When Rebecca became an adult, Baron Vanessa found her a husband out of what little sense of responsibility he had left.
He was the former Viscount Felice, who had been running a fairly successful trading company in the capital.
In this world, it was somewhat looked down upon for nobles to engage in commerce, but that wasnāt really the problem.
The former Viscount Felice was simply a vulgar and uncultured man who seemed to embody every negative stereotype people had about merchants.
Unable to find a suitable bride from the noble families of the capital and its surrounding areas, the viscount reluctantly entered into an engagement with a scorned daughter from a provincial baronās family who didnāt even have a dowry.
Then he packaged Rebecca up as a trophy to show off.
It was the moment Rebecca transformed from a poor, neglected girl into the beloved youngest daughter of an old and prestigious baronial family.
The former Viscount Felice had a deep inferiority complex about his circumstances.
His family had fallen into ruin, forcing him to make a living as a vulgar merchant.
His greatest goal was to save enough money to purchase a territory, shut down his trading company, and live the life of a respectable nobleman.
He would do anything to achieve that goal.
Under the pretext of expanding his trading company, he even committed illegal acts such as tax evasion. And around the time discussions about his marriage to Rebecca were taking place, he was preparing for a voyage to the northern continent to conduct a spice trade.
The success rate was abysmal, but if the voyage succeeded, it would supposedly bring in hundreds of times the original investment.
āWhen I pieced together the remaining documents, it seemed pretty obvious that it was smuggling.ā
Why else would he deliberately choose a dangerous sea route that was calm for only about fifteen days a year, when there were safer routes available?
That was because the former Viscount Felice had become obsessed with a territory that happened to be up for sale at the time.
Private sales of territories without imperial permission were a serious crime. If things went wrong, the entire family could lose their heads.
Since private transactions involving territories were only permitted under extremely limited circumstancesāsuch as when the heir to the territory had entered the temple or was a foreignerāthey were exceedingly rare.
If he missed this opportunity, there was no telling how many more years he would have to wait before another territory came up for sale.
That was why the former Viscount Felice had taken such a reckless gamble.
āThe territory was quite large, too, so it seems he gathered every bit of money he could immediately access and even took on debt, yet he still didnāt have enough.ā
The former Viscount Felice put down a huge deposit for the purchase of the territory and then embarked on that gamble of a voyage, promising to earn the remaining balance.
And the result wasā¦
Well, it might explain things if I told you that I transmigrated into this body on the day of the former Viscount Feliceās funeral.
Rebecca Felice was technically his wife on paper, but they had never had a proper wedding or married life.
Still, she had been terrified of living without even that thin shadow of protection called a husband.
She cried so hard at her husbandās funeral that she fainted.
And that was when I possessed her body.
Now that I think about it, I suppose it was actually fortunate that the former Viscount Felice had simply submitted the marriage registration to the temple without bothering with an actual wedding.
At the time, however, waking up without even fully understanding what was happening and immediately having to attend the funeral of a man whose face I had never even seen was absolutely unbelievable.
I hadnāt even had a proper romantic relationship, and now I was a widow!
I couldnāt begin to describe how unfair it felt.
Brand-new, unopened marriage certificate for sale.
By now, youāve heard enough about Rebeccaās background.
So, you might be wondering whether the Rebecca Felice I possessed was either the āsisterā or the āmeā from the original novel, Your Majesty, Marry Me Instead of My Sister.
Considering how utterly ordinaryāor rather, miserableāRebeccaās life was, you might have guessed that.
But neither.
Rebecca was an extra who appeared in exactly one line of the original novel.
An extra whose having an actual name was almost surprising in itself.
Usually, to help a transmigrator adapt quickly, the moment they opened their eyes in the body they had possessed, some maid acting as a walking exposition device would appear and say something like,
āOh my, my lady, youāre awake!ā
Then she would explain the situation.
But perhaps because I was merely an extra, no such exposition-loving maid ever appeared.
Thanks to the rather ambiguous transmigrator buff I had received, I continued living as Rebecca using the information stored in my head as best I could.
It wasnāt until a full month had passed that I finally figured out which novel I had transmigrated into.
How did I figure it out? I saw it in the newspaper.
When youāve possessed someone elseās body, the only way to learn the general knowledge of the world without arousing suspicion is through newspapers.
So I started reading every newspaper published throughout the empire as though I had suddenly developed a hobby for it.
From the daily newspaper compiled by the imperial family to the tabloids that would make people question your education if you openly admitted to reading them.
Literally every newspaper I could get my hands on.
On the day I figured out the title of the novel, most newspapers had articles about a charity party hosted by the emperor and empress on their front pages.
For some reason, the names of the imperial couple printed in the newspapers seemed strangely familiar.
Even the illustrations of the pair looked vaguely familiar.
A cold, handsome man with black hair faintly tinged with blue and deep blue eyes resembling the depths of the ocean.
And a beautiful woman with red hair like roses and green eyes.
Once I found a clue about the identity of the novel, I began digging up information about the imperial couple like an obsessive fan.
Fortunately, unlike most royal families, the emperor and empress had married for love.
Their romantic love story was incredibly popular among the public, so it was easy to find old newspapers and magazines covering their relationship from before they were married.
And that was how I became certain that the novel I had transmigrated into was Your Majesty, Marry Me Instead of My Sister.
I had read at least several hundred books in my lifetime, but fortunately, I happened to really like the female protagonist, Rosaline, in this particular novel.
I had reread it several times, so I could remember the general plot.
Right. The heroine nearly died because of a scheme by her half-sister, then regressed using the power of a pendant that had belonged to her mother.
The problem was when I had transmigrated.
It was several years after the ending of Part Two, which covered the marriage of the two main characters.
I had transmigrated into the era of āAnd they lived happily ever after.ā
If you transmigrated into a novel, you were supposed to figure out the original story as quickly as possible.
Like the protagonists of other transmigration novels, I had been planning to either create fashionable items from the original novel ahead of time or get in early on goods whose prices were destined to rise at a certain point and make a fortune.
But the precious information from the original novel I had been counting on was now about as useful as a piece of toilet paper.
Aside from inheriting Rebeccaās memories, there wasnāt even a hint of a useful transmigrator buff.
The only consolation was that, thanks to the novel being written from an omniscient authorās perspective, I knew a few rare pieces of information about the major characters in this world.
And, according to the worldās rules, women could inherit noble titles if there was no male heir or if they possessed exceptional abilities.
Remarriage was also permitted regardless of gender.
The reason I had become Viscountess Felice was because after the former Viscount Felice died, there were no male relatives eligible to inherit the title and no female direct descendants of the Felice family.
So, as his legal wife, I inherited it.
Even so, this world was far more discriminatory toward women than modern society, so the life of a widowed woman from a lower-ranking noble family was inevitably going to be filled with hardship and adversity.
At this point, life here seems even harsher than my life back in the modern world.
And the former Viscount Felice hadnāt left me with only a title.
The voyage he had undertaken while staking the fate of his family on the lineāand even taking out high-interest loans to fund itāhad failed spectacularly.
The trading company was now drowning in debt.
Naturally, the deposit he had paid toward purchasing the territory had been gone for quite some time as well.
On top of all that, the memories I had inherited from Rebecca were like a loosely woven net.
They were barely enough to help me function, let alone repay the debts or adapt to this world.
I was so overwhelmed that I even became bedridden, wishing I could go back to my days as an overworked wage slave on Earth.
Of course, everyone else thought I had collapsed from shock after seeing how much debt the trading company had.
Back then, I seriously considered taking whatever jewels were left and running away.
At first, people assumed I was sick because I was shocked to find myself possessing such a character.
Later, however, I stayed in bed pretending to be ill simply to avoid the debt collectors.
The maids couldnāt exactly be called my allies either, so when I secretly stole the ledgers from the former Viscount Feliceās study and looked through them late at night to figure out the extent of the debts, I nearly cried.
After checking the former Viscount Feliceās financial situation so that I could at least escape if things went south, I discovered that, fortunately, he had actually been quite wealthy.
The trading company was also a fairly solid, well-established mid-sized business.
The debts from the failed voyage and the lost deposit had certainly put the companyās finances in danger, but it wasnāt enough to completely destroy it.
Besides, leaving behind a secure status in a world where I had no connections whatsoever would have been quite the gamble.
So, for the time being, I decided to do everything I could to save the Felice Trading Company.
It wasnāt easy.
Before I transmigrated, I had majored in business administration and was working at a small trading company, so I secretly thought running a trading company shouldnāt be that difficult.
But once I actually became the head of one, I realized I simply wasnāt cut out for business.
Long live salaried employees!
Still, they say a position makes the person.
After about a year, I no longer felt like my heart was about to fall out of my chest whenever the employees called out,
āMadam, the head of the trading company!ā
Although I could barely remember anything from my university major except completely irrelevant facts like how Isaac Newton supposedly lost a fortune trading stocks, and the only things I had really gained from my experience as an employee at a trading company were my alcohol tolerance and the ability to smile while politely speaking even when I was cursing someone out internallyā¦
I still possessed knowledge of more advanced civilization than this world.
When I clumsily applied marketing techniques and business strategies I had picked up from living in modern society to the trading company, they worked surprisingly well in this world, where commerce was only just beginning to develop properly.
āMadam, is there a particular reason you set the price of the new product at 99 silver?ā
ā39,800 won on Korean home shopping. That amazing pricing strategy that keeps it under 40,000 won.ā
āPardon? I didnāt quite hear you.ā
āNothing. Iām just saying you should experience the effect of that one-silver difference.ā
What was especially sweet, though, was the random box.
āMadam! The trading company that agreed to purchase the Luga has gone bankrupt. Should we look for another buyer?ā
āNo. Luga sales drop sharply after the Harvest Festival. We donāt have time. Lucy, whatās currently selling the best at the trading company?ā
āProbably the different varieties of tea leaves.ā
āGood. Weāll put Luga and randomly selected tea leaves into boxes so the contents canāt be seen and sell them together. Call them Lucky Boxes. And if the trading company has any other dead stock, add that to the boxes too. Itās a perfect opportunity to clear out inventory.ā
āBut then people might end up buying products they donāt actually want. Is that really okay?ā
āSet the price low enough that people can justify buying one for fun. And make sure the total retail value of the products inside is slightly higher than the price of the Lucky Box. That way, even if they get something they didnāt want, they wonāt feel too disappointed.ā
āMadam! The Lucky Boxes sold out in just one week! Butā¦ what exactly are you doing right now?ā
