Chapter : 05
If I was going to die because I was with the male lead, then I would seduce the villain who was supposed to kill me and survive.
I didn’t know if a villain even had such a thing as human emotions, but there was something especially satisfying about slowly winning over a man with a heart as cold as ice.
Having decided to seduce Whistler, Alosha fell asleep while imagining herself marrying the duke and even naming her third great-grandchild Florence.
The next morning, Alosha headed to the Laos Merchant Guild in the middle of the city from early morning.
‘That man appears around Episode 20, so this is still before things start progressing between Dane and him, right?’
The first step of the Genre Reclamation Project.
[Cut off the flow of funds that could become the foundation of a war.]
In the original story, Dane provided the Laos Merchant Guild with soldiers and various kinds of information to help them stand against the duke in exchange for information about the Phoenix Ring, which the guild master desperately wanted.
What exactly was the Phoenix Ring?
It was a ring passed down to the heir of the Phoenix Merchant Guild, the only organization that had been able to trade with Hamusha, the desert country located south of the Empire. At present, however, the ring’s whereabouts were unknown.
Alosha also knew very well that the guild master was searching for it desperately because it had been the only keepsake left by the guild master’s parents.
‘Let’s find the ring first.’
If I made it mine from the very beginning, then at least the scene within the first sixty episodes where Dane angered Duke Whistler and used Alosha and Alexis’s deaths as an example could be postponed.
‘It would be nice if this led to a peaceful separation between House Nocturne and Dane, but there’s no way the original story’s 560-episode plot force will be that easy to overcome.’
The situation was uncertain, and she had no idea what would happen, but she had to succeed if she wanted to live.
This was the beginning of her fanfiction.
“I’ll buy it.”
She had had to travel a long way since early morning, but finding the ring had been much easier than she expected.
It was proudly displayed in a quiet pawnshop in the countryside, not far from where she used to live.
Originally, Dane had also obtained it after a series of coincidences, helping the owner of the pawnshop in this village. A lot of the original plot had been deleted, but…
“I’m sorry, but that item isn’t for sale.”
Perhaps because it was an item connected to a deal with one of the main characters—the guild master—the owner firmly refused even when she offered to pay.
‘Of course. It couldn’t be that easy.’
The original story’s resistance… Whatever.
But Alosha had absolutely no intention of giving up the item that was practically her lifeline.
“I’ll pay double.”
“I’m sorry, but that item isn’t for sale.”
“Triple.”
“My lady, this is difficult.”
“Five times the price.”
“My lady…”
“Ten times.”
“……”
“Twenty times?”
Someone had once said that if you couldn’t get something you needed, you should consider whether the problem was simply that you weren’t offering enough money.
When Alosha offered twenty times the selling price, the owner, who had been repeatedly refusing and saying that he couldn’t sell it, swallowed nervously and began shifting his eyes.
“Sir, of course I understand that you’re saying you can’t sell this item. But I need it very badly too.”
“But the owner entrusted it to me and asked me never to sell it.”
“The owner looked extremely shabby and exhausted, didn’t he? And he was a foreigner, wasn’t he?”
“How do you know that…?”
“He probably sold it because he didn’t even have enough money to buy a piece of bread, saying that it was valuable.”
“How do you know that…?”
“Because the owner of that item was my lover!”
Alosha looked at the ring with tears welling up in her eyes.
“What?”
“Ah! Poor man! He and I were in love with each other. But because our families opposed us, we had no choice but to part ways. I told him that we should run away together and live together, but he left alone for the sake of my happiness. After that, I searched everywhere for him, and his last known whereabouts were here. I rushed here as soon as I could, only to discover that ring!!!!”
The story had been made up on the spot and was clumsy beyond belief, but it was more than enough to deceive a pawnshop owner in the outskirts.
“But, my lady…”
“I know! You must find it hard to believe that I suddenly appeared and claimed to be the lover of the ring’s owner! But you have to believe me! We truly loved each other!”
Alosha thought there was no way he could do anything but believe her.
‘Hmm? But why does he look like that…?’
After hearing a tragic story worthy of the greatest romance of the century, Alosha had expected him to tearfully agree to sell her the ring.
Instead, the pawnshop owner was making a strange expression, which made her feel slightly uneasy.
“…Were you really lovers?”
“Yes!”
“…Even though she was an older woman?”
At the owner’s words, Alosha finally understood what it meant to feel as if the top of your head had been blown open.
She swallowed hard and put all her sincerity into the story that had already completely fallen apart.
“That’s why our relationship was opposed.”
“…But she had a husband with her too?”
“Having a rival only makes the flames burn hotter.”
Alosha had wanted to obtain a single ring, but in the middle of her great romance, she had instantly transformed into a shameless woman who had committed adultery with a middle-aged woman in her forties or fifties.
She bit her lower lip tightly.
‘I should have said she was my parent….’
After a brief silence, the pawnshop owner let out a long sigh and nodded.
“All right. I don’t know what the real story is, but it’s been quite a while since anyone came looking for that ring, and the deadline has passed, so I suppose it should be fine.”
The pawnshop owner took the ring, which had been displayed prominently by the window, and walked toward Alosha.
“It’s a ring of a quality you wouldn’t easily find in a pawnshop this far out in the countryside, so I didn’t want to sell it. But there must be a reason you want it so badly that you’re even willing to tell such an unbelievable lie.”
“…You knew I was lying?”
“Who would believe such an absurd lie? I simply thought that you must want it desperately if you were willing to go that far.”
At the merchant’s sympathetic gaze and words, Alosha felt so embarrassed that she thought she might cry.
The pawnshop owner removed the ring from its display, placed it in a case, and handed it to Alosha after giving it one last lingering look.
“You said twenty times the price, right? That’ll be 35,000 krona, my customer.”
Alosha took out the check she had been carrying and wrote the number 36,000.
“…I’m giving you this extra 1,000 krona on the condition that you keep what happened between us just now a secret.”
“Just 1,000 krona? Hmm… That scene from just now certainly isn’t something I’ll forget easily. You said you were lovers, didn’t you?”
“…”
Alosha took the pawnshop owner’s words, which were filled with mischief, and aggressively crossed out the number with two lines before writing 40,000.
The pawnshop owner, who had been watching her intently, finally smiled brightly and spoke.
“Welcome! This is your first time visiting our shop, isn’t it? Is there anything you’re looking for?”
After even bribing him and returning to the carriage, Alosha’s closest maid, Heidi, tilted her head in confusion.
“My lady, what did you buy at such an old pawnshop that you had to come out so early in the morning?”
“Something that will save my life.”
When Alosha raised her hand to show Heidi the ring on her middle finger, Heidi’s gaze shifted toward it.
“Your life? Why are you suddenly saying something so strange?”
“It’s just something…”
With a look of resignation on her face, Alosha turned her gaze outside the carriage.
‘You’re lucky. You don’t have to die.’
Alosha clenched her lower lip tightly and held back the tears that kept threatening to fall.
As she once again endured the uncomfortable carriage ride and the boring wait, a loud crash suddenly rang out after the sound of a horse neighing.
The carriage she was riding in shook violently, and Alosha and the maid inside were thrown up into the air.
Then, in an instant, the days that had passed flashed before her eyes like a film being played.
‘Ah! So this is what a life flashing before your eyes feels like….’
Just as she was wondering what would happen if she died after finally transmigrating into another world, the carriage, which had tilted dangerously to one side, returned to its proper position, and her body slammed into the carriage once again.
“Ow…”
The pain was so intense that she could barely breathe, and tears welled up in her eyes.
“My lady, are you all right!?”
A moment later, the door was flung open, and the knight outside hurriedly checked Alosha’s condition.
The knight wasn’t at fault, but Alosha was so angry that she answered bluntly.
“…No, I’m not.”
Alosha, who had been sprawled across the floor, got up with the knight’s help and stepped out of the carriage.
Apparently, the collision had been quite severe. The side of the carriage was visibly caved in and smashed to pieces.
‘Isn’t it a miracle that I’m still alive?’
When Alosha turned her head after thinking that, she saw a large, pitch-black carriage stopped right there.
Unlike Alosha’s carriage, which had been smashed up, the other carriage looked fairly intact.
When the carriage door opened, Alosha stretched out her arm and stopped the knight, who was about to step forward.
“Wait here.”
“My lady?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll handle everything myself.”
This was another field Alosha knew very well.
The person who emerged from inside the carriage was a slender man wearing a neat gray suit.
His face was long, and his sharply slanted eyes made him look sly.
“Excuse me! Are you all right? Are you badly injured anywhere?”
‘…This won’t be easy.’
Judging that her opponent would not be an easy one, Alosha decided to bring out the secret technique she had learned from taxi drivers for when an accident occurred.
She grabbed the back of her neck with her right hand, tilted her neck to the left, widened her eyes, and shouted at the person responsible for the accident.
“Ah!”
Startled by Alosha’s scream, the man hurried over and stood in front of her with his posture lowered as much as possible.
“Are you all right? Your neck? Does your neck hurt?”
“No, is it really reasonable to crash into a carriage that was sitting right there in the middle of a three-way intersection? I suppose your eyes are on the back of your head!”
The first rule of fighting.
If you’ve decided to fight, strike first.
