“I’m pregnant.”

Despite dropping a bombshell, Dalia’s face was the picture of serenity. Even her voice didn’t tremble as one might expect – it was as flat as if she were merely exchanging pleasantries.

Dalia placed a hand on her belly and waited for the man’s reaction.

She could no longer hide it. The flowers in full bloom were fading, and the long sleeves were growing shorter.

Her flat stomach would soon start to swell, beginning with her lower abdomen. Then she wouldn’t be able to hide from people’s eyes. So she had to tell the man directly before it was too late.

To prevent rumors from spreading through the mansion and the man’s misunderstanding.

“Pregnant?”

As expected, he stopped writing abruptly, as if he had heard news he shouldn’t have. A wisp of smoke rose from the cigar resting between his fingers on the opposite hand, then dissipated into the air.

Unlike the bright weather outside, the man leaning back loosely in the dimly lit office looked no different from a mafia boss in a movie.

It was clearly not the look of a husband who had just heard news of his wife’s pregnancy.

‘Hey, don’t be scared.’

After all, this novel’s genre is “pregnancy escape + regret story.”

That man loves me, he just hasn’t realized it yet, right?

Dalia tried to calm herself by recalling the novel she had possessed, despite the man’s chilling expression.

“Yes. Yours and mine. Our child.”

“……”

She emphasized that it was his child to prevent any other misunderstandings.

However, despite her efforts, the man’s hardened face showed no signs of softening.

Jet-black hair neatly swept back and blood-red eyes.

His incredibly handsome features screamed “I’m the obsessive male lead” to anyone who looked.

If this were 2D, she might have found him attractive regardless of his glare, but…

‘Wow. Seeing him in person is really scary.’

She suddenly understood why the original female lead ran away, leaving behind money, status, and everything else.

The dark room, in contrast to the outside, and the eerie silence only heightened the man’s menacing aura.

After some time passed in silence.

The man who had neither rebutted nor questioned Dalia’s words looked at her face once, then at her still-flat lower abdomen, and muttered:

“A child.”

Smirk.

He silently pulled up the corners of his mouth into a long smile and roughly stubbed out his cigar. The previously straight cigar was instantly crumpled into an unsightly mess.

Then he rose from his seat and approached his lovely wife who claimed to be carrying his seed.

Dalia swallowed dryly as she stared at the footsteps hitting the carpet and the shadow deepening before her eyes.

‘Just do as you prepared.’

Dalia had imagined the man’s reaction to her pregnancy confession dozens, no, hundreds of times. And she had predetermined how to respond to any reaction.

But.

“Congratulations.”

There was no such response among the hundreds of simulations she had practiced.

His expression seemed truly sincere, too sincere to be dismissed as nonsense born of shock.

But somehow, the feeling was…

By now, he had approached within arm’s reach of her and lightly placed his hand on Dalia’s belly.

“Our child.”

His expression was far from positive words like joy, delight, or happiness.

It was more like he was examining something peculiar.

Just as Dalia was trying to interpret the man’s expression.

The man broke the silence and spoke.

“Then I have no choice but to kill it.”

“What? What do you mean…?”

For a moment, she felt as if someone had struck her on the head.

Suddenly talking about killing? Who? Me? Why?

While she stuttered like a malfunctioning machine.

Soon, people burst into the office.

“Take the Duchess to the tower.”

What? Excuse me.

The man, who had already moved away from me, ordered.

“Don’t let her out, or anyone in, until I give the order.”

Confinement? Isn’t this too sudden?

“From today, don’t give her even a drop of water or a morsel of food until I say so.”

Hey, wait.

Not giving food is going too far!

Having finally come to my senses, I grabbed the man’s clothes.

“W-wait a moment! Why are you confining me? I’m carrying your child!”

Looking at the woman clutching his clothes and persisting, Clayton murmured in a rather affectionate tone.

“Yes, that’s right. So why did you do it, Dalia.”

As he said this, he gently cupped her cheek with the same hand that had caressed her belly moments ago.

“Now I have no choice but to kill you myself.”

The man’s warmth on her cheek felt chilling.

“Isn’t that right, my wife?”

With those final words, the man flashed a sardonic smile and removed her hand from his clothes.

There was not a single mistake in the words of our ancestors.

There’s a reason why people around you try to dissuade you. I should have listened when everyone was trying to make me run away from this place.

‘Ah. I should have just run away.’

It seems I’m screwed.

Late afternoon, as the sun was setting.

With a rustling sound, a woman got out of bed and stood in front of the mirror.

Silver hair resembling light shimmering and breaking on water, and amethyst-like purple eyes.

The woman exuding a sorrowful aura befitting the protagonist of a regret story was Dalia, the female lead I had possessed.

Standing in front of the mirror, I traced the red and blue marks on my body with my fingers and muttered.

“This confirms the pregnancy.”

Confirms it indeed.

Last night.

In the moment when I collapsed in the arms of the man who seemed to have no intention of letting me go as he moved his hips, I realized one important fact.

That I had possessed a character in a novel I had read sometime before.

To be precise, a romance fantasy novel called .

As can be inferred from the title “Don’t Look for the Missing Duchess”, the novel I had possessed was one where the pregnant female lead runs away from the male lead.

Commonly known as a ‘pregnancy escape’.

Yes, I had possessed a novel where the female lead runs away while pregnant with the male lead’s child, raising the child alone for 7 years while enduring all sorts of hardships.

Fuck.

In a situation where only expletives came to mind, what made her even more despairing was.

The fact that she had already slept with the male lead and her strong conviction that she was pregnant due to last night’s events.

She never imagined she would experience the prowess of a 2D male protagonist in 3D.

“Haah……”

Sighing deeply as if the ground would cave in, she turned her head to look out the window.

The scenery visible through the window letting in bright light was in full spring bloom.

“Let’s see. The time when the female lead runs away was……”

Around the end of autumn, wasn’t it? When she could no longer hide her swollen belly with clothes, she fled from this place.

And in the dead of winter, she gave birth to the child alone in a dilapidated house no better than a stable.

“What is this, the Virgin Mary?”

Leaving behind this breathtaking mansion to give birth in such a place.

She lay down on the bed, suppressing another curse that was about to escape her lips.

It was truly a cruel ordeal for a homebody of homebodies who had never made more than one appointment a week and lived a life isolated like in Covid quarantine every day.

My name is Na Tae-yeon.

As my name suggests, I was living a lazy life cooped up at home, and it seems I must have died at home.

I don’t know the cause of death or the reason for my possession.

The important thing is that I’m in a situation where I’ll have to run away from here soon.

“But why did the female lead run away again?”

She raised her body after staring blankly at the ceiling while lying on the bed, trying to recall her memories. Then, as if something came to mind, she clapped her hands together.

“Right. The male lead said he would kill me if I gave birth to the child.”

It was a cliché pregnancy escape plot, classic but guaranteed to be tasty.

The male lead, Clayton Sayer, didn’t want children.

He wanted to end the Sayer family bloodline with his generation, not wanting to pass down the curse that had been inherited through the family for generations.

So what caught Clayton’s eye was this body I had possessed.

Dalia Molden.

The eldest daughter of the declining Molden baronial family, who had suffered abuse from her family.

She was famous in the empire as a barren woman.

And because of this fatal flaw of being unable to bear children, she was about to be sold off as an old nobleman’s second wife, not even a proper marriage, when Clayton appeared before her.

‘Will you marry me? You can think of it as a kind of deal.’

There was no reason for Dalia to refuse the proposal from Clayton, who could be considered the empire’s number one bachelor.

In fact, for the female lead at that time, any match would have been better than becoming an old man’s second wife.

Moreover, she even felt grateful to the male lead who had proposed despite knowing that she couldn’t have children.

So Dalia lived quietly, enduring even as her husband’s mistress wore out the doors of the mansion with her frequent visits.

Until she accidentally overheard that conversation.

‘What if the madam becomes pregnant?’

‘It wouldn’t be my child.’

‘Then the child and the madam…’

‘I’ll have to kill them.’

At Clayton’s words, spoken without a hint of hesitation, she fled the mansion to protect the child.

But one should always listen to the end of what people say.

As is typical in pregnancy escape novels, that conversation was obviously a misunderstanding, and the female lead ends up running away without knowing the male lead’s true feelings.

“Wait.”

Her eyes sparkled as if she had just recalled something important while going over the contents of the novel one by one.

“Then I just need to not run away, right?”

The original male lead loves Dalia, the female lead.

He just hasn’t realized that he loves her until she runs away.

Moreover, the identity of the person he thought was his mistress was actually…

“I know the original story, so there’s nothing to misunderstand!”

The original female lead was timid and suffered from paranoia that everyone around her hated her, due to the abuse she had endured since childhood.

Because of this personality, she often misunderstood not only the male lead but also her relationships with other people.

But now, there was no female lead steeped in paranoia.

Having gained this great realization, she slowly looked around her surroundings.

The luxurious bed she had never seen before and the abundant life where all necessities could be resolved by pulling a single cord.

And on top of that.

“Dalia doesn’t participate in any social activities at all, right…?”

Due to her timid personality, not only did she not engage in social activities, but even the mansion management, which was the duty of the lady of the house, was handled by the butler, according to the setting.

This was truly.

A life of wealth but not fame…

It was the very embodiment of her long-cherished dream of being a rich unemployed person.

Realizing this fact, she let out an internal scream and covered her mouth with both hands.

Then she threw herself onto the bed and thrashed about.

Pregnancy?

Sure, a child. Why not have it.

Running away?

What’s that? I’m definitely not running away!