* * *

“What…?”

Still puzzled, I returned to the drawing room and asked my father what had happened, only to learn that the exchange of wedding gifts had already been completed.

My father was too absorbed in the luxurious gifts from the Yudenet family to notice anything else.

“You’re back. The Duke left us so many gifts besides the dowry for Berta. As expected, an old family is truly generous, isn’t it?”

But where’s Berta?

I sighed inwardly, knowing there was no point or reason to argue with my clueless father.

After all, the real control of the household had long passed to me.

“Where is Berta?”

Just as I was asking about Berta’s whereabouts, Elise rushed into the drawing room, her face pale and frantic.

“Master! Young master! Oh my, I can’t believe this!”

Elise’s hair was a mess, and she looked like she’d seen a ghost.

“What on earth happened? Why are you making such a fuss on this joyous day?”

I looked at Elise, clutching the crumpled letter I had shoved into my shirt pocket.

“Miss Berta has disappeared! She took everything, including the dowry, and ran away!”

My father spat out the tea he was drinking like a fountain at Elise’s shocking announcement.

“What?”

“She ran away, that cheeky girl! I knew she’d pull something like this one day!”

With trembling hands, I quickly pulled out the letter at Elise’s words and tore open the wax-sealed envelope.

“Don’t say something so absurd. How could Berta possibly run away? She wouldn’t have been able to call a single coachman without going through the servants.”

“I’m telling you the truth! We’ve searched the entire mansion, and there’s not a trace of her!”

While my father and Elise were arguing, yelling back and forth that it was impossible and that it really happened, I hastily read the letter Elise had left behind.

[To my beloved brother, Jurgen]

[Hello, brother. If you’re reading this, it means I’ve already boarded a ship bound for Gert, having left the continent. I know you must be really shocked. I’m sorry I left without telling you.]

[But you’re someone who knows what’s right for our family, so I couldn’t tell you where I was going because I was afraid you’d reveal everything to the Viscount or Elise if they questioned you.]

[…]

[If you’ve made any mistake, it’s that you raised me into such a smart and capable sister that these trivial family rules and etiquette about how an Omega should be, or how a noble lady should act, couldn’t hold me back.]

[Fortunately, I’ve found a good sponsor, so I’ll be able to do everything I want and learn what I want without worrying about money for a while. I’ll study hard in Gert, earn a lot, and come back!]

“……”

My sister, who isn’t related to me by blood, has grown into an amazing rebel who can resist outdated customs…Sister, I’m truly moved, but before I can shed a tear, there are too many real-world problems I need to deal with.

Rebellion is fine, but what about the money?

The dowry?

The marriage?

With my firm will, I never touched Berta’s dowry in the Everdeen family.

The dowry was a sum paid by the higher-ranking family to the lower-ranking one to prepare for a marriage that matched the other’s ‘level’ when there was a significant gap in status between the two families.

We had already planned how to use it for the wedding preparations, but Berta was the one holding onto it.

The image of the young Duke with his inhumanly cold appearance that I had seen a few hours ago flashed through my mind, and my face paled.

The amount Berta received as a dowry was 8,000 gold, enough to buy two apartments in Gangnam by modern standards.

Although Berta took the dowry, the money was given to the Everdeen family, so if the marriage fell through, it had to be returned in the name of the Everdeen family.

And earlier today, I signed a document that allocated all the remaining funds in my account to repay an investment.

Right now, the only cash left in the Everdeen family’s assets was barely enough to pay the employees’ salaries.

In other words, if we had to return the dowry in cash right now, the entire Everdeen family would be on the brink of collapse.

“This is driving me crazy….”

I thought of Hernan, who had just returned with an unshaken expression, and grabbed my head in frustration.

As he was likely riding a carriage back to the Duke’s residence, did he even know what had happened to his fiancée?

He probably didn’t.

Denying reality, I ran to Berta’s room.

Berta’s room, which was once a dusty attic where even the servants seemed too scared to enter, had long since been transformed into a spacious room with a large window like those used by ordinary noble ladies.

Have I changed the original too much…?

Seeing the bookshelves filled with books, theses, drafts of articles for academic journals, instead of random trinkets and embroidery tools, made my head ache.

Anyway, Berta’s status as someone who wasn’t particularly welcomed by this family hadn’t changed, so I thought it wouldn’t affect the main storyline where Berta, the family’s outcast, marries the male protagonist and turns her life around, finding happiness and growth.

But! But…!

[I’ll study hard in Gert, earn a lot, and come back!]

How am I supposed to fix this now?

My vision darkened as I felt the world closing in on me.

If you wanted to study abroad in Gert, you should have just told me!

I wasn’t so incapable that I couldn’t support you to that extent.

If you didn’t want to get married, you could have just said so.

Even though things had changed in many ways, I was relieved that it was still following the original plot, only to be hit with a dizzying blow to the back of the head.

The lines in the letter, saying that if I had any fault, it was in believing in and supporting her too much, left me dazed.

As I stood there, rubbing my temples in disbelief, the Viscount, who had followed me to Berta’s room, shouted with a pale, horrified expression.

“What are we going to do now?! You’re the one who filled that girl’s head with nonsense about studying and business, and now…!”

I quickly covered his mouth before he could spew any more outdated discriminatory remarks like something out of the Joseon era.

“That’s not what’s important right now. I just signed the documents to use all the remaining profits to clear our Imperial Bank bonds…”

“What?”

The Viscount muttered with a pale face, as if his mind had frozen.

“Wait…. Then that means….”

Anyone who wasn’t an idiot could instantly grasp the gravity of the situation.

“Send someone to find Berta immediately! No matter what, she must be brought back!”

At this point, I could no longer cover for him.

The entire household was thrown into chaos, with everyone frantically searching for Berta in response to the Viscount’s near-screaming orders.

It was the start of a stormy week.

---

It’s been a week since Berta disappeared without a trace.

It was as if she had planned everything so meticulously that we didn’t receive even a single report of a woman of her age boarding a ship bound for Gert.

I was almost certain that there was someone behind the scenes thoroughly hiding her.

What if she hadn’t gone to Gert at all, but somewhere else, and mentioned Gert just to throw us off?

With suspicion after suspicion piling up, we left no possibility unexplored, yet Berta was nowhere to be found.

“Sigh…”

The week spent searching for Berta felt like my blood was slowly draining away.

The Everdeen family stood at a crossroads of whether to sell off shares in the Paradise Resort.

If it weren’t for the recent drastic investments in the facilities, the 8,000 gold would have been a painful expense, but not one that could push us to the brink of bankruptcy.

The worst-case scenario had hit at the worst possible time.

‘What should I do now…?’

If I announced that I was selling shares in the Paradise Resort, a whole truckload of people—or more—would come rushing in with money in hand.

That was a given.

It wasn’t common to find such a large-scale tourist destination that generated such stable profits.

So selling the shares wouldn’t be difficult, but the moment I handed over the shares, the management would become restricted.

Ever Paradise Resort had achieved its remarkable growth thanks to the modern accounting and management methods I introduced.

In the past, even within the family, I had to fight against opposition whenever I tried to do something, hearing, “No, that’s unheard of,” or “It’s unprecedented,” and I had to push through with sheer determination.

And now with a business partner outside the family?

I’d be lucky if they didn’t freak out at my proposals.

Was there any way to get through this crisis without going bankrupt or selling off the shares?

As I racked my brain in agony, time continued to slip away, and the wedding day was fast approaching.

* * *