“My lady, the Count is looking for you.”

Erina, who had been sitting quietly, rose silently at the sight of the bowing servant in front of her.

The servant led her. As she left the room, one wall made entirely of glass showed the gloomy weather with rain falling.

The servant descended the stairs from the second floor where Erina’s room was located and headed towards the entrance of the mansion.

At the entrance stood a man who had just come in and was brushing off the rainwater splashed on his clothes.

Erina stopped in her tracks as she faced the man.

“You’re here.”

When Erina spoke to him, the man stopped brushing off the rain, sweeping back his silver hair that gleamed in the light.

The man’s vermilion eyes, which shone brightly even in the bright interior, narrowed slightly when they landed on Erina.

Erina felt her insides churn at his reaction, but she didn’t show it.

“Bring him.”

The knight standing quietly behind the man pushed a small hooded figure in black to stand beside him.

The man pulled back the hood with a not-so-gentle touch and explained to her as if making an announcement.

“This is the child who will be my successor.”

“Today is…”

Was it that day?

Swallowing the rest of her words, Erina quietly examined the trembling child with his head bowed.

The tips of his light brown hair, reminiscent of fine beach sand, were slightly damp with raindrops clinging to them.

Erina turned away, unable to look further at the pitiful sight of the child who couldn’t even raise his head.

Her eyes met those of the man who stood quietly observing her.

“Since there are no plans for children between you and me, I thought a successor would be necessary, so I brought him.”

This man who spoke such nonsense in a remarkably innovative way was Erina’s husband and the male protagonist of the novel she had transmigrated into, Count Peiron Yols.

“Is there a problem?”

In fact, she had no problem with it.

But in the original story, this was the event that caused Erina Yols to become a villainess, hurt by her husband who brought in a successor without a word to her.

“No.”

But for her who had transmigrated into Erina, it wasn’t a problem.

“Not at all.”

Because the current Erina, who didn’t love the male lead and husband, Count Yols, wasn’t hurt.

“There’s no problem.”

Peiron cast a meaningful glance at her response.

Erina looked briefly at the still trembling child before turning her back on them.

Having acted differently from the original story, Erina thought she would have no reason to become a villainess.

She wasn’t hurt, she wasn’t disappointed in him, and she didn’t nurture seeds of hatred towards that innocent child.

Little did she know that this was a big miscalculation, as she would soon find out.

A month ago, Erina realized she had transmigrated into a novel.

The original story was a common love story.

It was a predictable novel about a male lead who falls in love with a beautiful female lead despite being in a political marriage with someone else, overcoming all obstacles with love as chosen by God.

The male lead in the original story was her husband, Peiron Yols, and Erina was the villainess created to highlight the love of the protagonists.

When she learned that she would eventually meet a miserable end as the villainess who interferes with the two, she felt relieved but also miserable.

Even though she realized she had transmigrated into the novel’s Erina, the memories of living as Erina were too vivid.

She had already harbored a desperate love for her husband, whom she thought was her only salvation in a dark life, a love that would never be reciprocated.

It was devastating to have to kill the feelings of love that had already taken deep root, as soon as she learned of her dreadful future.

But she had to shake off all her feelings because she didn’t want to die lonely and pitiful like in the original story.

After crying for days and reviewing the original story, Erina could understand why she couldn’t receive the love she so desperately wanted from him.

Erina was the only heir to the Medelia family, but after her parents passed away early, she was deceived by her uncle who came looking for her and had no choice but to hand over the family.

Her uncle considered Erina a burden and was busy finding a marriage partner for her as soon as she became an adult.

After considering for several years, her uncle arranged a meeting with Count Yols, Peiron, who had offered a fairly good deal, based on a political marriage.

Erina learned that she had been cast out of the Medelia family and had her first meeting with Peiron with a puffy face.

Despite Erina’s messy appearance, which would have been insufficient even if perfectly prepared, Peiron was courteous.

Erina, who was crying her eyes out in front of Peiron out of sadness, fell helplessly in love the moment she faced him as he carefully handed her a handkerchief with a stern face.

Although it might have been a meaningless kindness to him, to Erina it was salvation that appeared before a cliff, a single flower blooming on barren land.

When Erina positively accepted the marriage, nurturing her first love that had bloomed alone, her uncle, sensing the opportunity, quickly proceeded with the wedding.

On the day of the wedding, while she was secretly dreaming of a happy future, Erina learned that the only building her parents had left in her name was included as an item of transaction in the political marriage.

Her uncle had promised not to touch that building, but as soon as Erina became an adult, he changed it to family property and handed it over to the Yols family.

Shocked, Erina confronted her uncle and learned that the building had been transferred to Peiron’s mother and the Duchess of Yols, Mirea Yols.

Thinking she had been robbed of what was essentially the only memento of her parents, Erina immediately went to Mirea, who was practically her mother-in-law, and demanded its return.

Peiron happened to only see the scene where Erina was unreasonably demanding the building from Mirea, and began to think of Erina as a woman who was immature and greedy enough to disregard the deal between families.

To make matters worse, on the first day Erina entered the Yols mansion, Mirea took away all the monthly allowance allocated to the Countess under the name of education.

When a surprised Erina protested that the money was hers and retaliated in anger, Peiron overheard her words.

‘Then I’ll use your money, Mother!’

Peiron, unaware of the circumstances, judged Erina as a shameless and greedy person who would even try to take his mother’s belongings based on a single sentence.

As soon as she uttered those words, Erina ran into Peiron who had been listening outside the door, and hurriedly followed him to explain and clear up the misunderstanding, but Peiron, who had already made up his mind about Erina, didn’t believe her.

Peiron, who had been courteous until just before the marriage, began to treat Erina coldly after that.

Mirea, elated that the situation had turned in her favor, treated Erina with contempt, and even the servants, realizing that she was a wife unloved by the head of the family, became subtly unkind.

Seeing the daughter-in-law’s status at rock bottom in the Yols mansion, Mirea seized the opportunity to take all the rights that Erina should have had as a Countess and indulged in luxury.

The monthly allowance allocated to Erina was all used for Mirea’s extravagant purchases of dresses and accessories, and Mirea’s explanations for this were varied.

That the Countess of Yols couldn’t be extravagant, that a mere viscount’s daughter couldn’t know anything about money and she would teach her, and so on.

All the extravagance was done by Mirea, but under absurd reasons, it was always Erina who was made out to be the extravagant one.

The entire interior of the mansion was already in Mirea’s grasp, and what was reported to Peiron was only the outrageous behavior of a greedy mistress who seemed to flaunt her extravagance despite the incident that had caused misunderstanding.

Unaware of this fact, Erina continued to request meetings with Peiron, but Peiron openly refused to meet with her.

Erina gradually became isolated in the mansion.

With no reliable family to turn to, all Erina could do was live clinging to the thin first love that would never be reciprocated.

Erina lived quietly in the expectation that someday Peiron would realize the truth about the misunderstanding and recognize her.

But Erina, who learned of the future, threw away her first love and expectations into the trash.

The original story began about a year after Erina’s marriage.

Feeling like she’s going crazy in the prison-like Yols mansion, Erina starts begging Peiron to have an heir.

Peiron continues to reject Erina, who demands intimacy while begging for his love, and finally brings in an orphan from outside and introduces him as the heir, which is today.

This was before the original female lead appeared, the beginning of the novel, and the time when Erina started to awaken as a villainess.

In the original story, Peiron ignores Erina who bursts into anger, asking how he could be so cruel in front of the child, and turns his back.

But now, she had thrown away all her feelings and expectations for him, and didn’t get angry at him like in the original story.

Erina harbored a small hope that something might change, even for a moment.

Seeing the changed Erina, wouldn’t Peiron be willing to have a conversation? If so, couldn’t they clear up the misunderstandings of the past?

Perhaps the villainess who died unloved in a novel that packaged adultery as a great love story could live a peaceful life.

Even the shortsighted male lead might realize that adultery is wrong and give up the momentary passionate love.

Then he could respect his wife Erina and live a good life, leading an ordinary life.

Yes, perhaps.

“Erina!”

At the sharp voice heard from outside the door, Erina stopped her hand that had been constantly smoothing her hair and audibly sighed.

The maid standing to one side flinched at the sound of the sigh, but Erina didn’t care.

After all, every servant in this mansion was Yols’ eyes and ears who didn’t look kindly upon Erina.

“Erina!”

Added to the closer voice was the sound of frivolous knocking that rang in her ears.

The person who barged in as the door flung open was Mirea Yols, Peiron’s mother and Erina’s mother-in-law.

“You’ve come, Mother.”

When Erina stood up and greeted her, what came back was a scolding so loud that the knight standing outside could peek in.

“You!”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Do you have any thoughts or not?”

Somehow, that sentence seemed no different from the go-to lines of mother-in-laws in makjang dramas, and Erina barely held back a laugh as she answered.

“What do you mean?”

“Just what have you done to make him bring in an orphan and make him the heir!”

“The Count decided that. Without saying anything to me.”

“That’s why! That’s why, just how have you behaved towards your husband to make that gentle child do such a thing!”

How can this person think that such an idiot, who is the head of the family yet still doesn’t know the truth of the household, is gentle?

Ah, is he called gentle because he never doubts what his mother does?

“I wonder.”

“What?”

“I’d like to know too. What was it about my behavior that made him bring in an heir from outside?”

“Are you not thinking of getting your act together and instead saying such things?”

“I’ve done nothing but love and wait for my husband, so why did the Count do this?”

“Oh my, oh my.”

Seemingly flabbergasted by Erina’s calm questioning, she kept exclaiming “Oh my, oh my” while stamping her feet.

“This is why a man goes outside before even a year of marriage. Why do I even bother!”

After glaring for a long time at Erina, who was standing with her hands politely folded, Mirea disappeared with as much presence as when she entered.

Through the door that didn’t close, the gloomy rainy weather was still visible outside the glass wall, filling her view.

Even now, as Erina’s marriage was approaching its first anniversary, the Yols Count’s house was still like a prison without shackles for her.

A husband who never listens to his wife’s words of truth, a mother-in-law who tries to teach and criticize at every opportunity, calling her frivolous and uneducated, servants who never fully take her side.

Every day was a household that was so frustrating it felt suffocating.

“Poor person.”

They had turned such a pitiful Erina into a villainess.

Soon, Peiron will fall in love with the female lead and bring her to stay in the house.

Also, the original female lead will make it so that Erina has no choice but to act wickedly, and then point fingers at her, calling her a villainess and criticizing her.

Until the moment in the original story when Erina breathes her last, alone and desolate.

“Close the door.”

“Yes, Madam.”

Erina looked at the still dark and hazy rainy weather, thinking that if she changed, maybe the future would change too.

It would be fine, wouldn’t it, if she didn’t follow the original story?

If she passes by quietly like this, if someday Peiron properly understands about Erina, couldn’t they live well?

But ridiculously, Erina had thought too lightly of the reality that had already progressed close to the original story.

Translation complete. 100% of original text translated.