Chapter 2
Alice quickly moved off the body of her ill husband.
Why are my sleeping habits the same even though I’ve possessed another body?
“Sorry,” she whispered softly to him.
“You’re also handsome even in the middle of the night,” she said while staring at his face. His black hair seemed to have all the purity of darkness, and the fine lines of his face made him seem like a sculpture. “Seriously, how are you so handsome even at this hour?”
How am I supposed to act when you look so handsome?
This sculpture-like man was her husband who she had to kill.
And when she kills him, she will also be killed.
After all, Alice Diorat is a character of misfortune who is sacrificed at the end of the novel.
When she realized her future last night, she banged her head against the wall in hopes that everything was a dream, that it was all a fantasy.
In return, all she got was a red forehead and a stinging pain which reminded her that she was in reality.
When she turned her head away from the wall, her husband was still lying on the bed, and at that moment, his face seemed to change from a handsome one to one from a horror movie.
On one moment, Alice had gone through a rejection of reality, and on the next, she suffered through a state of despair.
‘If I kill you, then I’ll die too. Why would I want to die again when I’ve already died before? Ha ha ha…….’
In the novel, Alice Diorat kills the Duke of Diorat just as her mother-in-law commanded her to.
Eventually, she was hung to death for poisoning the Duke.
Alice was thrown away by her mother-in-law, just like how hunting dogs are thrown away when they no longer have any use to their owners.
How could Alice not lose her mind when she’s possessed a character with such a tragic ending?
No, if I was fated to possess her body then I should’ve possessed her when she was still a child.
That way she would have run away before she got married, and would have avoided having to kill her husband.
But the day she became Alice, she was brought into the bridal room.
What is this situation … It’s almost as if God gave me a table for me to fuck myself with.
Yet, she couldn’t overcome the drowsiness that approached her, even as she was mentally complaining while staring at her unconscious husband’s face.
How can we overcome the lust for sleep, one of the three greatest human needs?
With that in mind, Alice sighed and climbed back onto the bed with swirling questions and emotions.
Lying on the soft bed, she turned on her side and looked at her husband.
“You’re handsome and so damn good-looking…… but you’ll die, and I’ll be hanged…….” Alice muttered with a hazy mind.
“Will I live…… if you suddenly wake up like a miracle?” she muttered dazedly.
She finally fell asleep with that thought.
She even had strange dreams of being chased and caught.
Is it the kind of dream that predicted her future? Even if she ran away, she would be caught and be hung?
“Aah! No, that’s not right!”
Alice shivered as she felt the cold brush through the back of her neck.
“It’s just too much stress.”
It’s natural to feel stressed when you become a different person overnight.
Alice struggled to shake off the ominous feeling as she laid the quilt on her husband, which had slipped off him as she was restlessly moving.
Even throughout all of the movement she had caused while asleep, Kaillus didn’t move and was still lying in the same position that she had seen earlier.
“…….”
A state of being alive but not alive. He was a young duke with great abilities who had fallen ill from his stepmother’s poison. He didn’t open his eyes until the day he died.
There were only a few lines in the book about him, but when she saw him lying there, she still felt a bit sad and pitiful.
How does it feel to lie still and wait for the day you die……?
She was glad that he was unconscious because she was growing a bit attached to him.
Knock knock.
As she was thinking, there was a quiet knock on the door.
“Madam, are you awake?”
It was the voice of a woman that she didn’t recognize.
Getting off the bed as she flinched from the initial noise, Alice answered, “I just woke up.”
The door opened and a maid with brown hair came in.
“Greetings to Little Madame. My name is Maris, and I am the maid that will serve you in the future.”
Maris bowed her head, yet her face and eyes looked displeased with Alice.
Alice could feel it.
This maid was sent by her mother-in-law, Madame Quillian.
Alice became the Duchess to carry out Madame Quillian’s orders, so it was natural that someone was sent to keep an eye on her.
“I brought you water to wash with,” Maris said without hiding her disrespectful expression.
Alice looked down at the silver tray that Maris had put down.
Even though Maris had said that the water was for her to wash, all she did was stand there. Maris didn’t come to her with the tray to help her wash.
Although she never had a maid in her past life, thanks to the romance-fantasy novels she had read, she knew it’s wrong for a maid to just put down her tray of washing water.
Her attitude was blatantly saying that ‘since you’ve seen me bring water, go and wash’.
Maris didn’t recognize her as Duchess.
Maybe it was because Maris also saw her as a servant of Madam Quillian because Alice was sold by the count to become the Duchess.
“Madam said to bring you water to wash,” Maris said with her eyebrows deeply furrowed.
She felt bad about being ignored outright but she also wasn’t in the place to scold the maid sent by Madam Quillian.
She probably thought Alice would be angry and must’ve planned to complain to Madame Quillian about Alice’s behavior. After her complaint, the Madam would get angry at Alice and make a fuss.
But Alice wouldn’t give her the chance.
Let’s just move on for now.
“Okay,” Alice said smiling softly while suppressing her irritation.
The former Alice would’ve been angry at the maid’s obvious abuse of power, but the current Alice was not. In her past life, Alice had already experienced a lot of abuse of power, so she was already used to it.
I can handle this much anyway.
Alice grabbed the wash bin and put it on the table herself. When she began to wash her face, she was very surprised.
Because of Maris’ attitude, she had thought that the water would be either ice cold or burning hot, but surprisingly, the water was the right temperature.
After wiping her face with a cloth when she was done washing her face, Alice smiled brightly at Maris who was still standing.
“The water temperature was just right. Thank you, Maris.”
“After you have washed your face, go to the dressing room over there and change your clothes. The Madame is waiting for you,” Maris said with a displeased expression after seeing Alice’s smile. She jerked the washcloth away from Alice with a swooshing noise, and the rough action left Alice’s hand a bit sensitive.
Even though she wanted to avoid this inevitable meeting for as long as she could, she knew that Madame Quillian was the woman who had control over her life.
“Alright,” Alice replied, changing her clothes.
She then began heading towards the room where Madame Quillian was staying, with Maris following her.
* * *
“Madam, she’s here,” Maris called, knocking on the door.
Soon an answer came from within, “Come in.”
Alice swallowed her saliva and entered the room.
Unlike Kaillus’ simple room, Madame Quillian’s room was full of shiny furniture, reflecting its owner’s taste.
Based on the furnishings in her room alone, it could be assumed that Madame Quillian was the master of the Duchy.
That probably wouldn’t be a wrong assumption either.
It has been more than six months since the Duke collapsed so all the power and authority within the Duchy must’ve been transferred to her.
As Alice was scanning the room with her eyes, she met Madame Quillian gaze.
“I hope you had a peaceful night Mother,” she said, greeting her according to her memories.
“No need for greetings, sit down and don’t do anything stupid.”
“…… Yes.”
It’s a must to greet.
Alice swallowed her words and sat down in front of Madame Quillian.
“Why hasn’t Helkin come yet?” the Madame asked with furrowed eyebrows.
The maid behind Mrs. Quillian bowed her head in a voice full of annoyance.
“Let me go and look for him.”
“Alright. How long will he make me wait…….” just before Madame Quillian finished speaking, a voice came from outside the door.
“Madame, Dr. Helkin is here.”
Doctor?
Why did she call…… a doctor?
At that moment, the man who entered the room greeted Madame Quillian.
“I was on my way to see you, Madame.”
“Tch, get up. I sent someone to get you, yet you’ve only arrived now.”
“Haha, my apologies. I was a little late because I had to deal with the sudden spill from my precious poisonous plants,” the gray-haired man said with a smirk.
And the moment she met the man’s brown eyes, Alice remembered a passage from the book.
[Dr. Helkin was a geek and genius who created a peculiar poison. Eventually, he used that poison which was both colorless and odorless to kill the Duke of Diorat.]
That’s right, Kaillus ingested the poison made by the man in front of her and subsequently died. Moreover…….
“Ah, so this must be him,” Alice said.
“Correct, he will be the person who will kill Kaillus with you,” the Madame responded.
“Nice to meet you, Duchess. My name is Dr. Helkin Spencer.”
He was just another hound that would be abandoned by Mrs. Quillian when she no longer found any use in him.
Hound comrades…….
Initially, she had completely forgotten about her acts because she was too surprised to possess Alice’s body.
But now Alice looked at Helkin and her golden eyes twinkled.
Maybe a new path can be created.