How To Survive As a Villain on the Verge of Death

“…”

The Grand Duke kept his silence with a calm face.

She did not deny that she was conscious. If she didn’t prove herself useful, that cold-hearted man in front of her would never help her. No, he would be pretending to help her while watching her death.

Rather than take such a risk, it was better to tell him about her foresight and honestly seek their cooperation.

‘Because at least I have to stick to the winning side.’

The long fight between the Emperor and the Grand Duke eventually ended with the Grand Duke’s victory. The Grand Duke greatly weakened the power of the imperial family and reigned as the loser in the north. The male and female protagonists, who suffered from differences in social status, got married safely under the protection of the Grand Duke and ended up building a happy family.

‘That’s why I have to cooperate with this human in order to live a quiet life.’

She approached him and frankly offered a deal.

“Please help me. Then I will also use my abilities to help Your Highness.”

* * *

The Grand Duke of Lenz, Terence, took a close look at his fiancée in front of him. Terrence had never liked Eve, not even for a moment.

Eve was dumber than his hound. The hound could memorize the structure and smell of the forest, but Eve did not have the intelligence to memorize the structure of the imperial palace.

‘But it looks a bit different today.’

It reminded him of the daytime at the temple where she forced himself to hold flowers. This woman dared to stand in her own way and insisted on taking her flowers. She did not listen to his refusal and insisted on following him until he accepted.

It was daring, it was impudent.

That alone was amazing, and even a small folded note was hidden inside the flower.

‘A note hidden in a flower petal was romantic in its own way.’

It wasn’t very strange. From the time he reached adulthood, there were countless women who tried to seduce him. Over the years, Terrence has been receiving explicit letters from all kinds of ladies asking for a tryst. More than half of them were sent by the princess.

Most of them were busy and went straight to the trash without reading. Although this time he also considered it such an insignificant temptation and tried to throw it away without even reading it…

‘Please… Please keep this flower by your side and take good care of it.’

It was a fleeting moment, but Terrence sensed fear and anxiety in that small voice. Even the pale fingers that had lightly touched him when he was handed the flowers, she was stiffened with tension. No matter how he looked at it, it didn’t feel like asking for an ordinary tryst.

He tried to ignore it at first, but the little voice asking him to examine the flowers kept bothering him. He was too curious to ignore it, so he opened the folded paper. However, there was something completely unexpected in it. It contained an explanation of where to find a part of the Grand Duke’s lost heirloom, along with a request to meet here at this time.

As the princess had said, the sword sheath was actually inside the goddess statue. Eventually, he entered the imperial palace as requested by the princess.

He was thinking of listening to what she wanted to say. Terrence was sure he wouldn’t be surprised no matter what the other person said. Although he was a Grand Duke, he lived a rough life so as not to be surprised by anything. But what came out of his fiancée’s mouth was far more surprising than expected.

‘The Emperor would kill his daughter to frame me.’

Terrence thoughtfully stroked the tip of his chin. Putting aside what Eve was saying, it was a story with enough potential. In fact, if the princess died suddenly, the person who would be most suspicious was Terence himself.

‘If I didn’t tell you about my precognitive ability and only told you about the assassination plan on my wedding day, you would rather actively watch me die, rather than help me. Isn’t that right?’

Of course, if he had known that the Emperor was thinking that way, he would have neglected the death of the princess himself. It was much better for him to uncover the Emperor’s misdeeds after the princess died than to save the princess.

The princess in front of him was also aware of that fact.

‘It doesn’t seem that she lacks a sense of reality.’

So she was not completely stupid? The situation felt even more bizarre when he realized that the other person was Eve. On the one hand, he wondered if all of this was the Emperor’s trick. But what could the Emperor gain from such a plan?

All the princess wanted right now was to protect herself. Terrence studied Eve’s white face carefully. There was no deceit on her innocent-looking face. She sincerely seemed to believe what she was saying. He pondered for a moment before opening his mouth.

“You said you saw me at the wedding hall when you looked into the future.”

“Yes. But that…”

“Then let me ask you something.”

Terrence cut off Eve’s words and asked clearly.

“What was I wearing at the time?”

Lies were like a sandcastle, he always thought.

Even if it looked solid from the outside, if you touch a weak part, it would collapse in an instant. To check if the other person was lying, it was good to point out the trivial part out of the blue. If it’s not something you actually experienced, but a story made up of lies, no matter how hard you try to make up the words, there would always be a loophole somewhere.

But Eve wasn’t taken aback. She stared blankly at Terrence for a moment before replying.

“You were wearing a black court robe.”

Terrence’s purple eyes widened slightly.

It was yesterday morning when the butler said, “I will prepare a new military uniform before the wedding.”

He passed it off at the time, but changed his mind around lunchtime when he saw his little brother playing in the garden of the mansion. At some point, he said casually while talking about the crown prince that his younger brother, Rot, had seen on the day of the event.

‘Why don’t you wear a court ceremonial suit? I want to see my brother in the court robe. He must be cooler than the princes.’

It had already been several months, and it was a memory that Terrence himself had forgotten until then. Terrence went to war from a young age, so he lived only in military uniform. Even at court events, he always attended in his military uniform. It was meant to be this time as well, but when the words of his younger brother came to mind, he changed his mind.

‘I will have to wear the court ceremonial suit. In black.’

The last court suit worn was probably navy blue. It’s not bad either, but he thought a plain color would be nice this time. It’s a wedding, so black would be better. He thought so a day ago. He had not yet ordered anyone, let alone the butler, to prepare court ceremonial robes.

It was unfortunate she got it right.

‘It could be a coincidence.’

He always wore his military uniform at every event. Since he wouldn’t answer the question with the clothes he wore every time, it could be that he took a photo of the court ceremonial suit with a momentary notice. As for the color, if it’s men’s clothing, it’s navy blue, gray, or black. He himself didn’t have much gold or white clothes. Even so, it felt strange that one thing fit.

He thought it was completely crazy a moment ago, but now he was like, ‘No way…?’.

In fact, Princess Eve was gifted with her precognitive powers. Although he could count on one hand the number of times she has actually seen her foreknowledge, and she was said to have lost even that since she was 10 years old.

‘I suddenly regained my powers,’ she said.

Still unbelievable, but it wouldn’t hurt to check it out. Terrence pondered for a moment before speaking.

“Honestly, what you just said is so absurd that it’s hard to believe it easily.”

“Of course you would. Still, if you wait a little bit, the solar eclipse will surely come out…”

“I’m not free enough to wait five days to find out if you’re not crazy.”

Terrence sternly cut off his opponent’s words.

“So if you really have precognition…”

He looked carefully into the other’s clear blue eyes and said.

“Foretell what will happen to me tonight.”

* * *

“…yes?”

What do you mean? For a moment, she thought she had heard it wrong.

Did he want her to see the future? What would happen to him today, right now? Of course, since she remembered all of the original, she could just tell him what was in the original, but…

‘What happened to the Grand Duke tonight?’

No matter how much she looked back at the original story, she couldn’t remember that something happened to the Grand Duke tonight.

‘…I don’t think what happened tonight was in the original story at all.’

Now was the time when the focus of the original work was on Sorel who went to the battlefield. The narration of the institution passes only with a brief explanation in the middle.

The Grand Duke appeared at the center of the story in earnest as Eve was murdered. It was not clear what he was doing before then. It was natural. No matter how hard you read the original, you couldn’t know all the moves of the characters. Who would look at it because it would be boring to describe what countless characters did every morning and evening?

The main character’s actions were not written in such detail. After much thought, she stammered and explained.

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