IBDF 1

Chapter 1 I Became the Blind Maid of the Ducal Household

There is one thing all possessors in novels have in common.

One day, they open their eyes and see an unfamiliar ceiling.

That unfamiliar ceiling soon leads to an unfamiliar body, an unfamiliar face, an unfamiliar world, and so on.

But I was different.

When I opened my eyes, what greeted me was the same darkness as before possession. No matter how many times I closed and opened them, it remained the same.

The only clues were the sounds and smells that shouldn’t exist in my room, and the temperature that felt completely different from usual.

From those, I could guess one thing:

I was now in a place entirely unlike where I used to live.

Crash!

A sharp sound of porcelain shattering flew past my ears.

Immediately after, two maids screamed shrilly while stomping around.

It was clear that Mary and Dorothy were scrambling to dodge the flying vase.

I crawled across the floor on all fours, moving as far away from the noise as possible. Then I flattened myself against the ground, covering my head with my hands.

This whole chaos had begun the moment Mary, thinking the young duke was asleep, threw open the curtains to ventilate the room.

The young duke, whom everyone thought was sleeping, suddenly let out a pained scream and shot up from the bed.

“I said I hate light! I told you not to open the curtains!”

The young duke roared in fury and hurled the vase that had clearly been sitting on the bedside table into the air.

And then, as mentioned, pandemonium ensued.

The two maids screamed in shock, the young duke kept shouting to close the curtains, and…

“I hate it! I hate it!”

He sounded like a wounded beast howling. There was no calming him down.

Soon, a heavy thud vibrated through the floor.

Judging by that dull, weighty tremor, it was definitely the enormous decorative water jug placed next to the bedside table.

‘Crazy, he’s really going to throw that?’

I pressed myself flat to the floor like a flounder. Immediately after, another ear-splitting crash engulfed the room.

Mary and Dorothy shrieked at the top of their lungs, then fled the room in a panic.

Tap-tap-tap!

Their footsteps quickly faded into the distance.

‘Hey, you guys! At least close the curtains before you run!’

But they were already long gone, leaving me and the young duke alone in this disaster zone.

This was truly maddening.

“It hurts… I hate it…”

Eventually, the young duke collapsed onto the floor, breathing raggedly and muttering faintly.

Taking advantage of the brief moment he quieted down, I cautiously raised my head.

I had to close those damn curtains first.

‘Let’s see…’

I focused on the warmth of the sunlight touching my face. The midday spring sun was warming my right cheek.

I stretched my right hand out to the side and felt a cool, hard wall.

Standing up, I felt my way forward along the wall.

After walking only a short distance, my hand finally caught the thick blackout curtain.

Swoosh—!

I hurriedly drew it closed.

Just blocking out the light made the room feel instantly distant from all the noise. It became eerily quiet.

The only sound left was the young duke’s groans—whether from anger or pain, I couldn’t tell.

I turned toward him again.

From the window to the young duke’s bed was roughly ten steps.

One, two, three, four… As I counted and walked, his breathing grew closer.

…Nine, ten.

I stopped. Reaching downward, my hand brushed soft hair.

Smack!

In that instant, the young duke sharply slapped my hand away.

I flinched and clutched the back of my stinging hand. It hurt so much that tears welled up.

After rubbing it a few times, I lowered my hand again—this time, it touched a bony shoulder.

The young duke let out a sharp inhale and flinched as if something unpleasant had touched him. But he didn’t slap my hand away this time.

‘Yeah… even he probably doesn’t want to keep sitting in this pitch-black room forever.’

Gathering all my strength, I lifted the scrawny boy and sat him on the bed.

He immediately rustled around, burrowing back under the blankets.

Clearly, he had returned to his “caterpillar state,” wrapped tightly in the bedding.

‘Haa… cleaning up after him is seriously exhausting.’

I let out a quiet sigh in my mind.

It had already been a month since I entered the ducal household and became the young duke’s temporary contract maid.

From what I’d observed during that time, the young duke’s daily routine consisted entirely of lying in a dark room sleeping or sitting blankly doing nothing.

He hated light. No—he feared it.

Not only sunlight coming through the windows, but even a single candle lit in the room would cause him to convulse and scream.

Because he suffered from a rare disease called photosensitivity syndrome.

Photosensitivity syndrome.

A disease where light literally brings death.

Those afflicted with it experienced agonizing pain, as if their flesh were burning, every time light touched their body.

How cruel and tragic it was.

The natural warmth that every human should enjoy felt to him like nothing more than the searing pain of being set on fire.

And worst of all, there was no known cure.

From now on, the young duke would have to endure this horrific illness alone in endless darkness.

At least until he met the “female protagonist”—the saint who awakened by God’s grace—and received treatment for his disease.

Yes.

This was the world inside the novel I had read before I died: The Duke in the Darkness.

This frail, irritable boy was the male protagonist, Callios Levanion.

And me?

I’m a maid.

A blind maid hastily hired to care for the suddenly afflicted young duke.

That’s right. In other words, I’m an extra who will soon disappear from the story.

“So, Lizzy, you’re saying you cleaned up that entire mess all by yourself?”

In the maids’ break room of the ducal household.

My fellow maid Tilda wrapped a cloth around my finger, which had been cut while cleaning, and asked.

Though I couldn’t see her expression, her voice was full of displeasure.

“That’s not even your job. You were hired specifically to assist the young master with his movements. Cleaning is Mary and Dorothy’s responsibility.”

“I know, but… I felt kind of bad for them too. The young master was throwing things everywhere. If I could see, I probably would’ve run away immediately as well.”

Tilda let out a long, exasperated sigh at my words.

To a senior maid who had worked in the ducal household for over five years, a newbie like me must seem incredibly frustrating.

Sure enough, Tilda began scolding me in a slightly angry tone.

“If something like this happens again, report it to the head maid right away. Those two really need to be disciplined. Ever since you arrived, they’ve been dumping all their work on you.”

I nodded as if I understood her advice.

Deep down, though, I thought, Would that really change anything?

Since the young master, who stayed in his room all day, couldn’t even tolerate a single light, there was no way Mary and Dorothy could do their jobs properly.

Only I—who could move around in complete darkness—was capable of handling small tasks like cleaning or delivering meals.

“Anyway, your face has gotten so thin in just one month.”

Tilda clicked her tongue as she spoke.

“You really must have suffered coming here.”

…Had I lost that much weight?

At her words, I raised my hand and felt my own face.

Since I had been blind from the moment of possession, I had no idea what this face looked like.

Of course, I could roughly imagine it through touch, but subtle changes like losing weight were hard to notice.

“…Um, Tilda.”

I called out to her as she bustled around tidying up nearby.

“What does my face look like?”

At the sudden question, Tilda let out a small laugh.

“Why are you asking that out of nowhere? You said you could see when you were little.”

But that was before I possessed this body—before I became “Lizzy Swan.”

Unfortunately, I had no memories of the time when this body could still see.

“Still… time has passed, so I’m curious.”

“Well, people’s facial structures do change a little as they grow. Alright, let me take a look.”

Tilda took my face in her hands and began turning it this way and that, examining me closely.