Chapter 1 …
“Impossible.”
Erna Zaherete. 22 years old.
For the past several years, I could confidently say that I had lived a relatively smooth life.
Born as the daughter of a prestigious marquis family, I had grown up without ever lacking for anything.
There had been some rather unhappy periods, but I had overcome them all by now and was living each day faithfully as the rightful head of my family.
At least, that was the case until just moments ago.
“Say that again. Laura. What exactly did I…… do?”
“Oh, honestly, why are you acting like this? The Marquess entrusted this to me last night, remember? She told me to give it back to you first thing tomorrow morning.”
At my words, Laura, the maid who served as head of the household staff, held something out to me with an exasperated expression.
It was a letter.
And she was looking at me as though wondering what on earth was wrong with me.
Sorry, but that was exactly what I was wondering myself.
‘There’s no way. I clearly collapsed from overwork a week ago and only just woke up.’
A week ago. While working in my office, I lost consciousness.
The cause was overwork.
I had always been terrible at pacing myself since I was young, working at everything that came my way until this was the result.
Suddenly, my vision spun, and I collapsed.
And yet, I had only opened my eyes this morning.
“What? What do you mean? It’s true that you collapsed a week ago, but you regained consciousness the very next day.”
“What?”
I had regained consciousness after only one day?
And on top of that, I had apparently been walking around as if nothing had happened.
What on earth was going on?
“Marquess? Are you listening to me?”
“No. Not at all. I’m really sorry, but could you give me some time to think?”
After calling for a brief timeout, instead of thinking, I pinched my cheek first.
‘Ow. That hurts.’
That meant this really wasn’t a dream.
‘This makes no sense. I have absolutely no memory of the past week. It’s almost as if…’
“It’s as though someone else entered my body and then left……”
“Yes?”
“No, nothing. I was just talking to myself.”
I had been muttering absentmindedly, so I quickly shook my head.
‘Maybe I have short-term memory loss. For some reason, all my memories from the past week were completely erased.’
Yes, that would make some sense.
Losing my memories was certainly not something I could take lightly, but perhaps because I had found a clue that could explain the cause, I felt somewhat relieved.
“Speaking of someone else, now that you mention it, you really did seem a little strange last week, Marquess.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. Normally, you spend all day working in your office, don’t you? But when you suddenly declared a strike, asking why you should be the one working, everyone was absolutely……”
“Wait, what did you say? A strike?”
That meant…… after regaining consciousness, I hadn’t worked? For an entire week, no less?
“You think that was all? You hardly ever leave the estate, but suddenly you started going out almost every day. Everyone was so shocked.”
“……”
“And you complained about why there were nothing but such gloomy clothes in the dressing room. Then you immediately went to the dressmaker’s and bought up dresses and jewelry by the armful. Everyone was completely thrown into chaos.”
“What?!”
I sprang to my feet and headed straight for the dressing room.
Since I usually spent so much time sitting and working, I preferred comfortable and practical clothing over extravagant dresses.
I also preferred subtle, ordinary tones rather than bright, eye-catching colors.
But—
“W-What is all this?”
I froze at the sight of the colorful parade of dresses filling the dressing room.
A blue dress covered in so much gold-thread embroidery that even noble ladies would probably wear it only on special occasions.
A dazzling crimson satin dress that looked like something an opera singer would wear on stage.
Hats densely decorated with delicate feathers and tiny pearls that glittered beautifully.
And high-laced shoes neatly embroidered with silver thread.
It was as though an entire dress shop had been moved in here.
“I…… I really bought all of this myself?”
“I told you. Why have you been acting so strange all this time? You’re practically acting as if you don’t remember anything…… Ah!”
Laura stopped mid-sentence, looking as though she finally understood something.
Her eyes soon grew as wide as fists, and she began huffing with excitement.
“I knew it! I knew something was strange!”
Oh, no.
“Laura? I know you’re surprised. Yes. I’m also extremely confused by this situation right now. That’s right. I think I may have lost my memor—”
“You worked so much that something must have happened to your brain for a moment! Right?!”
“Huh?”
I momentarily froze at Laura’s shout.
The general idea was similar, but the conclusion was slightly different.
‘Still, a brief lapse from overworking is better than memory loss.’
After quickly calculating the situation, I hurriedly nodded.
“That’s right. No wonder I’ve been feeling so tired lately. I suppose I must have temporarily lost my senses.”
“See? What did I tell you? I said getting plenty of rest was important, didn’t I? There are so many people who work themselves crazy, you know?!”
“Yes, Laura. Everything you said was true. From now on, I’ll make sure to get plenty of rest whenever I have the opportunity.”
Only after I even promised her did Laura finally nod in satisfaction.
I secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
Now, then.
“With that in mind, I’m sorry, Laura, but I think I need to rest a little longer.”
When I told her that she should leave for now, Laura continued to look at me worriedly until the very end.
“If you feel unwell, you must call me immediately, okay?”
After she left, I was alone in the room.
Taking a deep breath, I unfolded the piece of paper in my hand.
It was a letter that the version of me I didn’t remember had apparently asked to be delivered to the me of tomorrow.
[To Erna Zaherete.]
All right. It’s suspicious right from the start.
Who puts their full name on a letter written to themselves?
“You’re not exactly advertising that a third party wrote it.”
Although I felt suspicious, I held back my doubts and continued reading.
[If you’re reading this letter, that means you’ve come back, right?
You’re probably confused and bewildered by everything. I was too.
It may be hard to believe…… but I’m from another world.
It’s a place called ‘Korea’ on Earth, and my name there is Park Sumin. I’m 22 years old and a university student.]
Earth? Korea? Where is that supposed to be?
[One day, I was preparing a report when I dozed off for a moment. When I opened my eyes, I had entered your body.
Erna Zaherete. Your body, specifically.
And it didn’t take long for me to realize.]
What? Entered my body?
No, more importantly, she said she realized something. What exactly did she……?
[That this world is the same as the contents of a novel I had read over there.]
“It’s the same as a novel? What does that even mean?”
The flood of words I could barely understand made my head spin.
[To roughly summarize the novel, it’s an adult harem story where the female protagonist possesses the body of a saintess in a romance-fantasy world and proceeds to win over the various characters one by one…… I’ll skip the details.
Thanks to that, it was truly a dreamlike week. I stayed in a gorgeous old-fashioned mansion, went to cafés in the city, and even had elegant tea. I went shopping to my heart’s content, too.
Ah, I’m sorry for spending money without permission. I wanted to experience the life of a noble young lady at least once. ♥]
I let out a small sigh at the utterly carefree innocence that seemed to radiate from every sentence.
I was already overwhelmed by everything that was happening, and this woman, who seemed to have a flower garden growing inside her head, was driving me even crazier.
Perhaps she noticed how I felt.
[Don’t worry too much. I tried my best not to cause any trouble. There probably won’t be any major problems.
Still, I thought I should report to you, so I briefly summarized what I did over the past week.
— Tea time at <Shellport> Teahouse
— Admiring masterpieces at <Mird> Gallery
— Watched three plays at the theater, <Liber>.
.
.
.
Sorry. That’s about all I can remember.
I should have written things down whenever I had the chance. Unfortunately, my memory isn’t very good.]
“Yeah. I can tell.”
At this point, I wondered if it would have been better if she simply hadn’t written anything at all.
Was she trying to make fun of me?
[Ah, I remember! And there’s one more thing.
This is really…… something that…… I’m sorry about too…….]
What else is there?
The sentence was clearly hesitant, with an unusually large number of periods.
An ominous feeling slowly crept over me.
Following the trail of dots with my eyes, I slowly lowered my gaze—and froze.
[……You slept with Leon Obsidian.]
“Holy crap.”
What kind of nonsense was this?
What? I slept with whom?
Leon Obsidian?
“Don’t tell me, ‘that’ Leon Obsidian?!”
I was so shocked that I remained frozen for quite some time.
Leon Obsidian. Who was he?
To put it simply, he was the illegitimate son of the former emperor and the current master of the Grand Duke House of Bernstein.
Furthermore, he was a handsome man renowned as the most beautiful man in the Orden Empire, as well as the richest man in the entire empire.
Hearing all that, one might think he was a truly perfect man.
‘But there was one enormous problem.’
He was the commander of the Holy Knights who had sworn a ‘Vow of Purity.’
Because of this, there was a particular title by which he was known throughout high society in Orden.
Namely—
‘The Greatest Marriage Scam of the Century!!!’
“But what did I supposedly do with a Grand Duke like that?!”
