam Empire was founded, the great hero who played an active role then and his lover, an elf, were granted the title of duke by Emperor Asher. It was the only case of someone who was not imperial royalty being granted a dukedom.
With the elf’s fantastical beauty and powerful strength, the family had been prosperous. Only until Roselia Kanev’s parents were alive, that is.
“Why did I have to be the daughter of a poor ducal family…”
It was fine that I was a supporting character who, at the beginning of the novel, was briefly used and then discarded because of the crown prince’s political support base. But—but why did I have to be a poor supporting character!
“They weren’t wrong when they said poverty repeats itself.”
The mood that had begun to improve thanks to Roselia’s beautiful appearance sank back into gloom.
“Leiji must look quite a bit like me too.”
Leiji, who had lost his parents at a young age and inherited the family, had quite literally ruined the household.
I knew it had probably been beyond his control, but my chest felt stifled, as though I had eaten a million sweet potatoes without any water. Besides, while reading the novel, I had never once rooted for Leiji.
“Oh, right. I heard some interesting news when I went to the market. They say His Highness the Crown Prince will soon return to Bimuum. Everyone says it’s probably because of the matter of his marriage prospects.”
Bimuum was the capital of the Eradam Empire.
“The crown prince…”
The male lead of the novel, Crown Prince Anok Asher. He was a man unable to feel emotions because of a witch’s curse.
“They say he defeated the monsters and succeeded in protecting the Yedan region. Could someone like that really be as demonic as the Holy See claims? Not being able to feel emotions seems like something pitiable…”
The inciting incident of the novel Fragments of Emotion went like this.
The current emperor of the Eradam Empire, Frick Asher, was excessively greedy for territory.
In order to take several princesses from other countries who had lands to inherit as his wives, he enacted the absurd law that “the emperor may take multiple wives.” In that way, he gained three wives, and he failed to realize that one of them was a powerful witch.
The witch, Imperial Consort Sabrina, placed a curse upon the unborn child of the empress, who was pregnant at the time.
“Heartless emperor. You and your imperial dynasty always think and act only for your own convenience. Your Majesty, I have grown sick of your repulsiveness.”
Imperial Consort Sabrina continued.
“In order to gain that paltry piece of land, my original fiancé died by your hand. You have taken everything from me. However, Your Majesty, I am by nature a merciful witch. So I will give you a chance to repent.”
The imperial consort took out a wand she had hidden in her wide sleeve and pointed it at the empress, who was already full-term.
No one could stop her. Not even the emperor could break the power of that great magic. The empress, horrified, wrapped her arms around her belly.
“I pray that your child learns love and mercy, and surely becomes a warm person. Before his mercilessness devours you, Emperor.”
After finishing those words, Imperial Consort Sabrina plunged a sword into her own heart and killed herself.
Ridiculously enough, after that incident, clothing with wide sleeves was banned. The reason was that no one knew who might be hiding a magic wand.
Without anyone ever discovering exactly what curse Imperial Consort Sabrina had cast, the empress gave birth to a son in an almost strangely safe and healthy delivery.
The baby was born with all his fingers and toes intact, and he was beautiful and gentle. So gentle, in fact, that he hardly ever cried.
The baby hardly ever cried.
They sensed that something had gone terribly wrong.
“So in a word, he’s a psychopath.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s nothing.”
The emperor was deeply troubled over his son, who outwardly showed no abnormalities.
The child grew well. He simply did not cry. No, he did not reveal any other emotions either. That was terribly strange.
“To think the curse blew away part of his soul.”
Wasn’t it truly like a fairy tale? The fact that something called a soul existed, and that it had substance, was astonishing.
“They say word has spread throughout Bimuum that Her Majesty Empress Caroline is searching for a bride.”
It seemed Bimuum was in an uproar over the still-vacant position of crown princess. Of course, I had no need to get swept up in that atmosphere.
“Because the crown prince’s fiancée is me.”
Empress Caroline made tireless efforts for the sake of her son, who had lost part of his soul. The Holy See all but branded the crown prince, whose nature was cruel due to his lack of emotions, as a demon and poured sharp criticism upon him.
Because of that, his political support base was extremely unstable. The method the empress chose then was both very simple and very clever.
“She intends to use the Duke of Kanev’s desperately poor situation to create a noisy romantic scandal.”
The empress persuaded Roselia with money. Exhausted by poverty, Roselia readily accepted the marriage proposal and prepared to be used to her heart’s content.
The problem was that she had not expected the crown prince, so widely rumored to be a demon, to be such a beautiful person.
“Like a fool, she truly fell in love.”
But Roselia was not the female lead of this novel. Sadly, the heroine was Serena. The overly kind Roselia supported their love and stepped aside.
Unable to even become a villainess, she was used to her fill and then forgotten by the novel.
“That’s how it was supposed to go.”
Just then, the sound of horse hooves came from beyond the terrace.
“It seems the master has returned.”