Chapter 10

Mariel Versia, second daughter of the Duke Versia family, was in a foul mood.

Servants who grasped this fact faster than anyone kept their eyes fixed on the floor, making no mistakes whatsoever.

“I’ve brought the book you requested, Miss.”

“Is this right? Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m certain.”

Pink hair and eyes that cascaded to her waist.

Though everyone who encountered Mariel in social circles praised her as lovely, the inside was completely different.

Eye corners that couldn’t rise more fiercely and a cold gaze.

“If I don’t like it after reading, I’ll use the whip, so bring it over in advance.”

Plus violence that didn’t shy away from even hitting with hands.

Mariel was displeased that at today’s tea party, a Count’s daughter had brought up book content and that a Marquis’s daughter had agreed with it.

‘They’re having a conversation about something I don’t know, mentioning the Duke family in it?’

Watching the secretive conversation unfold before her eyes, she had to force a smile.

She glared at the book held by a maid—the root cause of it all—then roughly snatched it away.

As soon as she turned the book with irritated hands, there was some blank page with a strange small drawing, so she tore it out immediately.

“Clean it up.”

Mariel, whose mood was already low, planned to check all this book’s content then personally visit her father to ask him to eliminate it.

Without blinking an eye at the maid’s hurried movements.

Reading the text quickly and grasping the early content, she clicked her tongue.

“It’s worse than I thought.”

The novel’s protagonist was none other than Rose, daughter of a Baron who was a commoner who’d bought his title.

Thanks to her father’s enormous power lust, Rose also had to make a political marriage for social advancement.

She was scheduled to become a concubine to a noble about three times her age.

「”Without having a debutante ball, we’ll proceed directly to the ceremony, so stay quiet until then.”」

Seeing him neglect the debutante ball as a noble, Mariel sneered.

‘How can trash like this be the same nobility as me? Ridiculous.’

Pathetically, Rose followed her father’s words absolutely, being his only child.

Before Mariel, feeling frustrated, could throw something nearby, Rose fortunately disobeyed her father’s words for the first time.

She actually stole the Baron’s title certificate and secretly participated in the masked ball, which was the eve of the debutante ball.

「A ballroom that only nobles could enter.

Under brilliantly shining chandeliers, people with only their eyes covered by splendid masks conversed.

Rose, who stood alone blankly watching this scene, soon realized she was a stranger in this place and saw her reflection in a glass.

A modest dress without a single jewel.

A yellow half-mask with no decorations—the basic one given by the imperial palace.

Though they wore masks and hid each other’s identities, the nobles already knew each other’s existence.」

Before she knew it, the image of Rose standing alone in the imperial ballroom naturally came to mind in Mariel’s head.

She had always gone there from the day she could walk.

The ballroom was one of the places most familiar to Mariel.

「”…I want to dance too.”

Rose murmured in a small voice.

People acted as if she were invisible.

No one tried to approach her vicinity, and Rose also noticed they were avoiding her.

To avoid causing harm, she only lingered on the outskirts rather than the center, finally reaching the sparsely populated edges.

“…”

She discovered a guest standing with his back against a pillar in the corner.

The same yellow half-mask as hers, bright amber eyes visible through it, and neat black hair came into view.

‘Maybe that person would dance with me.’

Seeing the man who didn’t avoid eye contact, she approached as if enchanted with small hope.

Getting closer, he was taller than expected, giving an imposing feeling, but Rose had never once asked anyone to dance, so she hesitated.

“…Excuse me.”

When she looked closely at the face of the man who said nothing.

Seeing his appearance that seemed to reject this place with his whole body, she impulsively spoke.

“Isn’t it stuffy here with so many people?”

“…I wonder.”

A voice so small you had to strain to hear it and a curt reply.

Rose had planned to tour the garden opened exclusively for the eve if she wasn’t going to dance anyway.

Adding one companion there would be fine.

Not minding the man’s reaction, she spoke in a confident voice.

“Trust me and… would you like to follow me once? It’ll be much more fun than staying here.”

There was no immediate answer, but after a while, he gave a hollow laugh and nodded.

Seeing this, Rose smiled brightly for the first time since entering the ballroom.」

“What—how can such a girl exist?”

Mariel couldn’t help but be shocked after unknowingly immersing herself in the novel.

From Rose thinking of proposing a dance first to a strange man, it already went against her common sense.

In the following scene, Rose made a mischievous expression and suddenly grabbed the man’s wrist, running outside to the garden, to a place where no people could be seen.

It turned out she was wearing comfortable shoes instead of formal shoes under her dress.

‘I don’t know where to start criticizing this.’

From grabbing a strange man’s wrist she’d just met to running through the imperial garden—it was absolutely ridiculous.

“Completely absurd.”

Did the man think the same as Mariel?

He found Rose’s actions absurd and went along with her antics, but sometimes burst out laughing sincerely.

Sometimes at her clumsy appearance, sometimes at her silly pranks.

While the masked ball was in full swing, the two spent time in the garden without removing their masks.

「”It would have been boring alone, but it was nice having you here. Get home safely!”」

Rose’s way of addressing the man was mostly ‘excuse me’ or ‘you there.’

When the bell announcing the masked ball’s end rang out, she turned her back first without a trace of lingering attachment.

To avoid being caught by her father, she had to return as quickly as possible.

Rose parted without even asking the man’s name.」

“My goodness, it ends like this?”

Fortunately, the book Mariel held still had many pages remaining.

From the man’s perspective—that is, from ‘Edwin’s’ viewpoint, who turned out to be the Duke family heir—the same scene repeated.

Learning his inner thoughts, even his worries while watching Rose’s retreating figure were frustrating.

Edwin couldn’t get a grip on the ‘strange symptoms’ he was currently feeling.

“Hah…”

Mariel, more exasperated than ever, grabbed one side of her hair and turned the next page.

Rose fortunately returned home secretly without being caught and snuck out again the next day.

Since the eve’s masked ball lasted about 3 days, she could meet Edwin again.

‘Right, it can’t end here.’

Rose, dressed identically to the previous day, moved boldly through the increased crowd.

Mariel naturally thought Edwin would appear at yesterday’s meeting place to welcome Rose, but her expectation was completely wrong.

「The man she’d expected to meet again was nowhere to be seen.

Rose moved toward the entrance to check people coming in, but made eye contact with a man barely hanging around near the entrance.

Light brown hair and a large build.

Despite the distance between them gradually narrowing, neither avoided eye contact first.

When she got close enough to see the man’s expression, Rose discovered brown eyes filled with the same boredom as yesterday.

Perhaps because she’d experienced it once before.

Suddenly Rose felt like making the most boring-looking man in this ballroom the most entertained.」

Edwin disappeared somewhere, and some unfamiliar man appeared before Rose, ending there.

Looking at the next page that no longer existed, Mariel frowned and recalled that Masked Ball was Volume 1.

“…This was Volume 1, right?”

“Yes, Miss! Since Volume 1 came out recently, the publisher says there are no plans to release Volume 2 yet.”

The quick-witted maid delivered information without Mariel asking.

The maid broke into cold sweat seeing Mariel’s hands trembling while holding the book.

Fortunately, the disaster of throwing and hitting someone with the book didn’t occur.

Eliminate the publisher? No.

With mad eyes, she found a solution and shot up from her seat.

Mariel was a true noble who used money and power to obtain what she wanted.

Elegantly and dignifiedly.

She planned to give the author money and get the next volume.