Chapter 1. Supporting Role

There was a romance novel.

The heroine, Priscilla, was a fallen aristocrat. She was introduced by the people and entered as the Duke’s maid.

She started working in the residence of the Fenvernon family, which is said to be the strongest of the Dukes in the empire.

Words referring to the young Duke, the owner of a huge mansion, varied. He was the lord of the vast lands west of the Grandia Empire and was a swordsman born with magical power who will remain in the history of the Empire. He was also a handsome young man who was so beautiful that bards sang songs praising his beauty.

He had much wealth and great power.

The Emperor cared for him but was wary of him, the nobles wanted to use him, and the priests praised him while fearing him.

But the Duke, to say the least, was wandering aimlessly after losing his wife a few years ago.

Their marriage was not decided by them. It was established through political schemes. They possessed the courtesy of a couple, and their loveless marriage was desolate.

The reason the Duke married his wife, the daughter of a nameless Count who was in need of influence, was because of the Emperor’s trick. To prevent the Duke’s status from getting higher, he(emperor) put a woman who was useless to him(Duke).

In the beginning, the Duke was a man who was called a brutal cold-blooded man.  He was called the dragon’s power and was a subject of awe. He was also used to everyone being afraid of him.

Still, because everything about the Duke was so attractive, countless beauties approached him, but no one received his love. So no one thought the quiet and weak Duchess would move his mind.

Their marriage ended tragically. One day, his wife, who was walking alone, fell into the river and died.

It was not until his wife died in an unfortunate accident did the Duke begin to regret.

To the Duke, his wife was his only family but he couldn’t protect her. Having lost his ‘only family’, he is locked in deep grief.

It was a time when he was on guard because she was the woman the emperor gave him, and he spent heartless years because he didn’t want to have a precious person.

But maybe he loved her and could have cared for each other, but in the end, he couldn’t. It was the Duke’s fault and the possibility withered without blooming.

What use is it, regretting now? His wife’s soul would have already disappeared in the deep river.

The happiness he could have attained seemed infinitely beautiful. She(Priscilla) gradually became the main character of the fantasy.

So, only after the duchess died, she developed a sense of presence in front of the Duke.

Thus, the duchess finally became his first love.

With indelible traces, she remained as a pathetic shadow and became an existence that the female protagonist took as ‘an enemy that cannot be beaten’/ ‘an unwinnable enemy’.

But what’s the use of it all?

The dead have no power. What more, if it’s an extra that only appears in romance novels.

The ex-wife is just an obstacle that the female protagonist must overcome, a conflict element for a happy marriage of lovers, an extra who will eventually be removed from the Duke’s heart.

Eventually, Priscilla removes the dark shadow in the Duke’s heart and falls in love with him.

There are obstacles, but it was a happy ending waiting for the two of them, as is the case in most romance novels.

But if there’s one problem, it’s the fact that I’ve become the “Ex-wife of the Duke,” Alyssa Fenvernon.

So now my husband is Rashid, Duke of Fenvernon, the male protagonist of the romance novel.

‘Ah, this is ridiculous. How did it happen?’