“Butler, I think I need to take some leave.”

“You were from Cologne, weren’t you? Are you planning to go back?”

“I need to visit quickly. I heard news that due to old age, they’re critically ill from the epidemic…”

“I’ll submit the leave form for you. Go quickly.”

Adeline was coming down to the first floor for an early morning walk.

The expressions of the head butler and stable keeper Ralph talking in the lobby looked serious even from afar. The two were conversing without noticing Adeline approaching.

Ralph rushed out of the mansion without realizing Adeline was approaching until the end. His expression hinted at how serious the situation was.

Adeline vaguely overheard the conversation, but asked the butler:

“What’s going on?”

“Ralph said he needed to take leave for personal reasons, so I was granting permission.”

Adeline asked again to the butler who didn’t mention what she had heard:

“What about an epidemic?”

The butler, who was worriedly watching Ralph leave, was startled by Adeline’s words and raised his head.

“My lady. You don’t need to worry about the Duke.”

To have the epidemic that he was trying to hide from the Duchess on the Duke’s orders be discovered like this.

The butler couldn’t hide his bewilderment.

Adeline started to probe persistently.

“Is the Duke in a place where an epidemic is raging? Why have you hidden it until now?”

“……”

“Butler. Is the situation really alright? I should go and see.”

Seeing the butler unable to speak, Adeline looked ready to go to Cologne right away.

Looking at her serious expression, the butler hurriedly tried to dissuade her.

“My lady! Isn’t it that His Grace is worried too, so you should stay at the mansion? Please understand the Duke’s heart in going alone despite the Crown Prince’s orders.”

At the butler’s words as he kept bowing his head, Adeline’s eyes flashed for a moment.

There was information she didn’t know in the butler’s words.

“What do you mean by the Crown Prince’s orders?”

‘Oh no.’

The butler made an uncharacteristic mistake, too focused on his duty to protect the Duchess as ordered by the Duke.

He had assumed she would naturally know, since he heard the Duke and Duchess had argued about visiting Cologne in their bedroom.

“Butler. You know that I act on behalf of the Duke in his absence, don’t you? Will you not tell me the truth right now?”

Adeline had always refrained from speaking down to the butler considering his age.

The butler was somewhat flustered by her commanding attitude like other high nobles. Unable to evade any longer, he had no choice but to tell the story.

The butler said that Crown Prince Trashi had dispatched Adeline to Cologne along with Casius.

But Casius had disobeyed the Crown Prince’s orders and gone there alone.

What could he do in such a dangerous place?

If he was going to disobey the Crown Prince’s orders, he should have chosen not to go at all.

“The number of patients is increasing by at least a dozen, up to dozens a day.”

“At first they feel chills, then patients vomit and have diarrhea, showing signs of dehydration. And then it leads to death.”

“The plague is spreading rapidly, so not only nearby villages, but even the Torpeo duchy has tightly locked its gates. The Duke is currently in Cologne.”

Even just from what she heard from the butler, it seemed quite dangerous.

Since it’s spreading quickly.

‘But, he’s staying in such a place?’

Not even staying in the castle in the duchy, but in Cologne!

Having learned the full story, Adeline took advantage of Eric’s absence on business to take control of the mansion’s servants.

Adeline hurried to Cologne, accompanied by three knights and Becky. Adeline’s hasty preparations and departure were due to her urgent feelings, but also to prevent any action before it reached Casius’s ears.

The carriage that departed at noon when the sun was strongest stopped in front of an inn after half a day’s journey.

As winter approached, the outside quickly began to darken even in the early evening.

Adeline and the knights opened the door of the inn with their cloaks wrapped around them.

Unlike outside, the restaurant on the first floor of the inn was bustling with people, signaling early evening.

Due to the suddenly cold weather, the people in the restaurant didn’t pay much attention to Adeline’s group wrapped in cloaks. Thanks to that, Adeline’s group was able to sit naturally in one place.

Only after the knights left their seats to get rooms did the conversations of various guests begin to be heard from around them.

“That epidemic in Cologne is terrible, they say.”

“I heard people die spewing from every hole in their body!?”

The overheard conversations were about the epidemic in Cologne. Adeline began to take interest in the conversation at the next table, opening her ears.

“I heard the Duke ordered everything to be boiled – dishes, clothes, even drinking water.”

“That’s so troublesome, why did he order everything to be boiled?”

“Eh. They say people can’t even eat and just spew it out, will boiling it a bit make it better?”

Adeline began to focus all her attention on the next table when the Duke was mentioned in the conversation she had been listening to.

“I heard he said cleanliness is the top priority, and that he isolated all the patients in one place.”

“Well. Do noble gentlemen fuss over cleanliness even in such places?”

“How would I know? It’s just excessive.”

‘He isolated the patients?’

Adeline’s eyes widened.

The people at the next table dismissed the Duke’s actions as just the luxurious lifestyle of nobles, but Adeline thought differently.

Perhaps because of her past life as a nursing assistant, Adeline knew better than anyone how important the concept of hygiene is in an epidemic.

‘How can he think of the concept of hygiene in this era?’

Thinking of the pandemics we’ve been through, not only is the epidemic itself a problem, but the risk of secondary diseases in the process of treating the epidemic is also considerable.

Just looking at the Spanish flu, you can see how important personal hygiene and quarantine are.

‘Moreover, even cholera…’

Suddenly, Adeline had a realization.

Come to think of it, the symptoms of the epidemic in Cologne were very similar to cholera.

‘Chills, vomiting, diarrhea. And even dehydration… Too similar.’

Although she wasn’t certain, if contaminated water quality due to flood damage was the problem, it was entirely possible.

If the identity of the epidemic was indeed cholera bacteria, Casius’s countermeasures were accurate.

Because cholera bacteria are eradicated in boiling water.

‘No way. Did he come up with solutions with that in mind?’

It shouldn’t be possible. Yet, Adeline began to feel a strange emotion rising.

She recalled the original villainous novel she had seen just before dying.

Clearly, the novel she hadn’t even read properly before dying in her past life was all about the Crown Prince from the introduction.

That’s because Trashi would be the male protagonist. However, as Adeline lived her reincarnated life here, her doubts grew.

‘Surely the protagonist should be the mad Crown Prince Trashi…’

No matter how villainous the novel was, the Crown Prince was too extreme. How could a man who commits murder without hesitation be the protagonist?

He had accumulated too much bad karma to be redeemed as the male protagonist.

‘He even kills his fiancée without hesitation.’

No matter how much royal blood he had, Trashi was not fit to be emperor.

Compared to Trashi, Casius was a person of outstanding ability.

Just looking at his competence in state affairs, or his quick wit in moments of crisis like this.

‘Moreover…’

Adeline recalled Casius with the Crown Prince before.

In the current Soltarius Empire, only Casius and Trashi had black hair and red eyes.

Red eyes signify the mark of the emperor. In other words, the heir who will become emperor.

It might seem natural for Crown Prince Trashi to be born with those red eyes, but…

Looking at the two men together, Adeline felt that Casius was more suited to be emperor than the Crown Prince.

‘Isn’t it natural for the protagonist to have all the abilities? Is the Crown Prince really the protagonist?’

Adeline was deeply pondering her inexplicable sense of déjà vu when she saw the knights entering the inn.

“Hey. You saw His Grace’s eyes too, right?”

“That’s right. They were a very bright red. Was the Torpeo ducal family originally born with red eyes?”

“No. They did produce an empress in the previous generation, but they weren’t born with royal blood, were they?”

And it seemed it wasn’t just Adeline’s thoughts.

One of the knights whispered lowly as he took his seat at the table.

But Adeline, sitting at the table next to them, heard it clearly.

“Then it’s quite strange. Whenever I see His Grace’s red eyes, I’m oddly reminded of the late Emperor’s countenance.”

“……”

“Could His Grace’s red eyes be the mark?”

The knight with him covered the knight’s mouth with a shocked face.

After looking around and not seeing anyone noteworthy, he sat down and whispered.

“My friend, what if someone hears!”

“No! I’m just speculating, that’s all!”

Adeline fiddled with her glass while watching the two knights.

They weren’t from the Torpeo duchy’s knightly order. Probably knights from a local noble family in this area.

Judging by their knowing Casius’s face, they must be knights dispatched to Cologne.

‘If even they see it that way…’

It wasn’t just a doubt that Adeline harbored.

But soon Adeline decided to end her pondering.

Just before her life as Kim Ji-hye ended after being hit by a car, she had skimmed through the best comments of the original villainous novel.

There was definitely a mention that the male lead was Trashi. So probably the protagonist of this novel is Crown Prince Trashi.

Just like how outstanding figures die young. The Duke is probably an ill-fated character with innate outstanding talent but born at the wrong time.

‘Then who’s the female protagonist?’

In fact, Adeline knew nothing about the female protagonist.

Suddenly, Laria crossed her mind.

Since Laria had taken her place, she wondered if the Estillen count’s daughter was the female lead.

Adeline shook her head.

There was no time for such meaningless contemplation.

Adeline stood up, watching the Torpeo knights approach her table, wondering if the carriage was ready.

“Shall we go, my lady.”

Whatever happens to the original story, that man was the priority now.