Chapter 1

“Sinclair! Sinclair!”

My eyes opened wide at the sound of a middle-aged man's sharp-edged voice.

“Are you out of your mind?”

I turned my head towards the sound. However, his figure was faint due to the bright light.

“Am I alive?”

“You won't die from losing consciousness!”

“Ah… I'm alive!”

The tears that poured out like a waterfall flowed down my cheeks and gathered at the tip of my chin.

“What about the children?”

“He's on his way, so hurry and get ready!”

“Thank you. I'm— really, thank you.”

I turned my head to the man who had told me that my pupils were safe and that I was going to survive. I couldn't see the man properly through the welling tears, but I thanked the voice who had delivered the news.

God, Buddha, Allah. To all the Gods in the world, thank you!

Before I lost consciousness, there was an explosion.

While I was teaching fireworks experiments to second-year middle school students, the school chairman's son played with a torch, so I kicked him out of the laboratory.

Then, the cockroach-like child—who looked just like his father—caused an accident rather than reflecting on his behavior.

It started with sodium inside a tumbler. Sodium explodes when it comes into contact with water.

I evacuated the children as fast as I could, and after wrestling with the child, I was able to take the tumbler away from him.

However, I was running out of time. After seeing the child leave successfully, I covered the tumbler with my body, and thus fulfilled my responsibilities as a part-time teacher.

At the sound of the explosion, my whole body jolted, and I lost consciousness.

But I saved the children, and I survived, too.

It was a relief.

Finally, my eyesight returned, and I began to see the world around me.

'Uh? Isn't that Ruby and Sapphire? Oh my God, is that a diamond? Besides, the moulding is made of gold.'

The ceiling was lavishly embroidered with various jewels. The jewels shone brightly as they embraced the sunlight. It seemed like I was in God's house.

'What kind of hospital is this?'

I was lying at an angle with my head resting on the back of a chair. I touched my chest and the stomach that had held the tumbler. I felt something hard.

'Am I wounded? Did they dress it with a bandage?'

I pressed carefully to see if it hurt, but it didn't.

'How many painkillers did they give me?'

I lowered my eyes to check the IV in my arm. But there was none. Just a slender, long white hand touching the front of a pure white dress embroidered with gold thread under fluttering lace sleeves.

'Oh my God. What's with this hospital gown?'

Startled, I pulled up my sleeves and looked at the clothes. The sideline of the sleeve that came down from the shoulder was decorated with transparent jewels that looked like diamonds following down the white line.

'Is this a dream?'

I pinched the inside of my wrist.

“Ah!”

It hurt!

'What's going on here?'

As I tried to sit up and figure out the situation, a foreign woman wearing a black and white dress like a maid's costume, rushed towards me.

“Stay still.”

I understood the foreign language they spoke incredibly well.

'Who are these people?'

Surprised, I pushed them away as they grabbed my shoulders and arms. But they were stronger than me; they didn't even budge. Rather, they pushed me even harder into the chair.

I kicked the maid's shin in front of me with all my might as she pressed against my shoulder.

“Ahhhh!”

She screamed and fell down. With the fighting skills I had learned over the past three years, I pushed aside the hands of other maids and stood up.

Then, knights in golden armor lifted their swords and spears to block my way. I saw my reflection on the flashing blades.

I was wearing a bright white dress. As I moved, I was followed by a tight-waisted dress with a skirt spread wider than a summer resort parasol.

'Is that me?'

“Sinclair! What are you doing?”

It was the doctor's voice—the one that had told me the children were safe a while ago. I turned around quickly.

But he wasn't a doctor either. A good-looking middle-aged western man, like George Clooney, was standing before me. At that moment, my heart was beating fast, and I felt like I was suffocating.

[ “Die.”

Someone was strangling me. I couldn't breathe.

“Die, Sinclair!”

“Dad, please save me!”

Little Sinclair's hand, dry like a wooden chopstick and as fragile as if it would snap, was anxiously holding on to the arm that was strangling her. ]

“Dad?”

I was surprised and came back to my senses. Someone else's memories were overlaid on my own.

'Why did I call him Dad?'

The middle-aged man's face was distorted like a crumpled piece of paper.

'Strange people, a weird place.'

'Who are they, and why am I here?'

I backed away from them and looked around for an escape route.

Rococo-style furniture, expensive ceramics, and a tapestry engraved with the image of a knight fighting monsters were visible. It was like a medieval castle. I saw a white door decorated with bronze on the four corners.

First, I had to live. So I ran to the door.

“Catch her!”

The knights standing by the window joined in chasing me, their metal armor clanging.

'How would it feel to be cut by that sword? Would blood really come out slimy?'

Just thinking about it made me shudder. I barely avoided them and dove toward the door.

But right at that moment, the door opened.

I stopped short as knights with spears poured in.

Wearing a black hat, a male attendant wearing a loose white blouse in a black uniform came in and raised his voice.

“His Grace, Young Master Theodor Vonzeyer enters!”

As the herald moved to the side, a little boy, about the height of the servant's thigh, wearing a pure white uniform, entered.

He was as thin as a skewer, but his firmly raised chin and straight back gave him the appearance of arrogance. Such an upright posture and expression went well with a neat, pure white uniform that nonetheless was not suitable for his age.

'Who is this?'

The little boy's bright crimson eyes twinkled like a traffic light, as I stood tall and fearful.

“Oh? Did Stepmother come to meet Theodor?”

The shining red eyes looking at me and the raised corners of his lips were somehow familiar.

I bent down to have a clear view of him. And he also examined my expression carefully.

But it wasn't me reflected in those eyes.

A white woman with thick double eyelids was blinking under a pure white veil. She was a beauty with cat-shaped eyes.

'No way. Is that me?'

I needed to make sure this face was mine. I winked with one eye closed. Then, the woman in the child's red eyes closed one of her big sexy eyes.

The boy's eyes grew wide like a ripe grenade about to explode.

However, I was more shocked that the woman in the reflection followed my actions than the child's reaction.

It was beyond belief.

I raised one hand and waved.

Good gracious, the woman in the crimson mirror waved after me!

“Hyaaaak!”

I puffed out one cheek and then the other. She did the same.

'It's me!'

The moment of enlightenment hit me like lightning.

The little boy's face turned red. He closed his eyes tightly while puffing his cheeks like a pufferfish, and raised his index fingers to cover his ears.

'Why is he doing that?'

It must have been very strange for him to be used as a mirror.

“Greetings, Grand Duke's young master Theodor Vonzeyer.”

The middle-aged man roared in a deep voice and stepped in front of me.

Only then did Theodor remove his index fingers from his ears, politely placing his right hand on the left side of his chest and bowing slightly.

“Long time no see, Lord Michael Owen.”

'Theodor Vonzeyer?

'Don't tell me, Theodor Vonzeyer, from the novel [ I Wanted to Protect You, My Soulmate. ] The demonic Theodor Vonzeyer?'

“Hahaha.”

I laughed out loud. In an instant, the people around me stiffened.

Michael's face darkened.

“What are you doing? There isn't much time until the wedding ceremony, so hurry up!”

As he spoke, the maids grabbed my arms and forced me to stand.

“Am I getting married?”

“Yes, Sinclair Vonzeyer, prospective Grand Duchess. You are about to wed.”

The maids replied as dryly as a GPS navigator and pushed me back in the chair.

“You have to close your eyes to apply makeup.”

I closed my eyes at the words of the maid who seemed to be the head. The hands of the others were busy on my face.

'Oh my god, am I inside a book now?

'And moreover as the stepmother of the demon, Theodor Vonzeyer?'

My head felt like it was going to split in two.

As serotonin constricted blood vessels in the brain, the neurotransmitter prostaglandin was overreacting at the synapse.

I pressed my temples to stop the chemical rush.

Then I saw vision in my mind—a man's black shadow in a world covered in bright red flames.

[ Theodor Vonzeyer!

He used the name of the Emperor and was second in line to the throne, the Grand Duke's Young Master.

He was a demon who killed his stepmother at the age of ten and then his biological father six years later.

By the age of twenty, Theodor became the demon king and led a demon army to invade and destroy the Empire.

With each step he took, the smell of blood clung to him, and the soot from burned corpses obscured the sun in the sky.

In a place where you couldn't breathe, or even open your eyes, only Theodor's cold red pupils shone in a gloomy atmosphere.]

'My God, I am that cruel demon's stepmother!'

'The very stepmother who was torn to pieces at Theodor's hand and burned to death on a spire as soon as the novel started!'

And then.

My breath was blocked by something, and the heat scattered from the tip of my nose.

'What is it?'

I mentally grasped my trembling heart and slowly opened my eyes.

Theodor was looking at me with his index finger under my nose and his eyes narrowed.

Ahhk! I forgot how to breathe! I shuddered, and my entire body shrunk as goosebumps grew wild. I closed my eyes tightly.

“Duchess? Are you alive?”

The little devil put his moist lips close to my nose and whispered grimly. Each time he spoke, he dragged the last syllable as if singing. His devil breath snaked into my nose.

“Eech!”

My body arched back like a bow and then pulled forward, bumping mine and the little devil's foreheads.

“Auch.”

“Uukk!”

The chair tipped backward.

He stared at me with those devilish eyes, burning bright red like the sun exploding at 15 million degrees Celsius, and shuddered. And so did I.