Chapter 05
Rain had begun to fall outside.
A dwarf dragged out a man with a chain fastened around his neck like a beast and handed the end of the chain to Alfredo.
Alfredo accepted it, hesitated for a moment, then finally turned to me as if he could no longer hold back.
“This is unacceptable. I’m reporting this to the Count. Buying a person? Even if you’re the Lady, that’s strictly forbidden under Imperial law!”
I was dumbfounded.
Just how awful had Luisa been for a servant to speak to his master’s fiancée like this in a society built on nobility?
I frowned.
“How insolent.”
At my words, Alfredo flinched slightly and muttered,
“But… buying a person isn’t exactly something you can call right, is it…?”
“Go ahead and return in the carriage if you want. Or don’t. I don’t care. But before that, unlock those chains. There’s no way I can do it myself.”
I tossed him the key the dwarf had given me.
Startled, Alfredo caught it.
“You’re… setting him free?”
“What, should I drag him around on a leash like a dog?”
The next Emperor of this Empire?
There was a limit to insanity.
While Alfredo mumbled, “Of course not…” and unlocked the chains, I examined the man’s emaciated body.
The first thing I noticed was the wounds.
Horrific gashes, clearly left by a whip fitted with metal hooks.
Leo Pier.
He had once been the First Prince of the Empire.
That was before the previous Emperor died suddenly and, instead of his son Leo inheriting the throne, his younger brother Kalinen seized the crown.
Kalinen had long been suspected of murdering the late Emperor.
But while the poisoned Emperor lay on the brink of death, Kalinen had already secured control of the government. There was almost no one left capable of stopping him.
Even after ascending the throne, however, Kalinen publicly declared that Leo, the First Prince, would remain Crown Prince.
It was to avoid suspicion of murder.
The irony was that the suspicion was true.
Kalinen had indeed killed his brother, and he lived in constant fear that his crime would someday come to light.
As Leo grew older, resembling his father more and more each year, Kalinen’s paranoia only deepened.
He became convinced that if Leo ever discovered the truth, the boy would kill him.
Then, on the very night Kalinen’s queen gave birth to a son, he decided to eliminate Leo.
Sensing the danger, Leo fled the Imperial Palace.
He was only ten years old.
“How old are you?”
At my question, Leo raised his head.
His jet-black hair.
His golden eyes.
Everything matched the novel’s description perfectly.
In the original story, by the time Luisa met Leo, the whip marks had already faded into scars.
Which meant…
He was nineteen now.
I had met him a year earlier than in the original timeline.
Just then, Leo collapsed.
He fell straight into the mud.
Looking down at him, I frowned.
No matter how much you’re the male lead, I’m not about to help you up.
Still…
My own life depends on you.
As I reached out a hand, Leo forced himself upright.
Every muscle in his body trembled violently.
It was a miracle he hadn’t lost consciousness.
“…Nineteen.”
Even so, he answered.
Nineteen.
In the original story, Luisa met him when he was twenty.
At least I had spared him one year of suffering in that underground tavern.
Maybe…
Just maybe…
That would steer Luisa’s fate a little farther away from the execution she was destined for.
I crouched down in front of Leo.
His golden eyes gleamed.
The murderous intent radiating from them made it clear he wanted nothing more than to kill me.
I looked back at him as though staring into a mirror.
The Luisa standing at the stake must have worn the same eyes.
The pride of someone who refused to yield, even before a person who could kill them.
“Everything beautiful belongs to me.”
“Fine. I admit it.”
The entire time I read the original novel, I admired that villainess’s pride.
Maybe that was what led me to this damned transmigration.
In any case, the nineteen-year-old protagonist had a face I liked far more than I had expected.
“Your age is perfect too.”
“What the—”
Alfredo muttered in confusion.
I grabbed Leo’s chin. At once, he bared his teeth as if he were about to bite me.
“I like your face.”
“…What?”
Leo stared at me in disbelief.
“I like your pronunciation, your voice projection, your eyes.”
You’re far better suited to Romeo than the illustration ever suggested.
“I’ve found him.”
“My Romeo.”
I smiled brightly at him.
The stage would pull both you and me out of this hell.
* * *
“So the young lady bought herself a man?”
Arno signed document after document as he listened to Alfredo’s report, never once breaking his rhythm.
Well.
This was exactly what he had expected.
So she had spent every last coin from selling her grandfather’s sword on something like this.
Running a theatre?
What nonsense.
“Yes, but—”
“Alfredo.”
Arno looked up over the rim of his glasses.
Under those violet eyes—eyes completely devoid of emotion—Alfredo instinctively tensed.
He’s exactly like the former guild master.
A face without a trace of feeling.
When the previous head of House Diente had ordered his son to become engaged to the young duchess, he had worn that exact same expression.
“Get engaged. As for the marriage… we’ll proceed only if it’s profitable.”
What had Arno said in response?
“And what do I gain from this?”
A nine-year-old saying such a thing.
The former guild master had smiled proudly.
“I’ll give you thirty percent of whatever profits Diente gains through the duchy.”
“Forty.”
“Thirty-five. Not a fraction more.”
“Agreed.”
What kind of conversation was that between a father and son?
At the time, Alfredo had been horrified that the family head had practically sold off his own son to that infamous young duchess over such a simple business deal.
But now, remembering it again, another thought occurred to him.
The transaction hadn’t involved only Arno.
The young duchess had been part of the bargain too.
If Arno had been nine then…
…the duchess had only been eight.
“Even if I wore a mask, everyone here would still recognise me. So the moment I do anything, the whole Empire will be desperate to tear me apart.”
Perhaps the reason the young duchess viewed everything as something to be bought, sold, and owned…
…was because of the people around her.
People who had never looked at her—
only at the value she represented.
While Alfredo was wavering under an unfamiliar pang of sympathy, Arno spoke coldly.
“We’ve heard enough about the young lady’s behaviour. It’s no longer worth discussing. If she wants to buy that man jewellery, lend her whatever money she needs and record it in the ledger. There are still payments due, so an expense like that—”
“No, that’s not it.”
Alfredo bit his lip.
“She says she wants to use him… as an actor.”
Arno frowned.
What ridiculous nonsense is this?
Actors from commoner backgrounds were everywhere.
Why would she buy a slave from the market just to make him perform?
It had to be another excuse.
Reading Arno’s expression, Alfredo hurried to continue.
“She already brought him to the theatre and has begun training him. She’s even finished recruiting the rest of the cast. Personally, I think…”
Arno disliked seeing Alfredo hesitate.
Usually his loyal butler never wavered.
Yet ever since accompanying the young duchess to the night market, he’d begun acting like a nervous puppy around him.
“Just say it.”
“…Yes, sir.”
Alfredo drew a deep breath.
“One of the maids overheard this. While treating the man’s injuries that night, she told him that if he wanted, he could perform in the play… but if he didn’t, she’d let him leave and go wherever he wished.”
“She’d let him leave?”
After spending that much money to buy him?
One of Arno’s eyebrows twitched.
“What game is she playing?”
“What if it isn’t a game?”
“If it isn’t, then what is it?”
Alfredo remembered the very first question the young duchess had asked the man.
“You… how old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
The way her eyes had clouded over.
Back then, Alfredo had thought he’d imagined the despair hidden within them.
At least…
…until the maid reported what she had overheard.
“Perhaps Lady Luisa thought that he and she were alike.”
“Him… and herself.”
“Her grandfather’s keepsake… and that man.”
“They were both things discarded and sold away.”
“What are you—”
“Merely the sentimental opinion of a butler. Forget I said anything.”
Leaving behind words that sounded unlike him, Alfredo bowed and quietly left the count’s office.
But his words lingered.
Discarded… and sold away.
Arno silently turned the phrase over in his mind.
Then he set aside the documents he’d been reviewing.
Instead, he opened the drawer and took out the script the young duchess had left behind.
Romeo and Juliet.
A girl nearly forced into an unwanted marriage because of her family.
Could this… be her own story?
* * *
“Ah.”
“Ah…”
“Ah.”
“Ah…”
I glared at Leo Peer, who stood there with terrible posture, lazily mumbling through his vocal exercises.
“Voice projection is the foundation of delivering dialogue! The audience can’t judge your acting if they can’t even hear what you’re saying!”
My irritation began to boil over.
I had been Shin Geurim—
a successful theatre director in Daehangno.
When I studied in New York, I’d even worked on Broadway.
Not once had an actor dared treat me like this.
Not.
A.
Single.
One.
Even the idol actors their agencies had forced into my productions had behaved better than this.
“Master.”
That was when Leo, still leaning carelessly, brushed back his hair and spoke.
“I told you not to call me that. It makes this relationship sound abnormal.”
“It is abnormal.”
“You bought me.”
“I belong to you.”
His languid voice left me dumbfounded.
Right.
I’d bought him, treated his wounds, dressed him in clean clothes, fed him, given him a bed…
It had taken an entire week before he looked remotely human again.
And during that whole week, I’d told him over and over—
“If you don’t want to be an actor, then don’t. I’ll set you free immediately.”
His face was too good to waste.
But if he refused, it wasn’t as though I couldn’t stage the play without him.
I had no intention of earning the future emperor’s hatred and getting myself killed.
“Don’t worry. I’ll work hard, Master.”
Yet each time, those strange golden eyes had looked at me as he answered.
He insisted he wanted to stand on the stage.
And now…
This was how he practised.
I had expected as much.
He already knew my reputation.
The reckless young duchess.
Wasteful.
Promiscuous.
He must have assumed all he needed to do was humour me until he found a chance to escape.
And now he was trying this—
“You didn’t buy me because you wanted an actor.”
“You bought me because you wanted me.”
“So why make things so complicated?”
“You don’t have to be the actress while I’m the actor.”
“I already belong to you.”
“You can kiss me… if you want.”
Those brilliant golden eyes drew close.
His expression looked like someone being forced to kiss the most disgusting thing imaginable.
Yet he still called it seduction.
Even gambling with his life…
…he refused to surrender his pride.
That’s Leo Peer.
“You really are Romeo.”
“What was that, Master?”
I shoved him back by the chest and walked down to one of the theatre’s box seats.
“You should practise your pronunciation and projection whenever you can.”
“But once real emotion enters your voice, those things naturally follow.”
“When people get angry, you can hear them even outdoors.”
“That’s because they instinctively start breathing from the diaphragm.”
“…So?”
I opened the script.
“Let’s start with this.”
“What did you think after reading it… you insolent slave?”
Fine.
If the future emperor wanted to be called a slave so badly…
I’d indulge him.
“A clichéd love story?”
Leo looked down at me with unconcealed contempt.
“If you want to kiss me, just say so, Master.”
“That’s why you’re making me the male lead while you play the heroine, isn’t it?”
I laughed softly.
That was right.
He was my Romeo.
And I…
…was his Juliet.
It sounded absurd when I knew he’d eventually kill me.
But I had my reasons.
“No.”
“You read something else.”
I liked the arrogance shining in those golden eyes.
I liked that ridiculous pride that let him despise me while trying to seduce me.
That was exactly the Romeo I’d been looking for.
“A man who has lived his entire life as a Montague…”
“Yet refuses to inherit the Montague name.”
“A successor whose ambitions are shackled by old fools.”
“A love that is really an act of rebellion against those standing in his way.”
I smiled.
A sharp, dangerous smile.
Then I pointed directly at him.
“You understood Romeo’s story, didn’t you… slave?”
Just as I had understood Juliet’s story…
…you had understood Romeo’s. I was certain of it.
