Chapter 3
“I asked the shopkeeper — he said if you apply the dye, thirty minutes is enough. You can spare about thirty minutes, right? The smell’s not great, but it goes away after a few days.”
Marien turned the desk calendar toward her.
“Today is April 1st. There are about two weeks left until the Duke of Blackwood sneaks into the capital. That man is coming alone so he won’t draw attention. He won’t take the well-maintained roads — he’s using a shortcut only some northerners know. It’s a rough gorge and forests full of wolves, so even if people know it’s a shortcut, nobody actually uses it.”
“Caron’s Gorge…”
“Yes, that one. He’s the sort of person rumors say was raised on wolf’s milk. Passing through the Forest of Lost Souls would be nothing to him. It’s no different from dropping by relatives’ houses on a business trip.”
“Wait a moment.”
“He’ll meet Her Highness the Fourth Princess outside the palace in two weeks. Her Highness’s old residence is empty except on Wednesdays, when regular cleaning is done. That’s where they’ve arranged to meet. Anyway, we still have some time. But it won’t hurt to hurry. First, dye your hair black. If that doesn’t work, we’ll quickly move to the next plan…”
“Assistant Didi.”
“Yes?”
Marien only realized she’d gone ahead and started talking after making eye contact with Vaileon. She’d been so anxious she’d run off on her own.
The young chancellor looked as if he’d been struck. The crease of worry between his brows showed through almond-colored hair neatly covering his forehead. Extreme confusion shone in the way he looked at Marien. His pale pink lips trembled slightly.
It was the moment when someone who usually keeps calm shows a crack. My goodness. This can’t be happening. Marien let out an involuntary sigh.
“He’s too handsome…”
“……”
“He’s seriously bad for the heart. Thump thump. Do you hear it? Thump thump.”
Marien clutched at her left chest and made a wry face.
She knew people had different tastes. If Odette liked a chilly northerner who would bleed no color even when pricked with a needle, it wasn’t her fault. If you must blame someone, blame the author who decided the male lead should be dark-haired and cold from the start.
‘But, Your Highness the Fourth Princess — does our chancellor really have no chance at all?’
Marien sobbed inwardly. If she could, she wanted to cling to the hem of Odette’s dress and plead like an abandoned ex-lover.
Please, I beg you — reconsider, just once.
‘Her Highness has always lived the romcom heroine life, surrounded by handsome men wherever she looks. That’s why she could have a sweet, gentle pretty-boy childhood friend. But we extras, commoners like us — we don’t even remember who lived next door when we were kids.’
If there had been a boy next door, nine times out of ten he would have been an enemy rather than a childhood friend: ugly, stealing my doll and snapping its neck, wiping his booger-tipped finger across my dress.
What made it worse was the adults’ jokes.
They’d watched them bicker every day, and when people joked, “You’ll grow to like each other while fighting,” it would make her so mad she’d burst into tears.
‘Fine. Let’s concede — maybe she didn’t know his worth when she was a child.’
Marien’s gaze greedily slid over Vaileon’s body. Parts hidden by the desk she filled in with memories of meetings.
Even amid his heavy workload his cravat was never sloppy. From broad, angular shoulders down to a trim waist — a figure Marien’s palm could never fully cover — and a chest too large to encircle, with the firm buttocks and thighs pressed up and taut.
‘Ah, I almost missed the precious charm points.’
Marien looked at Vaileon’s hands and hiccuped. Bluish veins stood out and his knuckles popped, but they were not the rough hands of a warrior.
Clean, well-kept nails gave off an air of neatness! A warmth that would feel comforting even if you tumbled together in the snow in midwinter! Hands of a grown man, always ready to reach out toward you!
The charm he exuded while holding a fountain pen — could Odette really not notice that?
Maybe she hadn’t felt it as a child, but Odette was now twenty-two and an adult. If her eyesight was fine, she couldn’t help but feel something for Vaileon.
The more Marien thought about it, the more baffled she became.
Even putting other conditions aside, purely on looks alone, shouldn’t Vaileon Biers be the male lead? His face is gentle, yet his body is this raging thing.
A hot-night technique that melts the cold Odette?
Hmph — whatever the northern dark-haired guy did, Lord Biers could do too. Besides, the northerner was a virgin anyway. In this genre, being a virgin and being exceptional in bed is possible. So of course Lord Biers, who kept his virginity for a year longer, would be a whole year better at it!
“You must dye your hair!”
Marien slammed her fist on the desk and stood up.
“Her Highness the Fourth Princess likes dark hair!”
“……”
“Don’t ask where I got that info.”
“I was just about to ask that.”
“Anyway, just follow my plan. It’s only dye — you’re not cutting off an arm, just changing hair color.”
“……”
“If people ask why, say this: ‘I was going to dye it myself, but one of my subordinates accidentally spilled the solution on Lord Biers’s hair, so I had no choice but to do it.’ It fits your usual image of not scolding your subordinates for mistakes. Doesn’t it?”
All of a sudden, even wasting time like this felt unbearable. Even now the northerner would be riding toward the capital. Marien turned as if to fetch the dye at once, regretting not having put it in her bag already.
“Stop right there.”
A soft, low voice came from behind.
“Assistant Didi, sit back down and answer my questions.”
What a pleasant command to hear. Marien quickly sat down. She was grateful she wasn’t a spy or a prisoner of an enemy state — if she had been, she would have spilled everything before Vaileon even asked the first question.
It wasn’t simply that Marien — Assistant Didi — was head over heels for her superior. There was a peculiar force in Vaileon’s voice. He could make people follow his words without raising it.
“I’ll ask for your understanding in advance. I’ll start with somewhat sensitive questions.”
Vaileon glanced briefly at Marien’s stomach before speaking.
“Are you pregnant and in need of financial assistance?”
“No.”
“Then why did you need a doctor to check for pregnancy?”
“Well, um…”
Because she’d been possessed by someone else’s body, it was something she needed to know if the person was female. If she had no home, she would have found one first; if she had no food, she would have found food. If she’d woken up naked, she would have searched for clothes.
But Assistant Didi Marien’s basic needs were already fully met. She didn’t have to worry about those fundamental issues, and that was a relief. So before embarking on the mission to make Vaileon the male lead, there was another important thing she had to confirm.
“Because I’m cute.”
Marien said this with emphasis.
“They say adult women should get a checkup at least once a year even if there’s no problem. So I went to the doctor, and a pregnant woman about my age came out of the consultation room. Having come that far, I thought I should get checked too.”
“That’s…”
Vaileon tried to reconstruct the causal link between the two sentences, as if checking whether he’d missed something.
“Does this have anything to do with you being ‘cute,’ Assistant Didi?”
“Just in case.”
“As you know, pregnancy tests are usually done when one has unprotected sex or when a period is unexpectedly late.”
It was a very personal and sensitive matter, and Vaileon spoke in as businesslike a tone as possible. But the concern underlying his words meant he couldn’t be entirely clinical.
If only she could honestly say, I’ve been possessed! How much better that would be. Marien answered that thought fervently in her head. The truth would fit Vaileon’s desired ‘truth,’ but it’d be much harder to understand.
I don’t know anything about the body’s original owner! She might have a lover in the original story; that’s why I checked. Does this young lady’s cycle run irregularly? Is she ill and stopped menstruating? I just don’t want to end up with a bulging belly by accident.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Then why…”
Vaileon stopped mid-sentence. He took a quiet breath and then said to Marien,
“To summarize: Assistant Didi is not currently pregnant and is not in any financial difficulty because of pregnancy.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“All right. I won’t ask further about that. My apologies for the intrusion.”
The next question made Marien fall for the man again on the spot.
“Do you have a personal acquaintance with the Duke of Blackwood?”
“No…”
The following question was similar.
“How do you know the Duke of Blackwood is betrothed to the Fourth Princess? They don’t have much interaction — just a few minutes of conversation at last year’s ball.”
“Her Highness had already chosen the Duke of Blackwood as a marriage candidate back then…”
“Did Her Highness tell you that directly?”
“No…”
“Then how can you be so sure?”
Because it’s in the original work. Odette had been secretly scouting marriage candidates before she turned twenty. Odette was an imperial daughter born out of wedlock with weak political backing. To ascend the throne she would need a partner with strong power and aligned interests.
Kain Blackwood was the top candidate. It was a choice unlikely to change.
So for Odette, last year’s ball wasn’t some formal interview — it was just verifying the prospect in person.
She couldn’t say all of that out loud. If anything, answering why she went for a pregnancy test would have been easier. There was at least a little room to fabricate a more convincing lie for that question.
