—however Leorina takes a life-saving breath. 

[![ ACTIVATION PERIOD OVER ]!]

With an unholy gasp that sounded completely inhuman to her ringing ears, Leorina gains a startling awareness. She is unable to see, but that’s more so due to something physically blocking her gaze then anything biologically wrong with her. But then, then the complete sheer impossibility that she was alive hits her hard enough to quell any sort of traumatic response to the fact that Rina had very much felt her heart stop.

First of all, what in the fresh fuck? Rina knows in her gut that she's been displaced.

[ The Unique Skill <<Two Lifetimes>> will now enter its Cooldown phase.

Note: Cooldown phase unknown. This Skill is now deemed unusable for the forseeable future. ]

She blinked in disbelief. 

This.. wasn’t this the same interface she had installed? Why did it suddenly pop up? How did it pop up when she had so obviously — However, before she could think more deeply on the subject, an annoyingly loud and grating voice bellows; “You may now kiss the bride!” 

Despite her ears still ringing, these words had finally clearly sounded. Following this, bells that reminded her of the ones residing in churches had rung out, furthermore enhancing that annoying nauseating sense of disorientation. As a side effect to this, her body seemed to sway on its feet, jolting that sickening feeling at the back of her throat further upwards into her mouth. 

In the end she doesn’t vomit, however her legs remain unstable and the only real reason she doesn’t immediately drop to the floor is because an arm wraps itself around her trembling waist.

“Be still,” Someone says heatedly into the shell of her ear. Their closeness is startling; she could’ve sworn she’d felt their very breath leaving their lips and brushing across her skin. And despite their voice coming out as barely a whisper, their tone was not at all soft. It belonged to the kind of person that wasn’t used to being told ‘no’. 

When she gazes upon them through her bleary vision, the harsh light in his eyes from a too-close face is achingly clear. 

She blinks. That cloudiness doesn’t leave her vision even when she feels like she’s relatively.. fine. It doesn’t take her long after that to realise that there wasn’t a problem with her eyes per se, but that there was a damn veil thrown over her head and was the cause of her obscured vision. Not moments after she realises this, does the thin netting get removed, and those cruel, cruel eyes pierce into her like a thousand needles in a pincushion. 

It’s more than uncomfortable— it's unsettlingly poisonous.

“Who—” She cuts herself off with a painful hiss. The man whose gaze is yet to leave hers had tightened his grip on her chin so much that it pinched her skin. She hadn't even seen him move.

“Quiet.” He demands of her before leaning in even closer. She quietens out of shock. Strands of his loose hair brush across her cheeks making her notice their stark difference in height, and the almost powerless position she remained in.

Her eyes suddenly shrink at the realization that she’d let this man get so frighteningly close to her, but any attempts to move are shut down by his vice grip both on her waist and chin.

What was he trying to do?!

You may now kiss the bride.

These words ominously echoed in her mind. Despite not knowing where she is—possibly not even who she is—from this statement alone she can guess that the man in front of her was now her husband.

And she, his wife.

There is no wedding reception. Whatever little guests that do accompany them briefly give their blessings—all aimed at her Husband and never to her—before they leave the church(?) and go on their way.

By the time the two of them leave the ceremony hall themselves, she still hasn’t quite come to terms with her situation. Just where the hell was she? Wasn't she busy, like, dying or something? This was weird. 

Rina barely glances at the carriage she'd somehow been shuffled in front of, but gives it enough attention to write it off as ostentatious. The gold detailing was overdone. The natural black colour of the wood was nice, and the wheels were good and even. But that just raised the question of who the hell she was to be marrying into money? Or did 'she' already come from money?

Leorina may not have been able to see her reflection, but the way this body walks, feels, and even breathes, is entirely unfamiliar to her. 

Did her previous self die? Was that it? And, what, this was some sort-of reincarnation?

What the hell. She hadn't finished living her first life before—

.. before she died.

Forget it. This wasn't the time for sad thoughts. She had a husband whose identity she needed to figure out. (And her own. Her own, which wasn't her own but whoever's she'd hijacked, and—fuck!)

After settling down on the red velvet seats, she starts the one-sided game of twenty-one questions. “Who are you?” Rina starts with. It was simple enough, right? For a boost in confidence, Leorina had thrown her veil back over her face. She knew her expressions tended to be quite vivid; she was human and found no need to act like she had no emotions.

Still. It wouldn’t do her any good to be so easily read.

“This is a rather… poor attempt at getting my attention.” The hot stranger doesn't move his gaze away from the window and did..

.. did he just tsk? It may have been under his breath but she still caught it.

Bastard. 

But really: who was he?

Rina had read too many novels of this, ah, 'reincarnation' genre to identify him simply from his appearance alone. Well. There was no promising that she was in a novel, but Rina wasn't so damned as to not only be killed before she'd even properly lived; but also dumped somewhere she had no idea about. 

Surely not. 

.. hopefully not. 

Because there was nothing else to do, Leorina took a closer look at him to see if she spotted anything identifiable on his persons.

She didn't. Not really.

Stereotypically handsome with defined jaw and straight, prominent nose paired with half-messy styled black hair and sharp, red eyes. A cold aura and wide-set shoulders that had a half-cape with a ridiculous amount of detailing, further proving Rina’s assumption of his monetary status… it was obvious he had the template for ‘Cold Duke of the North’! But it was a shame that for as unique as his existence was in this world, in her original one — his character design was a dime a dozen! 

"Cease your staring, wench." But instead being offended at his ‘wench’ comment, Rina stared at him in pity. He probably couldn’t believe that someone dared not know his name, right? Well, let this binge reader give you a refreshing experience!

“So,” she started rather eloquently, settling back into her seat, “You didn’t answer my question—Who are you?" There wasn’t much she could do if she didn’t even know who she was dealing with. Rina honestly found it hard to understand how all those protagonists did it. Recognise the(or their, she should say) ML at a first glance?

Couldn't be her, that's for sure.

“Mh," her unfortunate husband makes some noise through his nose. How did he make it sound so disdainful. "I didn’t know the Treolange Duke’s daughter was so lacking in manners.”

Leorina couldn’t help but loudly tut in irritation. “Well, it’s not your place to comment on it,” she retorted before she even realised what she was saying. 

Silence.

Anyway, a Duke’s daughter? That’s who this body was? Wait a minute—Treolange? Wasn’t that..

“As your husband—" oh. He was still talking? "—if not me then who is qualified to find fault with you.” How is it that everything out of his mouth sounds like a statement rather than the question it would be coming from anyone else? Black magic shit, honestly.

“Divorce!” Leorina blurted out. That’s what all those girl bosses did, right? This carriage ride had barely been going on for an hour but even before they'd left the church behind, this guy had been pretty shitty!

For starters, he had forced a kiss upon her. Regardless of the circumstances, the fact that he didn’t even hesitate to ignore her hesitance and clear denial of such a thing, was such a red flag that a bull wouldn't have any trouble charging into it. And then he still went ahead with it. In fact, his dour expression had even turned more severe the moment she showed signs of rejection!

… did she even need to continue? It was obvious the only good thing about this guy was his face. And wealth, probably. Oh, and stamina, genius swordmanship, high intelligence, intimdation factor, perfect triangle body shape that always missed leg day... but apparently not a sense of humour nor humility, a lick of empathy, the skill to delegate, a willingness to change for his own betterment, or even to not be abusive! You know, all the important traits.

—well, she didn't know enough about him to judge him like that. But everything was already adding up to Cold Duke of the North so.. why not just assume the rest of it counted? 

Sometimes the cover of the book shows you exactly what its contents are, after all.