Enemy I Met at My Engagement

[Go look for Gray in front of the Emblem crest, why don’t you]

In the Rutinas Empire’s most beloved proverb, two houses are always named together, not as allies, but as sworn enemies known across the entire nation.

I was reborn into one of those great sword families as Sersia Emblem, the treasured jewel of the Emblem Ducal House.

After a previous life spent crawling through hell as a detective, only to die at a criminal’s hands, this new life felt like divine compensation. A second chance wrapped in silk.

But...

"You’ll become trivial, you know. You, and the Emblem name too. You’ll both grow weak."

"Say that again, you bastard!"

From infancy, we fought like natural enemies, fists first, blades soon after. And now, I was engaged to Enoch Gray, the heir of the Gray family.

All thanks to our mothers’ grand scheme to force harmony between two houses that had never known it.

An engagement to the man who would throw a punch the moment our eyes met? I arrived at the engagement hall wanting to bite my tongue in despair, only to run into a fate I never expected.

"Didn’t you miss me, Detective?"

"You— don’t tell me...!"

My enemy in this life, Enoch Gray,

was also my enemy from my previous life.

With his past memories awakened, Enoch approached me with a honeyed voice and eyes tipped into madness, determined to claim the place beside me for real. And from that moment on, the stillness around me began to crack.

"I didn’t watch from the sidelines all this time just to let Lord Gray steal your heart."

It started with my liege, the Crown Prince.

"I endured it because it was only a formal engagement. But I won’t tolerate you being swayed by Lord Gray, Commander."

—Even my aide, the person meant to stand by me for life, began to bare his teeth at Enoch.

But the one who tormented me the most was him.

" After you died like that, Detective... You have no idea how completely I lost my mind."

Enoch Gray. My enemy of a past life, my rival of this one. That damn bastard.