I turned around and saw a group of women staring at me. Among them, a woman in a red dress standing in the middle spoke in a friendly voice and leaned closer to me.

“Long time no see?”

I didn’t answer immediately and just stared at her.

‘What is this? Is she a friend or an enemy?’

The other person’s expression was peculiar. Although her voice was friendly, the expression on her face seemed to be both good and bad.

“It seems you’ve gotten a bit stale since I last saw you.”

Saying so, she glanced me up and down with a mocking smile.

I saw a woman in a red dress with her arms crossed behind her, glaring at me. It was the young lady I had reprimanded on the day I went to the salon. She probably did this because she heard that I bought a ready-made dress instead of having it custom-made according to the latest trends.

I shrugged my shoulders without taking any offense.

“Really? I guess I’ve fallen behind the trends because I’ve only been in the fiefdom.”

The woman laughed as if stunned by my straightforward admission.

“I guess there’s nothing you can do since the great Rowaine was stuck in the corners of the country?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

If someone wasn’t interested in trends, there was nothing you could do about it. I nodded in agreement and asked with genuinely innocent curiosity.

“By the way, what’s your name?”

“….?”

The woman’s face twisted. Her expression seemed to question what kind of trick I was playing, so I waved my hand to show I meant no harm.

There were no distinguishing features about this group, so unless they told me their names, it was hard to tell if they were significant extras in the novel or not. Because of that, I just wanted to know her name, though she seemed to think I was being disrespectful. Her face flushed a little.

It seemed she knew Rowaine well, so she must have felt offended by that because she felt like I was pretending not to know her. Even though I knew this, I let her misunderstand. It didn’t seem like we were in a relationship where we needed to consider each other’s feelings anyway.

“Don’t act all high and mighty, Rowaine. Do you think there’s still a place for you here just because you’re back? Everything has changed while you were gone.”

“Yes, I suppose so. So, what’s your name? Who are you?”

“Ha! You must not know since you’ve been hiding in the estate, but I’m now Kelly Sterling.”

She raised her head triumphantly.

‘If she’s Sterling…’

Ah, I remembered. She was a friend of Rowaine, who often used to spread malicious rumors.

In the story, she appears as a character who has just married the wealthy Count Sterling. She was a person who hung out with Rowaine even before marriage and played the role of her right-hand person. She was a friend with a loose tongue who knew all sorts of high-society gossip, which made her quite useful to Rowaine.

‘She used to flatter Rowaine, but now that it seems Rowaine has fallen, she must have quickly betrayed her and taken her place.’

There were always people like that wherever you went.

‘Anyway, I might be able to learn something about Renée from her.’

After thinking about it for a while, I changed my attitude and huffed with an annoyed expression on my face.

“You’d know, wouldn’t you? Where and what is that fox Renée doing now?”

Kelly laughed as if she had expected this.

“You came running after hearing the news, didn’t you? What should I do? His Majesty the Emperor has completely forgotten about someone like you. Young Lady Renée has taken everything you’ve ever had.”

“Everything I’ve ever had?”

“His Majesty gave Young Lady Renée the most luxurious room in the Rose Palace. By now, she’s probably sitting there right now with all the jewels you cherished so much.”

“What? Is that true? Did you see it with your own eyes?”

“You may not want to believe me, but it’s all true. Well, even if you wanted to confirm, it wouldn’t be of any use.”

“Why?”

“Unlike you, who used to flaunt and show off, Young Lady Renée is living quietly. She doesn’t boast like you did about His Majesty’s favor, and she behaves modestly.”

It seemed like Kelly hadn’t seen Renée in person either.

‘So, she’s not receiving guests, isn’t she?’

Through my conversation with Kelly, I gained confidence that Renée was indeed confined to the largest room in the Rose Palace.

“If I were you, I’d be so embarrassed that I wouldn’t even be able to go to the imperial palace. Tsk, tsk.”

Kelly clicked her tongue and looked at me sympathetically before she suddenly clapped her hands together as if she remembered something.

“Oh, by the way, there’s a rumor that you started a mercenary group with cat shapeshifters. Is that true?”

As I looked at her silently, she covered her mouth and laughed loudly as though she didn’t need my answer anyway.

“You’re quite strange. Going all the way there just to play with cat shapeshifters. That’s why they said habits are incorrigible.”

“….”

“So, did you really start the cat shapeshifters circus or something? It wouldn’t surprise me. It seems like you’re being treated poorly by the Duke of Blois to the point that you’ll be in trouble if you don’t make money.”

As if she had thought of a fun idea, she turned to her friends and made a suggestion.

“Shouldn’t we hold a charity event to help the poor Duchess of Blois?”

Kelly was a person who was surprisingly good at talking to herself.

‘…How can she recite lines like she had memorized from a script?’

I marveled at how she talked without stopping, almost entranced, until the announcement from the entrance snapped me back to reality.

“Her Majesty, Empress Iris de Astor, enters!”

The murmurs of the crowd subsided slightly. As young Iris with a beautiful smile entered and looked around the audience, people she made eye contact with bowed their knees in courtesy.

Then, the gaze of the Empress fell on me.

As Kelly had mentioned, Rowaine had been flamboyant ever since acquiring the title of Emperor’s consort. So, Iris’s scrutiny might have felt stinging, but…

‘She’s smiling.’

She looked at me and gave me a favorable smile that no one else could see.

She was welcoming Rowaine’s return.

I admired inwardly.

Not Iris, but Elaine.

‘You’re completely fooling everyone by pretending to be innocent, Elaine.’

The relationship between the Empress, Rowaine, and Elaine was a tangled one.

While Iris was engaging in conversation with people and leading the atmosphere in the hall, the announcer belatedly announced the Emperor’s arrival.

“His Majesty, Emperor William de Astor, enters!”

The couple went separately, even on official occasions, and didn’t bother to hide the fact that they weren’t on good terms with each other. I secretly wondered if the Emperor would insist on bringing Renée with him wherever he went, as Rowiane always did, but he entered the banquet hall alone.

‘It looks like Renée’s refusal is firm, right?’

What on earth was she going through here?

‘I’m worried.’

I glanced at William, who entered with an indifferent expression.

William, who looked like a middle-aged Westerner in his fifties, had a slightly more chubby and ordinary appearance than I had imagined. His brown hair was peppered with gray, and the wrinkles around his forehead and eyes clearly showed his age.

He looked timid as he rolled his large, round eyes with heavy double eyelids as he scanned the audience.

The feared person who grabbed the hearts of countless dog shapeshifters, trained them as combat weapons, and sent them to the battlefield was, in fact, such a person.

It seemed he would collapse if Cadis attacked him.

‘He expelled the former Empress, who lived so peacefully, and even took his young niece, even if it was for political purposes. And now, he has been making women his daughter’s age one after another as mistresses. Ugh.’

He was even excessively obsessed and pathetic.

I shuddered as I recalled the verbose love letters I had received from Count Herman Heres before.

Then, all of a sudden, William and I locked eyes.

People’s eyes lit up when they saw that his gaze was on me.

Their expressions were expectant as if anticipating another amusing drama to unfold. They seemed to believe that Rowaine, who had a fierce and vicious personality, wouldn’t stay quiet for long. However, I refrained from any action.

To my surprise, William also just stared at me and looked away without any significant change in expression.

“Oh my.”

Kelly didn’t miss this and teased me with a sneer.

“What should we do? His Majesty the Emperor doesn’t even spare you a glance now. He was wearing such a cold expression. Did you come here to endure this? You might as well have stayed quietly in the estate.”

She looked very excited.

And she appeared to be even more confident than before, with a gaze that looked down on the weak. It was as if she had received unspoken permission to torment me as much as she wanted through the Emperor’s disregard a moment ago.

‘It’s ominous.’

I thought to myself at that moment.

Sure enough, I saw Kelly’s group exchanging glances with each other. Even though I didn’t know what it was about, I thought it would be best to avoid them…

“Oh, my!”

Before I could move, a servant passing by suddenly stumbled. Someone had tripped him.

I watched as glasses full of wine tumbled from the tray he was holding toward me in slow motion.

‘D*mn it!’

It was too late to avoid it. Ah, I never thought that after being transported into a novel, I would directly experience something that would only happen in a novel, like ‘getting drowned with wine at a party.’

I closed my eyes tightly.

But then.

“Rowaine!”

Someone grabbed me suddenly, calling my name.

 
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