Edited

1. I’m destined to die while donating blood.

Slam!

There was the sound of a door opening violently.

Even without looking, I knew at once who the person who had barged into the drawing-room was.

Deon de Larote Kirventia.

He was the current Emperor and the owner of the old dukedom I had barely escaped.

“Where did you hide her?”

The sound of his heavy breathing echoed in my ears.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Really? Then it doesn’t matter if I search the mansion.”

Fortunately, I was hiding in a weapons room on one side of the parlor. She quietly held her breath and put her face close to the door.

I’ll have to jump out the window when Deon gets out of the drawing room.

However, he was quiet now before he acted as if he was about to tear into the mansion. There was no sign of anything outside.

I peered carefully through the gaps.

‘Did he go?’

Then, suddenly, a knife came through the door above my head.

My hair stood up all over my body.

Startled, she lost her balance and leaned toward the door.

It was difficult from the beginning to support the shaking body with a rotten wooden door. The old door collapsed helplessly. The door opened wide, which I had tried to lock.

I fell with spears, arrows, and swords.

There was a long silence.

He was holding a sword and glaring at me with glowing eyes.

Again, the hide-and-seek failed. A long life of escape is coming to an end.

My knees hurt when I hit the floor because I fell, but I was embarrassed.

I had nothing to say, so I just rolled my eyes and greeted him.

“It’s been a while, Your Grace the Duke.”

He frowned.

‘Oh, is it because of the title?’

“Uh… Should I call you His Majesty now?”

Somehow, his expression grew worse.

There was a suffocating silence that made it impossible to swallow saliva. He looked down at me with blue eyes, then leaned over and brushed my cheek.

“Leonie, how long did you think you could run away? I’ve made it very clear. I’ll never let you go.”

A cold tone that did not go well with a friendly touch resonated in the narrow room.

The surroundings became cold enough to make the illusion that it fell back into the middle of the north.

My body trembled terribly.

***

I read the book during my self-study class.

All I saw was the cover of the book. It was because the three people who were sitting in the back seat secretly opened the book and read it.

‘Is it that popular?’

I borrowed it out of curiosity and read it, but I closed the book after only seeing the prologue.

I didn’t want to see the main characters having a happy ending leaving behind the exploited extras.

After turning three pages, the illustration showed the Duke looking down at the woman with cold eyes and a long-haired woman with her head lowered.

The woman’s face was hidden by her curly hair.

The woman in the black dress was drooping with her frizzy red hair.

Extra with no face, so there was no need to draw.

And now that woman was me.

I only read the prologue, but it wasn’t hard to know who I was.

Because I die heroically in the first paragraph of the prologue.

[One bite is enough.]

It was the first sentence of the prologue of the book ordering the disposal of Leoni.

My friends talked about the novel all the time.

So, although I hadn’t read the book, I naturally knew the brief plot of the novel.

An empire without an official heir.

The nobles of the Emperor’s lineage naturally fought for succession, and one of the main characters, Grand Duke Deon, also fought countless battlefields to win the battle for the throne.

He had many variations.

Son of the late Empress. An abandoned prince who lost his castle and was banished to the north.

Nevertheless, a hero of war who has never been defeated.

Even the seemingly perfect man had a secret.

The late Empress’s ancestors were Asmodians.

A person who manifested the lineage of the Asmodians could raise monstrous power by drinking the right blood.

The Duke’s victory in the war was all thanks to the blood he found.

Several hostages were thus offered to the Duke.

I can’t stand it, I will die, and I will die here.

The sacrifices were repeated until the fateful mate appeared.

The woman who would become his wife was the aunt of the sixth victim.

The heroine, Isela Snowa, meets Deon to rescue her young niece, who has been taken to the duke’s mansion.

Deon falls in love with her at first sight, takes over the legendary holy relic she has, and finally stops.

She broke the blood’s bridle.

It was a very romantic story of salvation.

The fucking romance that will happen after I’m gone.

What’s frustrating is that the four people who were previously dedicated to him died because they couldn’t hold out, but I was also destined to be discarded.

Just because a new child would appear.

Since ancient times, there has been only one duke’s blood bag.

The hostages who died earlier were disposed of because it was dangerous to get into the enemy’s hands.

Words were a punishment, nothing short of a death sentence.

It wasn’t that the disposition was incomprehensible.

That’s why the blood bags were often kidnapped in the previous generation because security was bound to be lax when there were several hostages.

There was a precedent of paying a huge amount of money in exchange for prisoners every time, so they always left only one person behind.
[T/N: I think it means they were kidnapped from the Duke’s mansion or died while being sucked]

In addition, in this world, when many blood sacs were born, blood became lighter, and if there were numerous blood sacs left, more blood had to be consumed to gain its original power.
[T/N: blood sacs means a blood blister that fills with blood instead of clear liquid. Blisters are small pockets of fluid under a layer of skin.]

It was a merciless worldview for extras, where they had no choice but to kill all but one.
[T/N: They had to kill everyone, except for those who didn’t have Blisters]

Even the Duke would prefer the blood of a young, strong man who lives long.

So, when the heroine’s niece, who was a little girl who was kidnapped, would have been killed without hesitation.

There are so many characters in the novels that I can not remember their names.

There were many nice and bold women in the novel. Even if not the main character, the secretary who later assists the duke, the vice-captain of the knights, and the minister of art. Many characters combine abilities and resourcefulness.

But of all, why the Duke’s blood bag?

“How can I be so unlucky?”

She let out a long sigh.

At least, if I possess even the lowest-ranking maid of the duke. I’m confident that if you give me a broom, I’ll be able to sweep away every piece of fallen leaves.

I looked at the maid sweeping the snow from early in the morning.

I envied her tiredness as she rubbed her eyes and tried to drive away sleepiness.

It seemed perfectly normal and peaceful.

Like a person who donates blood every day, Leonie’s body was limp and flimsy.

Even a short walk made me short of breath and dizzy.

I’d rather have run away. It would have been easy to plan if I had tried.

Leonie in the prologue didn’t know anything, so she couldn’t come up with any specific information.

Leonie died while bleeding, calmly without even being able to resist.

I couldn’t blame her for that.

Having read the prologue, I knew.

How desperately she wanted to live.

The reason she couldn’t even dare to run away was large because of the harsh, barren environment of the north and the vast snow.

But above all, the reason Leonie couldn’t escape…

It was because she loved the Duke, Deon.

Falling in love with the hostage subject is like having Stockholm syndrome.

Or is she a masochist who delights in getting her blood sucked?

‘It’s not because the treatment is good.’

It reminded me of the fish with onions that I had been fed to help clean blood and unclog arteries.

In the bowl, all the bones were removed, and only the dry flesh was left.

I wanted to eat the fat part, but the fat clogs the blood vessels.

In addition, the grease was stripped away, and the only sauce was lemon juice.

If everyone ate like this, they would have thought it was a meal unique to this world, but the employees’ restaurant smelled like grilled meat every day.

After watching for a few days, people here were not giving me a good place for me to protect the hostages, but only trying to make good blood.

So I gave the Duke blood!

A fresh blood donation car that moves with legs!

My arm was nothing more than an intravenous line.

In the novel, it was only written that Leoni would die, but I didn’t know that she was treated so badly.

Why the hell is this damn prologue showing no signs of ending!