With both hands on my hips, I let out a vigorous snort.
Duke Bastion was dazed as if he’d been hit on the back of his end, soon he coughed and burst into laughter.
‘Wow, he looks handsome in a different way when he smiles.’
I was happily watching the scene of the icy beauty’s face gently melting.
A short knock sounded before the butler entered, and at that time the laughter evaporated from the duke’s face.
He’d returned to the cold Duke of Bastion.
“Come in.”
“Excuse me.”
The maids pushed their trolleys and appeared to be well-trained servants, from their maid outfits to the way they spoke and acted.
In no time at all, they had set the meal on the table, a yellow blanket and slippers on the sofa, added more wood to the fireplace, then they were gone with the wind.
Was that an afterimage in front of me?
My mouth was hanging ajar when Duke Bastion said to me.
“Eat. Keep your body warm.”
“Oh, thank you, but…”
Do I dare? I needed to be careful about how I asked the question.
“As the duke said, I won’t get sick even if I fall into ice water.”
“But that doesn’t mean that you don’t feel cold.”
“Guilty.”
“What?”
“You’re guilty of this, Duke.”
What if he didn’t accept me until the end? Then I would hit him with life imprisonment.
I shook my head, and sat on the sofa at the opposite end to him.
‘Are you the incarnation of winter except when it comes to affection, which I’ve only heard about through rumors?’
I sighed and looked down at the plate of food.
The theme of this excessively cute meal could be expressed in one phrase.
‘Amusement Park Children’s Meal…’
First of all, I’m a child now, but there was still a little bit of a 22-year old Korean woman inside me.
I hesitated with my fork, then gently ate around the flag stuck in the omelet to stop it from falling down.
“…Hyuk!”
What is this? Despite how it looked, it didn’t taste anything like an amusement park cafeteria food!
The fragrant mushrooms, chopped vegetables, soft cheese, and the savory cream sauce were exquisitely combined in a fluffy egg.
Unknowingly, I kicked my short legs, and shouted at the duke.
“This is so delicious, father-in-law candidate!”
“Wh… What?”
“You’re a candidate for father-in-law.”
He said I was a candidate for daughter-in-law first.
When I replied to his question for clarity, Duke Bastion said “Huh” and made a face that was caught between surprise and laughter.
Whether he laughed or not, I was still busy keeping the flag standing while I finished my omelet.
Hmm, it’s not because I liked it at this age. It’s because there was something sincere about it.
…To confess honestly with my hand on my chest, I was a little excited because I couldn’t eat this a lot when I was young.
‘The amusement park itself was not a good memory…’
Hmph!
At that moment, something touched my bare feet.
I looked down to see what was going on, and saw the Duke’s hand. I didn’t know when he’d approached me, but he’d grasped my cold leg.
“I told you to keep warm.”
As if he’d been bothered the whole time, he blamed her with a disapproving voice. Then he put one of her yellow slippers on her foot.
“As expected, you’re small.”
He mumbled as he put a slipper on my other foot.
The thick blanket, which had been folded neatly, was roughly unfolded and placed over my shoulders.
His hands were more rough than gentle, but the touch made me squirm and I couldn’t help but look away.
“That’s because I’m only nine.”
“Frantz isn’t this small.”
“Frantz…?”
Who is that? I think I heard that name before.
The duke chuckled as I tilted my head.
“You asked for him, but you don’t even know his name.”
“What?”
“He’s my second son.”
I clapped my hands, half a tempo behind as I held the fork in my mouth.
Oh, it’s the name of his second son!
‘That’s right. Duke Bastion had two sons.’
Now he was saying that the second son was nine years old.
I spit out my fork and mumbled seriously.
“The same age as me… But I’m a bride candidate for the young master.”
“Young master?”
Yes, young master.
I smiled, and tapped my chest with my fist.
“Because I’m going to be the eldest daughter-in-law of my prospective father-in-law!”
Give me the eldest son.
***
So, did Duke Bastion willingly give up his eldest son? No.
He laughed at me for a long time, then chased me away.
In the last remaining maid’s room, located in the basement of the house.
‘You’re very salty, aren’t you, demon duke…’
Of course, I was a guest who wasn’t invited, so I was thankful for him just for feeding me and letting me sleep here.
But, ugh! Hug me, ugh! I was afraid you’d be cold, ugh! You even put the slippers on my feet!
Like any other prolog romcom’s father, he was supposed to lay the foundation for me!
He was really guilty of making me eat only a bowl of kimchi soup.
“What.”
At night when all the lights in the mansion were turned off, after I’d been washed up by the maid sisters, I kept tossing and turning in a moderately soft bed in a moderately small room.
I would say that it was a better bed than in the temple, which was definitely a good sign, but I was still sad for no reason.
Nobles often have contract marriages, so why!
‘Is it because I was born to marry the male lead?’
Wait a minute
Where exactly did I throw the ‘Lotus Blooming in the Mud’?
No, the reason why I started reading the book in the first place was…
[It’s new. There was no romance at all, but it was the most poignant romance I’ve ever read. The author has opened up new horizons in the world of romance novels. I give it 1 star.]
I read this story due to this perfect review.
Wouldn’t you want to read it so much that you’d wonder if it wasn’t a strategy of the publisher’s employees? Was it just me?
‘I was wondering how strange the content would be.’
I would have put up with this if I had known that this would be the outcome of the waste of my precious time and curiosity.
For me, who’d barely been a part-timer at a convenience store even before I became an adult, my only hobby and luxury was to purchase only one paperback a month.
Even this was often a burden because of the difficulties in my life, but looking at the books stacked neatly in my small apartment, I felt satisfied in my own way.
My most preferred genre was romance-fantasy, which was far from reality. I preferred medium-length short stories to long, drawn-out stories because I couldn’t always buy and read the next volume right away.
By the way, my goodness, the book under review was a single volume of a romance fantasy.
Thus, it was a good purchase for me, but…
‘The writer gave me a bitter tragedy. It was also a large and inflexible story.’
As I mentioned earlier, ‘Lotus Blooming in the Mud’ was a constant time waste between the male and female leads.
In the middle of it all was me, the Saint Aisha.
Aisha’s death was everything to Mercedes, the crown prince of the empire and male lead.
A candidate for sainthood and the heroine Sophie’s adored friend.
The presence of Aisha, who thought she could just leave the room with some reverie and tension, had been wedged between the two of them like a stake.
‘I expected something new and strange.I didn’t want that guilt-inducing, slow-moving love triangle.’
Even so, I kept reading until the middle of the book, thinking that things would get better and that there would be progress. Finally, something came along that destroyed my patience.
[The young master of House Bastion’s death.]
He was 22 years old that year.
Since ancient times, the direct line of Bastion had suffered from unexpected early deaths. The rumors were that they’d been suffering from a chronic disease for generations, that they were cursed, that they had actually committed suicide due to insanity, or any number of things, but nothing was certain.
In any case, the premature death of the young demon duke was just another bit of news in the Amanta Empire.
Except it was different for only two people, Mercedes and Sophie.
“…Your Highness, I felt it.”
Sophie said this while holding onto Mercedes’ sleeve tightly.
She’d suddenly run to the Imperial palace in mourning clothes and looked very desperate.
“I felt it very clearly at Duke Bastion’s funeral. The remnants of a huge explosion.”
“Miss Lang, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It felt like the complete opposite, but it was definitely the same feeling I had when Aisha passed away.”
Sophie, who had been struggling to explain, began to cry.
Mercedes was frozen like ice, unable to move to hand her a handkerchief.
He just stood there in a daze, and listened as the truth poured out.
Sophie kept her face buried in her hands and continued talking in a voice wet with joy and sadness.
“As expected, Aisha didn’t die because her power suddenly disappeared.”
The temple and the priests had made a big fuss until now.
They said that the Crown Princess, a former commoner, was punished by Lumiere for committing a wrongdoing.
That couldn’t be. She wasn’t like that. They didn’t even know her.
“There was just too much of it, her holy powers were beyond what a human vessel could bear.”
On the day Aisha closed her eyes, a dazzling white light shone in the Crown Princess Palace.
People thought that it was the wrath of the heavenly god Lumiere, and that it was divine punishment, but it wasn’t.
Just as she could feel the strange and enormous power that exploded from the Duke of Bastion, so too did Aisha’s power explode at that time…
Mercedes and Sophie’s wet eyes met, and they realized they were thinking the same thing.
‘They had to reveal the truth about Aisha.’
Yes, yes. Here. Exactly at this part.
<Thank you for reading about Mercedes and Sophie interjections so far. The next chapter begins in earnest, ‘The Late Aisha, Her Secret Story!’> So I threw the book away.
‘Just the three of us for the rest of our lives!’
With a heroic lion’s roar.
It’s in the middle part of a single volume, what’s wrong with you? This is why you two are never going to date or kiss each other. I was reading a romance novel to experience what my peers were doing.
They were wrapped up in a hundred points of courtesy and nostalgia for his dead former wife and friend.
Mercedes and Sophie were all about Aisha.
When they saw something good, they thought about Aisha; when they saw something sad, they thought about Aisha. Even when they were agonizing over their heart pounding feelings over each other, Aisha’s face came to mind.
Aisha, Aisha, Aisha! That AISHA!
‘Ta-da, and now I’m here!’
I should’ve stopped bad-mouthing her. Now I felt uncomfortable for some reason.
I shouldn’t have thrown the book at all. I usually treated my books like treasure, but why did I do that?
Perhaps it felt more boring because the truth that Mercedes and Sophie were looking for was revealed in the prolog.
The sudden death of Aisha, the saint who ‘blossomed’ at 14 and even became the crown prince’s wife, was due to her strong holy power.
It was a reality that would soon disappear deep under the water.
Like the untimely death of a certain duke with the blood of a demon god.
The truth was that only two different but equal forces, light and dark, could prevent each other’s tragedies…
The story was a journey for those full of courage and love to find the truth.
I don’t know about courage, but it was a story about the protagonists, who were filled with nothing but love for Aisha.
Fortunately, the most necessary information was written in the prolog.
The key was Duke Bastion’s family that inherited the blood of a demon god, and whose direct lineage often died prematurely.
The fact that only light and darkness, holy power and magical power, could keep each other alive.
‘And I’m going to blossom at 14.’
Flowering.
According to what Aishe learned at the temple, it was said that Lumiere’s power would fully bloom after enlightening to his will.
It was named blossoming because it meant you’d reached a state of divinity.
Normally, even the gray-haired cardinals could only say they’d bloomed a couple of petals, but a commoner girl from a remote temple, who was only 14 years old, was in full bloom.
‘It was a huge sensation. That’s why she was able to climb up to Crown Princess.’
Phew, I’m scared. The genius of this body.
I lay back against the wall and shook my head.
By the way… If I constantly used my mana, I might be able to avoid death, but what will happen to my flowering?
With both hands on my hips, I let out a vigorous snort.
Duke Bastion was dazed as if he’d been hit on the back of his end, soon he coughed and burst into laughter.
‘Wow, he looks handsome in a different way when he smiles.’
I was happily watching the scene of the icy beauty’s face gently melting.
A short knock sounded before the butler entered, and at that time the laughter evaporated from the duke’s face.
He’d returned to the cold Duke of Bastion.
“Come in.”
“Excuse me.”
The maids pushed their trolleys and appeared to be well-trained servants, from their maid outfits to the way they spoke and acted.
In no time at all, they had set the meal on the table, a yellow blanket and slippers on the sofa, added more wood to the fireplace, then they were gone with the wind.
Was that an afterimage in front of me?
My mouth was hanging ajar when Duke Bastion said to me.
“Eat. Keep your body warm.”
“Oh, thank you, but…”
Do I dare? I needed to be careful about how I asked the question.
“As the duke said, I won’t get sick even if I fall into ice water.”
“But that doesn’t mean that you don’t feel cold.”
“Guilty.”
“What?”
“You’re guilty of this, Duke.”
What if he didn’t accept me until the end? Then I would hit him with life imprisonment.
I shook my head, and sat on the sofa at the opposite end to him.
‘Are you the incarnation of winter except when it comes to affection, which I’ve only heard about through rumors?’
I sighed and looked down at the plate of food.
The theme of this excessively cute meal could be expressed in one phrase.
‘Amusement Park Children’s Meal…’
First of all, I’m a child now, but there was still a little bit of a 22-year old Korean woman inside me.
I hesitated with my fork, then gently ate around the flag stuck in the omelet to stop it from falling down.
“…Hyuk!”
What is this? Despite how it looked, it didn’t taste anything like an amusement park cafeteria food!
The fragrant mushrooms, chopped vegetables, soft cheese, and the savory cream sauce were exquisitely combined in a fluffy egg.
Unknowingly, I kicked my short legs, and shouted at the duke.
“This is so delicious, father-in-law candidate!”
“Wh… What?”
“You’re a candidate for father-in-law.”
He said I was a candidate for daughter-in-law first.
When I replied to his question for clarity, Duke Bastion said “Huh” and made a face that was caught between surprise and laughter.
Whether he laughed or not, I was still busy keeping the flag standing while I finished my omelet.
Hmm, it’s not because I liked it at this age. It’s because there was something sincere about it.
…To confess honestly with my hand on my chest, I was a little excited because I couldn’t eat this a lot when I was young.
‘The amusement park itself was not a good memory…’
Hmph!
At that moment, something touched my bare feet.
I looked down to see what was going on, and saw the Duke’s hand. I didn’t know when he’d approached me, but he’d grasped my cold leg.
“I told you to keep warm.”
As if he’d been bothered the whole time, he blamed her with a disapproving voice. Then he put one of her yellow slippers on her foot.
“As expected, you’re small.”
He mumbled as he put a slipper on my other foot.
The thick blanket, which had been folded neatly, was roughly unfolded and placed over my shoulders.
His hands were more rough than gentle, but the touch made me squirm and I couldn’t help but look away.
“That’s because I’m only nine.”
“Frantz isn’t this small.”
“Frantz…?”
Who is that? I think I heard that name before.
The duke chuckled as I tilted my head.
“You asked for him, but you don’t even know his name.”
“What?”
“He’s my second son.”
I clapped my hands, half a tempo behind as I held the fork in my mouth.
Oh, it’s the name of his second son!
‘That’s right. Duke Bastion had two sons.’
Now he was saying that the second son was nine years old.
I spit out my fork and mumbled seriously.
“The same age as me… But I’m a bride candidate for the young master.”
“Young master?”
Yes, young master.
I smiled, and tapped my chest with my fist.
“Because I’m going to be the eldest daughter-in-law of my prospective father-in-law!”
Give me the eldest son.
***
So, did Duke Bastion willingly give up his eldest son? No.
He laughed at me for a long time, then chased me away.
In the last remaining maid’s room, located in the basement of the house.
‘You’re very salty, aren’t you, demon duke…’
Of course, I was a guest who wasn’t invited, so I was thankful for him just for feeding me and letting me sleep here.
But, ugh! Hug me, ugh! I was afraid you’d be cold, ugh! You even put the slippers on my feet!
Like any other prolog romcom’s father, he was supposed to lay the foundation for me!
He was really guilty of making me eat only a bowl of kimchi soup.
“What.”
At night when all the lights in the mansion were turned off, after I’d been washed up by the maid sisters, I kept tossing and turning in a moderately soft bed in a moderately small room.
I would say that it was a better bed than in the temple, which was definitely a good sign, but I was still sad for no reason.
Nobles often have contract marriages, so why!
‘Is it because I was born to marry the male lead?’
Wait a minute
Where exactly did I throw the ‘Lotus Blooming in the Mud’?
No, the reason why I started reading the book in the first place was…
[It’s new. There was no romance at all, but it was the most poignant romance I’ve ever read. The author has opened up new horizons in the world of romance novels. I give it 1 star.]
I read this story due to this perfect review.
Wouldn’t you want to read it so much that you’d wonder if it wasn’t a strategy of the publisher’s employees? Was it just me?
‘I was wondering how strange the content would be.’
I would have put up with this if I had known that this would be the outcome of the waste of my precious time and curiosity.
For me, who’d barely been a part-timer at a convenience store even before I became an adult, my only hobby and luxury was to purchase only one paperback a month.
Even this was often a burden because of the difficulties in my life, but looking at the books stacked neatly in my small apartment, I felt satisfied in my own way.
My most preferred genre was romance-fantasy, which was far from reality. I preferred medium-length short stories to long, drawn-out stories because I couldn’t always buy and read the next volume right away.
By the way, my goodness, the book under review was a single volume of a romance fantasy.
Thus, it was a good purchase for me, but…
‘The writer gave me a bitter tragedy. It was also a large and inflexible story.’
As I mentioned earlier, ‘Lotus Blooming in the Mud’ was a constant time waste between the male and female leads.
In the middle of it all was me, the Saint Aisha.
Aisha’s death was everything to Mercedes, the crown prince of the empire and male lead.
A candidate for sainthood and the heroine Sophie’s adored friend.
The presence of Aisha, who thought she could just leave the room with some reverie and tension, had been wedged between the two of them like a stake.
‘I expected something new and strange.I didn’t want that guilt-inducing, slow-moving love triangle.’
Even so, I kept reading until the middle of the book, thinking that things would get better and that there would be progress. Finally, something came along that destroyed my patience.
[The young master of House Bastion’s death.]
He was 22 years old that year.
Since ancient times, the direct line of Bastion had suffered from unexpected early deaths. The rumors were that they’d been suffering from a chronic disease for generations, that they were cursed, that they had actually committed suicide due to insanity, or any number of things, but nothing was certain.
In any case, the premature death of the young demon duke was just another bit of news in the Amanta Empire.
Except it was different for only two people, Mercedes and Sophie.
“…Your Highness, I felt it.”
Sophie said this while holding onto Mercedes’ sleeve tightly.
She’d suddenly run to the Imperial palace in mourning clothes and looked very desperate.
“I felt it very clearly at Duke Bastion’s funeral. The remnants of a huge explosion.”
“Miss Lang, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It felt like the complete opposite, but it was definitely the same feeling I had when Aisha passed away.”
Sophie, who had been struggling to explain, began to cry.
Mercedes was frozen like ice, unable to move to hand her a handkerchief.
He just stood there in a daze, and listened as the truth poured out.
Sophie kept her face buried in her hands and continued talking in a voice wet with joy and sadness.
“As expected, Aisha didn’t die because her power suddenly disappeared.”
The temple and the priests had made a big fuss until now.
They said that the Crown Princess, a former commoner, was punished by Lumiere for committing a wrongdoing.
That couldn’t be. She wasn’t like that. They didn’t even know her.
“There was just too much of it, her holy powers were beyond what a human vessel could bear.”
On the day Aisha closed her eyes, a dazzling white light shone in the Crown Princess Palace.
People thought that it was the wrath of the heavenly god Lumiere, and that it was divine punishment, but it wasn’t.
Just as she could feel the strange and enormous power that exploded from the Duke of Bastion, so too did Aisha’s power explode at that time…
Mercedes and Sophie’s wet eyes met, and they realized they were thinking the same thing.
‘They had to reveal the truth about Aisha.’
Yes, yes. Here. Exactly at this part.
<Thank you for reading about Mercedes and Sophie interjections so far. The next chapter begins in earnest, ‘The Late Aisha, Her Secret Story!’> So I threw the book away.
‘Just the three of us for the rest of our lives!’
With a heroic lion’s roar.
It’s in the middle part of a single volume, what’s wrong with you? This is why you two are never going to date or kiss each other. I was reading a romance novel to experience what my peers were doing.
They were wrapped up in a hundred points of courtesy and nostalgia for his dead former wife and friend.
Mercedes and Sophie were all about Aisha.
When they saw something good, they thought about Aisha; when they saw something sad, they thought about Aisha. Even when they were agonizing over their heart pounding feelings over each other, Aisha’s face came to mind.
Aisha, Aisha, Aisha! That AISHA!
‘Ta-da, and now I’m here!’
I should’ve stopped bad-mouthing her. Now I felt uncomfortable for some reason.
I shouldn’t have thrown the book at all. I usually treated my books like treasure, but why did I do that?
Perhaps it felt more boring because the truth that Mercedes and Sophie were looking for was revealed in the prolog.
The sudden death of Aisha, the saint who ‘blossomed’ at 14 and even became the crown prince’s wife, was due to her strong holy power.
It was a reality that would soon disappear deep under the water.
Like the untimely death of a certain duke with the blood of a demon god.
The truth was that only two different but equal forces, light and dark, could prevent each other’s tragedies…
The story was a journey for those full of courage and love to find the truth.
I don’t know about courage, but it was a story about the protagonists, who were filled with nothing but love for Aisha.
Fortunately, the most necessary information was written in the prolog.
The key was Duke Bastion’s family that inherited the blood of a demon god, and whose direct lineage often died prematurely.
The fact that only light and darkness, holy power and magical power, could keep each other alive.
‘And I’m going to blossom at 14.’
Flowering.
According to what Aishe learned at the temple, it was said that Lumiere’s power would fully bloom after enlightening to his will.
It was named blossoming because it meant you’d reached a state of divinity.
Normally, even the gray-haired cardinals could only say they’d bloomed a couple of petals, but a commoner girl from a remote temple, who was only 14 years old, was in full bloom.
‘It was a huge sensation. That’s why she was able to climb up to Crown Princess.’
Phew, I’m scared. The genius of this body.
I lay back against the wall and shook my head.
By the way… If I constantly used my mana, I might be able to avoid death, but what will happen to my flowering?
