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1. The Marriage – I’ll Do It Instead
What happened a week ago was a common occurrence in novels. She had fallen asleep while reading a novel, and when she woke up, she had become a character in the novel.
The title of the novel she enjoyed reading was <Don’t Love Me, Since I’m Dying>.
She couldn’t even count how many tears she shed while reading the novel all the way to its end. That day, she probably fell asleep because she was exhausted from crying.
When the brilliant light of the next day brought her to her senses, her appearance had changed.
The house had been changed.
Her name had changed.
People were calling her “Linzel”.
The world that she was living in had changed.
She used to have brown hair with quite a few black roots, but now her flowing locks were pink, like cotton candy. Her once black eyes were now green enough to resemble a greenery.
A woman with pink hair and green eyes.
The full name of the person she had possessed was “Linzel Valencia”.
That was the name of one of the characters in <Don’t Love Me, Since I’m Dying>, the novel that made her cry so heavily.
To be more precise, she had become the twin sister of the female protagonist.
At first, she thought it was a dream that she had conjured because she was so immersed in reading the novel.
But a week later, she was still Linzel. And It was the same today.
She barely woke up in the middle of the day, lying in bed and blinking her verdant eyes slowly.
What appeared in her field of vision was the ceiling she had become accustomed to by now.
The ceiling with elegant paintings she had previously only seen in medieval movies. When she saw it, she realized yet again.
‘Oh, I’m Linzel again today.’
At that time, there was someone who threw the door to her room open wide.
“Linzel! I have great news!”
The one who appeared with a cheerful voice was a woman who looked exactly like Linzel.
With every step she took towards me, her pink hair that came down to her chest fluttered.
Linzel captured a brief glimpse of that fluttering hair in her eyes before the girl came to the bed where Linzel was lying, and promptly crawled in.
She hugged Linzel tightly and rubbed her face against Linzel’s chest. It was a natural touch.
Linzel didn’t stop her.
Instead, she patted the overly familiar girl on the head. That very soft hair.
She could hear the other person’s face rubbing against hers as much as she wanted to, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
Her green eyes, similar to Linzel’s, were slightly enlarged.
“Letty, what’s the big news?”
Her name was Letty.
Letty was the female protagonist of this world and the twin sister of Linzel, the woman she had possessed.
“Linzel, I had a couple of conversations with Izekiel yesterday.”
Izekiel Kleman.
That man was the male protagonist of this world and Letty’s crush.
“Wow, how awesome. A couple of conversations?” Linzel replied in surprise.
“Mmhm!” Letty bobbed her head up and down enthusiastically.
“What did you talk about?”
“Listen, I visited the imperial palace yesterday. I ran into Sir Izekiel in the corridor of the palace. So I said hello, like, ‘Hello, Mister Izekiel.’ ”
Letty continued excitedly.
“Then Sir Izekiel replied, ‘Yes, hello.’ So I asked a question to keep the conversation a little longer. ‘Are you busy right now?’
Linzel smiled at Letty’s obvious delight as she recounted her story. “So, what did Izekiel answer?”
Letty answered after clearing her voice.
“ ‘Yes, I’m busy.’ Then I replied, ‘Goodbye.’ ”
She was mimicking Izekiel’s voice in a strange way, and Linzel had to swallow a chuckle.
“Then I turned around and….. saw Izekiel’s cape flapping proudly as he walked away. He was so cool.”
Realistically, Linzel wasn’t sure what about that was cool.
The short, blunt answer? The flapping cape?
It was probably his face.
She didn’t understand Letty, but she smiled anyway. She even kissed her on the forehead, and said, “Letty. You must have felt good.”
Letty’s skin, which she touched briefly, gave off a nice smell. Somehow the smell reminded her of a child.
The young woman in love looked even more lovely.
Linzel loved her sister Letty.
“Linzel, can I marry Izekiel?” Letty asked sadly. It was a question that made Linzel’s heart ache for some reason.
It was probably because she knew the answer to that question.
‘No.’
Letty couldn’t marry Izekiel, whom she liked.
Because she was going to marry the villain of this novel.
And to make matters worse, she was even terminally ill.
Still, in the story she avoided the eyes of the villain and fell in love with Izekiel…..but by then, her condition had already deteriorated beyond recovery.
Her life was on the verge of expiring, but she still dreamed of a beautiful future with the man she loved.
That was the reason Linzel cried out loud while reading <Don’t Love Me, Since I’m Dying>.
The story of Letty, who closed her eyes without being able to achieve her love, was so sad.
Even knowing the real answer to what Letty asked, Linzel answered with a lie.
“You can marry Izekiel and be happy.”
She also emphasized it once more, as if she was casting a spell, repeating “You can definitely do that.”
Because she was going to help her, as Linzel.
Letty hugged her even tighter. “Linzel, you’re the only one I have.”
Linzel peeked at her and laughed, “Do you like me more than your favorite, Izekiel?”
Letty answered as if to soothe a child, “Yes, yes, of course. Anyway, you’re being childish.”
They giggled. To a stranger, They would have looked like close sisters.
Linzel listened peacefully to Letty’s gentle laughter the whole time.
Eventually, it was Letty who stopped laughing first. She spoke in a low, sinking voice, as if something had suddenly come to mind.
“…..but Linzel, rumor has it that our father wants me to marry Prince Hiram. It’s just a rumor, right?”
Linzel knew the correct answer this time, too.
‘That’s not a rumor – it’s the truth.’
Hiram Kleman was Izekiel’s younger brother, and Hiram’s position in the novel was a villain.
And he was also the man that would actually marry Letty, according to that original story.
And yet Linzel lied again.
“Yes, it’s just a rumor.”
***
Letty and Linzel were twin sisters of the Duke of Valencia.
Both were born weak, and Letty’s prognosis was worse than Linzel’s. In her childhood, Letty was told by a doctor that she would not live past the age of 20.
It was because her heart was very weak.
According to the novel, Letty actually died at the age of 20.
That day was the day she decided to run away with her love Izekiel, the male protagonist.
The cause of death was a heart attack. Her very weak heart died.
It was possible that she may have possessed Linzel to help Letty’s pitiful love.
When she read the part where Letty died, she thought endlessly that she wanted to help her.
Thoughts became a reality.
She became Linzel and met Letty.
Letty, whom she only had met for about a week, was nothing but lovable.
She desperately wanted Letty to be happy. It was a fateful wish.
Also, because the memories of Linzel naturally permeated her mind, it could be the cause of her interest in Letty. Not long after she possessed her body, she began to feel like the real Linzel.
Letty and Linzel were now 18.
There were only two years left before Letty died.
According to the novel, Letty married Hiram when she was 18.
In other words, it meant that the rumors Letty heard were not false rumors.
Linzel was determined to take the bull by the horns and deal with the rumors herself.
To do so, she had to meet the Duke of Valencia, who suddenly became her father on the day she awoke as Linzel.
After Letty, who had been snuggling up against her sister since morning, went back to her room, Linzel went to the duke.
She only walked a few steps down the hallway, but she was already out of breath.
This was because Linzel’s body was not as good as Letty’s.
Although Linzel was not terminally ill, she often had minor illnesses and was suffering from various chronic diseases.
She barely managed to walk to her father’s study with the help of a maid.
“The Duke of Valencia, Miss Linzel is here.”
The maid announced my arrival, but her father remained silent for a while.
Was he busy?
Just as she thought she should come back later, her father’s voice rang out.
“Come in.”
Soon after, she entered the study to see her father, sitting on a sofa in the center of the study.
The duke, whom she met occasionally, looked nothing like the sisters.
Her father had black hair and bright black pupils.
It was said that they looked exactly like the duchess, who died giving birth to them.
“Linzel, what brings you here?” her father asked affectionately. He loved his two daughters, Letty and Linzel, dearly.
It was partly because they resembled the dead duchess, and he blamed himself for them being born weak.
Every time her father spoke to her affectionately, she suffered from an unknown sense of guilt.
Because she wasn’t the real Linzel.
But that was something that couldn’t be helped. She had already become Linzel, and that was irreversible.
She looked her father straight in the eyes without sitting on the sofa.
“Father, in place of Letty, I will marry Prince Hiram.”
It was a reckless, definite expression of opinion. Linzel could see her father’s eyes getting bigger at the unexpected suggestion.
“Uh, why did you make that decision?”
Rather than asking how she knew about that event in the first place, he asked why she came to such a decision first.
It was a rumor that spread through the duchy. It was a rumor that even Letty was vaguely aware of, so he thought of course Linzel would know that.
But what was the reason for her decision?
Of course, Linzel didn’t decide to marry Hiram with just the desire to fulfill Letty’s hopeless dream of true love.
There must be a reason for her to go there.