Lina’s heart swelled with the feeling of being recognized as a noble lady for the first time.

In fact, she had acted fine in front of Valige, but she had been quite upset by the empress’s disregard.

She had worried that she might become a burdensome duchess to Valige.

‘Yes, like this, step by step. I just need to be acknowledged by people.’

For the man she loved, she wanted to become his proud wife.

Lina, feeling good, moved this way and that in front of the mirror, examining herself carefully.

A light blue dress that matched her gray hair well.

Though still lacking, her posture and tone were gradually becoming more aristocratic.

Everything seemed to be fine.

Until then.

(This is a time separator.)

“Where is the Duke?”

“He is in his office right now.”

“Is that so? Thank you.”

Lina, rolling the corsage attached to the engagement dress in her hand, went up the stairs with cheerful steps.

Although it was not used in the dress, the corsage, made as exquisitely as a real flower, was so beautiful that she obtained permission from Camel to take it.

Her humming didn’t stop as she went up to the 3rd floor where the office was.

Not only the engagement dress but also the custom dresses she had ordered before were to her liking.

“I must show them to the Duke quickly.”

What would the Duke say when he saw her in this dress?

The man who had said she was pretty even in dirty, worn clothes would surely think she was more beautiful now.

Thinking of Valige giving her a tender smile, her heart was swelling with anticipation.

“I want to see him quickly.”

Seeing his face every day, dining together, even taking daily walks, yet she missed that man so much even when apart for a short while.

This must be love.

A thrilling feeling she had never felt before in her hundreds of years of life. She was very happy now.

Even without breaking the curse, it was enough. Very much so.

And when Lina reached the 3rd floor office, she sensed voices from a room near the stairs.

‘Is the Duke in there?’

Thinking it was the Duke conversing, Lina who had intended to go to the office turned her steps.

Just before she grabbed the door handle, she peeked inside the room through a slightly opened door.

‘Huh? It’s not the Duke?’

It was not the Duke in the room but Lawrence and Knight Philip. Then, slightly disappointed Lina was about to head towards the office where Valige might be when…

“The immortalcursed witch?”

She froze at their conversation.

‘……What?’
Lawrence knew better than anyone that he was not favorably regarded.

Moreover, since he already knew that she had manipulated the documents to come in as a maid, he thought he would have investigated her.

But had he underestimated him too much? He had let his guard down thinking he wouldn’t find out anything, of course.

A witch cursed with immortality.

‘Could it be, did he find out something about me?’

Lina stiffly turned her frozen body and put her ear close to the door.

“What kind of absurd nonsense is that, Lawrence?”

“A few days ago, a storyteller said that the curse of the White Wolf can be lifted by a witch who has received the curse of immortality.”

For a moment, Philip, who had been staring blankly at Lawrence, suddenly burst into laughter.

“Ha ha ha[dash]! Who’s the idiot who goes around babbling such nonsense?”

It was a method that had not been discovered for decades, no, centuries.

How many people from the Permanence family have died without being able to find a way to break the curse during that time?

Not being able to find out from a family that lacks nothing in wealth, information, or power was almost the same as not being able to know.

If there had been a way to lift the curse, it would have been lifted long ago. Philip, holding his belly and laughing, lightly tapped Lawrence’s shoulder.

“So what did that conman say?”

Philip, who had already concluded the storyteller as a swindler, asked Lawrence with interested eyes.

“The Duke must kill the witch.”

“What?!”

It’s not a cruel fairy tale, and the fact that you have to kill a witch to break a curse. Philip’s face, who was about to dismiss it as a children’s joke, was crumpled.

Then, as Lawrence was about to open his mouth again, there was a sign of someone outside.

“Who’s there?”

The Duke was in the midst of talking with Prince Adenmir’s man, so it couldn’t have been the Duke.

Thinking it was a passing maid, Lawrence swung the door wide open. But.

“What? Who’s there?”

The corridor was completely empty, as if no one had been standing there.

“No one’s there.”

“Really? I definitely felt a presence……. No, more than that, Lawrence, the Duke must kill the witch? Is that what he said?”

Lawrence, who had been staring at the corridor for a moment, picked something up and sat back on the sofa.

“Exactly, it’s to take the witch’s heart. But what difference does that make from stabbing a knife into the heart?”

“Ha, it seems like the most useless and cruel story I’ve heard lately.”

“I think so too.”

As if he himself couldn’t believe it, Lawrence, brushing back his hair, leaned back on the sofa and fiddled with the flower he had just picked up in the corridor.

“Why the sudden flower?”

“It was lying in the corridor.”

The flower in Lawrence’s hand was the corsage from the dress that Lina had been holding a little earlier.

But Lawrence, who had no way of knowing that, thought it was dropped by a maid and casually passed over it.

Unaware that some ripple would arise from his careless words.