[Episode 1]
‘Maybe what got injured wasn’t my leg, but my head.’
It was that evening that I became certain perhaps what was really injured wasn’t my head, but my leg.
Having entered Dietrich’s body, I finished my meal skillfully with a fork and knife, displaying table manners I’d only ever seen in foreign dramas. That wasn’t all. When I absentmindedly picked up a book and fluently read characters I’d never seen in my life, it was positively chilling.
Realizing that I was still so awkward in this world that I’d failed to pay attention to Baron and Baroness Degoff, who seemed to be observing me, and while agonizing over whether my behavior thus far had looked sufficiently like Dietrich, I sensed something oddly restless at the edge of my vision.
When our eyes met, Dietrich’s foster father, Baron Degoff, hurriedly opened his mouth.
“It may be difficult right now, but I will somehow, some way, ensure your leg is treated… They say it is possible through divine power, so please do not worry so much….”
In the end, the Degoff couple would somehow raise the funds. But before the time came for Dietrich to receive treatment, the two of them would pass away.
Recalling the story from the novel, I realized the Baron and Baroness were watching their foster daughter, who had blanked out for a moment, with worried eyes, and I hurriedly spoke.
“My leg… it’s fine. No, it is not fine, but… it is too late to do anything about it now.”
“How could there possibly be a cure, haha. I can walk if I have crutches… and they say that soon, though with a bit of a limp, I may even be able to walk without them,” I added, forcing the corners of my mouth upward.
Perhaps what I had said so far was the longest conversation shared between the couple and Dietrich since she had come to the Degoff household. After being dishonorably driven from the ducal estate, Dietrich had been overwhelmed by shame, despair, and self-loathing, rarely ever leaving her room. Aside from retrieving meals left at the door or washing, she had never once exchanged a proper conversation with them.
Fearing it might seem suspicious that the foster daughter who had treated them like air for years was now speaking so unlike herself, I hastily opened my mouth again.
“…I am sorry for acting so immaturely all this time.”
As I kept my head bowed, Baroness Degoff hesitantly approached and carefully embraced me. Leaning awkwardly into that warmth, I was suddenly struck with longing for my parents in my original world. Ever since entering university, I had been so overwhelmed by life that I had barely seen them….
‘What if I cannot go back… what if there is no promise that I can return?’
The Degoff couple seemed to think the awkwardness born of the confusion from my possession was a natural phenomenon that might occur between foster parents and a foster child who had not spoken in a long time. Whenever I spoke vaguely of Dietrich’s memories or preferences that I had pieced together, the foster parents visibly rejoiced.
Seeing their expressions, I soon felt as though I was gradually adapting to this strange situation.
‘It feels like I’m being a good daughter to a friend’s parents.’
…Except for when that thought suddenly crossed my mind.
***
Two months passed.
The doctor said I could now walk with crutches, but urged me to always be careful. This was welcome news. After two months of bedrest that felt as though it would wear my hips away to nothing, I spent most of my days looking around the castle.
Refusing the Baroness’s offer to bring meals to my room, I took to dining with her at the splendid castle table. Perhaps because they were overjoyed that the foster daughter who had confined herself like a hermit had stepped outside to share meals with them for the first time, a warm atmosphere lingered at the table even when conversation paused. After dining with the Degoff couple several times in this way, I suddenly felt a sense of incongruity.
‘The couple’s plates are full of nothing but potatoes and greens.’
I looked down at my own plate. Chicken, salad, fine white bread. Though plated presentably, it was a luxurious meal that stood in stark contrast to the plates of Dietrich’s foster parents, which always held only potatoes and mushrooms.
‘Ah, it bothers me.’
The original novel had mentioned several times that the Degoff household struggled with financial difficulties. I knew it would worsen upon entering the academy, but even now, when things were still manageable, the household did not feel abundant.
Even if this was a home I would only stay in briefly….
“Um… Mother. I like potatoes too.”
“Hm?”
At my hesitant words, the Baroness asked again with an expression of incomprehension.
“When I was at the orphanage, it was the only dish I could eat warm, so I liked it. It felt as though it warmed my heart too.”
So even now, it is my favorite food. Perhaps because the happy memories from that time remain in my mind. Embarrassed by the Baroness’s tearful gaze, I awkwardly rubbed the back of my neck.
“At the Ducal… estate, they said it was beneath my station, so I could not eat it often. Now I do not have to worry about such things. I wish to eat my fill.”
Drawing on Dietrich’s heart-wrenching memories, I laid the groundwork to lower our food expenses. And from that day forth, for a week: steamed potatoes, roasted potatoes, fried potatoes, potato pie, potato salad, potato soup, potato bread… A tearful potato festival commenced.
Eventually, I reached the point where I could feel the starch of potatoes lingering in my mouth even after brushing my teeth. I needed to take action. Upon visiting the kitchen to settle the war with potatoes once and for all, I found Sara the cook baking potato pancakes. When I entered, making my presence known, Sara welcomed me warmly.
“Oh my, my lady! What brings you to a place like this!”
Seeing Sara’s bright expression as she greeted me, I could not easily bring up the main matter of asking her to stop with the potato dishes.
“The potato… dishes are so delicious… I came to say thank you.”
Using informal speech with an elder pricked my conscience, but I forced myself to rationalize that Dietrich would have spoken this way and finished my words. As expected, Sara paid little mind to my tone and smiled shyly at the praise. She soon fussed over whether my leg was all right and pulled out a chair, placing it before me.
“When I first saw you, you were so thin and frail, barely breathing as if you might die at any moment… and now you’ve become a proper young lady.”
“Really? I was like that?”
Sara answered with a sly “Of course,” and continued.
“When the Baron said your name was Dietrich, I thought he’d brought home a boy from somewhere….”
They say that after bringing Dietrich to the estate, her foster parents knocked on Sara’s door at dawn to ask for help because the fever would not break even after nursing her through the night. Sara said that the Dietrich she first laid eyes on was so emaciated and dark that she seemed as though she would breathe her last at any moment.
“There is an old legend handed down in Heillem. Long ago, a lord incurred the wrath of the God of Plague, so the God of Plague began taking only young girls in order to wither the village’s seed, or so the story goes.”
“…The God of Nonsense?”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Please continue.”
If the lord did wrong, only the lord should be punished. Picking on easy targets is much the same even in another dimension. Though I could not accept it, I nodded for the time being.
“But no matter the sin, the children were pitiful… They say the goddess Danika, who took pity on them, shared wisdom with the villagers—to give newborn girls boys’ names.”
See? I knew I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t accept it.
“So the God of Plague would not realize they were girls. So misfortune would pass them by, and they could remain healthy for a long time.”
It is a story rarely known today, but Dietrich’s foster parents must have been desperate enough to want to rely on such a legend, Sara added, concluding that seeing me so healthy now, it did not seem like such an unbelievable tale after all.
***
I was enjoying a leisure unlike any I would ever have again.
Spending my days in idleness looking at scenery that seemed like a blend of a travel documentary and a pastoral reality show whenever I opened the window, I sometimes wondered whether the world I had possessed was not a romance fantasy novel, but rather a healing story set in a rural village where a namesake Dietrich lived. Yet this peaceful farmland scenery presented me with another worry.
The keys to navigating a possessed novel world were social acuity and money.
I was confident in my social acuity. Years of part-time work experience had endowed me with a ghost-like radar for detecting “troublesome matters” and served as a de-icing agent against meddlesomeness that would snowball once I became entangled. Even after entering the Academy, if I simply avoided getting involved with Duke Erecsion’s household, the protagonist Roxanne, and the male leads who harbored feelings for her, and if I acted without drawing their attention, I would likely be fine. For starters, becoming involved in the love affair Roxanne would experience… The male leads in this novel were each not quite right in the head one way or another.
With my values—that a healthy mind makes a healthy relationship—I had no intention of involving myself with people who murmured dark, festering desires like “I want to break her” and “I want to clip her wings” every few chapters while gazing at Roxanne.
Setting aside such trivial matters, the real problem for surviving in this world was money.