It was the past. She returned. She survived this time, too. She survived, but…
Tears streamed down Laila’s cheeks as she rode the roller coaster of emotions.
“Why?”
Her voice trembled.
“Why on earth?”
It was unbelievable. No, she didn’t want to believe it.
“Why! Why would you go to such lengths? What did I do wrong?”
Laila began to wail.
The person she had encountered on the path just before returning to the past.
It was that man.
The hero who saved the world.
However, to Laila, he was nothing more than the enemy who had killed her.
That man appeared before Laila again, taking her life once more.
No matter how many times she thought about it, she couldn’t understand it.
She had left her family so early and fled so far away…
But why would he deliberately seek her out?
And then kill her again?
‘Then what should I do now?’
If she can’t escape the vengeful blade of the man, no matter when or where she runs, is it her fate to simply die?
Alongside the ‘Hildegarde’?
“I hate it, I hate it! I don’t want to die! Why should I die? Why!”
Laila cursed incessantly, shedding tears without pause.
What had she done wrong?
What was her sin?
Not stopping the villainous actions committed by her villainous father?
For looking the other way?
But there was a major mistake.
It wasn’t that she didn’t stop it; it was that she couldn’t.
Laila had no power to oppose the villain. So, she could only watch without being able to intervene.
Was that such a great sin?
To the extent that she had to die twice?
So absolutely that she couldn’t be spared…
“Or, or is it because I’m Hildegarde? Is that what’s wrong? But it’s not my fault that my name is Hildegarde! I hate it too! It’s horrible! If I could, I would have changed my name long ago…”
Change the name.
Laila, who was wailing incoherently, suddenly stopped.
…There was a way to change her name.
More precisely, a legitimate means to replace the ‘last name’ attached to her name with something else.
‘I just need to get married.’
Laila scrambled out of the bed.
‘Why didn’t I think of this before?’
In this kingdom, every noble ‘woman’ changes their last name the moment they get married.
Once married, they must follow the last name of their husband instead of their father’s.
What had seemed like ridiculous discrimination suddenly felt like a lifeline to Laila, deep in the pit.
Laila searched for her memories.
She remembered an anecdote about how a daughter who had married early and changed her name was spared when her family was taken to prison for treason.
‘This is it!’
Laila wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Was it because she found hope? Her tears stopped immediately.
The marriageable age for a noble young lady is usually in their early twenties.
However, there were many ways to get married earlier.
The easiest way was to make someone infatuated with her and marry her. Whoever it might be,
Laila’s gaze grazed past the full-length mirror.
The girl reflected in the mirror was remarkably beautiful, despite her young age.
In the past, she not only refrained from enhancing her appearance but intentionally disguised herself, concealing her innate beauty.
She believed that, to live longer, it was better to avoid drawing attention.
But now…….
Laila pulled the bell cord hanging by the bed. Soon, a maid appeared in the bedroom.
“Miss, have you called for me?”
“Bring me some bathwater. And could you mix in a fragrance with a whitening effect?”
A few days after her nineteenth birthday.
Laila held a splendid wedding ceremony.
Her groom was known as the wealthiest Count in the kingdom.
There were two problems. The Count was in his fifties, and he was marrying for the second time after the death of his wife.
‘It’s okay. For the sake of survival, I can endure this much…”
Throughout the wedding ceremony, Laila felt like she might actually vomit, but she consoled herself by imagining a future where she would live safely until the age of ninety.
When she saw the Count who would become her husband for the first time at the wedding venue, a major crisis struck her, but even then, she somehow managed to endure it.
‘It’s a good thing I haven’t eaten since yesterday.’
It was merely because the wedding dress was too small, but in any case, it proved to be quite helpful in various ways.
And so Laila became a Countess at a relatively young age.
“How dare you! How dare you look straight at your heavenly husband?”
She regretted it after six months.
‘I should have vomited then.’
She should have done it in front of the Count.
Then she wouldn’t be here this morning, being slapped for such a trivial reason.
‘It would have been better to receive punishment for ruining the wedding. At least that would have happened only once.’
Laila sincerely lamented.
The Count, who had become her husband, had a very big problem that she hadn’t realized before the wedding.
It was his violent tendencies.
The Count was a lunatic who frequently raised his hand against his wife.
It took six months after marriage for his true nature to surface, and Laila easily guessed the reason.
‘After six months of marriage, a woman needs her father’s consent to get a divorce.’
Marquis Hildegarde had already received Laila’s “price” from the Count.
No matter what happens, he would not agree to the divorce of Laila and the Count.
Laila continued her unhappy married life.
‘I wonder if it would hurt much if I were decapitated on the execution ground?’
One day, she suddenly decided to procure poison.
She had a good reason.
“Are we going to end up clearing a corpse from the mansion again?”
“Shh, be careful what you say! Someone might hear.”
‘…… again?’
Who says there’s no bottom to misery?
The former Countess, who was said to have died of illness, actually had a different cause of death.
She was beaten to death by the Count.
She fell after being slapped, and unfortunately, her head hit the corner of a table.
Dying as a murderer of her husband in prison or dying after being hit by her husband…
‘If I’m going to die anyway, wouldn’t it be better to choose the former?’
That was the night when Laila made up her mind to obtain poison for the first time in her life to commit her first, and quite extreme, crime—murder.
“Argh!”
The Count was murdered by an intruder who appeared in the bedroom in the middle of the night.
He was an intruder to the Count, but to Laila, he was a familiar person.
The man who appeared for the third time to take Laila’s life.
Laila glanced at the handsome face of the man revealed behind the fallen Count.
She felt deeply unjust.
But it wasn’t because the man had come to kill her even after she had changed her last name through marriage.
‘If you were coming, couldn’t you have come tomorrow…?’
After all the trouble she went through to obtain the poison…
Regretting that she couldn’t personally take down the Count, Laila closed her eyes before the vengeful knife could target her.
Belatedly, she felt empty.
Everything felt meaningless.
Really, everything…….
*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚
She returned to the past.
Laila, lying on the bed, did nothing.
She just slept, woke up, slept, and repeated the cycle.
How much time has passed?
“Miss!”
Suddenly, someone shook Laila awake with a rough touch.
Laila, still half-asleep, reluctantly lifted her eyelids.
“…… Marie?”
She confirmed the face of the person who barged into her bedroom. It was her personal maid, Marie.
“Oh my goodness, Miss. Why are you still sleeping? Please wake up!”
Marie usually didn’t interfere with Laila’s waking routine.
Since the age of five, Laila has been responsible for waking up and getting ready on her own.
Laila, bending her body like a crescent moon, whined as if she couldn’t understand Marie’s actions.
“Why are you waking me up…….”
“Why? Seriously, you don’t know? The Marquis is about to arrive!”
So what.
Whether he comes or not, why should I care…
Laila inwardly thought rebelliously, but soon she realized.
Oh, right.
‘I have to go out and greet him.’
There was one very old, unwritten rule in the Marquis’s mansion.
Whenever the master, Marquis Hildegarde, returned from a long journey, his children were obligated to gather and welcome him.
Laila had never once violated that unwritten rule.
It was because she was afraid of the consequences that would follow if she were to break the rule.
