If I Don’t Get Married I’ll Die

This time, Cal’s reaction was a sight to see.

I laughed mischievously and stood facing Cal.

My friend in the form of a young boy who only appears in my heart.

I was well aware that he didn’t grow up out of this form.

He didn’t grow up while I was growing up.

And I know that he will be the same 10 years from now.

‘Cal never told me why he wasn’t growing. Even up until the day I died.’

In my past life, Kalius often crossed my mind.

On the day I married Viscount Perseus in the imperial palace, I happened to catch sight of him from afar.

I was startled when his golden eyes, which seemed to contain sunlight, looked at me in my wedding dress.

‘For a moment I thought he was Cal.’

A man who looked so much like Cal.

If Cal were to grow up, wouldn’t he look like that person?

He immediately caught my eye because of his resemblance to my best friend, Cal, and it stuck in my mind.

That was the first and the last day I saw him.

After that, whenever I met Cal, who would somehow appear by my side unnoticed by anyone, I would be reminded of him.

I thought that if I could go back in time, I wanted to see Kalius up close.

The odd thing was, the more Cal became precious to me, the more my curiosity of Kalius grew.

But I really did come back to the past, and as soon as I realized that, the first thought that came to my mind, funnily enough, was that I’d see Kalius again.

Plus the very cool idea that I can create situations that Andrea would hate the most.

“Fufu……”

Cal’s eyes opened wide as he looked up at me, snickering, with a wicked face.

“What?”

“What?”

“That laugh. It’s different than usual?”

It was a face that was unfamiliar to him.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Really?”

“It’s weird. You seem like a different person from a few days ago.”

“So, you don’t like it?”

Cal grinned.

“No, I really like it.”

I smiled at Cal’s words.

“Thank you.”

Then I heard movement from somewhere.

I turned to Cal, wanting to tell him to hide before people found him.

Fortunately, Cal had hidden himself like a ghost before I could say anything.

‘So fast.’

I headed for my palace, believing that Cal would reappear in a safe place, as he always had.

As I got closer to my palace that was filled with Andrea’s watchmen, my steps became heavier.

I walked along the corridor, dragging my feet.

The corridor only consisted of a roof and a highly decorative ornate railing, therefore it could only avoid rain and sunlight, but the wind was strong.

I tightened my collar again and grumbled inwardly.

‘If I catch a cold this late in the summer, what will become of me in the winter?’

In fact, the place where the imperial palace was located was warm because it was at the southern tip of the empire. It’s just that I get cold very easily.

‘It’s because my body has become too frail.’

I let out a small sigh and rubbed my skinny arms under my nightgown.

My body underneath my nightgown was so bony that the thickness of my wrists and forearms were not much different.

‘Can my body even withstand the cold in this condition?’

After my mother died when I was 7, I was influenced by Andrea and suffered from self-doubt and lethargy that deepened day by day.

I didn’t have the energy to take care of my own health, and there was no one who truly looked after me.

‘I thought Andrea was taking care of me sincerely, but he wasn’t.’

After my mother’s death, Kavala, the queen and Andrea’s mother, fired all of the courtiers that had been under my mother’s charge.

Among them were my nanny and the maids who had reared me since childhood.

Her reasoning was that the courtiers influenced my mother and that they could also have a bad influence on me.

Kavala immediately recruited new maids to take care of me, as well as noble ladies of my age that I could socialize with, but of course there were no applicants.

Seeing Kavala, who had become the absolute mistress of the imperial palace, who would step forward to assist me, the child of the former empress?

I was young and powerless.

‘Perhaps even if there were volunteers, Kavala and Andrea would have found fault in them and kicked them out.’

They had planned to send their people to my palace to watch over me.

‘They must have hoped that I would become weak and die on my own.’

Thinking about it now, I feel really st*p*d.

Why didn’t I realize it in my previous life? Just as they hoped, I ruined myself under their manipulation.

“Your Highness!”

As I walked, resentful of the circumstances surrounding me, I was spotted by a maid from my palace. She seemed to know that I was missing and was looking for me.

“Where have you been? We were looking for you!”

“Why?”

“Because you suddenly disappeared. Do you know how many people Your Highness troubled?”

Then, she saw the coat Kalius’ draped over my shoulders and tilted her head.

“What’s with those clothes? Oh my, come to think of it, why do you have a coat on?”

From the look on her face, it was clear that the maid was still unaware of the situation.

She must have thought that I went on a walk alone at night, never imagining that I would have gone to the banquet hall in this outfit.

I came up with a rough excuse.

“I just picked up something that fell. I spilled a drink on my clothes.”

The maid frowned. She looked baffled at the fact that I picked up and wore clothes that had fallen.

“If you go around like this without letting us know, we’ll be in trouble. You dirtied your clothes. Why would you wear clothes that have been discarded? So dirty.”

The maid nagged in a sharp voice and dragged my wrist roughly. Then, she casually thrust a dagger into my chest.

“Let’s quickly go back. What are we going to do if someone sees you? A person who lost her marbles. You should be ashamed.”

If it were the original me, I would have apologized for being a nuisance to the maids.

But I was different now.

“Let go.”

The maid, puzzled by my firm voice, glanced back, but that was all.

She shook her head, snorted, then softly muttered “Huh”.

It was clear that she was talking to herself but she wanted me to hear.

She must be thinking that I, who was lacking mentally, was frightened. She pretended not to hear, anticipating that I would timidly follow her.

Such a rude, ill-mannered and condescending attitude.

Andrea’s maids never physically harmed me.

‘It’s just that they would harass me in a subtle way that no one but the person concerned will notice.’

Of course, that didn’t mean it was any less awful. There were times when a dagger of words hurts more.

A nasty feeling welled up inside.

I purposely called the maid with a worried expression, and pulled my wrist.

“You there.”

“What again?”

The maid glanced at me, irritated.

One of her cheeks was slightly swollen.

“You took the day off the other day because of a toothache, right?”

The maids often treated me like an invisible person as they talked, so I tended to know everything about them even if I didn’t want to.

“So what?”

“Did the treatment go well? Did they pull the tooth out?”

“Why are you asking?”

I whispered as if I was concerned about her.

“I heard somewhere that you shouldn’t eat raw seafood before your gums are healed after getting a tooth extracted.”

The maid, who was looking at me strangely, rubbed her cheek and showed interest.

“Why?”

“Someone ate raw seafood and felt pain, so they looked at it, and the gums…..”

I told the maid about the gruesome and frightening horror stories I heard in detail.

Then the maid’s face turned white.

“Th-That’s…!”

I continued talking sullenly, as if I was truly concerned.

“There’s another story, but so many people have a toothache and see a doctor, so I don’t know…”

“W-What is it?”

“From the roof of the mouth, to the molars, down to the throat, they were full of…”

As I continued my grotesque story, the maid jerked her head away, swallowing dry saliva with a pallid face.

“Stop it! Stop it and go to bed.”

“Sorry. But knowing is a better precaution than not knowing. And I heard something else…”

The maid couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

Even though she had given me a hint and treated me rudely, she couldn’t stop me from talking.

“Ugh! Stop it! It’s disgusting!”

She eventually let go of my wrist and covered her ears.

‘You’re going to have a nightmare tonight.’

I clung to her side, telling all sorts of disgusting stories without pause.

And when we arrived at my quarters, I told the stories about the various infectious and painful mouth diseases to the other maids.

It was only a matter of time before the maid, who got her tooth taken out, became the object of the other maids’ avoidance.

‘For the common people, getting a toothache is a pretty scary disease. They can’t even get proper treatment because it’s too expensive.’

I heard that among the commoners, a simple tooth decay was difficult to treat, and many people died from not being able to eat food.

“Everyone be careful. It can be transmitted just by breathing.”

“Oh my god…..”

Glancing at the maid whose tooth was pulled out, they widened their distance from her.

The said maid screamed out in frustration.

“No! I just have a cavity…!”

Another maid asked cautiously.

“Hey, can you cover your mouth when you talk?”

“Yes. There’s nothing wrong with being careful of each other.”

I nodded my head wearing a sad expression on my face.

“What can we do… But that’s right. There’s nothing wrong with being careful. You never know.”

“Hic…..!”

I shrugged my shoulders as I looked at the frightened faces of the maids.

The maid whose tooth was extracted glared at me resentfully.

It was so different from my past life.

Why couldn’t I do this before?

What was it that I was so afraid of that I held myself back, looking at everyone’s eyes?

I was only receiving resentful glances, so why did I live in fear of it and shrink back?

‘Doing what I want without worrying about being hated, it’s quite…fun.’