chapter 3
Their appearance alone was so overwhelming it felt hard to breathe. With their large builds, black uniforms, and long swords strapped to their waists, anyone could tell they were trained men.
The man standing at the very front looked like their commander. His silver hair and sharp eyes were far from ordinary.
‘That man feels familiar… Was he in the original story? Who is he?’
Before I had time to think further, I saw the baron and his wife trembling before him.
“W-we truly didn’t know our daughter would run away! I swear it!”
“We’ll find her before dawn breaks!”
The man ignored their desperate words and spoke in a cold voice.
“I heard someone ran away with her. Who was it?”
At his interrogation, the baron and his wife only slowly shook their heads. But when the man shot them a razor-sharp glare, the baron’s wife teared up and answered.
“There was a man who kept pursuing our daughter. We gave him a severe warning, so we thought they had already parted ways…”
The man showed no reaction. Instead, he turned to the soldiers behind him.
“Yes, sir!”
As if they had understood his order from just his gaze, several of them swept their cloaks and quickly left the room. They seemed to be searching for that person—Vittorio or Victorine, or whatever his name was—the one who had escaped with Kayla earlier.
“Where did the young lady usually go?”
His voice grew even shorter.
“Well… she occasionally went to the monastery near the border of the territory, and often to the forest beyond the lake,” the baron replied this time.
As soon as he finished speaking, the remaining soldiers also left the room as if receiving orders. Now only four people remained: the baron and his wife, me, and that frightening man.
The man turned his piercing gaze toward me.
“Did you not know the young lady was leaving?”
I swallowed hard and slowly nodded. It was an obvious lie, but I had no choice if I wanted to survive.
Unexpectedly, he didn’t press me further. Instead, he lowered his eyes and looked at me steadily before asking the baron and his wife:
“I heard there is another daughter.”
I couldn’t understand what he meant.
‘Kayla had a sister?’
That was strange. There was no such mention anywhere in the original story. Did that mean there was another young lady living somewhere in this mansion?
But I didn’t understand why he was looking at me with such an unpleasant expression while saying that. The faint distortion on the baron and his wife’s faces made me uneasy as well.
“If we fail to bring the bride, Her Majesty the Empress will be greatly displeased. I, too, will suffer consequences for failing my mission—but so will you, Baron, your wife, and this entire territory.”
His expression remained emotionless, his voice calm—but that made it even more chilling.
In the end, the baron and his wife dropped to their knees before him.
“P-please spare us!”
“My lord, please spare our lives. We will find our daughter no matter what!”
They begged at his feet, but the man did not move at all.
When I slightly lifted my head and accidentally met his eyes again, I quickly looked away. His gaze felt like it was piercing straight through me.
‘Why does he keep staring? It’s creepy.’
His muddy gray eyes, like a pool of sludge, refused to leave me.
“Now that I think about it, Her Majesty the Empress did say to bring Baron Enrio’s daughter—but she never specified which daughter.”
At those words, the baron and his wife’s eyes widened, and they turned to look at me at the same time.
Seeing the imperial man’s meaningful smile and the couple’s reaction, a bad feeling finally crept up on me.
‘W-wait. What is this?!’
I was definitely in a terrible situation.
“There is still time before departure. You should discuss this calmly as a family.”
The man from the imperial palace left, leaving only us behind.
“Family,” he said. I felt like I was going insane.
After the man left, I listened to the baron and his wife trying to persuade me, and I gradually pieced together Stella’s situation.
The baron had fathered Stella during a night of indiscretion before marriage. His wife refused to acknowledge Stella as her daughter, instead forcing her to live in the mansion as a maid. After her mother died from illness, Stella had nowhere to go and ended up serving her younger half-sister, Kayla, faithfully.
As a reader, I felt completely scammed.
Even if she wasn’t the protagonist in the original story, wasn’t it too much to hide the fact that the duchess’s maid was actually her half-sister?
Having empathized with Stella, I couldn’t help but feel shocked. What kind of absurd, trashy drama was this?
‘A half-sister? I had no idea. Who would even know that?!’
The original story had completely deceived its readers.
No matter how much she had been taken in by them, how could she serve her half-sister like a true mistress unless she was some kind of saint? I couldn’t understand it at all.
Dawn gradually broke, but my mind only grew darker. If I could turn back time, I would never have helped Kayla escape.
‘I should’ve gone to the capital and found a way to survive first.’
Like a rabbit trapped in a cage, I paced the room all night without sleep, barely realizing morning had come.
As soon as dawn broke, the baron and his wife came to see me again.
“We may have been strict with you, but we never once thought of you as anything less than our daughter.”
Their attitude was completely different from last night. The baron’s face was gentle and benevolent, and even the woman who had slapped my cheek the night before now spoke softly.
“Yes, Stella. Even if you were a maid, you were always with Kayla. We never made you do anything too harsh. Thanks to that, you enjoyed everything a noble young lady would.”
Enjoyed, my ass.
I already knew from the original story how much Stella had suffered serving that foolish Kayla.
Perhaps my displeased expression showed, because the baron’s wife turned cold again.
“I didn’t expect things to turn out like this either. But what can we do? If no one goes, everyone here will die.”
She even placed her hand on her hip, threatening me.
“You included, Stella. No matter your origin, you carry Enrio blood.”
So now that they needed me, I suddenly became a daughter of House Enrio.
“Honey, I’ve done all I can. You handle the rest. Would you rather we all just die?”
She stormed out of the room, and the baron spoke to me with forced kindness and shame.
“Stella… I’m sorry it feels like we’re pushing you into being our daughter now. But this is the only way to save us all. You and Kayla were practically like real sisters, weren’t you?”
My head was a mess from the sudden situation.
“Please give me some time to think.”
“Yes, of course. You’ve always been a thoughtful and wise child. I’m sure you’ll make the right decision again.”
After he left, I walked to the window to sort my thoughts. Below, servants and maids were already busy working from early morning.
Worn-out faces under shabby clothes. Backs bent from labor, skin like dry firewood.
Seeing them reminded me again that I had possessed the body of a maid.
‘If I don’t go to the capital, I’ll either die or live like them forever.’
I instinctively grabbed my head.
‘Everything went wrong. I thought it would be fine as long as Kayla escaped.’
At that moment, another thought rose in my mind.
Should I run away too?
Yes. If I escape like Kayla—
But the estate was now far more heavily guarded after her escape. From the window, I could even see terrifying large dogs roaming the mansion grounds.
Even if I managed to leave the territory, the frightening imperial man would hunt me down like a runaway slave. And in this world, bloodshed happened daily everywhere, and rigid class systems made survival a constant war for commoners.
‘If a maid runs away, she’ll either starve or be caught and killed.’
That thought forced me to face reality.
Calm down. I’m not dead yet. At least I know the original story has changed.
I needed reason, not emotion.
Then the baron’s earlier words came back to me:
“Stella… I’m sorry we’re only now calling you our daughter. But this is the only way to save us all. You and Kayla were like real sisters.”
It was disgusting, but I had to admit something. I didn’t care what happened to the baron’s family—but I had to find a way to survive myself.
I considered a possibility.
What if I—if Stella—became the duke’s bride instead of Kayla?