chapter 5
Tapping the dressing table lightly with her fingertips, Fiorentia continued thinking.
In the original story, Fiorentia had been the only person in the insane House of Marcella who still possessed any humanity.
Oppressed and isolated within the ducal household, one night she went out for a walk and heard something that sounded like quiet sobbing.
So she headed toward a place she normally never even approached, and there she met Theodore, gravely injured for the very first time.
After that, Fiorentia began secretly tending to Theodore’s wounds while avoiding Desdemona’s notice.
She grieved sincerely for him, as though she herself had been hurt.
At times, she even shed tears, pitying his circumstances.
How could any man’s heart not be shaken by such devotion?
The two gradually nurtured their feelings for one another, and Theodore, too, struggled desperately not to lose his sense of self for Fiorentia’s sake.
<There’s something I want. I want to see your face.>
<N-no, you can’t. If my sister finds out… she’ll never forgive me.>
However, their relationship was eventually discovered by Desdemona.
In the end, Fiorentia chose to take Theodore’s punishment upon herself in order to save him, and she met her death at the hands of her half-sister.
Forced to watch his first love die before his eyes, Theodore later escaped from House Marcella through sheer determination.
Then he hunted down the traitor who had sold him out, took revenge, amassed power, and eventually returned here once more.
Naturally, it was all for Fiorentia’s revenge.
As Fiorentia recalled that far, a cold and fragile smile—one that looked as though it could crumble at any moment—formed on her lips.
“So I’m destined to die soon. Me.”
She stared silently at her reflection in the vanity mirror.
Brilliant platinum-blonde hair.
Red eyes.
A proud nose and full lips.
A dazzlingly seductive beauty gazed back at herself with an almost chillingly expressionless face.
“What a waste it would be to die.”
The tone in her murmuring voice sounded as though she were speaking about someone else entirely.
Quietly, she clenched her fist.
The bones in her hand protruded sharply, as though they might pierce through her thin skin.
‘Like hell I’ll die quietly.’
Now that she had ended up inside this body, she had absolutely no intention of obediently following the original story.
A detached calm once again settled over her face.
Thud.
Right then, a faint vibration echoed through the room. It came from the chamber next door.
“Looks like he’s arrived.”
Swallowing a sigh, Fiorentia reached out again.
Picking up the ornate pure-white mask, she fastened it over her face without hesitation.
An item she absolutely had to wear in order to move about this damned mansion.
And, in the end, the very thing that would grant her a new life.
Though she had decided to twist the original story slightly, Theodore still would not see her face this time either.
Fiorentia had not the slightest intention of showing it to him.
When she entered the adjacent room, the guards were fastening the male lead’s chains to iron clasps embedded in the floor.
“You’ve done well. You may leave now.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Ah, don’t go too far. Stay outside the door. As soon as the treatment is finished, he’ll be returned to the underground prison.”
“As you wish. Please call for us when you’re done.”
The two guards bowed toward Fiorentia before quickly leaving the room.
Silently, Fiorentia looked down at the man collapsed on the floor.
The man—Theodore Beringham—was still unconscious.
Treating his wounds was merely an excuse. Fiorentia had another purpose entirely.
‘I need to purge the dragon’s poison.’
Since today was Theodore’s first time entering the breeding grounds, the poison likely hadn’t progressed far enough to destroy his soul yet.
That meant she had to act before he became any more contaminated.
“Alright. Shall we begin?”
There was always a chance Desdemona might suddenly change her mind and come here later, so it was better to finish as quickly as possible.
As if she had no time to waste on unnecessary sentimentality, she extended her arm toward Theodore.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath.
Sssssss—
With a strange rustling sound, pitch-black things began sprouting all around Theodore.
At first glance, they looked like tree branches scorched black by lightning.
No—more like…
‘Those monkey paw mummies from that famous horror novel I read in my previous life.’
What Fiorentia summoned were poisonous mushrooms.
Though with their grotesque black appearance, nobody would ever mistake them for mushrooms.
‘They may obey me now, but they’re still horrifying to look at.’
Suppressing the urge to avert her eyes, Fiorentia endured.
The poisonous mushrooms surrounding Theodore looked as though they might drag him into a bottomless abyss from which he could never return.
She steadied her breathing and moved her lips.
These poisonous mushrooms understood commands like trained animals.
But only hers.
“They say poison cures poison.”
Murmuring quietly, Fiorentia clenched the hand she had stretched into the air.
At once, as though responding to her will, the mushrooms all moved simultaneously.
The mushroom stalks, which resembled shriveled fingers, began snapping apart with sickening noises.
Crack! Snap! Crack!
The creatures broke off their own segments and squeezed out liquid from them.
A little later, poisonous fumes began seeping out as well.
Something like clouds spread upward from the floor, soon enveloping Theodore’s entire body like a membrane.
The poisonous mushrooms were an ability Fiorentia had obtained solely for today.
‘Thought I was seriously going to die.’
With a bitter smile, Fiorentia recalled what had happened not long ago.
Because there were well over a hundred of Desdemona’s cursed dolls, the area around the breeding grounds already overflowed with poison and madness, and even the surrounding vegetation had begun mutating under the influence.
One of those mutations had been these poisonous mushrooms.
In the original story, they had also become Theodore’s weapon—something that allowed him to preserve his sanity despite all of Desdemona’s schemes.
He had discovered them by accident and eaten them, only to suffer a severe fever from the poison.
But after enduring it, he eventually learned how to use the mushrooms’ energy to maintain his sanity.
Fiorentia remembered that passage and decided she needed to obtain that method for herself.
After all, now that she had fallen into this world, Desdemona really was every bit as insane as described in the novel, and at this rate it seemed only a matter of time before Theodore was imprisoned by House Marcella.
“There’s no other option. They say you lose nothing by trying, so I have to use that method first.”
So Fiorentia secretly went out on nighttime walks and searched the area around the breeding grounds thoroughly.
After a long search through the darkness, she discovered a mushroom she believed Theodore had eaten.
[Consumed by poisonous energy, Theodore let out a labored breath.
‘Dying like this wouldn’t be so bad.’
As he gave a dry laugh, something appeared at the edge of his fading vision.
Something deeply ominous.
It looked like a severed wrist, charred black as though struck by lightning.
He felt almost hypnotized.
It was as though that cursed hand were crooking its fingers at him, beckoning him closer.
Come here.
Come to me.
If it’s death you desire, I’ll guide you into a warm and peaceful end.
It felt as though a fairy of death had embraced him and whispered softly into his ear.]
‘It really looks exactly like the original description.’
When she had only read the novel, she thought it had simply been a metaphor for Theodore losing his sanity and hallucinating.
But the poisonous mushroom she saw in person genuinely resembled a mummified human hand.
The grotesque appearance of the mushroom was even worse than she had expected, enough to make nausea rise in her throat.
She hesitated greatly.
But that alone wasn’t enough to make her give up.
With reckless bravado bordering on madness, she squeezed her eyes shut and chewed the poisonous mushroom raw.
She worried about the aftereffects that would follow, but consciously ignored them.
After all, Theodore in the novel had endured it—so why couldn’t she?
But apparently, she had underestimated it far too much.