Chapter 33

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter Title: Even Though I'm the Villainess, I Got Imprinted with the Male Lead: Chapter 3

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He was a noble of immense wealth, the kind that could rot away if left untouched, and whenever he stayed in the capital, he carried a magic artifact that allowed him to return to his bedroom at any time within a set radius.

This magic artifact, boasting a value that only someone of extraordinary means could even dream of owning, could only be activated with the mana of its caster, Richt. Yet with his permission, anyone could be brought along to his bedroom.

Which meant that the one who had brought Luciana into his bedroom was none other than Richt himself.

'I... willingly meant to spend the night with a woman?'

Finally grasping the reality of it all, Richt clenched his fists tightly, as if he couldn't accept it.

The more he mulled over this unwelcome truth, the more his mind felt blank, like he'd been struck in the back of the head with a hammer.

"......"

Luciana swallowed dryly as she watched the shadows deepen across Richt's face moment by moment.

'He was treating me like some lowly beast earlier. Has his reason finally kicked back in?'

It was a relief that Richt's intimidating aura had eased, but Luciana's worries remained all the same.

After all, the unchangeable fact was that she—the villainess of the novel—had spent the night with the male lead of all people.

'I've worked so hard to live differently from the original story up until now.'

She inwardly screamed in silence, her expression brimming with an indescribable sense of injustice.

Luciana Leslie. A lovely young lady whose fluffy pink hair and yellow eyes suited her perfectly.

With a solid family background and having grown up as the baby of the house, the original Luciana was a bit of a spoiled brat.

It was the ridiculously perfect male lead who truly set her on the path of villainy. Luciana fell head over heels for Richt at first sight.

'At first, the male lead wouldn't even glance at the heroine, but in the end, he falls deeply in love with her—that's the core of the original story.'

Luciana recalled the dusty old plot of the novel.

True to his iron-walled bachelor setting, Richt goes through a brutal phase of denying his growing affection.

During that time, not only Luciana but even the heroine, Deborah, were nothing more than annoying women pestering him in his eyes.

But like getting soaked in a drizzle, he gradually falls for the heroine's charms, while Luciana, watching him warm up to Deborah over time, becomes consumed by jealousy and spirals into self-destructive obsession.

However, Luciana was far from the sharp-witted villainess type. True to her spoiled nature, she tormented Deborah in childish, foolish ways.

Such pathetic bullying wasn't going to look endearing in the male lead's eyes. Richt gradually turns his hostility toward Luciana.

'The villainess's lonely exit. But that's only if I follow the original plot.'

Being ridiculed in high society wasn't enough—she refused to tarnish her parents' faces or blemish the family name she'd built over generations with such a pathetic role.

Though not the heroine, Luciana was just as beautiful as Deborah, if not more, and her family was wealthy to boot.

Unlike her previous life, she'd been born with everything. Why choose a thorny path on purpose?

The moment she realized she'd been reborn as Luciana after dying in an accident, she vowed never to follow the original story.

Even when she stumbled upon Richt's portrait by chance or spotted his sculpted figure from afar, she didn't bat an eye. He already had his fated partner, after all.

She'd never once in her life harbored any desire to get involved with the male lead.

'There were so many men at that ball. Why did it have to be Richt of all people?'

It seemed the old saying that alcohol is the enemy held some truth after all.

They said it made you forget even your own parents. Was that why she'd been too foolish to even recognize Richt's face?

'Right now, the male lead should be deep in his denial phase.'

From the winter piled high with snow to the gentle breezes of spring. Richt was fated to fall passionately in love with the heroine, like the approaching heat of summer.

'Could it be... because the heroine's still in her one-sided pursuit phase that this happened?'

It was a plausible theory, but no less confusing.

No matter how much the denial phase clouded his judgment, surely he wouldn't just sleep with a woman he'd never even spoken to.

If she were some ordinary girl, maybe, but Richt wasn't the type to get blackout drunk and lose his senses.

Moreover, there was no scene in the novel where the male lead ever got wasted.

The current situation felt even more bewildering to Luciana, but the real problem lay elsewhere.

'What's the point of not bullying the original heroine? I've gone and caused an even bigger mess.'

With a complicated heart, Luciana glanced at Richt.

Judging by his crumpled expression—like a discarded letter—he didn't seem pleased with the situation either.

'Of course he wouldn't be. If it were the heroine, maybe, but getting tangled up with some unknown woman like this.'

Despair washed over her once more amid the harsh winds of reality, but Luciana didn't crumble.

No matter how things had gone awry, protagonists were meant to end up with each other.

She had no intention of taking responsibility for Richt's life just because they'd shared one night by accident.

'Even just recalling the original story proves it.'

Despite craving his attention as much as anyone, Luciana could never win the male lead's heart—it was firmly fixed on the heroine, Deborah.

Taking the male lead's purity, which he was supposed to save, wouldn't alter fate. Her goal of not interfering with the protagonists' love remained unchanged.

'Yeah. That's the right way to think about it.'

Even if an unexpected mistake had derailed the story, she could carefully fix it and set things back on track.

"Um, Your Grace. I have something to say."

Luciana cleared her throat lightly before the important conversation and cautiously drew Richt's attention.

She felt his crimson eyes—swallowing chaos whole—turn toward her.

She flinched.

Naturally startled by his presence, Luciana swallowed again to steady her nerves.

The atmosphere was such that stumbling over a single word might invite a sharp glare, so she gathered her wits and spoke.

"I don't know what misunderstanding Your Grace might have, but I was simply drunk and committed a breach of etiquette—there's absolutely no malice in my approach. And... I have no intention of demanding anything from you based on what happened today."

Standing before him felt like facing a tyrant as a vassal. Each word she uttered seemed to shave years off her life.

'...Not just for me, but for Deborah's sake too, I have to stay far away from Richt.'

Feeling sorry for the heroine who had no idea about any of this, her grip tightened on the sheet.

'The male lead won't try to hold onto me anyway.'

His excessive agitation worried her a bit, but the Richt she knew wasn't the type to demand responsibility for shared purity just because they'd spent a night together. So he wouldn't blindly refuse her suggestion.

Luciana planned to call today's events an unspeakable mishap and then flee—no, part ways.

She had no worries about it. Richt, who clearly didn't welcome the situation, would surely agree with both hands raised.

"I have no intention of leaking what happened today to anyone. I swear it on everything I have. So, I think it would be best if we each go our separate ways now... What do you say, Your Grace?"

Asking for his opinion was mere courtesy. Luciana's mind was already set on bolting back to her estate.

"......"

"......"

But the deepened silence stretched on longer than expected.

Richt, who had listened quietly, stared at Luciana without a word.

'That unique hair color... She must be the daughter of Marquis Leslie.'

True to his detached nature, he seemed to recognize her only now.

'Ha. Does she mean every word she just said?'

She kept avoiding his gaze, perhaps out of fear, but her straightforward eyes didn't suggest she was spouting nonsense.

Besides, with the irrefutable evidence of his own bedroom, Richt could no longer suspect Luciana of any scheme.

More than that, his own memories were too fragmented to claim she'd orchestrated it.

'Go our separate ways now?'

That was exactly what he wanted too.

Just like she said, he could turn around and walk away right then.

"......That's impossible."