MTIHIAS | CHAPTER 01

CHAPTER 01

 I Was Possessed, and My Husband Is Too Handsome

When a modern person wakes up and the first voice they hear calls them “my lady,” what would you think?

“Madam, have you woken?”

“Yes, madam, she’s awake.”

Half-asleep and groggy, I assumed the sudden voices belonged to friends and answered without thinking.

Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I turned and saw a strange brown-haired woman in a maid’s uniform.

Huh? A maid’s uniform?

“Wh-who are you?”

Her slow, heavy eyes snapped open.

I bolted upright and immediately realized I was lying in a strange, medieval-styled room on a strange bed.

Where am I?

The woman who’d been staring at me asked, expression unreadable.

“Do you not remember who you are?”

“No… it’s not that I can’t remember—this is the first time I’m seeing you.”

“It seems you’re temporarily disoriented after your accident. I’ll bring the mistress here, so please stay put.”

What nonsense. Mistress?

The woman left the room without another word. Left alone, I tried to piece together how I’d woken up here; then a last memory I’d almost forgotten surged back.

Right—I was in a car accident.

I shrank at the vivid memory of dying alone in the middle of the road.

Srrrk.

Longer, glossier hair than my usual fell across my face.

“…?”

Confused, I noticed a full-length mirror in the corner and went to it.

I stood speechless before the glossy surface.

Wavy navy hair, huge lake-blue eyes, flawless pale skin, delicate, precise features.

A beauty painted with the care of a watercolor brush—like a goddess of night or a starry sprite.

This can’t be a face from this world…

No matter how I looked at it, that stunning face was mine.

…Wait. Is this one of those romance-fantasy possession things?

My head started spinning at the plausible theory.

With a face like this I’d be the heroine in an LN, not an extra.

As a fan of romance fantasy, my instincts alerted me—female leads usually have flamboyant hair colors, not this ordinary navy.

Then who am I?

Considering the stranger had called me “madam,” I must be a married noblewoman.

If I’d been possessed into an extra noblewoman… what kind of husband would I get?

What if he was twenty years older than me, or had ten mistresses, or was a fat balding man?

Aaaah! No!

Just imagining it made my skin crawl.

“No, that can’t be… I can’t accept that kind of setup!”

Panicked, I jumped up.

The woman had told me to stay, but if my husband was truly the worst, the best plan was to check and run.

If he looks bad from afar, I’ll run without looking back.

Determined, I went searching for him and followed voices.

“Madam….”

“…from now on, we—”

A few servants were gathered at the foot of the stairs, speaking in hushed tones.

They seemed to be talking about me, but their whispers were too quiet to catch.

Frustrated, I leaned over the railing—and then—

“What are you doing up there?”

A low, weighty voice sounded right behind me.

“…!”

Startled, I spun around and stumbled when I stepped on my hem.

Wait—if I fell down the stairs now, wouldn’t I die?

If I die again, will I just move to another world?

Bracing for the pain of another sudden death, I closed my eyes—but a strong hand grabbed my waist and yanked me back.

When I timidly opened my eyes, a statue-perfect man was hovering over me.

Unbelievable…

Silver hair shining like a sculpture framed an impossibly sharp face.

His hollowed eyes held an unusual violet, matching his hair; his high nose and sculpted jaw were perfectly proportioned.

He was an absurdly handsome man.

“Am I dead right now…?”

I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d died and met an angel.

The dazzling man looked down at me with a strange expression and answered.

“If I hadn’t caught you, you would have been.”

“So you’re a god sent to save me.”

The man’s grip around my waist tightened subtly. One corner of his mouth curved into an uneven line.

“I am your husband, madam.

I know it’s hard to believe since you’ve lost your memory…”

“I believe you, darling.”

“Eh?”

I grabbed his slightly surprised hand and said dreamily.

“You’re ridiculously handsome.”

“…?”

Smiling broadly at the clearly flustered man, my heart pounded so hard it felt like it might leap out.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

I knew exactly what this feeling meant.

I fell in love with you at first sight.

My brazen confession sent his violet eyes flickering.

***

A few days earlier.

At the Kalard dukedom—the so-called Lord of the North—there had been an uproar.

Someone had attempted to poison the young head of the house, Aizen Kalard.

The culprit was a new maid named Jena, who had arrived three months earlier.

Aizen had caught Jena in the act but hadn’t executed her on the spot.

Why not?

“She didn’t approach me with no motive. If you want to live, hand over the recipe for the cure.”

Jena had held his life in her hands.

The Kalard line had been cursed for generations with frozen-blood syndrome.

Their blood slowly froze, and eventually the heart would ice over and stop—fatal, unpredictable, and not necessarily expressed in every branch of the family.

The previous head, Wilhelm Kalard, had been lucky enough to avoid the disease, but his eldest son Mikhail had died of it, and now the second son Aizen’s symptoms had appeared.

Every day felt like walking on thin ice, never knowing when death would come.

Then Jena appeared.

“I analyzed the duke’s condition and made a remedy.”

At first, Aizen had been suspicious. But at death’s door, he had no other choice.

Jena even proved the medicine’s safety by taking it herself first.

Her curled fingers and toes straightened, and the blood she’d been coughing up stopped.

“If you keep providing the remedy, I’ll promise you wealth and status in Kalard’s name.”

“Thank you, Duke.”

Jena kept supplying the cure and stayed submissively at his side.

Once he’d let his guard down, her true intent was exposed: she had tried to lace the remedy with poison.

She had come to kill him.

“Who sent you? Tell me who’s behind this!”

Jena stubbornly kept her mouth shut, and with nothing but a baffling apology, she tried to take her own life with a hidden poison.

But Aizen saved her.

If she woke, he planned to torture the small, fragile body to learn the recipe for the cure—but then—

“The poison the spy took has a special effect.”

“What effect?”

“It has a high fatality rate, but those who survive lose all their memories as a side effect. It’s a poison well known among professional assassins.”

The doctor’s report changed Aizen’s mind.

Torturing someone who’d lost all memory would be pointless—and worse, he might lose the only sliver of hope he’d managed to grasp.

After much thought, he devised a new plan and visited Jena’s parents.

“I searched the spy’s room and found scraps of charred letters exchanged with an accomplice.”

He took out a scorched piece of paper from his pocket; only the tail of a sentence remained.

“I would do anything for the one I love. I’ll remove Duke Kalard and return to you.”

From that, Aizen deduced a simple truth.

“She was someone who would do anything for the person she loves.”

“So what does that have to do with us?” someone asked, frowning.

Calmly, Aizen made his declaration.

“Then I’ll try being the person she loves.”