The knight's hair was tangled as if it had been hit by the wind. As if he had just returned from the battlefield, he had a helmet in his hand, and sweat was dripping down the man's forehead and nose.
"… I guess I'm not late."
The woman's eyes scanned his majestic figure up and down, as if in disbelief.
The man standing at the entrance of the rose garden was truly huge.
The body-fitting armor clad like the lining of a garment along the gorge of the waist that narrowed sharply past the large shoulders. His black hair was soaked with sweat and dirt, so dark that blue lighting was shining.
He was breathing so hard that she could see his chest shaking slightly.
Did he run all the way here? As the man's wet eyelashes blinked, a liquid from sweat or raindrops ran down his cheeks.
Eleanor felt his very precarious gaze staring straight at her.
"That's a relief."
He took a step forward with a rattling sound. His voice also cracked, but it didn't appear that he would rectify it. It was a tighter, more desperate voice.
Eleanor felt a cold sweat dripping through her whole body. She stepped back instinctively due to chills. She almost dropped the rose stem in her hand.
If she was right, the man in front of her was Tashian Verk.
The commander of the Hellasium Imperial Knights, and a war hero who led the armies to victory in the 3rd Continental War and the Great Genova War in the past.
A close friend of the Empire's Crown Prince, Ikshid Lionelle Freidrich Raham Fedellamon, and the only owner of the Duke of Verk family, the most prestigious family that produced three-quarter executives of the Senate reigning over the imperial family.
(TN: If you ever want to name your kids, please not in this long manner. =_=
ED: Seconded. What's wrong with short names?)
Also, he was also the man that was going to be her husband.
Tashian Verk's gaze could hardly be taken away from the woman standing in the corner of the garden. From head to toe, one could only say that she was pure white. It was as if, if she had taken her eyes off of him even for a moment, then she would scatter like particles in the air.
Receiving the gaze from the front, Eleanor felt like boiling metal was poured into her stomach. The long gaze almost paralyzed her tongue. She felt like she had a fever as high as when making iron and her tongue almost became paralyzed.
This was because she knew him.
She knew him too well.
She knew everything about this man. And it was not just a matter of knowing his appearance or personality. Eleanor knew his 'all'. How he was born, what secrets he had kept, and even how he died.
He was the worst ever villain in the novel written by her friend.
•••
It was last night.
Eun-woo was draped with a blanket in a narrow corner of a cold room that was like a closet, waiting for her alcoholic father who always returned home drunk.
She was checking the message with an old cell phone in her hand. To be precise, I was reading an Internet novel with 150 characters that my friend Ye-jin sent me, the only person in the class who used a 2D cell phone.
Novels that have yet to be titled were indeed full-fledged romance fantasy genres.
It was a story that Ye-jin had been thinking about since they were in elementary school. When they were young, novels that started with short introductions or short stories started to become quite bulky when they entered middle school and high school.
Now, the content was as large as any other epic-fantasy novel.
Nevertheless, the content of this story was quite simple.
It was a love story that transcended the status of the emperor of Hellasium, Ikshid Fedellamon I, and Selena Wellwoods, a woman and a daughter from a lowly family.
Of course, villains existed. Not only does they interfere with Selena and Ikshid's love, but they also interfered with the empire itself.
Duke of Tashian Verk, the axis of threatening evil and an enemy that deserved to be removed.
A giant figure, hair that was blacker than a crow's feather, deep eyes that seem to contain chestnuts, the only successor to the Duke's family who has been guarding the imperial family like a pillar since a long time ago, and an iron knight like a beam of the Imperial Knights. A Continental hero.
He was really an attractive person who appeared opposite of the word Villain.
But the ending was brutal. The ending of Tashian, a villain who betrayed Ikshid, a male protagonist who was the eldest and long-time close friend of the family, was disastrous.
He writes treason and pays a fair price for evil deeds. It was written that he was executed by the hand of comrade Ikshid, whom he betrayed.
It was not until the very scene that made her hands sweat did Eun-woo hear the rustling sound of the front door. Her father had returned.
She had to turn off the light. She covered herself in a blanket as if she was dead and held her breath, but barely fell asleep after the noise in the living room, which had been fluttering for a while.
And the next day, she noticed that she woke up in the bedroom of Eleanor Miller, the wife of the villain Tashian.
•••
Eun-woo grabbed the mirror and was startled by what she saw. A smooth skin without any blemishes, hair as soft as a dandelion stalk, and round cheeks that were dyed with azalea, and lips like red rose were opened in surprise.
It was a lovely woman. Two broken glass-like blue eyes were staring at her with a look that seemed to shed tears at any moment.
It was exactly what the novel expressed. Marquis Eleanor Miller, a woman who was described as having a weak appearance and in poor health, was reflected in the mirror as clear as day.
Then, with a bang, a maid with a plump body came in.
"Lady! The bath is ready. Hurry up! Hurry up! We don't have time!"
Without even having time to stutter, her pajamas were flipped off by the touch of a red curly-haired maid who protruded through the bonnet.
"Wa, wait…"
A woman in her mid- to late 40s with a face full of freckles on a hawk's nose. It was Anit, Eleanor's personal maid, who was beheaded by the Imperial Knights at the hands of the imperial knights along with the death of the villain Tashian after working as a marquise for the rest of his life.
"What Wait? Are you saying, Lady! A lady who wakes up early picks up a good man. Come on, don't sleep like a child!"
Anit didn't even pretend to listen to her, and blindly threw her into the bath water. A bucket full of water was poured over her head, which was rustling like wind in her underwear, and she began to comb her bright, golden hair like a horse's mane.
"I mean, do you know what I heard at the marketplace today? Oh my gosh! It was so tacky! The young lady of the Marquis family is getting older and her years are passing, but seeing that there is still no news, it is said that she has lost her position as a concubine, let alone marrying to the imperial family!! Hooh!"
Her hands, which were grabbing Eun-woo's hair and combing hard, were full of strength.
"I wonder how the 18-year-old was full of spirit and now couldn't get over it… ! I don't know where it came from. It's like dog bones*, like that… ! Oh my, lady. I'm sorry. Hmm. I don't know where it came from, but from what I heard, she looked like a maid who awaits her Master, and it's absurd! Even if our young lady gets married while rolling over, she will marry into a better family than her daughter!"
(TN: Bones of dogs, someone who likes to butt in.)
Anit angrily opened a small colored bottle next to the bath and poured it all out in the bath medium mixed with saffron, daffodil juice, and fennel grass.
"Even if Diego did not leave the house, I would hold the woman's arm on the spot and see her… ! No, hmm, I would have shown the maid the status of our marquis family firmly! His Majesty the Crown Prince is indifferent too. He's sending our young master, who's not married yet, to a bloody battlefield!"
Now, the maid was rubbing her body with a woolen brush and vomiting her anger.
"But don't worry. As of today, when your older brother returns, he will immediately promote the Young Lady's wedding. No matter how much the master wears gold and jade on the young girl, hasn't he prepared a good wedding venue so far? You must have put it off day by day because you all have thoughts!"
The maid's hand headed back to the bucket. And water poured over her head that was in chaos without notice.
"Gasp…"
"Hey, Miss! I told you several times to hold your breath when pouring water".
Eun-woo coughed wildly and ruminated over the maid's words.
Eleanor's only family and brother, Marquis Diego Miller, was a supporting role in the novel and a person who had some associations to the villain Tashian Verk.
When he was young, he was said to be a very promising talent who was also nominated for the 'successor' candidate, the leader of the elder council, but now he was just a noble nobleman who was busy wandering around the continent.
The cleverness of his youth was thrown away in the public domain, and the Crown Prince, who could not see the marquise who was ignorant, sent him to the battle of Genova. It happened at the beginning of the novel's play. Eun-woo stuttered and asked back.
"W-where am I going today?"
Anit's hand that was pouring water again stopped towering over her. Eun-woo was nervous and shrank, as if her identity had been revealed.
"… Lady you're healthy, but sometimes you talk nonsense. You received a letter last week. When Diego returned to Hellasium after his service, he told you to come and he will meet you in the rose garden of the Crown Prince."
Anit's eyes were burning like flames with enthusiasm.
She clenched her fists, clenching her ferret hair in her hand as if to break them.
"As soon as I opened the letter, I recognized the great and ambitious will of our master. Crown Prince Palace! How could you call a lady to the rose garden of Crown Prince Palace? As you know, Master Diego and I have not sufficiently proven that there is something in common during our twenty-four years of service to the Marquis? I am sure that this maid heard the unspoken message of Master Diego through the letter."
Eun-woo swallowed her saliva as she saw the solemn maid's expression.
In any part of the novel, there was no scene of the 'transmission' between Anit and Marquis Diego Miller.
"Isn't it just to arrange a wedding between the Crown Prince and the young lady? A meeting disguised as a coincidence! A place for unexpected encounters!"
Prince Ikshid was the male protagonist of the novel.
After his eyes were flipped over by Selena Wellwood, the heroine he met at the victory-celebrating banquet, he played hard to get so much, that it was enough to overturn the whole empire. Eventually, nothing would be concluded until the villain Tashian is killed.
In one word, these three characters had no relationship with Eleanor, that is Eun-woo now, at all.
"I, I don't think so…"
"Therefore, I will devote twenty-four years of experience, or even my life, to the adornment of this lady today!"
"No. This, this life…"
"As expected, My Lady! The reason why you've been so busy all this time was because of the Young Lady's position as the Crown Princess!"
"No, it's really a coincidence…"
"Come on, lady! Get out of the bath! Today I'm going to tie your waist properly! Trust me!"
And after a while, Anit really tightened her waist with a corset until there was no sign of further tightening. In a tremendous procedure that seemed to reposition the organs near the stomach, Eun-woo grabbed the bedpost and struggled, complaining of pain that she had never ever experienced before.
Tying the string of her corset, whining and screaming ironically, Anit muttered constantly.
"Lady, pull in your stomach! Phew, what if our Young Lady marries an old man? Ugh! I am so worried!"
"Ahh…! The Du- duke…?"
Eun-woo was guilty and responded to the maid's words.
The Duke. Isn't that the family of the villain, Tashian Verk, to which Eleanor eventually gets married to?
Tashian, was a villain who faces a miserable ending at the end of the novel, no one else. Rather than marrying her, marrying Selena who was from a poor family and the heroine, was a hundred times better.
"Of course, the Duke didn't say anything, but… This old maid's heart feels… First of all, he was single, and he said it would be a day before he went to the battle of Genova."
"Did that person come and go that often?"
"It's not a fictional day, but… First of all, the fact that he personally moved and visited the Marquis Castle is important. Because he was not a person like that."
Eun-woo swallowed her saliva. Oh my god. Was it a love marriage? Thinking of marrying him made her sweat. It wasn't just because he was a villain in the novel. This is because the novel continued even after his death.
The punishment for sin did not stop at the neck of the master mind. All the families who had participated in his rebellion, and the closest family's offices, side rooms, their resuscitation, servants, and stables. Even a dog, horse, cow, pig, and even an ant cub accidentally crossing the threshold of the family were completely executed.
In a word, it was a terrible ending in which the person who had even a little connection with Tashian Verk was cut off without double confirmation.
She shouted with her face painted pale blue.
"No, no way, never!"