Chapter 3
Still, they were family. Surely it would be all right.
But that utterly dazed expression, the corners of her mouth curling up as she foolishly grinned at the word “big brother”…
Eleonore had shaken her head.
How should she put it? Maybe it was because this young lady was the youngest daughter….
Sigh. What if the rest of her family was like this, too?
Seated on the large sofa in the drawing room, Eleonore let out a small sigh.
Well, at least they were family. They wouldn’t look at me as a woman.
“Milady, are you still tired?”
“Eek! Y-you startled me!”
She’d been careful, since there were so many eyes around, but how had Sophie noticed?
Sophie, who had been standing behind her, heard Eleonore sigh and came over with uncanny timing to speak to her.
All-boys’ middle school, all-boys’ high school, and then an engineering university.
Seo Juha had followed a path that kept her far from women from the very beginning.
Even if she was now stuck living surrounded by women whether she liked it or not,
Eleonore still couldn’t get used to high-pitched voices.
Hiding her startled expression behind the teacup on the tea table, Eleonore said,
“N-no, I’m fine. More importantly, Sophie. Do you know the young Duke of Vallatiere?”
“Milady…. Surely you haven’t forgotten the young Duke, too? You tried so hard to get a letter from the young Duke of Vallatiere.”
Honestly, she’d thought Albris had made that up out of childish jealousy earlier.
What on earth have you been doing all this time, Eleonore?
I thought you were just an unfortunate young lady. Turns out you’d been walking straight into your own death all along.
Clutching her head as it began to throb for no apparent reason, Eleonore shook it from side to side, trying to collect herself.
Sophie seemed thrilled for some reason, despite seeing her young lady shake her head.
Her voice climbing with excitement, Sophie continued.
“You know what? I overheard them earlier. A letter came from the young Duke. Milady, congratulations!”
Congratulations, my foot. I’m walking straight into a death trap.
Whether or not Sophie knew what Eleonore was thinking,
as if she herself had been invited, Sophie clasped both hands and looked at Eleonore, her freckled cheeks flushed.
“So the young Duke of Vallatiere will escort you to the ball?”
“No. The ball is with my bro— Ah, forget it.”
As though she couldn’t be bothered to explain any further,
Eleonore raised her slender arms and waved them from side to side, dismissing Sophie’s interest.
Leaving Sophie with a disappointed look,
Eleonore leaned back against the sofa and sank into its soft cushions.
Tilting her head back to gaze at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, Eleonore began to untangle the complicated knots in her mind one by one.
Back when she first opened her eyes in the body of this blonde young lady.
Eleonore—Seo Juha—had no idea what this world she’d awakened in was.
She had no clue that this was the world of a novel.
Reading web novels had been Juha’s only hobby.
The web novels she’d read over the years would have filled the endless vertical scroll of a phone screen.
Besides, platinum-blonde hair and blue eyes…
Even if it was unusual in real life, it was practically a staple appearance for characters in fantasy novels.
She wondered if there was even a single Western fantasy novel without a single blue-eyed, blond character.
So no matter how hard she racked her brain,
she couldn’t easily recall an Eleonore among all the many novels she’d read.
And so, like some ordinary cliché in a novel, Eleonore thought she’d ended up inside a web novel she’d read at some point.
With that thought, she spent each day as if she were on a trip.
After that, once she got out of bed and began moving around little by little,
only then did she vaguely remember the prologue of her favorite author’s new novel, the one she’d thought of before she died.
Why hadn’t she remembered it right away?
It was the novel she’d been thinking about right up until she died, too.
After staring at the ceiling for a long while, Eleonore shifted into a more proper sitting posture, looking uncomfortable, and lifted the teacup from the table.
In fact, even after living as Eleonore for the past two weeks,
the personality inside her was still closer to Seo Juha than to Eleonore.
Because of that, she always felt as if she were somehow an outsider in this world.
And so, a little carelessly,
‘She’s a character who exits in the prologue anyway. Well, if I’m as careful as I can be, it’ll be fine.’
She’d been looking at reality that way all this time.
And this morning,
only after hearing the name Julian had Eleonore awakened from those naive, carefree thoughts she’d been clinging to.
Julian de la Vallatiere.
The emperor’s illegitimate son, born to the emperor and his mistress, Duchess Louise de la Vallatiere.
A man whose abilities would later earn him formal recognition and the surname Galatea.
If the story unfolded as it had in the novel, Eleonore—Seo Juha—would die just the same.
Maybe because she had experienced it firsthand,
the word death weighed heavily on Eleonore’s delicate shoulders.
Eleonore clenched her small white hand into a tight fist.
Honestly, getting hit by a truck once was enough.
She didn’t want to die young here, too.
So the most important thing for Eleonore right now was—
“First, I need to gather information.”
“Pardon? Milady? What do you mean?”
At the thoughtless words she’d blurted out,
Sophie, who had somehow come over and was filling her empty teacup, had taken the bait once again.
Then she set the teapot in her hand down on the table and leaned her soft, faintly freckled cheek close to Eleonore’s.
The girl’s scent, still painfully unfamiliar, made Eleonore lean back and answer a little coolly.
“No, it’s nothing. More importantly, Sophie, please get me ready to go out.”
“What? You’re going out?”
“Yeah. I want to go into town for a bit. I’ve been inside the mansion ever since I woke up. I’m feeling cooped up.”
At her young lady’s sudden declaration, Sophie looked at Eleonore with an uncomfortable expression.
“Milady, Viscountess Lorschua is supposed to come this afternoon.”
“Viscountess Lor…schua?”
As she tried the difficult name on her lips, Eleonore tilted her head slightly.
“Honestly, milady! The head maid has told you several times since last time….”
Sophie continued speaking to her young lady, who seemed to have never heard of it.
“The Viscountess Lorschua was supposed to go over dancing and etiquette with you again before the ball.”
Only then did Eleonore vaguely recall something Manuela had told her one night.
To Eleonore, who was sunk deep into the soft bed and buried beneath the heavy blankets,
Manuela had made that request that she please get up in the morning and stop wandering around in her nightclothes, then added something quietly after it.
Those firm words she’d said when Eleonore, who’d been making a fuss that she couldn’t remember dancing or etiquette, pleaded memory loss.
‘Then I’ll invite the Viscountess Lorschua again.’
Though it wasn’t morning, Eleonore clutched her neatly arranged platinum-blonde hair.
Ugh, that stupid ball! At this rate, it’s going to drive someone to their grave.
“Oh, milady! You’ll mess up all your hair if you do that!”
#.
“Oh my! Look at how much weight you’ve lost in your cheeks. Are you feeling better now, Eleonore?”
The high-pitched voice that came bustling into the drawing room made her head throb, but
Eleonore quickly hid her expression and lifted the corners of her mouth to greet the woman in a yellow dress.
“You’re the Viscountess Lorschua, right?”
“Oh…. That’s right. I heard you’d lost all your memories. How awful. I feel so sorry for you.”
She had already come right up beside Eleonore and gently clasped her small white hands.
Eleonore looked the Viscountess Lorschua up and down.
The brown-haired woman, who looked to be in her late twenties, or early thirties at most,
had an overall cute impression that didn’t quite match the title of “viscountess.”
It might have been because she was about the same height as Eleonore.
But it was also because she kept lifting the corners of her mouth at the end of every sentence and initiating little touches for no reason.
To put it another way, the cute older sister before her
was exactly the kind of free-spirited, super-social woman Seo Juha had found most exhausting in her old world.
“You must have had a hard time coming all this way.”
Though she didn’t even really know where this place was.
Eleonore managed to maintain a smile as she looked at Lorschua.
“Oh, it was no trouble at all. I’d come back as many times as I had to if it meant I could visit House Béarn’s townhouse.”
Is this freezing-cold mansion really that famous?
Hiding the question that had suddenly occurred to her behind a smile, Eleonore gestured to the empty seat on the sofa across from her.
“I’m sorry for contacting you so suddenly.”
“Not at all. You know, Eleonore, I was actually a little excited at the thought of teaching you again.”
The Viscountess Lorschua flashed a pleasant, beaming smile.
Despite the many empty seats, she deliberately sat right beside Eleonore, linked their arms, and pressed her shoulder against hers.
Feeling the viscountess’s soft brea— and the fabric of her dress through the thin blouse, Eleonore continued her conversation with the cute-looking woman, who was smiling brightly.
“Ahem. As you’ve probably heard, I don’t remember a thing.”
“That’s right! Is it really true? Eleonore, you really don’t remember anything at all?”
Eleonore only gave a small nod without answering.
At the sight of her neat platinum-blonde hair bobbing slightly up and down,
Lorschua, despite knowing full well already, put on a thoroughly shocked expression and asked Eleonore again.
“Really. You don’t remember at all? The courante? The chaconne or the coupé?”
“No. I don’t remember.”
Excuse me, Viscountess.
I have no idea what those alien words mean.
At Lorschua’s cute face as she leaned in close and asked, Eleonore blushed and subtly leaned back.
“Then what about the gavotte? P-polonaise, too?”
“Are those dessert names?”
“The bourrée?”
“A fish bladder?”
“The minuet?”
“…I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t as though Eleonore had done anything wrong,
but seeing Lorschua look so utterly dejected right beside her, Eleonore found herself apologizing before she knew it.
“Well, it’s all right. Maybe your body remembers, even if your mind doesn’t. You always had such lovely dancing, Eleonore.”
Still, the Viscountess Lorschua, whose social energy practically poured out of her, recovered remarkably quickly.
In no time, Lorschua had regained her composure, stood up, and held out a hand to Eleonore.
Gazing at the viscountess’s soft hand extended toward her, Eleonore moved her lips uneasily.
“Um…. Viscountess. I really don’t remember anything….”
“Let’s just try moving first. I’ll lead from the man’s position. You just have to match my steps, Eleonore.”
Even if you say that….
I’ve never danced before. I don’t know any steps or anything.
As Eleonore, looking utterly miserable, placed her small white hand over Lorschua’s,
the viscountess pulled her in with surprising strength, drawing Eleonore into her arms.
“Eek! W-wait. Viscountess, you’re too close—”
“Shh. Eli, what’s the big deal? You’re so cute.”
At Lorschua’s sudden transformation, as though she were a different person,
Eleonore, held in the viscountess’s arms, began to blush bright pink across her pale cheeks.
B-but still.
Our chests. Our chests are touching.
“Eek! V-Viscountess. Your hand. Your hand is on my waist.”
“Oh my. Don’t be so shy, Eli. We’re both women, so why are you so surprised? Hehe.”
Wait a second!
Wasn’t this supposed to be a straight romance? Author! There definitely wasn’t a yuri tag!