[Episode 5]
“It is you, right?”
The one who grabbed my hand was a boy I didn’t know. So….
“…Who are you?”
His face was shrouded in darkness, and with his robe drawn up, I could barely see him at all. The only thing that came through clearly was the powerful grip holding my hand.
*What the hell….*
I furrowed my brow at the sudden contact. No matter how hard I dredged my memories, this person’s voice seemed to be one I was hearing for the first time in Dietrich’s memories. …Then he wasn’t someone particularly important to Dietrich? The moment my thoughts reached that point, I twisted my hand free from his grip.
“I believe you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
“Wait….”
Before he could say anything else, I shut the dormitory door. There sure are a lot of strange people here….
Yet that boy wasn’t the only one who seemed to know Dietrich. Just as I was about to step out of the dormitory, someone snatched my hand again.
*Seriously, why do people here grab others’ hands so readily….*
With a disgruntled heart, the moment I turned around, what entered my eyes was…….
“My lady, it’s me!”
It was a girl about Dietrich’s age wearing a maid uniform.
“I heard that you too took the Academy exam, and you have no idea how hard I searched everywhere wondering if you might be here!”
“Who….”
Perhaps noticing my blank expression, the red-haired child hurriedly continued.
“You don’t remember me? From House Elexion’s….”
As I looked at the muted red hair of the girl standing before me, a scene flashed like lightning. Come to think of it, there was that red-haired maid who’d helped Dietrich, and committed suicide by poison just before being executed on the charge of harming the duke’s daughter. Her name was….
“Yuri?”
As if the word that had slipped out was correct, Yuri cried, “You remember!” with a bright expression and began bouncing in place while holding my hand. Meaning, the exclusive maid who had stayed with Dietrich until just before she was cast out as Roxanne, and the maid of House Elexion who was condemned to execution for the crime of helping Dietrich after her expulsion—Yuri.
That girl was standing right in front of me.
“What brings you here?”
“I followed Lady Roxanne! I’m not an exclusive maid anymore, but one maid isn’t enough to attend the duke’s daughter, after all.”
Speaking thus, Yuri smiled amiably and asked how I had been while looking me over here and there. Then, suddenly, with an expression of disbelief, she asked,
“My lady, are you going to the entrance ball like this… right now?”
At Yuri’s gaze that seemed to silently scream *like this?* I instinctively shrank back and nodded. She said this wouldn’t do, begged me to tell her where my dormitory was, and began leading the way there.
As soon as we entered the dormitory, Yuri seated me before a mirror and began carefully brushing out my hair. She added that time was short and she was worried.
“I always wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”
While applying scented oil to my hair with gentle hands, Yuri spoke quietly.
At those unexpected words whose reason I couldn’t even fathom, I looked at her in the mirror with eyes full of questions. As I fumbled through the memories of Yuri left in Dietrich’s mind, before I could pull out any useful memory, Yuri continued.
“When you left like that… like that, I… couldn’t do anything…. You always covered for my mistakes, yet….”
Yuri, who had been speaking calmly, was now stumbling over her words with a congested voice, as if emotions were welling up inside her.
“And… because I… lacked discernment, I always brought you… *sniff* clothes unbefitting the dignity of a duke’s daughter….”
Only upon hearing Yuri’s words did I realize whose choice those astral-fashion dresses filling Dietrich’s wardrobe had been. It had been the joint work of one little girl who had just left an orphanage and become a duke’s daughter, and one little girl who had just wandered the streets before entering the mansion.
Yuri had taken the senior maids’ teasing words—that “a good dress is one that is unconditionally fancy and covered in jewels”—at face value, and seemed to have chosen them hoping that her master, though of a different status, wouldn’t be slighted anywhere since they were the same age.
“Now I have the best eye in the ducal house.”
Adding that the maids always subtly called her over when choosing clothes for the duke’s daughter, Yuri raised her shoulders proudly.
“…Though it means nothing since you are no longer with me, my lady.”
The tips of her fingers applying powder were trembling slightly. The Dietrich Yuri had wanted to meet didn’t seem to be me, but I couldn’t ignore that water-logged voice.
“We can see each other around now… so whenever you see me, please acknowledge me.”
“Of course!”
Yuri answered, her voice cheerful once more, saying she was glad to be able to attend to my lady again even briefly thanks to remaining in the ducal house.
Dietrich, from a humble but noble house, had thrown herself from the Academy rooftop. Yuri, a maid of House Elexion from the streets, was said to have died by suicide with poison in prison while awaiting execution, her face peaceful.
A question I had harbored while reading the original novel—why was it Dietrich the noble, and not Yuri the commoner, who met a painful death—was something I felt I somehow understood while receiving Yuri’s touch.
***
“My lady, just a little more!”
“No, I think it’s enough.”
“Really, just look a little more. One last touch to the hair, ah, your clothes too…. The makeup too, wait, here is….”
At this rate, it seemed I would only arrive at the ballroom by the first day of classes. Eventually, having barely pried Yuri off, who was clinging to my dress hem, I hurried my steps toward the hall of the ball.
Fortunately, people’s gazes were directed not at the entrance of the hall but toward the high central staircase, and standing in that spot was the Crown Prince, the male protagonist of the original novel, Elius, reading the congratulatory address.
At that moment, I saw the most beautiful being since my possession.
What stood out most was his jet-black hair. In contrast, his eyes held a light as intense as rubies.
Yet unlike the splendor of that color, his calm and resolute gaze was imbued with noble dignity. His tall, slender frame suited his face and overall figure, creating an elegant atmosphere. Even from afar, the fingers turning the pages of his speech were gracefully sculpted.
The male protagonist of the original novel was so beautiful that my resolve to *absolutely not influence the flow of the original* wavered for a moment. But this was something I couldn’t help.
Having lived every day in a rural estate of the Empire surrounded by old men with rustic names like Robert Byeong-gyu and David Chang-sik, it was an irresistible law of nature that my heart would race upon seeing a well-maintained, pure handsome man in the capital.
I barely turned my head away from the jaw-dropping beauty and looked below the stairs. However, a mountain beyond a mountain—no, a disaster upon disaster? Or perhaps the saying gilding the lily suited this best.
Below those stairs stood the Crown Prince’s fiancée and the protagonist of the original novel, Danae, gazing at Elius as he delivered the address.
Danae, or rather Roxanne, whom I saw in person, was a small and pure child like a fairy. Especially beautiful were her eyes, which seemed to hold the Milky Way floating in the sky within a clean sea. When Dietrich had seen Danae before she took the name Roxanne, it was instantly understandable why it hadn’t been difficult to predict that the name would pass to Danae.
Wavy silver hair sparkled brilliantly, reflecting the chandelier light. Each time she smiled lightly at someone she met eyes with, the surroundings near Roxanne seemed to brighten slightly. That smile held a power that made it difficult for both men and women to look away, so there were quite a few people idling about nearby for no reason.
Every time I saw Roxanne, so clear she was almost transparent, I couldn’t help but feel that the name didn’t suit her no matter how much I thought about it. Rather, her original name, Danae, seemed to suit the pure child better.
*What good is that now, though.*
The music heralding the ball’s start began to play. Evan, who had been standing beside Roxanne as if guarding her, naturally asked her to dance. At the center of the ball, the two from House Elexion danced to the elegant melody, their silver hair fluttering brilliantly.
I was trapped behind the dancing students, pushed by the crowd, leaning against the wall and tapping my foot to the beat. I was enjoying the music peacefully with nothing more than the idle thought of whether to join the instrument club as an extracurricular activity.
That was when it happened. Someone grabbed my arm roughly.
“……!”
Before I could even identify who it was, I was pulled by a strong force and pushed into a secluded balcony.
“With what thought did you crawl into the Academy?”
Even with his face hidden in shadows, I knew immediately from that tone riddled with malice. The moment I recognized him, the breath I’d been holding escaped like a sigh.
*Ah, this bastard is the worst….*
The very typical romance fantasy protagonist’s… older brother, who loved Roxanne to death. Cedric Elexion.
“You thought you could set foot in the capital again after deceiving House Elexion? You don’t know your place.”
He was the one who had made Dietrich’s brief life in the ducal house hell in the original novel. The grief of losing his mother at a young age had turned into resentment toward Dietrich, inexperienced and fresh from the orphanage.
It began with nitpicking about Dietrich’s lacking attitude and manners, and later he drove her to the edge by pointing out her appearance, which resembled neither the duke nor the duchess. After graduating from the Academy and entering the academic institute, Cedric had stabbed words like daggers at Dietrich whenever she caught his eye in the original.
Cedric approached with his face scrunched in disgust, as if my inability to speak in the sudden situation were detestable. Grabbing my chin roughly, he growled.
“You’d better watch your behavior from now on.”