MLTK 03

#3.

“I see that crow quite often.”

Ever since the first day I possessed this body, I had occasionally heard the ominous cry of a crow. I was about to pass by without paying it much attention when, suddenly, a scene flashed through my mind.

A scene of a crow entering through the entrance in broad daylight and suddenly transforming into a person.

I looked up once again, but the crow was still sitting on the tree, and it was nighttime now.

‘What was that all of a sudden? Was I imagining it? Am I just tired?’

I shook my head from side to side and entered the building.

Well, this was a world where magic existed, so whether a crow turned into a person or a person turned into a crow, it probably wasn’t all that strange.

At least, that was what I thought.

My body was being dragged deep underwater.

No matter how much I struggled and thrashed around, my body continued sinking.

“You wicked witch…!”

Someone was condemning me from outside the water.

‘Witch? Who are they talking about?’

I couldn’t make a sound.

As I struggled, I saw the screen of the smartphone that had fallen into the water.

It was a page from the web novel I Will Give Up on Revenge.

One sentence in particular caught my eye.

[Amelia Wentworth thus died underwater as a witch. It was the moment Vincent’s revenge succeeded.]

‘It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it…!’

Instinctively, I desperately reached out in every direction to survive.

The moment I grabbed something hard and smooth with both hands, I pulled on it with all my strength.

My body shot up above the surface.

“Puhah! Haa, cough, cough, cough!”

After violently coughing up water, I raised my eyes and saw a long bundle of purple strands.

Only after pushing it aside did my vision become clear.

What I had grabbed and pulled myself up with was the edge of a pure-white bathtub.

“Haa, I… fell asleep.”

The warm water had cooled to lukewarm.

This was the bathroom of the Wentworth Ducal Residence.

It was also the very place where, before meeting the Crown Prince yesterday, the maids had dragged me in without explanation and scrubbed and washed me thoroughly.

Even after returning from the Imperial Palace to the estate, I had been unable to sleep until dawn because I had so much on my mind.

I must have gotten into the bathtub to soak in some hot water and then fallen asleep just like that.

“Of all dreams, why that one?”

Still, thanks to the dream, I was able to remember Amelia’s ending in detail.

She was framed as a witch after falling into the Crown Prince’s scheme, then drowned to death.

“Ah, that gives me chills.”

I wrapped my arms around my chilly shoulders, got out of the bathtub, and looked into the mirror beside it.

Long, flowing purple hair, red eyes, snow-white skin, finely sculpted features, and a slender, curvaceous figure.

There was a beauty in the mirror that would be difficult to find even on television.

“I’m this pretty, too….”

First, I put on a robe and wrapped a towel around my head before leaving the bathroom.

The bedroom was directly outside.

Amelia’s room was surprisingly plain for a Duke’s daughter. It had almost no decorations, was rather bland, and contained only the bare minimum of furniture.

Still, one fortunate thing was that during the few days I had been living as Amelia, her memories had gradually returned little by little.

Bang—

“The Duke requests that you come to his study.”

Thanks to that, I had no trouble understanding this unfamiliar language either.

“What did you say?”

The maid’s face immediately hardened at my question. Yet when I stared at her, she flinched and answered.

“His Grace the Duke is calling for Lady Amelia.”

Even so, her attitude was strangely lacking in respect.

She stepped a little closer and spoke.

“Shall I dry your hair for you?”

“Kate?”

I called her name as it came to mind, and Kate flinched as she looked at me.

“Yes?”

“Never mind. You can go.”

“But….”

“Are you planning to pull out all my hair again like yesterday? I’m fine, so go.”

Kate couldn’t say anything. She merely pouted before storming out of the room.

In fact, Kate was the maid who secretly bullied Amelia in particular.

Whenever she did, Amelia would fly into a rage, grab Kate as though she were hunting down a rat, and even beat her.

Yet even after going through that, Kate stubbornly continued bullying her.

At the same time, she damaged Amelia’s reputation among those around them while earning sympathy for herself.

‘She’s such an exhausting character too.’

There were several reasons why Kate, a maid, could disregard Amelia, the Duke’s daughter.

The first was that Amelia was an illegitimate child, and the second was that Kate had an improper relationship with Aiden Wentworth, the eldest son of this family.

Of course, those reasons alone made it a little strange that Kate bullied Amelia, but even I didn’t know the reason beyond that.

“Hmph.”

Kate snorted before slamming the door shut and leaving.

I dried off most of the water with the towel.

Then I picked up the thick comb on the dressing table and ran it through my hair.

‘Oh, this is interesting.’

This was a magical comb that dried hair.

I had seen it yesterday while the maids were scrubbing and drying me.

My smooth hair passed effortlessly through the comb, and the moisture quickly disappeared.

‘A world where magic exists….’

Aside from little things like this, it still didn’t feel particularly real to me.

‘Anyway, that’s not the problem. I need to come up with an excuse not to move into the Crown Prince’s Palace. What happened in the novel after this again?’

After drying my hair, I chose suitable clothes, put them on, and headed outside.

I slowly walked down the unfamiliar yet somehow familiar corridor, organizing my thoughts.

‘Should I just run away?’

I soon shook my head.

There would be two people chasing after me, and as someone who still hadn’t fully adapted to this world, it would be impossible.

“By the way, I wonder if the me over there died.”

After several days of staying up all night, I had come home and collapsed onto my bed.

Yet despite being unbelievably tired, I had insisted on reading the web novel before going to sleep and opened I Will Give Up on Revenge.

Not long afterward, I seemed to have lost consciousness.

And when I woke up, I was in this body.

And not only that—the Crown Prince had already regressed.

‘After meeting him, it’s just too obvious.’

There was a reason I was certain that the current point in time was after the Crown Prince’s regression.

Before his regression, the Crown Prince avoided Amelia as much as possible, but whenever they met, he treated her with the appropriate courtesy.

Then she poisoned him and he died.

After his regression, however, the Crown Prince behaved in the exact opposite manner.

He summoned Amelia to the palace, kept her by his side, showed her plenty of affection, and seduced her.

Yet at certain moments, he would also ignore her and humiliate her.

He would toy with Amelia’s emotions, raising them up and bringing them down, until at a decisive moment, he made her commit a crime of her own accord.

Using that crime as an excuse, he would cast her into ruin.

And the ending was death.

In the novel, the Crown Prince’s successful revenge had felt satisfying.

But now that it had become my own problem, there was nothing more terrifying.

‘What a frightening person.’

Of course, the Crown Prince had already been betrayed and killed before returning to the past, so there was no reason for him to hold back when it came to revenge.

I understood him. I really did.

But,

‘In reality, I didn’t do any of it, so I’m the one who’s being wronged.’

My complicated thoughts came to a stop as I arrived in front of the study.

Before knocking, I brought out Amelia’s memories to understand what kind of relationship she had with the Duke.

A sigh naturally escaped me.

“What a mess.”

With that brief assessment, I knocked and opened the door.

“Father, did you call for me?”

I carefully asked as I entered.

Phillips Wentworth, Duke of Wentworth.

He had the same purple hair and red eyes as Amelia.

In terms of appearance alone, Amelia resembled the Duke more than the two sons born to the Duchess.

The original Amelia had been quite willful in front of other people.

That was why she had earned a reputation as a villainess.

But in front of her father, Duke Wentworth, she couldn’t even make a peep.

Phillips Wentworth, Duke of Wentworth, kept his eyes fixed on the documents and didn’t even glance at me.

‘Wasn’t he the one who called me here?’

Half bewildered and half bored, I stared at him before finally speaking again.

“If you have nothing to say, then I’ll be going….”

Only then did I hear the Duke’s voice.

“I heard you went to the Crown Prince’s Palace yesterday. Did the Crown Prince say anything to you privately?”

Had the Crown Prince still not informed the Duke that he wanted me to move into the palace and live there?

If so, there might still be a chance.

“Yes, he was the same as usual. If anything, he seemed even more indifferent than before….”

Saying that he was the same as usual meant that the Crown Prince had treated Amelia like a cow looking at a chicken.

If he became even more indifferent, it would mean a cow looking at a rock.

Since I wanted to break off the engagement as much as possible, I deliberately lied.