In the living room of Scheringen Palace, there was a man standing while staring out the window.
The maid who brought him tea thought that scene was from some artistic painting.
First of all, it didn't make sense to see the sunlight reflecting off his perfectly smooth platinum hair, or his strong body that couldn't be hidden even when he wore thick formal clothes.
This was the first time she had seen such a perfect aristocrat under the roof of this palace.
But the real strangeness was not his handsome and surreal appearance, but rather the fact that Theodore was married to the woman he most avoided even when he met her face to face at parties and was now sitting in the living room of her palace.
All the maids were worried about how to deal with him because he was known for his hot temper, and he had already become the husband of the palace owner and they were living under the roof of the same room.
Of course, this anxiety rose the moment the maid saw him in person.
As she looked at his face, the maid thought that she must be doing well at her job at the moment.
The maid moved quickly, placing the teacup and biscuits on the table ten times as quickly as she usually worked.
She didn't want to disturb the great Grand Duke.
Theodore stood by the window while gazing into the garden for a long time, even after the maid had left, without saying much either to herself or to the tea at the table.
He was thinking that the fact that he was now sitting in the Scheringen Palace was a bit embarrassing.
Thinking that this was the place where Annette was born and raised made his heart beat hard.
But then Theodore realized that this was the home of the evil Annette, not the home of the Annette he knew.
He forgot for a moment that she came from another world.
This is because she was playing the role better than he thought, as if originally this was her character and this was her world.
When Theodore realized that this palace was not her home, he lost interest in the garden landscape and his heartbeat returned to a normal pace.
He couldn't see little Annette's memories here.
Theodore went to the sofa and sat down to drink the tea, which had cooled and lost its scent and became tasteless.
Theodore had just picked up a cup of tea while considering whether he should ask for a new warm one when he heard footsteps from the hall.
As far as he knew, there was only one person in the world who could walk so lightly and gracefully on the ground at such a steady pace.
“I heard you were waiting for me here?”
As expected, it was Annette.
Annette gave Theodore a surprised look and quickly sat down on the sofa.
Then Theodore drank the tea, which was cold, and swallowed it in one sip to calm his heart, which began to beat again with excitement.
Theodore had never felt bad about the disgusting taste of cold tea.
Annette sighed and began to slouch on the long sofa.
The sunlight caressed her closed eyes softly.
He had been told that there was only one sun in this world, but the sunlight that was tickling her sleepy eyelids was very different from the sunlight that Theodore was accustomed to seeing every day.
“I failed to convince Aunt Casselia.
I had barely begun to speak, but she immediately rejected the offer.”
“I was expecting it, so I told you not to even try.”
Annette wanted to convince Casselia to side with her somehow.
There was no reason for that, but she had a strong feeling that this would be the best decision she could make as the new head of the family.
Of course, Annette failed miserably to win Casselia to her side.
“But still, you did a good job.
Well done.”
Annette didn't know it, but it was the first compliment Theodore had ever paid anyone in his life.
“Do you really think I did well?
In particular, I think I may have unintentionally hurt Aunt Casselia’s pride.”
“This is the best part.
She must be very angry, so she will take care of the people you don’t need in this house for you.”
Theodore, unlike Annette, suggested pushing Casselia off the cliff.
If a person is pushed to the edge of a cliff, there are people who will simply give up and fall, and there are people who climb and try to survive like crazy.
Cassilia was of the second type.
Casselia will create new alliances due to her greed for the title of Scheringen, and Theodore's idea was to get rid of the people who would side with her at that time because they might pose a danger to Annette in the future.
“It's kind of a waste.”
Annette straightened her body and unconsciously picked up the cookie that was right in front of her and took a bite.
"Hmm?
It doesn't taste very good, but I'm strangely used to it.
Is it because the original body's owner is used to the taste?"
When Annette curiously ate the half-bitten cookie, Theodore also reached out and picked up a cookie from the plate as well.
He was curious about the taste of cookies, which he had not tasted since he was a child, and which the Annette he knew was now eating.
Maybe he was just curious about what Annette was eating.
Then, in the quiet living room, all that could be heard was the sound of munching cookies.
Theodore poured more tea into the cup he had emptied earlier.
It was strange that the smell of the cup of tea, which had previously been without taste or smell, reappeared while he felt that its taste had become truly delicious.
***
The disturbance in the conference hall of Scheringen Palace made headlines and became the source of all the gossip in the capital.
The rumor that Annette had officially become the Marchioness of Scheringen spread everywhere.
Theodore collected all the articles with Annette's name on them and read them with intense concentration.
Hans looked at him patiently while he was already starting to lose his temper.
“Aren't you going to pay more attention to my report?”
“Shut up and let me focus.”
“What do you want to focus on?
You are only reading articles by Her Highness the Grand Duchess.”
"If you had a report worth listening to, I would have listened to it.
I also don't read that woman's articles.
I only read the newspaper, but that woman appears out of nowhere.
Open the newspaper to any page and her name will appear in front of you in an instant."
“Her name appears because Your Highness collected all the newspapers related to that woman!”
Hans lost his patience and made a loud noise.
Theodore folded the newspaper he was reading and threw it on the table with a loud thud.
“Just because the Grand Duchess yelled at me doesn't mean you can do it too.”
“Then listen to what I say when I report to you.”
Theodore's voice was cold, but Hans ignored his words and persisted in his stubbornness.
Lately, his master had become very touchy about anything involving the Grand Duchess, so the best reaction Hans could do was to ignore him before Theodor began his long childish drama that would not end until tomorrow dawn.
“The hunting ground ranger is still missing.
He's hiding better than we thought.”
“Either he fled to a place that was difficult to reach, or he expected us to chase him and set a trap for us in advance and was waiting for us to fall into it.”
Theodore rested his chin on his hand, lost in thought.
The hunting ground guard heard something and ran away before they caught him.
Theodore thought he would be caught soon, but that man continued to hide very well like a rat.
It meant having someone to help him.
“Find out who is helping him hide.”
Hans nodded and placed the other papers on the desk.
Basically, those papers were data about who Annette suggested they hire and which hunting ground guard they should get rid of.
While drinking tea after a long conversation, Theodore suddenly asked something.
“Did you find it?”
"…….. from?"
“That guy.”
"Can you at least make up a useful sentence?
What the hell are you talking about?"
Theodore poses a question, as always, while the main point is not made clear.
Theodore had only been doing this for a day or two.
Hans had worked with Theodor for years, and even though he was a lawyer by profession, he still had difficulty understanding what Theodor always said.
“The owner of the ring.”
Theodore raised the ring finger on his hand.
Hans was able to guess who Theodor was talking about.
Theodor meant the man who had delivered to them the head of the family's ring on the day Marquis Burhart Scheringen died.
On the day of the murder in Scheringen, there was a man who brought a box with a ring in it and said that Annette had sent it.
He was very frightened, dressed in rickety clothes and appeared dazed while unable to speak properly.
That ring was not something that anyone could have, so Theodore tried to find out his identity by questioning him, but that man suddenly disappeared.
“He committed suicide.”
Theodore's facial expression collapsed.
“Shouldn't he have died?
I thought you would get rid of him anyway.”
"He should have died the way we prepared for him.
Suicide is unexpected.
Could the matter be resolved in such a lenient manner?"
“I'll be careful next time.”
Theodore was not bothered by the man's death, but rather the manner of his death was the problem.
“Did you buy the mines in the south?”
“Please give me some time!”
If the Grand Duchess had been here with them, Hans wondered, would Theodor's reaction have been a little different?
“There's an interesting rumor floating around.”
After the mermaid statue bet, interesting rumors spread in the Lider Capital.
It was a trivial rumor that the mermaid, who resembles a triumphant goddess riding on the bow of a ship, symbolized Annet, wife of Grand Duke Theodor Kleist.
This is followed by a joke like prophecy saying that Theodore will receive the goddess's blessing and will overcome Hugo and win in the future.
“Who spread these rumours?”
“This was planned by Her Highness the Grand Duchess.”
It was Annette who spread these rumors.
Annette has created the two main characters in a fairy tale, but no one has yet predicted how this story that began as a fairy tale will end.
“Maybe that's why the sculptor came to the palace that day.
He said he wanted to return the favor and asked us to send for him at any time if we needed to sculpt a piece of art.
He said he didn't need to charge any money.”
“Is this something he should be grateful for?”
“This is because the second beneficiary of the mermaid statue bet is that sculptor.”
“Who is the primary beneficiary?”
“Who do you think it is?
It’s you.”
Theodore was speechless for a moment.
People mentioned Theodore's victory whenever they passed the statue, and the hundreds of previous defeats he had faced were forgotten thanks to one dramatic victory.
With one hint from Annette, Theodore became the luckiest man in Lieder.
So, he was the real beneficiary.
“What is the Grand Duchess’s agenda today?”
“She must be painting a picture of her now.”
“Is the painter scheduled to come today?”
Theodore rose from his seat and arranged his clothes.
When he inadvertently placed his hands on his waist, he felt a slight pain from the wound he had cleaned in the morning.
Thinking about it, security is really bad these days in the capital.
Even he, who was accustomed to all kinds of death threats, was stabbed with a knife on a crowded street.
He'd heard that Annette had been wandering around the downtown area alone at dawn that day when she couldn't sleep, so Theodore wondered if that woman's stroll through the capital had become a bit dangerous.
“Doesn't the whole Hofjessie Street need to be cleaned?”
“What do you mean by cleaning?”
“It's become dangerous over there, so I can't leave things as they are.
Eliminate all the goons and pickpockets roaming around that area.”
“That's very easy to say.”
“And it should be easy to do, too.”
How could Hans do something that even the police department couldn't do.
As always, Theodore, who only issues orders, did not consider the position of his employees at all.
Hans tried to express his dissatisfaction, but Theodor had already turned to leave the room.
“Where are you going after issuing such a wonderful order?”
“To visit the goddess of victory.”
The footsteps of the person who said he would visit the Goddess of Victory were fast and strange, resembling a baby duck rushing to catch up with its mother duck.
(M.M.: I did not know the name of the baby duck.
I wrote it as a duck 😭)
Seeing Theodor's behavior, which was becoming more impudent day by day, Hans pulled his hair out of anger.