Don't Obsess Over A Married Woman (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 11
Each time the monster devoured his brain, excruciating pain stabbed deep into Joseph’s skull.
As time passed, the pain only grew worse, inevitably turning Joseph irritable and temperamental.
If that were all, he might have considered himself fortunate. That cruel agony was more than enough to drive a man mad.
Eventually, when Joseph’s physical age reached thirty,
writhing under headaches akin to torture, he finally realized the monster was about to swallow him whole.
He had to find a way to survive. He wanted to live. Dying like this would be too unjust.
And so…
He turned back time once again.
‘No matter how many times I go through this headache, I never get used to it.’
Arriving in the past by flipping the hourglass of time,
the headache still remained. After all, the monster coiled inside his head was still devouring his brain even now.
Yet this level was bearable—at least it didn’t drive Joseph into frenzied madness like it had right before death.
‘Now, where should I look for clues this time?’
Joseph roughly splashed cold water on his face and rose to his feet.
Just then, his reflection appeared in the mirror directly ahead.
A younger face, a complexion that appeared relatively healthy, hair of an unnatural hue, and vivid red eyes.
Even if these features were merely traces left by the repulsive monster trying to consume him, objectively speaking, they were quite useful.
Thanks to this appearance, he easily gained favor in noble society and accessed high-level information.
He had to survive, no matter what. He wanted to live.
…Though it was far from easy.
It hurt so much.
It was bitterly unfair—a curse that ended a life others might take for granted well before its time, at the tender age of thirty.
Afterward, Joseph rewound time again and again, striving to reach the world beyond age thirty.
It was only after several more returns that he encountered Duchess Dieren once more.
‘Her beauty remains unchanged.’
It had been a year since the Duchess lost her spouse, and she no longer wore mourning attire.
Could that be why? She looked far more beautiful than in his older memories.
Her raven-black hair pinned near her neck, eyes like soft yet cool violets, her slender figure wrapped in pale skin, and the crimson lips from which bloomed…
…a bewitching smile that made one lose their senses.
When he asked her to dance, Joseph once again realized the monster inside his head had gone utterly quiet, holding its breath.
‘Was it not mere coincidence?’
Perhaps Duchess Dieren herself held the key to lifting his curse and silencing the monster.
Joseph approached her.
Again and again, time after time, iteration upon iteration.
Thus, he became certain.
If he wanted to live,
if he wished to breathe in the world beyond thirty,
‘she must be there.’
The problem was her fate—just as cruelly capricious as his own.
Liselotte Karin Dieren—through countless lives Joseph had experienced, she always,
always died before he did,
alongside her three beloved children.
[This is the timeline separator]The Alphon territory?
Trade routes?
Those were merely excuses.
Joseph Obreim Alphon’s sole goal was prolonging his own life.
And for that, he needed Duchess Dieren.
[This is the timeline separator]“Suitable candidate?”
I blinked and asked, and Sir Joseph nodded.
“To an almost unnatural degree. Whenever someone other than the Duchess took charge of this venture, something always went wrong and forced its suspension.”
“That truly is strange. Was there no underlying reason?”
“Oh, the reasons varied—but honestly, wouldn’t it be far more efficient to invest in someone whose success is guaranteed, rather than exhaust ourselves preemptively blocking every possible cause?”
He spoke sense.
“Thus, I suppose I must curry favor with the Duchess.”
“…….”
Hmm. Indeed.
‘Given those circumstances, I understand completely.’
I immediately grasped it—after all, managing money was precisely my area of expertise.
Indeed, ever since I took on the Dieren name, I had extensively involved myself not only in internal affairs like manor management but also in external administration to stabilize and grow the ducal domain.
Thus, over ten years, the Dieren Duchy grew to its current stature.
Truthfully, before my involvement, Dieren had been such a wretched territory that it would have been shameful to even call it a duchy.
At best, it yielded revenue comparable only to a minor countship.
‘Well, given how utterly incompetent the Duke was, it couldn’t be helped.’
Fortunately, I was the sort of person who felt more energized the busier my days became—and besides, I was better suited to external affairs than internal ones.
In fact, that was precisely why I’d missed my prime marriageable years.
‘Originally, I was meant to inherit the Landgritz barony.’
For reference, my birth family, Landgritz, originated from merchants.
Though a baronial house, its wealth rivaled that of many ducal families, precisely for that reason.
…Hmm. I’ve strayed too far off topic.
“So, I suppose you gained that experience through regression or something similar? Just how many times have you regressed?”
“Hard to count. The number held no meaning for me anyway.”
“Then what does hold meaning?”
“That ventures into personal matters.”
“Hmm.”
Even assuming I believed his talk of regression and such, he remained an enigmatic figure.
But then again, what did it matter to me? As long as we each needed the other for our goals and could be certain neither would betray the other, that was enough.
“Very well. If what you say is true, I have no reason not to employ you, Sir Joseph.”
“You won’t regret it, Duchess.”
There was no further need to test each other. Right there, we finalized the contract.
The tutors Viscount Baden had secured arrived just as the Viscountess and I exchanged the freshly signed agreement.
[This is the timeline separator]After deliberately making them wait for over an hour, I finally summoned the visitors to my study.
There were four visitors in total—but only two of them were genuine tutors.
As for the other two…
‘I expected it, but they really did come together.’
Viscount and Viscountess Baden, using the pretext of introducing tutors, had come merely to show off.
Let me make one thing clear: I disliked Viscountess Baden even more than Viscount Baden.
Beyond her strict demeanor and irritable temperament, her vanity and arrogance had frequently brought us into conflict in society.
Even now, she glared at me, silently trying to assert dominance.
“What’s this? Count Alphon?”
At first, Viscount Baden and his wife entered my study flushed with anger from waiting over an hour.
But upon seeing Sir Joseph, they stood dumbfounded, blinking repeatedly in confusion.
“Oh ho! I had no idea there was a guest present. You could have taken your time conversing. Ah, right—I should introduce myself. I am Viscount Baden, and this is my wife…”
After a while, they arbitrarily convinced themselves of why they’d been made to wait and hurriedly exchanged cheerful greetings with loud laughter.
They even went so far as to boast to the tutors they’d brought about how remarkable Sir Joseph was.
“Count Alphon here—you must already know—is an extraordinary figure indeed. He’s practically the center of today’s high society. His Imperial Majesty shows such great interest in him that he’s invited to every single evening banquet without fail.”
Is that so?
“And that’s not all. Count Alphon’s skill is so exceptional that every venture he touches yields enormous profits. Didn’t he recently acquire a racetrack and an opera house? And before that, wasn’t he launching a hotel business too?”
That sounds more like cheating, using his regression ability or whatever it is.
“Moreover, I heard he was recently offered induction into the Tower of Honor. The academic world is in an uproar—they say they’ve never seen a scholar capable of such learning without even attending the Academy.”
…
The Tower of Honor’s induction offer.
That must be closely tied to the letter of recommendation Sir Joseph brought me—after all, one of the recommenders was a scholar from the Tower itself.
‘Still, if Viscount Baden is bragging like this, Sir Joseph must have already built quite a reputation in the capital’s social circles.’
My gaze involuntarily turned toward Sir Joseph. Just what had that man been up to all this time?
“…?”
At that moment, by sheer coincidence, our eyes met in midair. Sir Joseph immediately lowered his eyelids demurely and gave me an endearing smile.
‘He’s putting in such effort to win my favor.’
Right—business was never easy.
“Oh, by the way, Count Alphon. I heard you’re still unmarried. If you’re open to it, perhaps my daughter…”
“Now, now. Save the small talk for another time, Viscount Baden. Weren’t you here specifically to introduce tutors for Viscount Dieren’s heir?”
At that point, I politely cut off Viscount Baden’s words.
If I kept listening, I’d soon lose track of whether this meeting was meant for introducing tutors or merely socializing.
“Ah, hem hem. Precisely—I was about to begin the introductions. Let’s start with the scholar seated over there…”
“No, Viscount Baden.”
Male lead first thought she played hard to get, only to realize she
really disliked him
Short intro:
What she can’t stand the most is the streets full of effeminate men, especially that so-called top beauty whom she avoids at all costs.
Shen Yaoxing looks at Jiang Mingyue, who keeps approaching her with coy shyness.
Shen Yaoxing: Bro, don’t be like this, I’m really about to throw up!
She fears nothing in heaven or earth, except for him getting close to her.
*
At first he thought she was just using the trick of feigning indifference to attract his attention. Later, he learned that she truly despised him.
This dealt a heavy blow to Jiang Mingyue, and he vowed to make her, like everyone else, fall at his feet in worship!
***
Synopsis:
Before transmigrating, Shen Yaoxing only wanted to find a reliable man to spend her life with. Who knew that after transmigrating, she would become a reliable woman herself…
A forced misandrist, highly skilled, and reliable female lead
vs.
An initially aloof and arrogant, later morbid, obsessed male lead
_____
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Chapter Comments (4)
Inline Comments (60)
She was someone he now had to protect. Someone he must be able to protect.
Awww sooo cutee, the lot of them. I am worried his mentality may be his magnum opus
〈Oh? Even so, your training seems far too intense. Should I speak with your swor
Aww she cared about them from the beginning. She was so innocent and hopeful back then too :((, she didnt know the violence was deliberate. He said plesdon’t interfere cause he was resigned oml no….
Not so much out of guilt for failing to protect his brother, but because he fear
Oh nooo 😭😭 explains why they are so bonded now. That’s alot to deal with
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Soo all this talk about the dungeons being a maze and very dangerous was for what???
Aww this is such a tesrjerker of a chapter 🥲🥺 . Now she knows they love her ( they made it obvious though)
This is crazy omgosh what is going onn this amount of darkness and trauma gave me whiplash. I can also see where this is going amnesia arc incoming isn’t it.