He was far too black to be involved in romance. He was the darkness personified as his nickname suggested. She couldn’t think of him as anything other than an antagonist.

Romance, my ass, it’s probably the genre of Blue Beard. Which woman will the Black Grand Duke take as his human sacrifice…… No, I’m curious how they became fate, but what use is there in curiosity?

Vivian had worked 8 years at the Royal Palace, but she had seen the Black Grand Duke in passing just once. It went to show just how much their area of activity didn’t overlap.

In the first place, there was no way ‘that’ roughneck of a Black Grand Duke would come to visit the library, right? Vivian licked her lips in slight disappointment as she prayed quietly inside of herself for the sake of the lamb who would be sacrificed.

***

“Sob, sob, sob…….”

The more she thought about it, the more she felt wronged. It felt as though she had chased after the beautiful scatter of flower petals and was suddenly struck by lightning.

Vivian wanted to grab any passing stranger and sob out her worries, but her human relations were few and far-in-between to the point of extremities. Now she started to feel grievous about the fact that she had very few friends.

Vivian immediately headed to the publishing company and grabbed the owner of the company, Thatcher, and started to weep continuously. To be fair, there was a portion of his fault in this incident as well.

“If only you didn’t tell me to date!”

“Wait, how is that my fault!”

Thatcher felt as though Vivian had nothing to say even if she had been conned. She hadn’t even checked the opponent’s face and immediately thought to date him. Even if they say the heart is more important than the appearance when it comes to love, no one said not to look at it at all.

“Since he was covering his expression with his hood all the time, it must have been easy to fool you.”

He wanted to tell her off about how stupid her actions had been, but, when met with her chilly gaze, he shut his mouth. It was because no matter how little he stimulated her right now, it wouldn’t do him or her any good. He didn’t want to turn into a beehive.

“He stole my notebook. I’m certain. He didn’t appear today either. It was the perfect masterpiece too. If I had written it exactly as I had written in my notebook, there would be no doubt that this next novel would bring in mountains of cash…….”

“Alright, so calm down.”

“In the first place, you can’t enter the Royal Palace Library without an entry pass. You have to pass through a very strict screening process.”

There was no way to understand how exactly that scoundrel passed through the library entry examination. There was no way the Royal Palace’s security could be dealt with that easily. It was truly a strange incident to the point she felt like wailing about it even as a ghost.

“If I meet him again, I’ll show him hell.”

Vivian sighed deeply as though she was letting out a puff of cigarette smoke and looked outside the window with faint eyes. Now that she had swallowed the sharpness of a first love, all that left was the taste of acrid bitterness.

“Though I think I’m the one looking at hell right now.”

Vivian’s once chubby cheeks had long since grown hollow. She looked as though she would not just faint but die under a single touch. Thatcher looked at her half-skeleton like state, chattered his teeth, and after he slapped his forehead, he spoke, “Think first of your health. Once you die, money and whatnot, will all end. First, rest well, and think with a cool head once you wake up again. What can you do now when you’ve already lost the note? Just forget it.”

It was a pity that she couldn’t even confess to her first love before it was shattered into pieces, but it’s better to have known now than later.

Thatcher tossed her a few words of consolation and when Vivian expressed an attitude as though she wasn’t listening properly, he attempted to convince her to sleep a while. In the end, he pushed her shoulder, and purposely had her lie on the sofa.