The Archduke’s Fabulous Fake Marriage

I was mesmerized by the endless variety of bread and pastries in front of me. They all looked too beautiful to eat. It was hard to believe that they weren’t actually works of art.

“Wow...”

The plate closest to me had soft white bread with butter and thirty-one different kinds of jams. A plate some distance away had walnut pie, cake with candied apricot, tiramisu, and an unbelievable amount of cheese. These were accompanied by a roast turkey and a thick meat pie.

However, what caught my attention the most was...

I never got to taste macarons because they’re so expensive, and now there’s a whole pile of them right in front of me!

My eyes widened.

Macarons. Is this for real?

I knew what they were, but I’d never eaten one before. They would sell for 1,700 won a piece. Some even cost more than 3,000 won. Since they wouldn’t actually fill my stomach, I couldn’t justify spending money on them.

“Looks like you’re already here.”

The excitement faded from my eyes.

The soles of his shoes made a hard noise that rang throughout the room as they hit the marble floor. There was only one man in the manor who walked like that: Lacius. I immediately stopped gawking at the food and instead looked down.

Lacius coolly sat in his seat, and soon Maynard brought out the next dish.

What will it be this time?

I was full of anticipation, and lo and behold, I saw a huge thick steak.

No way!

The meat was still sizzling.

I can’t believe my eyes. It’s meat! And it’s so big!

I wanted to just gobble up all of the greasy meat straight away, but I knew I would regret it later if I did because my body wasn’t fully recovered yet. But luckily for me, things were just getting started.

Next came the fried shrimp.

Am I in heaven?

The plate was full of large, fried shrimp that were perfectly crispy. As fried shrimp was a few hundred won more expensive than other fried foods, I’d always hesitated to buy them. Now, a huge pile of shrimp was in front of me.

“Let’s eat,” Lacius announced.

“Yes!”

I didn’t realize that Lacius was studying me intently. I was too fixated on the shrimp, reaching for them excitedly. It seemed that he had decided not to mention what had happened earlier, which made me feel much lighter.

I took a bite of the fried shrimp.

“Wow.”

It was so delicious and juicy that I almost wept tears of joy. Outwardly, I tried to keep my cool, but inwardly I was marveling in awe.

This tastes so good.

It really was delicious.

I wanted to eat my steak next but I didn’t know how to cut it, so I decided to wait until Lacius ate his so I could mimic his actions. I heard a chair drag against the floor and soon a long shadow loomed over my head.

I looked up in confusion to see Lacius. He had a slight frown on his face.

“Do you not like meat?”

“No, I like it...”

“Then I’ll cut it for you. Eat,” he said bluntly, picking up my cutlery.

Um, thank you for your kindness, but why?

Lacius was acting like cutting my steak was the most urgent task in the world. Overwhelmed by his solemnity, I decided to wait.

“Now, eat.”

He had cut my steak into neat cubes, which was probably child’s play for a seasoned knight. Impressed by his handiwork, I took a piece of meat with my fork.

“Thanks.”

“You need to eat well so that your wounds will heal faster.”

“Yes, I should... Wait, what?” I was a little touched, but then I realized with a flinch that something felt off. I stared at Lacius in shock.

Hey, I thought you said you didn’t see anything?

I laughed awkwardly, but it wasn’t like I could say anything about it. Instead I directed my attention to the newspaper on the side of the table.

“The evening paper has more news of you being in a relationship, but this time it’s with a different lady,” I said, opening the paper and reading the headline.

Lacius scowled with disgust. “I couldn’t care less about romance, but they use everything I do as an opportunity to write that I’m in love, even if it’s just going to a restaurant and ordering food together.”

‘‘Oh...”

“I was just sharing dinner with my fellow knights.”

He genuinely looked annoyed out of his mind. He frowned with his handsome eyebrows and let out a sigh. A stifling tension fell on the table. I just couldn’t understand.

“Have you tried going to the newspaper company with that face?” I asked.

“What?”

“I mean, with that annoyed expression. They wouldn’t dare say no if they see that...”

Maybe he could just threaten them into giving up, or pay them to stop writing about him.

But Lacius shook his head. “It won’t work.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the princess who’s behind this.”

The daughter of the emperor, Villainess No. 2, was the biggest obstacle in the protagonist’s way of marrying the heroine, who was of lower social status. The princess had immense influence, to the point where there were rumors that she could succeed her father and become the empress. That obviously meant that Lacius couldn’t easily go against her will.

I didn’t try to hide the fact that I was interested. In the original novel, the princess had weird tastes. She had a bit of a sadistic streak and took delight in making handsome men cry. Since Lacius was an archduke she couldn’t do anything to him physically, so she instead was using newspapers and magazines to mentally torment him.

Oh, then could it be that she tried to stop him from marrying the heroine just because she liked harassing him...?

That specific part wasn’t explained in the novel, so I hadn’t been able to figure it out while reading it, but now it made sense.

“At some point, it became my morning routine to check what kind of nonsense is in the papers each day. I tried to avoid reading them, but there was no way around it since those articles are right next to the ones I actually need to read.”

“Hmm... Then you have no idea what else is being said about you in the women’s magazines?”

“I don’t even look at them.”

Oh, I see...

I was honestly impressed at the lengths the princess was going to just to bully Lacius. In some ways, it would make her a good empress, even though it would suck for Lacius if she did succeed her father.

He tapped his finger on the newspaper and continued, “That’s not all. Countless ladies cling to me every time I leave or come back to the manor. I push them away, but they keep coming back. They bribed my servants, so I fired them, and then they put in their own men as candidates for the substitutes.”

“Wow...”

“That’s why I have only Maynard and Theobalt. I can’t even get a maid, I’m afraid she’d steal my underwear or gather my hair left on the floor and take it with her.”

So they’re stalkers. Oh, that’s right.

I’d momentarily forgotten, but he was indeed the most eligible bachelor in the whole empire. He was handsome and muscular, as well as being an archduke. He was undoubtedly the whole package, so it was no wonder that he was so popular. But the mere fact that Lacius looked like an idol wasn’t the only reason that he had so many stalkers. To be frank, the other men of this world were just too ugly.

Most of the men of this world were more similar to Maynard in terms of looks, so Lacius, who was a rare exception, naturally got all the attention instead. Even though I was used to the handsome celebrities in my world, I still thought he was masculine and attractive.

“I tried staying with other knights at their residence, but the stalkers somehow found their way in. They even secretly watched me while I bathed. I tried telling them it was dangerous to interrupt while I was training, but they still came running and pretended to faint in front of me.” He ground his teeth in anger.

Sure, it would be easy to just kill them all, but that wasn’t possible since they were all noble ladies. With the princess spurring the women on, it was no wonder he felt more at ease on the battlefield. I could understand these frustrated feelings, so I nodded along.

“Because of all this, I have an offer for you.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“Marry me.”

What? Did he just say, “Marry me?” Out of nowhere? Oh, but I’m too young to be getting hard of hearing.

I questioned my ears, and then I looked at Lacius as if he was out of his mind.

It’s not like I hate him, but this is all too sudden. I don’t think this was in the original novel?

“Three years. Be my wife for three years. No more, no less.” Lacius explained his offer seeing as I clearly wasn’t really buying it.

I tapped on the news article about him being in love and asked, “If I just heard you right, did you just ask me to marry you?”

“We’ll get engaged first, and then marry, yes.”

“So the end goal is to get married.”

“Yes,” he said, the tiredness evident in his voice. He’d been suffering from so much unwanted attention for his whole life that his soul could no longer take it. It was written all over his face. “Since you’re an art mage, I won’t have to worry about you potentially getting assassinated.”

“Um, well, I haven’t exactly agreed to this yet.”

“Think about it. Once I announce that you are my future wife, people will send you all kinds of bribes. You can take all of them if you wish, as well as all the gifts. I won’t say anything against it.”

“Bribes?”

“Yes.”

Well...

This was starting to get me interested.

I knew that Lacius’s words could only come true if I managed to survive. Still, I couldn’t help but be interested. Before I could allow myself to agree to his tempting words, I needed to ask something first.

“Why me?” I asked cautiously. It was what had been on my mind the most.

If I really am Villainess No. 4, I’ll just avoid everyone from the original novel, hide, and live a good life. I especially need to stay away from Lacius, the male protagonist.

Since my childhood, people had always said that I’d survive and thrive on my own wherever I went.

Even if this is indeed the world of that novel, as ridiculous as that sounds, I’ll manage to live. I’ll just do my best to avoid everyone.

I preferred this life over any other life, even if it included hardship.

“What makes you think you can trust me?” I asked.

“You don’t have much faith in me, do you?”

“Of course not. I don’t trust you, so what makes you trust me enough to make such an offer?”

“And you’re also straightforward.” Lacius rubbed his chin with a look of intrigue. I waited for his answer with my arms crossed. “When I went to that auction house, it was originally to take out the criminals there.”

Yes, I’m well aware of that.

Then he saw Villainess No. 4, put his cape around her, and brought her home, even though he should have immediately sent her away. In the novel, Shaye wrote a statement and then left Schubeiden Manor in a matter of days. But so far, Lacius had never told me to leave.

“The moment I saw you, it was like a flash of lightning in my head. Even though you were drugged, I could see from your eyes that you wanted to murder everyone in there. It was admirable.”

Is that an insult or a compliment? I frowned.

Well, I didn’t exactly want to kill them all. Sure, I’d wanted to stab all those eyeballs looking at me, but I wasn’t brutal enough to actually want to murder them. He spoke in such violent terms probably because he was the grand master of the knights and used to that kind of thing.

“I trust you to be able to act with whole-hearted wickedness. Since you even talk down to me, you wouldn’t bat an eye about meeting the princess.”

His blue-gray eyes sparkled. He really didn’t like that princess.

I considered it for a moment. I could almost picture the luxurious life and money I’d have at my disposal. I’d be able to eat scrumptious meals every day. I’d no longer have to enviously watch others enjoy delicacies that I couldn’t afford. I could even take bribes, which I found to be very attractive. Even though I was an art mage, it still required professional skills to make realistic jewels and gold, and it would cost a lot of money to buy canvases, paint, and brushes.

Considering the possibility that I may actually have to live in this world for the rest of my life... This honestly is a great opportunity.

And even if I did eventually go back to my old life, it would still have been better to live as an archduchess for a moment than to have lived as a slave forever.

I think the heroine won’t appear until at least a year from now. It was around the princess’s birthday party, which I think was in the fall, judging from the descriptions of the weather and climate. It’s spring right now, so I have plenty of time.

Still, I was hesitant to respond.

Lacius spoke again, “Let me assure you that I’m not going to actually marry anyone for real, ever.”

I know that well, very well. Too bad for you that such determination is going to melt away in front of that naive heroine.

“But I am going to marry you, and to everyone else, we’ll seem to be madly in love.”

“Oh.”

“So use my name, do whatever you want. You can even keep talking down to everyone.”

“What if I end up getting beheaded?”

“I’ll protect you. But you need to be the most fabulously mean woman in the empire so that no woman would dare to approach me.”

So he wanted to hire a tiger to keep the wolves at bay. Well, it seriously wasn’t a bad idea. I gave him a distrustful gaze and continued to test him.

“And how much will I get paid for this?”

If you want me to fool everyone, you’ll have to pay more than what you gave at the auction.

One hundred million isn’t much at all. You can’t even buy a single apartment with that sum in Seoul. He began to whisper with a tempting tone. Lo and behold, he said a sum I couldn’t refuse.

“What did you say?” I asked again, unable to believe my ears.

Lacius repeated in a clear voice, “10 billion gauts. I’ll give you 10 billion gauts.”

What the f*ck? One gaut was worth 10 thousand won, according to the novel. Not only that, but this world’s cost of living is much lower!

He was asking me to sell myself for a fake marriage, but instead of getting angry at him, I decided to become his fabulously mean woman.

“I’m at your service, sir!”