Unbeknownst to Me, I am Secretly Dating the Emperor - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 1
Learning who I was in my past life is not an ordinary occurrence.
Yet that strange moment arrived in the most mundane of times.
For instance, during the morning commute of a minor administrator at the Treasury Department.
I had dozed off in a shared carriage heading to the Royal Palace when realization struck me.
‘I’ve been reincarnated into a story from a book.’
The moment I became aware of my past existence, two decades of life on Earth flashed through my mind like a panorama.
And the contents of the book world—the original work in which I now lived—came back to me with startling clarity and detail, as if by divine arrangement.
Yet I felt surprisingly unmoved.
‘A warlike despot of an emperor entering into a contractual romance with the heroine and eventually falling for her—that’s the sort of thing that would only cause a stir in high society.’
Since my past life had neither family nor close friends, there was little nostalgia to cling to.
It merely felt as though two decades of memories had been added to me.
‘It’s curious that my name is the same in both lives.’
On Earth, my name had been Gwon Lina; here, I was Carolyna.
‘Perhaps the name Lina was inscribed upon my very soul.’
Beyond that, there was one more trivial commonality between the two lives: in both, my profession was that of a low-ranking administrator.
‘At least I must avoid the same fate—ending up under a maniac of a boss and dying from overwork.’
I offered a brief prayer upon noticing that the panorama’s conclusion was almost entirely a municipal office.
Even more concerning was that the part about ‘ending up under a maniac of a boss’ had already come to pass.
‘I just want to live long.’
In this life, I desperately wanted to work peacefully and uneventfully, then retire at the proper age.
But the emperor who had spent nearly a decade ravaging battlefields and striking terror across the continent was set to return soon.
Each ministry was maintaining heightened vigilance in anticipation of their superior’s imminent arrival—someone who had been absent all this time and possessed an notoriously difficult temperament.
‘Work is piling up because the emperor is supposedly demanding a full briefing the moment he returns. Surely not…?’
Consumed by the fear of dying from overwork, I hadn’t noticed the shared carriage arriving at the Treasury Department building.
I exchanged a listless greeting with the driver, then made my way reluctantly toward the office.
“What time is it?”
The moment I opened the door, my notorious difficult boss’s sharp voice greeted me.
“8:10, sir.”
I checked the clock dispassionately and replied.
Normally, the moment I gave the time—despite my arriving far earlier than the official start—he would have launched into complaints about how I was late, or reminisced about how he himself arrived two hours early when he was a junior employee.
But today, Donoban’s usual trigger points seemed different.
“What? Donoban?”
My boss, Donoban, was a man extraordinarily proud of the fact that he could at least claim a place at the very bottom of the noble registry as a baron.
Though by Royal Palace convention, position superseded rank, so there was no need to grant him the honorifics that nobles typically received.
‘Not like he’s asking me to call him father or anything.’
“Sir.”
I reluctantly added the honorific.
Only then did Donoban’s expression brighten somewhat.
“I’m not an overly authoritarian person, you understand.”
It seemed there must be a law that overly authoritarian people always begin their sentences this way.
“But no matter what the Royal Palace protocols say about position preceding rank, commoners and nobles are fundamentally governed by different laws, are they not?”
Donoban kept fixing me with a look that desperately sought my agreement.
‘Technically, I’m a commoner too.’
My father was a baron like Donoban, and the title of baron was not hereditary.
Therefore, despite having a nobleman for a father, I was legally a commoner.
‘Though having one foot in the noble world does give me slightly better circumstances than other commoners.’
But this was hardly the moment to say so, so I offered a halfhearted response.
“Yes, well.”
Satisfied even with my lukewarm reaction, Donoban proceeded to air more grievances.
“But how could they possibly promote Rachel instead of me? A commoner, no less.”
I thought I understood now why Donoban’s usual trigger points seemed different today.
‘A promotion announcement came through.’
Rachel was the head of an adjacent department and had never been on particularly good terms with Donoban.
‘Well, Rachel is a capable self-made woman, while Donoban barely clings to his position through his parents’ connections.’
Perhaps my inner approval of the fairness shown by the Royal Palace Administration’s personnel department became visible on my face.
Or perhaps my refusal to join in disparaging Rachel had offended him.
Donoban, who had been maintaining his composure, suddenly flushed and raised his voice.
“What’s with that expression? Are you saying you think it’s right that Rachel got promoted?”
“Certainly not, sir. How could that be?”
Knowing what workplace survival demanded, I carefully managed my expression and denied it.
“I knew it! You’re taking that woman’s side just because she’s a commoner like you. Tsk. I thought you had at least some sense, having grown up in a noble household. My mistake.”
After directing his ire at me for some time, Donoban fell silent, and as other employees began arriving, he simply shut the door and left.
Seeing Donoban depart with his anger unresolved, Coni approached me cautiously.
“What’s gotten into him this time?”
“His promotion fell through, apparently.”
Even though I had little emotional investment in the matter, having just gone through an identity crisis and now having absorbed unreasonable anger, I genuinely wasn’t in a good mood.
I gave Coni a brief answer and moved to my desk, ready to begin work.
Coni seemed to want to ask more, but didn’t push.
Whether because of the terrible start to the morning or for some other reason, I couldn’t seem to focus on my work today.
Even tasks that normally came easily felt difficult.
‘Get it together. Just get through today and you have the weekend.’
I tried to rally my focus, but with little effect.
“Are you in your right mind? You’ve made a calculation error.”
Donoban, spotting a mistake in the documents I’d submitted, seized the opportunity to shout as if he’d been waiting for precisely this moment.
An abacus flew toward my desk.
I had checked the work far more carefully than usual, going over it multiple times, but had somehow missed this one error.
“Do you have any idea how crucial the raw tax collection data coming from each territory is? It’s the foundational data for the materials presented to His Majesty!”
The fact that it was merely a minor mistake—a single digit mistranscribed in the calculation process—seemed irrelevant.
The fact that we had a fail-safe procedure using a Magic Tool for verification, which would catch such issues before they ever became a problem, also seemed irrelevant.
What mattered was that Donoban, in his sour mood, had discovered my error before that verification process took place.
Since I had indeed made a mistake, I simply endured Donoban’s venting in silence.
When I returned to my desk, Coni handed me a note, glancing nervously at Donoban’s office.
Half the note was filled with a biting critique of Donoban written in the code the Treasury Department employees used.
The other half was a suggestion that I must be in a foul mood, so we should go to a pub after work to unwind.
‘Alright.’
I made a circle gesture with my fingers to signal my agreement to Coni.
The promise of a cool beer ahead made the remaining hours slightly more bearable.
After I’d endured a few more hours, the bell marking the end of the Royal Palace Administration’s work day rang out.
I left all remaining tasks for the following week and quickly exited the office.
The moment I stepped out of the Treasury Department building, I felt lighter, as if I’d shrugged off a weight that had been crushing my shoulders.
“I’ll deal with next week’s work next week.”
I exited the outer palace and waited for Coni to emerge in the shadows of a tree at the edge of the walkway, away from the eyes of other departing staff.
It was a meeting spot Coni and I had agreed on beforehand, to ensure that no unwanted companions would tag along for drinks.
After waiting what felt like about fifteen minutes at the agreed location, Coni still hadn’t appeared.
‘I did leave rather early.’
Another ten minutes passed.
‘Is something wrong?’
I was beginning to grow concerned.
Just as I was about to head back to the office, I spotted a figure approaching from a distance.
“Carolyna, is that you?”
But the person who actually arrived was not Coni.
“It’s been a while, Heder. Have you been well?”
Heder was Coni’s childhood friend from her hometown; even though we worked in different departments, our faces were familiar to each other.
When I greeted her, Heder smiled brightly.
“I’ve been fine. Oh, this is from Coni.”
Heder handed me a crumpled note.
I unfolded it and read Coni’s hurried handwriting: ‘Something came up and I can’t leave work. Let’s grab that beer next time.’
“What a shame—to be stuck working late on a precious Friday evening.”
“Tell me about it.”
Heder, who had delivered the message, agreed with me.
“Looks like she was about to leave when Donoban grabbed her. He made her redo something trivial, and then he told her to bring it back immediately.”
‘Unbelievable.’
It seemed Coni had been Donoban’s next target.
“Coni wanted me to tell you she’s sorry.”
Heder dutifully passed on the postscript and then left.
‘Now what?’
Normally, with our plans cancelled, I would have meekly headed home…
But today, my stress had reached its peak, and I desperately wanted that cool beer.
‘I’ll just go alone, then.’
The pub where Coni and I had planned to go was near the Royal Palace, so the neighborhood was safe.
The early summer evening was pleasant for a walk.
I made my way slowly toward Riquel Street.
It happened to be a day when a night market celebrating a military victory was in full swing; merchants hawking their wares were visible from the street’s entrance.
Other passersby’s attention turned toward the merchants loudly promoting their goods at the top of their voices.
But my gaze fell on a young flower merchant with a still-youthful face.
I noticed she seemed shy; she would attempt to call out to passersby but would hesitate several times.
‘Besides, it’s about time I changed the flowers in the vase anyway.’
As I approached the flower stand, the girl’s face brightened.
I smiled back and purchased a bundle of Freesia.
“Freesia are hard to find in this season.”
As I gently touched the petals in wonder, the girl, her hands moving with practiced skill as she wrapped the flowers, explained shyly.
“They came from the Northern Capital Region. The blooming season is a bit later there. Since we’re at the tail end of spring in the north as well, this is the last batch.”
The girl handed me the bouquet and smiled with evident shyness.
As I accepted the bouquet and breathed in the scent of the early summer Freesia, a man wearing his hood pulled low approached the flower stand quickly.
“Do you have any Freesia?”
“I’m afraid the customer who just left bought the last bunch.”
The girl’s embarrassed gaze turned toward me.
Following her gaze, the man’s eyes also found me.
The man’s face, with only his jaw visible beneath the hood, suddenly filled my entire field of vision.
‘Wow, he’s handsome.’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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