With a broad smile, I held out my hand to Esmeralda.
“Shall we go?”
Esmeralda looked at the Count and took my hand.
“Yes, let’s go, us.”
We made our way through the crowd to a room prepared for the children.
The already gathered children were busy playing tag or with dolls.
I was tense that Esmeralda might want to do such play, but fortunately, she picked up a few refreshments and moved to where the watching adults were gathered.
I closely observed the elegant Esmeralda as she sipped her tea.
The protagonist was indeed the protagonist.
With a dolllike appearance, perfect manners that even I, a layman, could see, intelligence that could be felt from her clear eyes, and a dress that suited her perfectly, nothing was missing or lacking.
There was no doubt that she was the female protagonist.
But there was an unresolved small question.
“Should I call you Lady Esmeralda, Countess?”
The female protagonist of the original work appears as the daughter of a viscount, not the daughter of a count.
Esmeralda smiled lightly and shook her head.
“Just call me Esmeralda. Countess sounds too stiff.”
“Yes, please call me comfortably as well.”
I also forced a smile, but the discomfort remained.
The biggest feature of the female protagonist had disappeared.
Despite being the daughter of a graceful viscount, she won everyone’s love with her cheerful and bright personality, and she acted with a sense of justice that didn’t bend even before highranking nobles. The first incident that connected her with Kirian was her refusal to tolerate his rudeness, the socalled “wine slap” incident, often talked about among readers.
But if she were the daughter of a count, all of these settings would have evaporated.
“Lady Esmeralda, what do you enjoy doing in your free time? Fencing? Horse riding?”
I tried to break the awkwardness between us with friendly conversation.
In the original work, Esmeralda, unlike other young ladies, enjoyed fencing, horse riding, and archery.
This was also one of the factors that attracted Kirian’s interest.
“Do you like archery? There’s a place to shoot arrows in the back, shall we try together sometime?”
I focused on using this information to gain Esmeralda’s favor.
Esmeralda’s eyes sparkled somewhere.
Following her gaze, there was the Count at the end.
“Hey, I’m practicing hard. I still can’t shoot backwards, but…”
Unexpectedly, the reaction was lukewarm.
It was Esmeralda from the original work, who showed the best compatibility with Kirian through common interests. Apparently, she hasn’t yet taken an interest in archery.
“Haha, actually, I can’t shoot backward either.”
In fact, I can’t even shoot forward.
“So if not archery, what do you like?”
I quickly looked for something that Esmeralda would like. At that moment, I noticed the biscuit in Esmeralda’s hand.
“Do you like snacks? Sweet snacks.”
I tried to continue the conversation with a snack that every child would like.
Fortunately, my guess was right on the mark.
Esmeralda began to laugh, nodding her head.
“Yes, I like them.”
Esmeralda, who had been smiling faintly, looked down at her biscuit and suddenly became sad.
“I can’t eat sweet things often because they make me gain weight…”
“What?”
It was not a thing to say from a child’s mouth that she couldn’t eat because of decay or gaining weight.
Come to think of it, the snacks on Esmeralda’s plate were only biscuits, light hors d’oeuvres, and cheese.
“Why worry about gaining weight?”
“You can’t be pretty if you gain weight.”
It was again not something a child would say. Just as I was about to probe further, worried, Esmeralda opened her mouth first.
“Is Lady Reina close to Prince Kirian?”
“Yes, somewhat.”
It’s difficult because I like it more than I planned.
“Then you play often?”
I thought carefully about it.
“No, I haven’t really played with him. I mostly like reading books in the library.”
Esmeralda’s eyes sparkled.
“Books? I really like books too. Have you seen ‘Beauty and the Beast’?”
“Uh… are you talking about the fairy tale book?”
I remembered when Kirian looked over my shoulder at the ‘monster’ picture in the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ fairy tale. He was always disappointed when the ‘monster’ turned into a prince at the end.
Esmeralda clapped her hands. Unlike her chubby face when talking about swordsmanship and archery, her eyes sparkled, and she was smiling.
“Yes! I dream of wearing the dress that Berga Deboutant wore in the fairy tale.”
It seemed like Esmeralda’s true self was finally coming out. Although she was the female protagonist, she was still a little girl who liked princess play and pretty dresses.
“Haha. Fairy tale books. They are really fun.”
But I didn’t know much about fairy tale books.
Just as I was pondering how to steer this conversation, Esmeralda suddenly dropped the plate she was holding with a start.
“Lady Esmeralda! Are you okay?”
With a pained face, touching one ear, Esmeralda tried hard to shake her head.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“I can’t just not worry about”
“It’s just a little ringing in my ears.”
Esmeralda cut off my words firmly with a faint smile. Then, she suddenly brought up another topic.
“Call me a duchess sometime. It would be fun to play with you and Prince Kirian.”
Instead of responding immediately, I picked up Esmeralda’s plate.
“Give the plate to me. I’ll bring you something tastier.”
I moved my feet to where the light finger food was displayed, smiling lightly.
I needed time to think.
I thought I could easily befriend Esmeralda using the original work’s information, but I was mistaken.
Meeting Esmeralda in person, she had too many different aspects from how she was depicted in the original work.
Plus, her worrying about not looking pretty if she gained weight, continually glancing around as if she was watching for something. It was all at odds with the female lead’s assertive personality I remembered.
“The female lead is definitely her. Is it because the original work has not yet started that there are so many differences?”
After shaking off these distracting thoughts, I began to pick up the snacks.
Although it was strange, it didn’t matter.
It was just a little harder to win her favor; I still had to win her over.
The moment I carefully stacked the plate with half the plain finger foods Esmeralda originally picked up and half sweet snacks of my taste.
Thump.
Someone pushed me from behind.
My Ex-Girlfriend Is The Regent In The Female-dominant World (Male lead transmigrates to the matriarchal world)
Two years ago, Gu Sui picked up a homeless woman in ancient costume from the street.
Apart from occasionally claiming to be a princess from a female-dominant country due to illness, her figure, appearance, intelligence, and martial arts skills were impeccable.
Naturally evolving from roommates to girlfriends, as time went on, Gu Sui found it increasingly difficult to tolerate her queen syndrome.
“Mu Jiulu, can you stop controlling me inside and out? Let’s break up.”
Gu Sui made a breakup call, and since then, he couldn’t find any trace of her.
A year later, Gu Sui, who was planning to move, woke up the next day and found himself in a different place.
“Young Master, today is the day you choose your Wife-master through martial arts competition at Jade Dew Pavilion. Please get up quickly.”
Gu Sui: Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?
As the only son of a general’s mansion in a female-dominant dynasty, the young empress personally issued a decree allowing Gu Sui to select his Wife-master through martial arts competition. Whoever could defeat him could marry him.
Gu Sui: “……”
He didn’t inherit the original owner’s martial prowess, so anyone could defeat him! And what the hell is a Wife-master?
Forced to come to Jade Dew Pavilion, the densely packed women below made Gu Sui’s agoraphobia act up, and his face was full of resistance.
Until he saw the Regent sitting on the second floor, with a smile on the corner of her lips, her eyes wicked and nonchalant.
Hmm… she looked a little familiar.
It turned out that the Regent also found him a little familiar.
Mu Jiulu fiddled with her bone clasp, her deep gaze locked on the man who was out of place in this world.
“Finally, I found you.”
Male transmigrates into female-dominant world
One-sentence summary: What goes around comes around, taking turns in the crematorium
