2 - I Got Engaged to the Blind Duke
Blind Duke and Fiancee - Episode 2
Knock, knock. Marin, holding a tray with both hands, opened the door and entered the room.
Her mother, Loanna, lay listlessly on the bed.
Her once-lustrous blonde hair was now full of sparse white strands, and her cheeks were sunken, revealing a clear sign of illness.
Marin hid her sad eyes and called out to Loanna in a deliberately bright voice.
"Mom."
Loanna's eyelids fluttered and weakly opened.
"Marin."
Loanna slowly raised her upper body and sat with her back against the headboard.
"You look much better today. You look like you'll be healthy soon."
At Marin's flattery, Loanna drew a faint smile on her pale face.
"Thank you. But how long will you call me 'Mom' when you're old enough to marry anytime?"
"Oh! I'm going to call you 'Mom' even when I'm your age, Mom."
Marin, her eyes wide as if asking what she was talking about, soon smiled bashfully.
"Oh, who can stop you? Your brother or..."
Loanna smiled along, then suddenly stiffened and couldn't continue.
"Mom! Here's your unstoppable daughter with some tasteless yakgwa and soup."
Marin deliberately pretended not to hear and showed off the tray as if boasting.
Loanna lowered her gaze to the yakgwa and soup, then raised her head with a dark expression.
"Did you eat?"
"Of course. I just ate two bowls."
Although she hadn't eaten since yesterday, Marin deliberately puffed up her stomach and pretended to be full.
Loanna, gazing at her with sad eyes, turned her body and lay back down on the bed.
"I have no appetite. So you eat more for my share."
It was a bowl of soup made by scraping together the remaining food ingredients in the house.
She couldn't eat this precious thing instead of her sick mother.
"Mom..."
"I really have no appetite."
She was firm, as if she had noticed her lie that she was full.
Once she became stubborn like this, there was no stopping her.
"Mom. Then shall I read you a book?"
It was the most effective way to soothe Loanna.
"Aren't you busy today? Actually, I haven't been sleeping well lately. I can sleep well if you read me a book."
Expectation flickered on Loanna's face.
"You should have told me sooner."
"I didn't want to bother you when you're busy."
"I'll read it to you. But you have to eat the soup."
Loanna shook her head weakly as if she couldn't do that.
Knock, knock, knock.
Just as she was about to open her mouth to persuade her mother more, she heard a knock on the cabin door.
"Mom, it looks like someone's here. I'll read you the book later. I'll leave the soup on the table, so eat it when you're hungry. Okay?"
"......"
Leaving the unresponsive Loanna behind, Marin came out of the room. She went straight through the small kitchen and opened the cabin door.
The landlord, Jorno, a middle-aged man with a belly as big as a pregnant woman's, smiled brightly as if glad to see her.
"Marin."
"Mr. Jorno. Hello."
Marin forced a reluctant expression and greeted him, hiding her displeasure at the appearance of the landlord she didn't want to see.
"Yes, I'm always fine. How have you been, Marin?"
"Yes. What brings you here?"
Jorno burst into a hearty laugh like someone who had heard a funny joke.
"What brings me here? Between us."
Marin clenched her fists at Jorno's lecherous gaze that openly scanned her.
Even though he was a married man, he threw advances at her with that look every time.
Should I hit him once? Hit him and just run away?
Marin recalled her sick mother lying in the room and hid her trembling hands behind her back.
"If you don't have any business, I'm busy."
As Marin spoke coldly and tried to close the door, Jorno smirked and grabbed the cabin door.
"The rent has tripled starting this month."
"What are you..."
Marin looked at him with a bewildered face.
"Marin has been paying the rent regularly, so I haven't raised it until now, but other houses raised it a long time ago. The rent is due in five days, right? I'll come to collect it myself. If you don't have the money, you'll have to get out of here."
Jorno glared and threatened.
"If you suddenly raise it three times, how can I get that much money right away? Can't you give me a little more time?"
Marin bowed her head and pleaded.
Winter was coming soon. It would be a disaster if she and her sick mother were kicked out of here.
Jorno smiled slyly as if he knew she would say that and brought his face closer.
"Of course, there's another way..."
Before he could finish his greasy words, Marin slammed the door right in front of him.
"Aah, my nose!"
Serves him right. Marin locked the cabin door tightly and blocked it with her back.
Thump, thump. As Jorno grabbed the doorknob and shook it, her body shook along with it.
"Hey, open the door! Do you think I'll be lenient anymore? You dried-up broom. Ugh, spit, spit."
Jorno, shouting at the top of his lungs, disappeared.
Marin swallowed a sigh and looked at Loanna's room. She must have heard all this commotion.
She was worried that her mother's already fragile heart would worsen.
Marin went to Loanna's room and was about to knock, but lowered her hand.
Could she comfort her mother?
Could she lie that everything would be alright?
Marin hung her head and opened her own door across the hall.
A loud noise echoed from the hinges.
Marin looked at the hinges with a displeased gaze. The hinges, rusted in places, needed to be replaced a long time ago.
The only furniture in the room was a shabby bed and an antique vanity.
The vanity was the only piece of furniture she had brought from the old mansion.
She couldn't bear to throw it away because she remembered her father's face, telling her to treat it with care, saying it was what her grandmother had used since she was young.
"I need money."
Marin murmured to herself in a low voice. She really, desperately needed money.
A sick person needed to get enough nutrition, and her heart felt like it was tearing every time she had to give her sick mother soup with no solids.
On top of that, the rent had tripled. It was adding insult to injury.
"Damn landlord."
Marin plopped down on a chair and carefully took out a piece of paper hidden in the corner of the vanity drawer.
The paper was densely filled with letters that only she could read in this empire.
Her gaze lingered on the first line.
「The Bluebird of the Western Duke Does Not Cry」
It was after the carriage accident that she realized she was living in this novel.
She had wandered between life and death for over a month. When she finally woke up, she realized in a flash that this was the world in the novel she had read before.
Was it because she was the protagonist?
No.
It was because she was born and raised in the West, where the novel was set.
Anyone born in the West couldn't help but know about the Vines Dukedom.
The story of the novel 「The Bluebird of the Western Duke Does Not Cry」 was simple.
The male protagonist, the Western Duke, goes blind and becomes devastated due to a Monster attack, but then he meets the female protagonist, a prodigy in the field of herbal medicine, and she cures his eyes. After that, the two fall in love in this romance fantasy novel.
She had read many Northern Duke novels, but she had chosen the Western Duke one simply because it was fresh.
To think that she had been reincarnated into that novel world and had been living there until now.
"It's absurd..."
She was an extra who didn't even appear in a single line of the novel. Just a background-like existence who could just stay still and do nothing.
If time passed like this, she would probably naturally hear the news of the Duke's happy ending. The Duke's wedding would be a sensational wedding of the century.
But the problem was money.
"I need money."
She didn't have time to be confused by the realization that she had been reincarnated into the world of the book.
The family had fallen, and she was immediately hit by financial difficulties.
The Schwentz barony was a family that had been rich with vast lands and assets passed down from their ancestors.
However, after the carriage accident, it was revealed that her father had a huge debt.
They had to give up the land, assets, and mansion, and even sell all the jewelry and dresses they had.
By selling the last remaining expensive dress, she was barely able to rent a two-room cabin at the entrance of the mountain.
Loanna had been bedridden ever since that incident.
She had to do something.
The title of a baron's daughter who hadn't even had her Debutante after the family fell was of no help in life.
"I need money."
Marin repeated the same words over and over, hypnotizing herself.
Otherwise, her determination to jump into the lives of the protagonists seemed like it would waver.
Until now, she had struggled to avoid getting involved in their lives in any way. But now, she had really reached her limit.
Marin's tender, sprout-like green eyes stared intently at the paper she was holding. The paper was densely filled with the important contents of the novel she had read.
She already knew about the male protagonist of this world, the Duke.
It was time to use the only weapon she had.
