Chapter 1
I pushed open the door guarded by five knights standing like an iron wall and stepped inside with grim determination.
Inside, a woman dressed in dazzling bridal finery stood weeping bitterly.
“Take it off, Linier.”
Hearing my voice, she looked up. The moment she saw me, she flinched in fear and shrank back.
“R-Ruwayne?”
There wasn’t much time.
In my urgency, I immediately began stripping off her wedding dress.
“You’re going to get on the carriage soon. If we don’t do this now, there’ll be no turning back. You don’t want this marriage, do you?”
“Why are you suddenly acting like this?”
“Think of it as my apology… for pretending not to notice all these years while Mother abused you.”
At my honest confession, Linier stopped sobbing and stared at me blankly.
“Why… are you only saying this now?”
I gently cupped her tear-soaked cheek.
“If I send you away like this, both you and I will end up miserable. I want to change our fate, even if it’s only now.”
Her eyes trembled as though she couldn’t believe a single word.
It was only natural.
She had always been ignored by her younger sister. Whenever Linier—Ruwayne’s half-sister—was cruelly abused by Ruwayne’s birth mother, Ruwayne had coldly looked the other way, never once reaching out to help.
Hoping to reassure her, I patted her shoulder.
“So let me take your place in this marriage you don’t want.”
Linier’s eyes widened in shock.
“But…”
“You already have someone you love.”
There truly wasn’t any time left.
Soon, people would burst in to escort the bride.
I hurriedly calmed Linier, helped her change into my clothes, and covered my own face with her veil.
The moment she slipped out of the room, people entered just in time.
They roughly dragged me outside and shoved me into the carriage.
The carriage lurched forward.
“It’s done.”
Only then did I quietly let out a sigh of relief and lift my veil.
I had fed Linier a string of convincing words, but the truth was, I wasn’t doing this solely for her sake.
I have to change the original story.
It was also my way of saving myself from the horrific death awaiting me as the story’s ruthless villainess.
The man who was about to become my husband had never even bothered to see his bride’s face. Even if the bride had been switched, he probably wouldn’t care.
“…Though if the replacement bride is Ruwayne, he might hate it.”
I had countless nicknames.
Devil.
Slave butcher.
Blood-crazed villain.
None of them had anything to do with me personally—they were all the legacy of the original owner of this body.
None were pleasant, but the one that concerned me most right now was…
Beastfolk Hater.
Because my soon-to-be husband was a feline beastman.
When I first opened my eyes in this world, I couldn’t understand what had happened.
I was looking for my cats…
It was a chilly evening after the autumn harvest, when the days had grown short.
My grandmother and I lived together in a rural village. Some neighborhood women had stopped by with rice cakes and mugwort cakes.
As I quietly slipped out the front gate carrying my jacket, their voices drifted behind me, mixed with my grandmother’s weary sigh.
“She’s still wandering around every night looking for those stupid cats? She’s gone crazy.”
“Oh, don’t say that. Ever since her mother died, those cats were all she had.”
“Still… last night I thought a ghost was wandering along the rice fields! You have no idea how badly it scared me.”
Caught between the gossiping women, my grandmother looked back at me with a sigh.
“Eunsu, be careful. It’s dark. Come back soon.”
“And don’t go anywhere near Mr. Kim’s house!”
The village head’s wife hurriedly added the warning, her face full of concern.
I forced a bitter smile.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back.”
The moment I heard the name Kim Deoksu, tears welled up in my eyes.
He was the old man who had mixed rat poison into the food bowls of the neighborhood cats and wiped out the four cats I had cared for.
I had loved and raised those cats like my own children for over ten years.
Originally, they had been abandoned “mouser cats” that villagers simply released and neglected.
Bred by humans and then discarded onto the streets without even the ability to hunt, they wandered the village, skin and bones.
Watching them slowly die alone had reminded me too much of myself.
So I had started feeding them.
Then buying cat food.
Then treating their illnesses.
Before I knew it, more than ten years had passed.
Then one day…
I found them collapsed all over the village, vomiting blood.
The rage and grief I felt were indescribable.
I reported it to the police.
But Mr. Kim calmly denied everything, and the police believed his story without question.
My grandmother begged me not to stir up trouble in the village, so I couldn’t push the matter any further.
All I could do was wander the countryside every night with my heart in pieces, hoping to find the one cat that was still missing.
Whether it was alive…
Or dead.
If it had died, I at least wanted to recover its body.
That night was no different.
I carried only a flashlight as I searched.
I was crying as I walked through the deserted streets when my flashlight began flickering before suddenly dying.
I happened to be standing on a dark road beside the highway.
Cars that accidentally exited the highway occasionally passed through, but otherwise the road was deserted and had no streetlights.
Standing on the pale concrete shoulder, I knelt to replace the batteries.
Without the flashlight, it was so dark I couldn’t even see a step ahead.
One wrong move and I could tumble three meters down into the rice paddies.
Then—
The entire area suddenly became as bright as daylight.
A truck had exited the highway without slowing down and was speeding toward the country road.
I instinctively looked up.
The driver’s horrified expression seemed to unfold in slow motion as our eyes met.
Bang.
A tremendous impact struck my body.
Everything went black.
At that very moment—
“Meow!”
“Meeeow!”
“Myaooow!”
The cries of several cats echoed from somewhere, and time itself seemed to stop.
They were my cats.
Where are you?
Where are you all?
Floating through endless light, I reached out desperately, convinced that somehow they had come back to life.
And then…
I opened my eyes in this world.
Inside the body of Ruwayne Larsel, a villainous supporting character from a novel.
I had no idea what had happened to me.
But one thing was certain.
I was inside the novel.
Did I die?
If so…
Why had I awakened as a character from a novel I’d read?
And why…
Why did it have to be this villainess?
Were those final meows just hallucinations?
Had I heard my dead cats because I was dying?
Or had I become a vegetable, trapped forever inside a fantasy created by my own mind?
There were no answers.
Yet this world was no dream.
Everything here was real.
After a brief period of confusion, I had no choice but to accept reality.
If I did nothing, the story would force me to become the aging Emperor’s concubine.
The thought of sharing a bed with an emperor who already had grown children was horrifying enough.
Worse, the imperial palace was a battlefield of endless political intrigue.
As the story progressed, countless people died.
In the novel, Ruwayne survived for quite a while by charming the Emperor as his favorite mistress.
But even she couldn’t escape death in the end.
As for me…
There was no way I could pretend to be Ruwayne, seduce the Emperor, or survive the deadly schemes of the palace.
So I forced myself to adapt to this world and desperately searched for another path.
The plan I finally came up with…
…was a contract marriage with the novel’s final villain—
Duke Bluois.
At the point where I had awakened in the story, Linier had not yet married the Duke.
During the few days I spent adapting to this world, I watched the marriage negotiations unfold.
Then inspiration struck.
If I could use Duke Bluois…
I might be able to escape the original plot altogether.
And so I decided to switch places with Linier.
We’re here already.
As the carriage slowed to a stop, I peeked through the curtain and swallowed nervously.
The enormous ducal mansion towered before me with overwhelming grandeur.
The coachman called out,
“We have arrived.”
The carriage door opened.
A man introducing himself as the butler welcomed me.
Looking around, I couldn’t find anyone who looked like a groom coming to receive his bride.
“I shall escort you to my master.”
The butler regarded me indifferently.
Though perfectly polite, his attitude remained cold and formal as he led me into the Duke’s study.
The door opened.
Inside, a man lounged behind a desk, resting his chin on one hand while holding a pen.
He raised his head.
“So, you’ve arrived.”
Brilliant emerald eyes instantly captured my gaze.
Green…
His almond-shaped eyes tilted sharply upward, as if painted by an artist.
Within them were unusually large pupils.
Was this what it felt like to have one’s soul stolen?
For a moment, I lost myself in their beautiful color and piercing gaze before regaining my senses and stepping toward him.
As he looked into the darker part of the room where I stood, his pupils visibly widened beneath the light.
A cat.
He lazily looked me up and down.
His appraising gaze made me suddenly self-conscious in my wedding dress.
The Duke’s household had already announced that the ceremony would be skipped.
Still, my father, Count Larsel, insisted I be properly dressed so no one could criticize the bride upon meeting the groom.
Perhaps he imagined the Duke would at least host a banquet.
Apparently, the Duke had no intention of showing even that much courtesy.
“I suppose I should at least know what your face looks like.”
He rose from his chair and walked toward me.
His footsteps were astonishingly silent.
His movements were graceful.
And he was even taller than I’d imagined.
As he stepped beneath the brilliant magical chandelier, his ash-gray hair shimmered with a bluish hue.
I watched the edge of my veil as he lifted it away, quietly steadying my breathing.
He stared at me with sleepy-looking eyes.
I met his gaze.
Then, out of habit, I slowly blinked once…
Then twice.
It was a cat’s greeting.
I won’t attack you.
I mean you no harm.
That was its meaning.
One of his eyebrows twitched with interest.
The corner of his mouth curled into a faint smile.
“The moment I lift your veil, you’re already trying to seduce me?”
“…!”
I had just opened my mouth to reveal my real identity—
But his unexpected remark left me speechless.
Before I could respond, he placed a hand on my shoulder.
“But…”
“You aren’t the Linier Larsel I paid the Count for, are you?”
