Chapter 1. After the Notification

Serenia had been summoned to the bank for the final notice.

They told her she had exactly one month from today to pay off the principal and all overdue interest in full, or the foreclosure process would begin immediately.

‘Giving a whole month to such an unreliable debtor. Banks are surprisingly lenient these days,’ she thought, leaving the building of the Barishart Count’s daughter, Serenia, at a leisurely pace.

[Returning this winter: The play The Little Duke Razkal, starring Ain Reveron!]

Ignoring the dazzling play posters plastered along the bank’s wall, she leaned her back against it.

“Haah.”

A sigh escaped her lips.

“Should I just marry someone from a wealthy family?”

She muttered as if talking to herself, letting out a dry, hollow laugh.

Calling it marriage sounded nice, but in truth, it was more like selling herself off—her claim to the Barishart County and her price tag of thirty thousand krovat.

‘How am I any different from women who sell their bodies?’ The thought filled her with a sense of self-loathing.

But what could she do?

Born a noblewoman in the Kingdom of Zigranto, her fate had already been decided.

The only roles permitted for noblewomen were attending social events and managing household affairs.

Thus, a noblewoman was little more than a living doll, groomed to perfection and sold off at a high price.

A decorative statue.

Or perhaps a trophy.

The way the fate she had long avoided finally came crashing down before her felt oddly sorrowful.

But standing on the brink of bankruptcy, what did it matter if she sold her body, destined to rot in the grave anyway?

Serenia resolved herself, thinking of her father, who had been in a coma for eight years.

‘Yes. No matter what anyone says, I must survive, no matter the cost.’

“And besides, I have to pay the hospital fees next month.”

Having made her decision, she began forcing herself to think positively.

November was a timely season.

At the end of every November, the kingdom held a grand banquet at the royal palace to celebrate Founding Day.

At such an event, where nearly every noble attended, it should be easy to find a suitable candidate for a husband to move into her household.

Just as Serenia was organizing her thoughts step by step, her vision suddenly darkened. She instinctively looked up.

A man, his appearance strikingly unusual, stood there, blocking the sunlight with a faint smile.

A long coat that reached his ankles. Deep purple-tinted sunglasses.
A wide-brimmed black velvet hat, the kind one might expect a noblewoman to wear.
Beneath the hat peeked strands of pink hair, likely a wig.

‘What… is this? Is he advertising for some costume shop?’

His attire was absurdly bizarre for that to be the case. Yet the high-end items he wore seemed to harmonize, as if curated to match him perfectly.

‘They say a face completes the outfit, and it must be true,’ she thought, her brow furrowing as she noticed his striking beauty that not even the hat’s shadow or tinted glasses could hide.

His features radiated warmth yet felt cold, appeared soft yet sharp. He seemed as graceful as a daffodil, as splendid as a rose, as elegant as a trumpet vine, and as delicate as a pear blossom.

His innocent, boyish look hinted at an underlying weariness and precariousness, so jaded it compelled Serenia to swallow dryly without realizing it.

He was a man full of contradictions, impossible to define with a single word—so much so that he became all the more captivating.

A sudden intuition swept through her mind.

‘He’s probably made hundreds of women cry with that face of his,’ she thought, her certainty inexplicable yet unshakable.

While she arrived at this conclusion with a thought process as flimsy as a failing grade’s reasoning, the man deepened his smile and finally spoke.

“Hello, my lady.”

His sensuous smile put Serenia on guard, and she instinctively stepped back. But before she could retreat even half a step, her back hit the wall.

Startled, she froze, and the man watched her with faintly narrowed eyes behind his sunglasses, his lips forming words in a near-whisper.

“I am Ain Reveron.”

The man softly introduced himself, and Serenia tilted her head slightly in confusion.

‘Is… is he announcing his name for some reason?’

Something about the name seemed familiar.

However, Serenia was far too removed from highbrow hobbies like theater to recognize his identity from that alone.

Unaware that the man standing before her was the very star of the play featured on the posters she had been leaning against, Serenia returned his greeting with a polite nod.

“Oh, I see. My name is Serenia Barishart.”

At her response, he smiled briefly, his expression tinged with something peculiar.

As she puzzled over his expression, he spoke again, his tone as if he were a broker proposing a secretive deal.

“Lady Barishart, should you find yourself thinking of me…”

He slipped a stiff, card-sized piece of paper into her hand and continued.

“Feel free to visit me here anytime.”

‘…What is this? So, he wasn’t a costumed advertiser but just some flirt after all? Or… could he be a host?’

As Serenia tilted her head in confusion, he left behind nothing but a rose-like smile and disappeared as swiftly as the wind.

And so, Serenia found herself once again alone in front of the bank’s wall.

“What the…?”

Pouting slightly, she examined the paper he had handed her.

Written neatly in an elegant hand on the white card was a single address:

< Pledis District 3, Lot 1013 >

The address alone didn’t provide a clear picture of the location, but one thing was certain.

It was in Pledis, south of the river that ran through the capital—a region infamous for being home to the third-tier financial enterprises.

In simpler terms, it was the underbelly of the city, crawling with loan sharks, debt collectors, and street thugs.

Serenia glanced down at the address with cold, unamused eyes and nodded to herself.

“So it was a loan referral.”

Apparently, the man was looking to expand his business dealings with nobles.

‘And I’m the first step in that expansion.’

With a faint sigh, Serenia gave a small shake of her head. Recently, rumors about loan sharks running rampant had been circulating, and it seemed they were true.

“But no matter what, I’ll never resort to loan sharks.”

As if making a vow, she muttered quietly to herself. She was about to crumple the note and toss it to the ground but hesitated.

“…Still, littering is wrong.”

Adding this explanation as though to justify herself, Serenia stuffed the crumpled note into her coat pocket.

* * *

And so, time passed, and the last day of November arrived.

It was Founding Day in the Kingdom of Zigranto.

Serenia had made every preparation she could to attend tonight’s special celebratory banquet at the royal palace.

Though her dress wasn’t new, it was decently mended, and while she couldn’t use the Barishart family’s private carriage, she had rented a shared carriage for the entire day.

She had spent every last coin she had on these two things, leaving her utterly penniless.

Because of that, Serenia climbed into the carriage with a sense of utter desperation, determined to stake everything on tonight.

‘If I can’t strike a deal today, I won’t have anything to eat starting tomorrow,’ she thought, gripping the edge of her seat as the carriage rattled toward the royal palace.

At the palace gates, the guards scrutinized her invitation not once, but three times, before begrudgingly allowing her carriage to pass.

When the drab, battered shared carriage pulled up to the grand entrance of the glittering banquet hall, all eyes turned toward it.

“Who could possibly be arriving at the palace in that kind of carriage…?”

“Did it break down on the way here?”

“No matter the circumstances, that’s just unacceptable.”

The murmurs grew louder as curious glances darted toward the halted carriage. Then, when its door opened, the whispers abruptly stopped, replaced by wide-eyed stares.

“What?”

“Could it be…?”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“Oh my. The audacity.”

Serenia Barishart had appeared at the banquet.

And not just appeared—she had done so in a ten-year-old dress, without any proper jewelry, and without even an escort by her side!

The boring party had suddenly been gifted a fresh source of amusement.

To the attendees sipping champagne, Serenia’s entrance was the perfect fodder for gossip. Smirks spread across their faces as they relished the unexpected entertainment.

* * *

Serenia’s strikingly unconventional dress, though not in the way she had hoped, turned out to be surprisingly effective.

It immediately captured the attention of the men at the party.

Of course, the attention was far from the kind she wanted.

Like a pack of hyenas circling hapless prey, the men smirked and surrounded Serenia.

“Well, well. Look who’s graced us with their presence at tonight’s party.”

“Isn’t this the Lady Barishart? Harder to catch a glimpse of than His Majesty himself!”

“Wow. I have to say, now that I see you in person, I kind of get why you were so high and mighty. You really are beautiful.”

“By the way, weren’t you the one who coldly turned down my escort before, claiming you had no interest in such parties? What brings you here tonight?”

Serenia forced herself to straighten her shoulders, resisting the urge to shrink under their jeering eyes. Taking a deep breath, she barely managed to speak.

“I was wondering if… anyone here might be interested in discussing the succession rights to the Barishart County…”

Before she could finish her sentence, the men burst into raucous laughter.

“Wahahaha!”

“Heh heh heh. And here I thought you were going to say something serious!”

Serenia’s expression hardened as their mocking laughter echoed throughout the banquet hall.

The men surrounding her exchanged smirks, whispering and snickering amongst themselves.

“Seeing her show up at a party like this, I thought maybe she’d finally come to her senses.”

“For the first time, I actually feel sorry for the late Count Barishart.”

One of them clicked his tongue, shaking his head in mock pity, before turning to Serenia with a scornful look.

“My lady, do you seriously believe there’s a fool in this world who’d want something like the Barishart County?”