Chapter 03
A few days after she requested the annulment from Icaunel.
While having breakfast in the dining room, Isabella noticed a headline on the front page of the daily newspaper related to herself.
<Will the insignificant daughter of a baron’s house and the imperial heir, the young Duke of Lascelles, truly end their years-long engagement in marriage?>
“Ridiculous.”
At the same time, her delicate brows furrowed sharply, and a voice mixed with anger burst from between her lips.
“Who said I’m marrying Icaunel!! Me? Why?!”
She crumpled the newspaper tightly in her hand and shook it wildly into the air.
If anyone had been there, they might have scolded her for improper table manners, but she was the only one in the vast estate.
Her parents, after her engagement to Icaunel, had gone down to their baronial territory and had been so busy managing the estate for the past several years that they had no time to return to the mansion. Her younger brother was living in the academy dorms.
“Lady, please calm yourself.”
Standing quietly beside the enraged young lady, Selly—the loyal maid of the Rdesia Barony—gently fanned Isabella with a hand fan.
“Selly, do I look like I can calm down right now? I don’t even want to get married, so why is this kind of article coming out?!!”
“Well, that would be because a few days ago, you dropped a bombshell in a café filled with onlookers.”
While calmly pouring cold water into Isabella’s empty glass, Selly replied matter-of-factly. On the other hand, Isabella, frustrated by the completely false report, pounded her chest with her fist.
“I only did it to announce the breakup properly, so why is it turning into a marriage story…! Why?!”
She shook the crumpled newspaper as if it were Icaunel’s collar.
Why was the news of the annulment being ignored?
Isabella nearly cried from how incomprehensible everything was. The reaction of Icaunel when she requested the annulment had felt strangely unsettling.
As she calmly finished speaking and was about to leave, he had said more firmly than ever:
— “I will never break off the engagement.”
Seriously. Then why was he insisting on continuing the engagement now?
Just remembering Icaunel’s words made her blood boil. Soon, a faint red flush spread across Isabella’s fair skin.
“Eek… our young lady’s face is going to burst.”
“Selly. Are you teasing me right now?”
“Of course not!”
Selly already had a cold, damp linen handkerchief in her hands. She placed it on Isabella’s heated cheeks to cool her down, and then a new thought crossed her mind.
“Why do you think Lord Lascelles said he has no intention of breaking off the engagement? After making our young lady suffer like that.”
“I want to know that too. Why is he suddenly acting so strange?”
As Selly and Isabella pondered the reason behind Icaunel’s behavior, Selly suddenly raised her index finger as if struck by inspiration.
“Maybe… the young lord secretly likes you, my lady? He’s too shy to express his feelings and is just awkward about it.”
Listening to Selly’s guess, Isabella quickly looked unimpressed.
“Don’t be ridiculous. That guy? As if.”
“But still, you’ve been together for ten years. And you used to have a crush on Lord Lascelles yourself.”
“That’s in the past now.”
Isabella tossed the hated newspaper into a corner. Then she picked up her fork and resumed her breakfast, taking a bite of sausage cut into a perfect size.
She added mashed potatoes topped with gravy. The rich juices of the sausage spread in her mouth, and the rising frustration slowly subsided like a receding tide.
“Phew…”
After maintaining a perfect figure for years by eating nothing but greens at every meal, having a proper greasy breakfast made the world feel unexpectedly beautiful again.
Isabella stuffed food into her mouth like a squirrel storing nuts, her cheeks puffed up as she chewed for a long time.
Through the window, the dazzling blue morning sky filled her vision.
“What even is an engagement… for me to suffer like this for ten years.”
The article could be corrected later; the engagement with Icaunel would disappear once it was annulled.
She had woken up early and started her day in a good mood, and she refused to let a ridiculous false report ruin it.
Isabella’s hazel eyes sharpened with determination. She clenched her fist like a knight preparing for battle.
‘I won’t just sit here and take this.’
Because I have someone now—someone in another world who is the cutest and most amazing in existence: Haeyoon! Even if I have to die, I’ll break off this engagement and go to Korea.
If someone asked how she came to know Haeyoon, the idol from Korea, it went back three months earlier—one day before Isabella’s twentieth birthday, her coming-of-age ceremony.
She had been reading a short letter delivered along with an early-morning bouquet of flowers. For a moment she had been happy, but as she read the contents, her face darkened.
“So… he still isn’t coming this year either…”
The letter ended with a simple line: I will visit next time.
No matter how many times she read it, the wording did not change.
“Haa… I expected it already. So why am I disappointed, Isabella?”
As she scolded herself, her eyes grew red.
She had expected that her fiancé would not attend her birthday party. Icaunel was the young Duke of Lascelles, a future ruler of the empire alongside the crown prince. She knew better than anyone how busy he was.
“But couldn’t he at least spend one birthday with me…”
Even though her feelings had been battered by public criticism and her fiancé’s indifference, the love she had stubbornly maintained for ten years now felt like a heavy shackle binding her whole body.
She had always carefully replied to Icaunel’s brief letters. And so, almost instinctively, she stood up to write a reply.
But what would she even write in response to a letter refusing to attend her birthday?
With a self-deprecating laugh, Isabella sank back into her seat.
It all felt meaningless.
Would it be easier if I just gave up on the engagement and this one-sided love?
Like ashes after a fire, what little remained of her love for him finally crumbled. The fragile things she had barely held onto for so long shattered like a sandcastle washed away by waves.
Perhaps she had simply been avoiding a painfully harsh reality for years. She had loved Icaunel sincerely for ten years, even if it looked foolish to others.
Unable to bear the suffocating feeling, Isabella left the mansion and wandered aimlessly through the streets. The refreshing breeze finally made it feel like she could breathe again.
She slowly walked toward the central lake park near the plaza. Sitting on a bench by the lake reflecting the surroundings, she drifted into thought.
How could life be so dull?
“‘Am I really just going to live an ordinary life and die like this?’—you there, thinking that!”
“…What?”
Suddenly, a man wearing a deep hood shouted as if he had read her thoughts. At that moment, a gust of wind lifted his hood slightly.
Silver eyes, like a mysterious spirit, shimmered even in the shadows.
As if it didn’t matter whether his face was seen or not, he continued speaking.
“Would you perhaps like to cross into another dimension?”
“…Another dimension?”
Isabella asked, and the man curled his lips as if he had been waiting for that question.
“A completely different world from this one. A new world you’ve never experienced before.”
With a smooth, persuasive tone, he continued:
“This is your chance to begin a new life in another dimension! Why don’t you take it, young lady?”
From inside his coat, he pulled out a small pitch-black box.
It was a strange metal device she had never seen before. He called it a smartphone from Korea in another world or something like that.
He forcibly placed it into Isabella’s hands, and in the blink of an eye, he vanished.
“What kind of person was that?”
Whether he was even human at all, she wondered. Isabella pinched her cheek hard, wondering if she had been possessed.
Normally, she would have left such an absurd object behind and returned to the mansion. But strangely, that day her curiosity was piqued.
Once back at the mansion, she went straight to her room and began examining the smartphone.
As she pressed various buttons on its side, the black screen finally lit up. Strange unfamiliar characters appeared and disappeared across the colorful display.
“What on earth is this?”
