Chapter 2
“Is this really His Highness Prince Arnold?”
“Yeah. He seemed to be on the run. Could you save your questions until we’re back at the estate? My heart is still pounding.”
When I clutched at the front of my dress and exaggerated my reaction, Edward looked like he’d been stunned.
“You do realize, don’t you, that you look scarier than the Count himself?”
At Edward’s words, I rubbed my cheek and glared at him.
But I couldn’t exactly deny it.
The Edyut Countess I’d possessed had hair as black-blue as starlight in the night sky, and equally mysterious dark eyes tinged with blue.
If she stood expressionless, she looked as though she could kill a person with her gaze alone. That’s how fierce her aura was—a lethal beauty.
And anyone who stared at this face for long enough would lose their mind to her charm. That’s why Edyut Countess’s nickname was “the Devil.”
To enthrall people with beauty—how amusing. It was the perfect look for the novel’s number-one villainess.
“You’re really hitting below the belt. That’s mutiny, you know.”
“Didn’t you hire me because you liked my honesty?”
Hire? Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a hire—it was a scout.
I’d met Edward not long after possessing Edyut.
Back then, I’d been on a business trip to the Kingdom of Elot and got into legal trouble. Edward, who happened to be traveling there, resolved all the disputes for me.
He was so impressive that I immediately scouted him.
Later, when I learned that the genius famed at the Imperial Academy was none other than Edward, I couldn’t have been more shocked.
So I do have an eye for talent.
As a transmigrator, I needed someone unafraid to point out my outrageous behavior.
Edward was perfect for that role.
“If you weren’t good at your job, I would’ve chopped off your head by now. You know that, right?”
I drew my thumb across my neck from left to right.
Seeing that, Edward covered his face with one hand and sighed.
“Countess, please… use more refined language. I had no idea you were such a different person in private. Outside, you’re the world’s most elegant villain…”
What a strange expression. What on earth is an “elegant villain”?
All the servants closest to me, including Edward, were people I’d newly recruited.
Edyut Countess was an orphan with no siblings, no collateral relatives, so there was no one to placate or worry about.
That meant most of them had no idea what my actual personality had been like before.
“This is so much fun! I think being a villain suits me. After all, no one scolds me no matter what crazy thing I do.”
Because Edyut Countess was already the local madwoman.
“Usually, saying something ‘suits you’ means it matches your natural personality. But…”
Edward rested his chin on his hand, looked at me, then shrugged.
“The way you act the part so well, maybe it suits you in a different sense.”
At Edward’s resigned remark, I laughed. See? I’m born for the villainess role!
What sin did I commit in my past life to end up possessed as the villain in a novel?
All I’d done was work hard. And yet not only did I die of overwork, now I had to live someone else’s life? Damn it.
The Edyut Countess I’d possessed had, through every dirty crime and shady deal imaginable, become the richest person in the Empire by age twenty-two.
That, at least, was nice. Becoming a nouveau riche had been my dream in my past life.
I have all of the “real” Edyut Countess’s memories.
They’ve blended with mine as though they were my own—if I focus, fragments of her memories surface at will.
Thanks to that, it wasn’t too hard to adapt.
And I had the ability to keep up the Edyut Countess’s legacy.
But here’s the real problem:
The Imperial family of the Lemangdinus Empire carries a secret passed down for generations.
Their “hearts” are made of pure magic.
A royal who possesses such a “heart” can heal naturally, rarely dies even from grievous wounds, is immune to disease, protected from plagues, and far more resilient than any ordinary person.
A single such heart holds as much magic as a hundred mana stones. If one mana stone could make a simple weapon like a fireball, then a hundred could obliterate an entire city.
It’s not just a weapon: it’s invaluable for creating magical artifacts or even as a healing stone.
But such overwhelming power is dangerous for young royals who are still growing.
So until they reached adulthood, the royals would remove their “hearts” and keep them in storage.
In the original story, I remembered that Linerus’s “heart” was buried together with his mother, Empress Paisley.
But even as an adult, Linerus didn’t retrieve his heart, choosing instead to live as a “half” royal, lowering himself to bide his time for revenge against Viscount Winstin.
Then, three years ago, the novel’s villainess—the Edyut Countess—stole his heart.
From Linerus’s perspective, it must have been absurd.
That happened when Edyut Countess was twenty-two, and the male lead, Linerus, was eighteen.
I still don’t know how Edyut Countess even conceived of stealing someone’s heart.
Looking through her memories, it seems she received the information via a messenger bird from someone—but even she didn’t know who’d sent it.
She immediately sold the stolen “heart” to the neighboring Kingdom of Verody and pocketed a massive sum.
But in the original story, she was exposed and executed.
Damn it. I’ve become the woman destined for that execution.
There’s no way I’m letting myself end up like that.
Life is something you carve out for yourself; destiny should follow me.
I was repeating this to myself like a mantra when the physician’s words startled me.
“No injuries?”
I asked again in disbelief. The physician, perhaps cowed by my fearsome appearance and infamous reputation, shrank his shoulders.
“Y-yes. E-except for the wound on his forehead.”
A wound on the forehead—that would be the one I inflicted. I coughed awkwardly into my fist.
The physician glanced at me, then hastily gathered his medical supplies and fled the room when I waved my hand.
When even the maids had been dismissed, silence fell.
I gazed at the beautiful man lying on the bed with a complicated expression.
The male lead, Linerus, was being hunted by Viscount Winstin.
It looked like he’d already been hit in the head before I’d struck him myself.
I remembered him clutching his head and groaning in pain as he came to.
[As I thought… I wasn’t mistaken.]
[Countess Edyut, what exactly are you plotting?]
Those were the first words out of his mouth when he’d seen me.
Could he already remember that it was I who’d treated him before? He hadn’t seemed lucid enough back then to distinguish faces.
Whether I’d saved him or not, I was in trouble either way. And now, even more so.
I couldn’t let it be known that Edyut Countess was the one who’d stolen the “heart.”
“Maybe I should’ve just left him alone.”
He might not have died anyway.
“You should’ve just left me.”
“Mother of—!”
At the sudden voice, I was so startled I nearly convulsed.
Linerus had already sat up, pressing his forehead.
He scanned the surroundings as though taking stock of the situation, then fixed me with a sharp gaze.
Looks like he’d already figured things out.
Linerus was a pure, ethereal beauty, like a solitary white lily.
He radiated a noble, almost angelic aura.
And then I caught myself thinking I wanted to shatter that noble façade and make him cry—then recoiled in shock at my own thought.
What was this enormous sense of taboo?
I must have been momentarily dazzled by his looks.
“To think you’d attempt an assassination, only to bestow this ridiculous act of kindness now.”
“Well, since I’ve shown you some kindness, can’t we call what happened before… extenuating circumstances?”
I was referring to the assassination attempt the real Edyut Countess had made.
Linerus’s hand, which had been rubbing his temple, stopped.
He stared at me in disbelief.
“Are you insane?”
Yeah. Even I thought it sounded ridiculous.
But that wasn’t my crime. Why should I pay for Edyut Countess’s sins?
