Adeline didn’t want to die. She was just running away because she wanted to live.

The rain, which had started falling lightly, was now pouring down enough to obscure her entire view. As if even the weather was not on her side.

Her shoes were ruined, buried in sloppy mud, and the soaked hem of her dress had long since lost its color.

“Ha… hah.”

As if mocking the voluminous folds of her dress, the rainwater clung to the skirt and wouldn’t let go.

The water-soaked dress grew heavier and heavier.

Even knowing she was at her limit, Adeline mustered her strength and took one step at a time.

She couldn’t stop walking until she reached the next village.

By now, Duke Torpeo, who must have returned, would have turned the castle upside down after realizing she had disappeared.

He would have started searching by sending out his knights.

‘I have to go as far as possible.’

But her body wouldn’t cooperate as much as she thought.

Before long, the rain was pouring down enough to obscure her vision. The merciless rainwater had soaked not only Adeline’s dress but also her undergarments.

Fearing she might collapse from hypothermia first if she continued like this, Adeline hurriedly scanned her surroundings.

‘A cave.’

Just as she decided to take shelter from the rain for a moment and moved towards the cave visible ahead.

A loud thunderclap shook the cave, accompanied by lightning splitting the pitch-black night sky.

Adeline shuddered at the terrifyingly loud thunder.

An even louder boom than the thunder she had heard earlier resounded, and the ground and the entire cave began to shake with vibrations.

Adeline staggered helplessly amidst the tremors that shook like an earthquake.

When Adeline finally regained her senses, she couldn’t believe the situation before her eyes.

“Ha… this can’t be true? No way?”

It was horrible. Why did it have to pour down at this moment when she was escaping?

Why, of all times, did the entrance of the cave she had fled to have to collapse in a landslide?

The world was too cruel to her alone.

“Do I… have to die for this to end?”

She hadn’t wished to be reborn as Adeline.

Growing up as the young lady of the Credion Viscount family in this Soltarius Empire, even receiving a marriage proposal from the Crown Prince – none of it had been her will.

She had only wished to escape from the tragic life of this Adeline.

A life with death foretold. If one knew they had a terminal life, wouldn’t anyone struggle to live?

She had fled from the Crown Prince just to live. That’s how she ended up treating Duke Torpeo in Horn, and then clung to him, begging and pleading to live.

And now, she had come out with the intention of giving up everything and running away.

“Why is it so difficult only for me?”

Why was her life alone so twisted, to the point of being wretched?

Adeline sank down helplessly.

What kind of karmic debt had she accumulated in her past life to live such a life?

Adeline cried out in the darkness where she couldn’t see an inch ahead.

She would die here, trapped in a place no one knew about. It seemed her life was destined to meet such a miserable end.

Perhaps because of the fear, it was hard to breathe.

Adeline clutched her heart, which felt like it was burning.

‘I want to live.’

Ironically, in this situation facing death, the person who came to mind was the Duke.

How pathetic. Even as she was dying like this, the person she thought of was Duke Torpeo.

Adeline buried her face in her knees.

“…It’s over.”

Just as she was being consumed by endless despair.

The sound of footsteps echoing from the end of the cave pierced Adeline’s ears.

At first, she thought she had misheard.

But the sound, which had been very faint, gradually approached closer to Adeline.

“…?”

Adeline raised her head.

Could it be that someone had come looking for her?

“Wh-who’s there? Is anyone there?”

Adeline’s voice, which she had managed to produce with difficulty, trembled finely.

But soon she shook her head. She must have misheard. Right, there’s no way anyone could be in a place like this.

“Adeline!”

A familiar voice reached Adeline’s ears as she was sinking into an endless darkness she could never escape from.

The gentle voice that had troubled her so much, and yet made her heart flutter. It was Duke Torpeo.

‘Ah….’

Tears that had welled up in an instant poured out as soon as she saw the Duke’s face.

Duke Torpeo, who had discovered Adeline, ran over and embraced her tightly.

“I said I didn’t need anything else. I told you I just needed you by my side.”

The hands that had embraced her were now cradling her head.

As if trying to restrain himself, the Duke spoke in a suppressed voice near her ear.

“Don’t run away from me.”

Adeline was too choked up with emotion to give any reply.

Before waiting for an answer, the Duke picked up the carelessly thrown lantern again.

In the darkness, Adeline met the Duke’s red-tinged eyes.

A self-deprecating smile briefly crossed Adeline’s lips.

To think that this man would enter the cave, risking his life, and reach out to her who was buried in endless despair.

‘A trap.’

Even knowing that the hand this man extended was not salvation but a trap to ensnare her neck.

Even knowing that if she was caught like this, she would never be able to escape again, she couldn’t refuse.

With just those few words telling her not to leave, making her regret every moment she had run away.

Because it was love.

Adeline closed her eyes. It was time to return.

* * *

She was born an orphan. By the time she began to understand the world, she was being raised in an orphanage.

Not knowing her parents’ surname, she was given the common surname Kim and the common name Jihye.

‘Jihye, now that you’re an adult, you need to be independent.’

As soon as she became an adult, she had to leave the orphanage with just 2 million won in support funds. With the nursing assistant certificate she had obtained in high school, she got a job at a hospital, and in her spare time, she earned a degree through a credit bank system and transferred to a nursing college.

After graduation, Jihye, who had obtained a nursing license, was fortunate enough to be hired at a university hospital.

Jihye really lived diligently.

She just worked herself to the bone to pay off her student loans, and scrimped and saved money by working overtime every day.

Even dating, which most people do, felt like a luxury to Kim Jihye, so she couldn’t even attempt it.

Thus, without ever properly feeling the affection between family members or the love felt for a lover.

Jihye used to fill that void with romance fantasy web novels.

On a late Friday night no different from any other.

After her shift, Kim Jihye stopped by a convenience store on her way home with her tired body.

Sipping a pack of soju through a straw, her gaze fixed on her phone as she walked.

‘Is this really that popular?’

It was a work that had been holding the #1 spot in Series X romance fantasy web novels for 6 weeks.

People were busy praising it as a work that betrayed, betrayed, and betrayed again. As a novel that clearly divided opinions, it seemed to have a thick maniac fanbase.

Taking a sip of the pack soju, the novel’s introduction caught her eye.

ㅡ

In the Soltarius Empire, the Crown Prince’s fiancée has already met an unknown death three times.

Even the young lady of the notorious Credion Viscount family couldn’t escape that fate on her 24th birthday after becoming the Crown Prince’s fiancée.

ㅡ

10 years of experience as a romance fantasy reader.

‘Looking at the introduction, that crazy Crown Prince is definitely the male lead, but he’s a lunatic who killed three fiancées?’

Jihye’s brows furrowed.

As expected. When she opened the review section, the comment section was a mess.

Neum-neum(xxxx* * *): Author, surely this crazy Crown Prince isn’t the male lead, right?

Xsxd(xxxx* * *): Is Trashi a trash male lead following his name? Author, there’s a clear difference between a bad boy and trash.

ㅇㅇ(xxxx* * *): I’m the advance party. 50 chapters in, and the male lead is a lunatic. He’s beyond redemption, how can there be romance…? I bought it because it was on sale, but it’s not worth the cookies.

Jihye, who had been scrolling endlessly through the blazing comment section, let out a dry laugh.

“Wow. To think such a guy is the male lead. There’s not even a regretful male lead tag. If a guy like that doesn’t even regret, what’s the point of reading?”

It was as Jihye continued scrolling down.

Malyeungoyang(xxxx* * *): Even if it’s a remote village, how can there be no one stationed at the Duke’s villa? Does it make sense for an injured Duke to die from excessive bleeding? No matter how I look at it, the male lead is the Duke, if the Duke dies it’s a completely ruined novel.

└ ㅇㅇ(xxxx* * *): Plausibility is ruined. I’m dropping this~

There was a noticeable comment, and it seemed that even after 50 chapters, people didn’t know who the male lead was.

‘As expected.’

“I can tolerate everything else, but I can’t stand a complete lack of plausibility. This is a pass.”

She hated getting stressed from web novels meant for escapism.

Jihye, feeling inexplicably depressed, closed her phone screen.

While others were enjoying their Friday night with family, lovers, and friends, she felt so pitiful drinking pack soju alone.

As she was lost in thought, drunk and looking at seemingly happy strangers, Jihye was about to cross at the traffic light.

Screech, crash. They say time flows differently at the moment of death.

Feeling her body float, Jihye’s gaze fell on her phone screen.

The lock screen must have been unlocked, as the introduction to the novel she had been reading earlier was displayed on the phone screen.

In the time that stretched out like a panorama unfolding, one section caught her eye.

ㅡ On her 23rd birthday, when she became the Crown Prince’s fiancée. That fate could not be avoided.

Why did that phrase catch her eye right before death?

That fleeting thought was brief, as Kim Jihye opened her eyes again in the year 296 of the Soltarius Empire calendar.