Mary’s gaze, filled with pity and regret, met mine. I already knew. Everyone in this house thought I was out of my mind. They didn’t show it openly because they were employees, but even Mary thought the same.
“There wasn’t any news,” she said firmly, quickly changing the topic. “I brought more blankets. You spend all day in this workshop, and it’s so cold in here.”
Still, Mary’s care for me was genuine. From the day I first came to the count’s estate, Mary had looked after me—just an orphan—with warmth and attention. I placed the blanket on the chair.
“Now that you’re sitting, eat your breakfast,” Mary insisted, swiftly bringing over the tray of food. Then she began brushing my hair from behind.
“Go ahead and eat. I’ll take care of your hair while you do. I won’t disturb you.”
I couldn’t act like a child refusing food after all her effort. I took a spoonful of the soup—potato soup, apparently. I couldn’t taste anything, only the warmth spreading through me.
“What happened to the butcher’s daughter who went missing?” I asked.
“That’s for the constables to handle, my lady. You don’t need to concern yourself with—”
“What about the baron’s second daughter?”
Mary let out a small sigh, realizing she couldn’t stop me. “You mean Lady Catherine? She still hasn’t returned.”
“It’s already been a month, hasn’t it?”
I thought of Lady Catherine’s lush brown hair and light green eyes. She had undoubtedly fallen victim to the killer.
“My lady, you’ll ruin your nails like that,” Mary said, drawing my attention to the way I was biting the edges of my nails.
After hesitating for a moment, Mary cautiously spoke. “Well, there’s something… The baron’s household is trying to keep it quiet, but it seems Lady Catherine left with a servant.”
“A servant?”
“Yes, they’re saying it was an elopement. That’s what the maids are whispering about.”
“So, you’re saying she wasn’t kidnapped but left on her own?”
“That’s right!” Mary’s voice was filled with hope, clearly wishing I would believe her. But I couldn’t meet her expectations. If anyone should understand the seriousness of this situation, it had to be Mary.
“Do you have solid evidence?” I asked, looking into her green eyes.
“Other than the maids’ chatter, nothing specific… But they’ve noticed an unusual closeness between Lady Catherine and that man for some time.”
Foolish rumors like these only buried the truth. It was the same in stories. No matter how much the protagonist revealed the truth, people preferred to believe absurd gossip over suspecting someone powerful, like a high-ranking mage.
“Mary, I know you think I’m crazy,” I said.
“N-no, I wouldn’t dare—” Mary quickly waved her hands.
“But you need to understand. What he’s after…” I stopped and gestured to her eyes and hair. She, like me, had brown hair and green eyes, though hers were a slightly lighter shade.
“…is women with brown hair and green eyes. People like us wouldn’t even be missed if we disappeared.”
“H-how could you compare me to yourself, my lady?”
“Really?”
Though she addressed me as “my lady,” everyone in the count’s household knew I was no different from a servant. Mary was the only one who treated me with respect. That’s why I didn’t want her to become the killer’s target.
“So, you need to be even more cautious than me,” I said.
Mary swallowed hard and nodded.
“Here, take these to the count,” I said, handing her five vials of completed potions—high-grade healing potions.
Alchemy and magical goods were typically regulated by the mage tower to maintain price stability and prevent monopolies. What I was doing here was technically illegal.
“Yes, my lady.”
Few had the ability to create potions or magical artifacts outside the mage tower, so the authorities weren’t too vigilant. The count clearly exploited that gap.
“Still…” I thought. Engaging in this kind of trade, bypassing the mage tower, was reckless. It would’ve been safer to deal in counterfeit money or smuggling. At least those crimes didn’t involve the risk of crossing paths with the mage lord.
I was adopted into the count’s household when I was fifteen. Under the laws of Bynan, orphans couldn’t stay in shelters beyond sixteen. In a world where even teenagers had to work to survive, it made sense. For a fifteen-year-old girl about to be forced out of the orphanage, getting adopted was rare.
“This girl possesses magical talent?” the count had asked. I nodded eagerly. I was probably smiling my brightest, most eager smile at the time.
“Having a family,” I thought, was the best part. It wasn’t the title or the nobility that thrilled me—it was the idea of having a family. I promised myself I would make them proud.
The first thing I learned at the count’s estate wasn’t etiquette but how to use magic. Specifically, Count Hyrun focused on alchemy—how to create magical tools and potions.
At the time, I was too excited about learning something new to realize the truth: the count’s household was nearly broke, and my alchemy was their goldmine.
For years, I churned out potions in a small corner of the estate, like a factory worker.
Then, one day…
“What about the herbs?” I asked.
Johanna, who usually procured the ingredients, returned empty-handed.
“Oh, herbs? The shop’s in chaos!”
I brushed off her words, assuming she’d slacked off and was making excuses.
“The shopkeeper’s youngest has been missing for three days now,” she said.
I remembered the shopkeeper’s youngest—a sweet girl with brown hair and green eyes.
“Oh dear.”
As soon as I heard the story, the image of a wolf came to mind. It was common for people who went out into the forest outside the castle to be attacked by wild beasts.
“Really strange, she went to run an errand to the general store and disappeared,” she continued.
“Disappeared?”
“Yes, they can’t figure out where she went at all.”
However, it wasn’t the wild beasts that had attacked her.
“Did she run away?”
“To run away, you’d need money. That can’t be it.”
“Come to think of it, wasn’t there someone who disappeared about a month ago?” I asked.
“That’s right. It was Emila from the Tyler family!”
Johanna clapped her hands as if she’d remembered an important detail.
“Was Emila the one with brown hair?”
“Yes, she always complained about looking like dry leaves, all withered and frail…”
“What about her eyes? What color were her eyes?”
Johanna hesitated at my sudden question, so I answered for her.
“Green, maybe?”
“That’s right. She had dark green eyes!” Johanna clapped her hands again. I muttered softly.
“…The murderer is targeting brown-haired people.”
“Excuse me?”
“The murderer is targeting brown-haired people. Right? Yes, that’s it.”
Suddenly, I pushed my chair back, and the potion I had been holding precariously fell to the floor, shattering and screaming in my place.
“Does this even make sense?”
Johanna, not understanding what was going on, repeatedly asked, “What? What?”
“To possess a body and end up in this kind of story…”
“What do you mean by that…?”
“The murderer.”
I looked at Johanna and said:
“The murderer who only targets women with brown hair and green eyes! Emila and the youngest daughter from the herbal shop—they were both victims of that murderer.”
The pieces of the puzzle were coming together as the story was unfolding. It was the plot of a novel I had read in my previous life.
“The murderer targets brown-haired women” was a mystery novel disguised as a romance novel. In the imperial capital of Banyan, people had been disappearing, all women in their late teens to early twenties. The strange thing was that all of them had brown hair and green eyes.
Like in many romance novels, most of the nobles in this story had colorful hair, making brown hair the trait of extras. In fact, most commoners in Banyan had brown hair, and green eyes were as common as black eyes in Korea.
Thus, the murderer predominantly targeted commoners, and the military was hardly concerned with the case. Only the protagonist, Karina, struggled with it.
Ludis, a foreign noble and writer, had shown interest in the case purely out of curiosity. Eventually, he developed feelings for Karina. With his keen eye and wide connections, Ludis helped her find the clues to the case.
The identity of the murderer was Eon, the head of the Empire’s Magic Tower. He was a madman with a fetish for brown hair and green eyes. When Karina and Ludis stormed the tower, Eon had already destroyed all the evidence. Eon was furious that his plans had been thwarted by the two of them.
What exactly Eon had planned was never explained, but it was clear that it was something incomprehensible by ordinary standards. The story ended with a life-and-death confrontation, leading to Eon’s death.
“Could this even be called a happy ending?” I shook my head. That might be true from Karina’s perspective, and from the perspective of readers who supported her. But for the countless brown-haired women who died at the hands of Eon, this could never be considered a happy ending.
And I was one of those brown-haired, green-eyed women, destined to be caught in that same fate.
The only fortunate thing was that in about a year, the protagonist would capture the murderer. Until then, I had to avoid drawing the murderer’s attention. Once I realized that, I withdrew into my home.
As a member of the Count’s household, I passed on all the social events and debutante balls. The rumors about me being mad spread, but the Count didn’t stop me. In fact, he was pleased.
What the Count needed wasn’t a daughter who played the part of nobility but a machine that could produce potions. I, who spent all day in the laboratory, was the ideal daughter for them.
