chapter 2
It wasn’t a hallway, but another room connected to the one I had woken up in—and it was far larger and far more luxurious.
And then—
“Stella!”
A beautiful young woman called out to me in a whisper-like cry.
With blond hair that looked almost like a wig, doll-like eyes, and a fluttering dress, she looked nothing like the people I was used to seeing.
But why does she feel so familiar…? Don’t tell me… Ka, Kayla?
I didn’t know why that name came to mind, but the woman looked almost identical to the Kayla in my head. Just like how I had imagined her while reading the book and seeing her in dreams.
Wait. Did she just call me Stella?
Startled, I turned my head—and saw my reflection in the room’s mirror.
A small-framed young woman with slightly wavy red hair and a pale, pretty face.
The moment I saw myself, it felt like I’d been struck on the head.
So this situation meant… I had possessed someone—and of all people, I had become Stella, a lowly maid who suffered endlessly and died miserably alongside her mistress.
“Stella! Help me. Why are you just standing there like that?”
Kayla spoke urgently, tearing the long fabric from the bed with scissors. She was ripping down all the curtains in the room, connecting them into long rope-like strips.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the mirror, and my face crumpled.
Not a beloved baby princess adored by her father and brothers. Not a villainess noblewoman from a wealthy house. Not a saintess loved obsessively by a young emperor.
Just a maid. A maid!
And worse, I was thrown into this situation without any preparation, right in the middle of something urgent. Even more problematic—this scene wasn’t even in the book.
“Stella!”
Seeing me frozen in confusion, Kayla called my name again with an exasperated expression.
Then, as if she had made up her mind, she said,
“Listen carefully. I’m running away tonight.”
Riiip. Rip!
Even as she spoke, she kept tearing the curtains with firm determination. I had never seen that resolute expression in the original story. She was always the type to cry herself into exhaustion or throw tantrums in anger.
“I’d rather run away than marry that blood-mad demon.”
Hearing her words, I could roughly guess the situation. This was before Kayla and Stella ever appeared in the original story.
This must be Kayla Enrio before marrying Ricardo Zenkish.
So this chaos happened in her family home.
Come to think of it, Kayla had always feared him, only hearing terrifying rumors about Ricardo before ever meeting him.
Then this failed escape attempt is what led to everything.
So Kayla must have eventually given up and gone to the capital to marry Ricardo.
That meant I was standing at a decisive moment where I could change the original story. My chaotic mind began to clear.
No, my lady! Please don’t do this!
If I shouted that and tried to stop her, everyone in this mansion would come running. Then her escape would fail, and the story would proceed exactly as written.
A dream I had just had flashed through my mind.
Kayla and Stella being dragged from a carriage, meeting a brutal death—their screams nonexistent as they collapsed, and the ground turning into a red pool of blood.
“I’m sorry to Stella, who treated me like a real sister. But we can’t go together. Just escaping with Vittorio is already difficult enough.”
She looked at me with slightly apologetic eyes as she spoke.
“Vittorio?”
There was a brief mention in the original story of a man Kayla once loved before her marriage. It must be him.
“Cuckoo. Cuckoo.”
A timid cuckoo’s call echoed outside the window. We both turned our gaze toward it.
“He’s here already!”
Kayla moved even faster and more boldly. She grabbed the rope and climbed over the bed in one swift motion. I couldn’t understand how she could have once loved a man like that and then fallen into “eternal love” with the duke the moment she met him.
“Are you really going to run away? What about the marriage with the duke?”
At my words, she turned to me in disbelief.
“Are you seriously asking that right now? I’m going to die if I stay. They say he’s a war maniac with no mercy—a monster who can kill a person with one hand.”
At her firm rejection, I fell silent. That part at least was probably true.
If she goes, she dies. And so do I.
I didn’t understand how the composed Kayla I knew would later lose her mind after marrying the duke.
“Thank you for everything, Stella. No—sister.”
She came closer and hugged my shoulders, kissing my cheek as if it were a final goodbye.
“Please take care of what comes after.”
Her determined eyes moved something inside me.
Yeah, Kayla. Let’s change this damned original story together.
Let’s try to avoid a meaningless death.
“Yes. Be careful, my lady.”
At my words, we clasped hands and smiled at each other briefly, bittersweetly.
I helped her from my side as she climbed out the window using the curtain rope.
First, I need to break the main course of the original story. If I want to survive, I have to stop Kayla’s marriage.
As she descended along the wall, the rope tightened—and then suddenly slackened.
Thud.
I heard her land safely on the ground. Then whispers, hurried footsteps, and the sound of someone running away.
Looking out into the pitch-black night where Kayla had disappeared, my heart began to race. Everything had happened in an instant—my possession of Stella, Kayla’s escape.
Wheee! Wheee! Bark! Bark!
Then a chaotic alarm rang out in the distance.
What do I do? Did they already catch her?
Lights began turning on in every room. Someone blew whistles loudly. Hunting dogs barked wildly.
This is bad.
This isn’t the time!
I ran back to the room I had first woken up in and dove onto the bed, pulling the blanket over myself.
She got caught while escaping…
So the original story really can’t be changed?
Then I would also end up going to the capital with Kayla and dying like in the dream.
At that moment, someone outside began pounding on the door hard enough to break it.
It seemed people were rushing into my room, which was connected to Kayla’s locked room.
This is insane.
I messed up my hair like I had just woken up and opened the door with a sleepy expression. The moment it opened, people shoved past me, searching for Kayla.
“Kayla?”
“My daughter!”
“Lady Kayla!”
A middle-aged couple who pushed past me looked pale as death.
A short, chubby white-haired man and a thin, sharp-faced blonde woman. Anyone could tell they were Kayla’s parents—the Baron and Baroness Enrio.
Of course, Kayla’s room was empty. Only torn curtains and scissors were left scattered on the floor.
“W-what… what is going on?!”
“Stella! What happened? Where is Kayla?”
They interrogated me, even though they already understood the situation.
I shook my head as if I knew nothing, acting like I had fully become Stella in the brief time since possession.
“I-I don’t know…”
“You were sleeping while the lady disappeared?!”
The furious woman stepped forward and slapped me across the cheek with her bony hand. My face burned with pain.
I glared at her while holding my cheek. The baroness raised her hand again.
“Enough.” The baron intervened, stopping her.
I calmed my breathing. That slap nearly made my head spin, but it was better than dying in the capital.
The baroness collapsed onto the bed and began to cry.
“Oh dear… what are we going to do…”
The baron also looked half-mad with anxiety.
Watching them, I thought bitterly.
It may seem absurd now, but this is better for your daughter.
But strangely, the couple seemed more afraid of something else than their daughter’s disappearance.
“We’re all going to die. He will never forgive us. We’ve already sold half of the gifts we received.”
“What? You already touched them?”
“Do you think I used them for myself? Do you know where that silk nightgown you’re wearing came from? Our carriage was practically falling apart! Even if the estate is collapsing, if nobles walk around like beggars, what will people think of us!”
The baron groaned in frustration.
I had known Kayla came from a minor baron’s family in the countryside, but I didn’t realize they were so blinded by wealth that they would send their daughter off to a man they had never even met in the capital.
“If we can’t find her, we’ll just have to beg that man. Surely he won’t kill us. We’ll pay back what we spent little by little for the rest of our lives.”
The baron spoke as if resigned.
At that moment, a group of soldiers stormed into the room as if breaking in.