Chapter 1: Crisis From the Start
Prologue
Merdia Embergreen.
The noble lady born of the Empire’s only ducal bloodline.
An heiress of the sole ducal house in existence.
Yet due to her unusually kind disposition and the countless disturbing rumors that swirled around her, no one could easily approach her.
And now, she was quietly grinding her teeth as she stared at the man who should have just been carried out—poisoned—from her tea party: her betrothed.
“I’m terribly sorry for the fuss. It seems there was poison in the tea?”
“......”
“Luckily, I managed to revive myself. Things could’ve ended quite badly.”
Black hair, black eyes, dressed in a pitch-black suit—and yet, he introduced himself as a white mage.
His eyes made it hard to tell whether they were open or closed, and his face was the kind you’d expect to hear shady rumors about—any passerby would say he looked like the kind of person hiding something or waiting to betray someone.
And this man, who the Imperial Family had forced onto her as her fiancé to keep her in check, was exactly the type of nuisance that considered Merdia—a strong contender in the ducal succession—a thorn in their side.