Chapter 01
The Blue Flower of the Duke’s House
Deep night fell over the Roger Duke’s residence.
The room was so quiet that it felt as if even the sound of moonlight flowing through the window could be heard.
Gulp.
Lamein, standing with her back pressed tightly against the window, swallowed her dry saliva.
“Lamein.”
The man approached while slowly undoing the buttons of his shirt one by one with his long fingers. His movements were so dangerously alluring that they felt almost lethal.
“I truly don’t understand.”
Even though his voice was calm, it sounded as if a starving beast were growling.
“S-Sedric. What exactly is it that you don’t understand?”
There was nowhere left to retreat. Her mind was filled with only one thought—she had to stop him.
“Are you not curious why I become strange whenever I see you?”
Lamein’s violet eyes, which had been resting on her husband’s face, slowly drifted downward.
The sculpted muscles of his chest, revealed through the opened shirt, rose and fell fiercely.
“…Why is he suddenly acting like this?”
Her heart pounded nervously as if her husband might cause some sort of trouble, yet she couldn’t understand why he was behaving like this at all, which only made her feel frustrated.
The small distance remaining between them suddenly narrowed even more.
“Wait a moment! Sedric! I think you’re too excited!”
Flustered, Lamein stretched one hand forward toward his chest as if to stop him.
At that moment, a large hand suddenly caught her wrist.
The veins on the back of Sedric’s hand bulged as he tightly gripped her slender wrist.
“You’re the one who made me excited, yet you tell me not to be excited.”
At his low, biting voice, Lamein swallowed dryly.
Her husband had rushed out into the rain with his sick body to save her, and now he was burning with fever.
She had only come to his room because she was worried about her sick husband.
And she had merely been wiping his face and neck with a cloth as he slept, drenched in cold sweat.
“Was I wrong?”
But suddenly, her husband had woken up and was acting like this.
A burning gaze that felt as if it could pierce through her stabbed into her.
Startled, Lamein met Sedric’s eyes directly.
“Ha…”
Not knowing what to do, she let out a soft breath through her parted lips.
At that moment—
Sedric’s eyes crumpled slightly.
A flash of light flickered across his blue pupils.
“Lamein. It seems you have no awareness.”
“…What?”
Why again this time?
“Every single action of yours makes me like this.”
…Just now, I merely breathed.
Everyone in the world breathes. Is this really something to react like this to?
A sigh almost escaped from her frustration, but she held it back.
Instead—
“Sedric. Your body is sick right now. I think you’re misunderstanding something.”
She tried to calm him down again.
“I-I mean… your body and brain are both sick right now, so they’re malfunctioning!”
Malfunction??
Was that really the right word for this situation?
Just as that thought passed through her mind, his eyes, clouded with passion, sank deeply into hers.
“Then that means I am sick every time I see you.”
“…What? What on earth does that mean?”
Her round eyes blinked quickly.
Her husband slightly creased his eyes and slowly swallowed the hot breath he had exhaled.
“Come to think of it, perhaps you’re right. I must have been mistaken.”
Did he finally understand?
Just as she was about to release the sigh she had been holding—
“You didn’t do anything. Instead…”
As his trailing words faded, an uneasy feeling crept in.
“…!”
Suddenly, a strong force pulled her waist.
Her slender body bent backward like a thin branch.
Like waves over the sea.
Her golden hair fluttered like rippling water.
As if he had made up his mind never to let her go tonight, the man’s large hand slid into her soft hair and wrapped around the back of her round head.
Before she could even blink, she was completely pulled into the firm embrace of the man.
A dangerously close distance where their lips could meet with the slightest movement.
The hot breath escaping through her husband’s teeth moistened her soft lips.
Thump. Thump.
The sound of a heartbeat—whose it was, she couldn’t tell—filled her ears.
Just as she slowly swallowed the breath she had been holding—
“I think I’ve gone mad for you, Lamein.”
…What?
Wait, what did you say?
Wait. Isn’t saying you’re crazy for me not appropriate right now?
The moment that thought crossed her mind—
“Mmph…!”
The hot breath that had been lingering around her lips suddenly covered them.
In an instant, a strange sensation spread through her body.
Lamein’s delicate shoulders trembled instinctively.
Like the sun that gathers all the heat of the world.
Overwhelmed by the kiss that poured down as if it would burn her whole body, Lamein tightly shut her eyes and slightly frowned.
Excuse me. What am I supposed to do if you suddenly do this?
Her plan was beginning to fall apart.
* * *
Before she transmigrated into this world, she had been a righteous and warm-hearted doctor.
But she was a poor doctor with no money.
Without connections or support, she opened a small private clinic in the countryside.
Most of her patients were poor people with no money.
In other words, people from the lower social classes.
They called her an angel.
She was happy.
She felt proud to be a doctor.
But that happiness did not fill the hunger in her life.
She had grown up under the violence of a father who was addicted to gambling and alcohol.
She had desperately vowed to succeed.
That was why she became a doctor.
However, the enormous debt her father left behind remained like a scar on her life.
In the end, she closed her rural clinic and worked for four years as an emergency room doctor—one of the hardest jobs, where people said no one could endure for more than a year—in order to earn money.
Day by day, she endured simply to survive.
Then one day, an incident occurred that made her want to abandon everything as a doctor.
A poor grandmother had been brought to the emergency room, standing at the crossroads between life and death.
But by the hospital director’s order, she had to treat the son of a wealthy family first—even though he wasn’t in urgent condition.
In the end, the grandmother died.
And then—
“I quit!”
She decided to throw everything away.
“Ah! What are you doing?!”
The hospital director’s face, now covered by the doctor’s gown she had thrown at him, was quite a sight.
“I can’t work with filthy people like you who treat people like trash just because they don’t have money!”
She couldn’t endure it anymore.
No.
She didn’t want to endure it anymore.
Feeling disillusioned with the four years she had endured just to survive, she ran straight out of the emergency room.
“Ah! This makes me so angry!!!”
Walking while fuming, she suddenly stopped and ran both hands through her hair roughly.
She stood blankly on the road for a long time, breathing heavily, before letting out a bitter laugh.
Now that she had thrown everything away, she was suddenly worried about how she would survive starting tomorrow.
Am I someone who can’t even be happy for a single day?
…She felt suffocated.
“If I’m going to live like this, I’d rather die.”
Both her heart and body were exhausted to their limits.
A pitiful life with no one to listen to her sorrowful voice.
Suddenly, tears welled up in her eyes.
Dragging her tired body and mind, she trudged through an alley.
Flash.
A powerful light suddenly stabbed painfully into her eyes.
“…!”
Before she could even scream—
Bang!
A violent impact slammed into her body, followed by the tearing and burning pain of flesh.
Her fragile body was thrown into the air.
…She could see the black night sky.
Am I going to die like this?
Sparkle.
At that moment, starlight embedded itself into her eyes.
A life that had never been loved since birth.
A life that couldn’t be happy because she had no money.
A life spent being looked down upon by others.
Her miserable past flashed by like a nightmare.
In that fleeting moment, she clenched her teeth tightly.
In my next life, I will never—never live so miserably again. Do you hear me? You damned world!
On a night when beautiful starlight fell from the sky filled with countless stars—
A night that did not suit her life at all—
It was the last day of her life.
* * *
A bitter grassy taste spread inside her mouth.
Her throat felt parched with thirst.
“…Ma’am.”
A faint voice echoed in her ears from somewhere.
Is it already time for shift change? I want to rest a little longer.
…I feel like I’m going to die.
With that desperate feeling lingering in her unconsciousness, she tightly squeezed her closed eyelids.
By the way, what is this strange grass taste?
Her lips moved as if chewing rough grass.
Then—
“Madam! Madam! Are you conscious?!”
Amid a voice shouting as if it intended to tear her eardrums apart—
…Madam?
Repeating the unfamiliar word in her mind, she barely pushed her heavy eyelids open.
Even though she had just opened her eyes, everything was clear.
A luxurious canopy embroidered with gold thread.
And a marble ceiling beside it that looked so smooth one might slip if they stepped on it.
“Madam… sniff!”
Hearing the sobbing voice, she blinked slowly.
What…? Where is this?
Fixing the unfamiliar space clearly in her eyes, she suddenly sat up.
Her widened eyes looked around in confusion.
This wasn’t the narrow and bleak emergency room rest bed that smelled of disinfectant.
She was sitting on a bed in a room that looked like a luxury hotel suite.
Staring blankly at a girl crying while wearing a maid’s uniform, her eyes slowly widened.
“Ah! The accident…”
She remembered the blinding light and the powerful impact that had hit her body.
Her body tingled.
Did I really die? Then where exactly is this…?
Her violet eyes, which had been moving frantically, suddenly stopped.
“…!”
Her eyes shook violently as if struck by waves.
In the mirror hanging on the wall was a beautiful woman who looked like a princess.
That… can’t be me, right?
She quickly rubbed her eyes with her hand.
Then she opened them wider and looked into the mirror again.
Shining golden hair flowing down past her waist.
Skin as white and sparkling as untouched snow.
And brilliant eyes the color of violet petals.
…Was she dreaming?
But everything in front of her was far too vivid to be a dream.
Her blank eyes stared at the beautiful woman in the mirror again and again.
What on earth is going on?
As her mind raced in confusion—
“Sniff… Madam… sob…”
“Ugh.”
Hearing the crying beside her, she groaned softly.
Her mind was already in chaos, and the maid sobbing beside her only made it worse.
It wasn’t like she could tell someone she had just met to shut their mouth.
“Excuse me…”
She carefully spoke while looking at the tear-filled eyes.
“Yes! Madam!”
The maid answered with a face filled with relief and emotion just from hearing her voice.
But—
“What’s my name?”
At those words, the maid’s face turned pale.
“M-Madam… sniff…”
“Stop crying. I asked what my name is.”
She spoke firmly while staring straight at the maid who was about to flood the room with tears again.
The frightened maid swallowed hard.
“Lamein Roger… Madam.”
She finally answered while barely holding back her tears.
“…Lamein?”
Her violet eyes slowly narrowed.
Could it be the same Lamein that I know?
It was an extremely familiar name.
“Madam… are you alright?”
…No, she wasn’t.
“Ah… yes. I’m fine. You were crying too much, so I asked to make you calm down.”
“…What? Madam, you scared me! Sob!”
Could you possibly be more shocked than me?
With eyes still full of shock, she looked again at the woman called Lamein in the mirror.
“Madam… I thought you were going to die… sob…”
Her eyelids twitched at the maid’s words.
They thought Lamein was going to die?
She needed to organize the situation first.
Slowly, she took her gaze away from the mirror.
Since this crying girl called me Lamein… then I must really be Lamein.
She looked quietly at the maid who was crying with her hands clasped in front of her chest.
What was this girl’s name again?
Lamein searched through her memory desperately.
Her half-closed eyes slowly widened.
“…Jane?”
She spoke the name that came to her mind.
“Yes! Madam! Please command me!”
The maid jumped with joy when her name was called.
Right.
That’s right.
<The Blue Flower of the Duke’s House>.
She immediately realized which romance fantasy novel she had transmigrated into.
