Ominous.

Walking on the gloomy, damp stone floor, I tried to hide the cold sweat on my palms.

‘♬~♩~♪’

The music box sound that had been playing for a while seemed to foreshadow that something would jump out at any moment.

“I’ll protect you! Don’t worry, sister!”

“Alright, I’ll trust only you.”

Diana chuckled and patted the head of the child who barely reached her waist.

“Noel, can you light a fire?”

The interior of the castle was immeasurably vast. There were hundreds of rooms, and the corridors connected spaces in a dizzying manner.

The light Noel created only illuminated their surroundings, not even reaching the opposite end of the corridor.

As they moved forward, it felt like stepping into the gaping maw of a beast.

To make matters worse, there were trap spells secretly set up everywhere, making it a true labyrinth.

“Grrrr.”

‘♬~♩~♪−−−’

Clunk. The soft music box sound stopped, and a beast’s growl was heard from the fog that began to obscure their vision.

Diana’s body stiffened. Her eyes met something glinting in the foggy darkness.

She quickly glanced around to check Noel’s position.

Finally, amidst the white fog, the beast’s muzzle appeared with a growl.

“Noel!”

Just as Diana tightly grasped Noel’s hand to run, a magic circle formed beneath their feet.

Of all things, they had stepped on a teleportation circle. Or was this fortunate now?

The indiscriminate magic could drop them anywhere.

Just before the terrifying teeth could reach them, they were transported to another space.

***

Noel firmly gripped Diana’s clothes. When the light faded, they found themselves in a massive underground cave.

“Noel, are you alright?”

Ignoring the cold sweat running down her back, Diana bent her knees, held Noel’s shoulders, and met his gaze.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

Their relief was short-lived as another magic circle appeared in the vast, dark cave, and a beast roared from within it.

The enraged beast was a werewolf.

“Si-sister!”

Noel stood in front of Diana to shield her. Flames rose from his small hands.

“Grrrr!”

The werewolf drooled beneath its terrifying teeth. Diana frowned at the chaotic situation.

First ghosts, and now monsters. What on earth was wrong with this castle! The werewolf, recognizing its prey, was staring directly at them.

Diana quickly surveyed her surroundings. If there was space to escape, she planned to grab Noel and run immediately.

“Noel!”

That is, until the child darted forward.

“What are you doing! No!”

Noel, determined to protect Diana, rushed towards the werewolf.

The flames Noel threw seemed to have no effect on the enraged werewolf. Rather, it began to rampage more ferociously at the provocative action.

Dodging the werewolf’s attacks by rolling this way and that, the child gritted his teeth.

He had to protect Diana. Noel’s mind was filled with nothing but the thought of protecting Diana.

“Haa. Haa.”

Due to the restrictions on his body, he couldn’t use high-intensity magic.

It was then, as Noel was sweating profusely while trying to maximize his magical power.

A magic circle formed beneath Noel’s feet and shone brightly.

“Ah, sister.”

In that fleeting moment, Noel turned his head to look at Diana.

Diana, who was trying to save him with a hand axe she had been carrying at her waist, seemed to have reached her physical limit.

Noel, with a tearful expression, disappeared.

As Noel vanished, a flash of light like lightning spread throughout the cave.

Bang! Before they could open their eyes to the excessive light, an explosion occurred.

The werewolf was thrown far away by something.

“……”

It was a man. The man who appeared in Noel’s place exuded a dangerous killing intent.

The werewolf, having regained its senses, quickly lunged at the man, but its claws, harder than steel, couldn’t reach him.

The man taunted the beast while inflicting wounds just short of fatal.

The smell of blood grew stronger with each strike.

The werewolf, its body covered in wounds, breathed heavily, still burning with the will to fight, but the man tilted his head slightly, as if assessing something.

His eyes narrowed.

Perhaps bored with toying with it, the man felled the werewolf with a single strike.

Diana’s pink eyes, which had been blankly staring at the man, trembled back and forth.

Thud− She dropped the hand axe she had been carrying for emergencies.

Diana walked towards the man as if entranced.

The man, more beast-like than the monster, turned his eyes to find his next prey.

The predator found its prey.

Sharp blue eyes fixed on Diana. The blue killing intent gleamed as if it would tear Diana apart at any moment. He pointed his sword at Diana as she approached.

Diana, as if the sword didn’t even register in her eyes, used her remaining strength to leap towards him.

She spread her trembling hands and embraced the man’s neck.

In that brief moment, the man could have swung his sword but didn’t move.

Frozen. The man stood still like a statue, unable to move.

“Haa……”

Crazy. This is crazy. That was Diana’s first impression.

She didn’t know where the man had come from, but from the moment he appeared, her heart had been beating irregularly.

Diana could see it. The dark red magical power flowing through the man’s body.

It was truly concentrated magical power. An enormous amount that would have driven an ordinary person mad.

‘If only there was someone terribly cursed.’

As Noel had said, a terribly cursed human had appeared before her eyes. How could she not be glad?

Instinct prevailed over reason. She embraced this strange man as if he were a love of a thousand years.

Diana clung to the man’s neck, absorbing as much of the curse-laden magical power as she could.

It felt like all the fatigue accumulated in her body was disappearing. When was the last time she had felt this invigorated?

The refreshing feeling spreading through her veins to every corner of her body made her feel like she was melting. She didn’t want to separate from the man.

“……”

“……”

Rodrick looked down at the woman’s head that had suddenly rushed in, his vision tinted red.

As he made contact with the woman, the madness that had sharply taken hold began to subside.

What on earth was happening? As his rough breathing calmed, he began to assess the situation.

“Hey.”

The woman didn’t respond. Silence fell for a while.

“Move.”

Despite his voice dripping with coldness, Diana didn’t budge.

Until the man grabbed her nape to peel her off, Diana, unaware of her unseemly behavior, rubbed her face against the man’s thick neck.

Although the man dropped her as if throwing her, Diana managed to maintain her balance and stand upright. This was possible due to her basic physical strength returning.

Wiping the saliva that was about to drip from the corner of her mouth, she looked up at the man with dreamy eyes.

After separating from Rodrick, Diana blinked a couple of times before suddenly coming to her senses with a gasp!

Her face instantly turned red with heat rising. Oh no, what shameful behavior!

“I’m sorry!”

The man, who had tilted his head indifferently, lifted Diana’s chin with the tip of his sharpened sword.

Diana’s pink eyes trembled slightly as she glanced down at the menacing sword.

“Um, couldn’t we just talk?”

His languid eyes narrowed as if measuring her.

“What are you?”

“I’ll tell you if you put this away.”

Rodrick didn’t lower his sword. While Diana could understand the man’s caution, she couldn’t help but sigh.

“I apologize for my rudeness. I am Diana Beatus, the second daughter of Duke Beatus.”

If she had been an ordinary person, she would have trembled at the pressure he exuded, but her attitude remained calm.

Raising her head even more challengingly, she stood proudly as if daring him to stab her if he dared.

After a long moment of this battle of nerves, Rodrick withdrew his sword.

“Why is the youngest of the Beatus family here?”

“You know me?”

“As much as others do.”

“Then who are you, sir?”

Nodding at his brief answer, Diana properly examined the man.

She had addressed him as ‘sir’ because he was wearing a military uniform.

The wolf emblem engraved on the scabbard belonged to the Northern Knights.

“I didn’t get an answer. My lady. I asked why you’re here.”

“I’d like to know that too. When I woke up, I was trapped in this castle. Let me ask again. Who are you?”

Diana looked the man up and down despite his cold attitude.

With broad shoulders and a balanced physique, he had the typical appearance of a well-trained knight.

However, the man exuded an aura unique to those who rule, beyond that of an ordinary knight.

Beneath his black hair tinged with blue, a faint madness lingered in his blue eyes.

“Rodrick Schwartz.”

After briefly stating just his name, Rodrick looked at his hand and clicked his tongue, throwing away his black leather gloves.

He took out new black gloves from his pocket and put them on.

Watching his graceful movements, Diana froze.

Schwartz?! That Rodrick Schwartz?

Who was Rodrick Schwartz?

He was the only brother of Felice Schwartz, the sub-male lead in the novel.

Duke Felice Schwartz was a figure who openly opposed the Crown Prince.

The reason was because of his brother and father who had died from madness. A curse-induced madness.

The Imperial family had been adept at using magical power for generations.

Only the Imperial family could use magical power comparable to that of ancient wizards. It would be easy for them to cast curses.

Felice believed that the deaths of his family members were due to the Imperial family, who held the North by the throat.

In the original work, Rodrick Schwartz only appeared briefly in Felice’s flashback scenes before disappearing.

Felice, longing for his dead brother, found solace in the female lead who embraced him despite being from the opposing faction, and thus fell in love.

Although he too would walk the path of a villain.

Well, to summarize, this man before her eyes was also on borrowed time, just like her. Moreover, he was a villain who disappeared before the original story even began.

Why a villain? His infamy for cruelty that would put tyrants to shame was well-known not only on the battlefield but in other countries as well.

They said he went mad with frenzy and died on the battlefield. That was a story she had heard in the reality before her regression, not mentioned in the original work.

Although Diana had been bedridden, she could hear various news within the system faster than anyone else thanks to her talkative maid.

Was your end as painful as mine?

“Your eyes look impure.”

Hmm, while she was looking at Rodrick with a sense of sympathy for their shared plight. That’s what he had to say.

What a prickly man. Diana looked him up and down again, just as Rodrick had done.

She read not his external appearance, but the cursed magical power flowing through his body.

A man carrying several times the curse of a curse doll.

Hmm, approved.

With this man, she could quickly cure her illness.

What would be good to stick with this man? Lovers? Spouses? For the sake of my life, I’ll cling to him no matter what.

With his handsome appearance that made it hard to believe he was a villain about to disappear. It couldn’t get any better than this.

“What about my eyes?”

He leaned in close, bending his head so that his breath dizzily touched her.

“You’re looking at me with a pitying gaze, as if feeling sorry for me. Am I wrong?”

Oh my, how perceptive. Her eyes, tinged with pink, curved gently. Would it be too perverted to say that even this man’s breath was refreshing?

“No. You got it exactly right.”

It is pitiful. Your curse could save me. Why did you appear only now?

Rodrick’s face was expressionless, but the emotion in his blue eyes was clear.

It was obvious displeasure.