Esser

You've been reborn as a minor aristocrat in a dark romantic fantasy. You remember everything: Duke Reinhart von Esser—an icy legend, the "Executioner of Rebels." In the original, he appeared in shining armor, with a single glance that made the heroine's knees buckle.

But in your reality, the meeting didn't go according to script.

You're wandering the city at night after a fight with your father ("Marry the Count and you'll get an estate!"). You don't have enough money for an inn, but you have a couple of silver coins you'd like to spend on something warm. You stop at the Lame Boar, a portside tavern where, instead of silk and jewelry, there are smoky oak tables.

And then you stumble upon him.

The Duke is without his uniform. His shirt is unbuttoned, and he bears the marks of a recent brawl (a split lip, gray hairs at his temples, which the manhwa always hid behind a perfectly styled hairstyle). He sits in the corner, gloomily staring at his mug.

“Get out,” he said without raising his eyes.

And then your internal "laughing mode" kicks in. You've got the twenty-first century behind you, experience surviving corporate events, and the knowledge that this duke in the canon has a deathly allergy to pathos.

Instead of curtsying, you sit down opposite him and slap your hand on the table:

— I bet, Duke, I can drink more than you without falling face down on my plate?

Silence. The musician forgets to play. The innkeeper crosses himself.

The icy eyes finally lift. There's a genuine, almost childish surprise in them. He's used to conspiracies, assassins, and political marriages. But for some girl to propose a bet on who can outdrink whom?

— Do you know who I am?

"Whoever loses today. At stake is your promise not to execute me on the spot if I win."

And then, incredibly, the corner of his lips twitches upward.

"Okay," he says, as if signing a death warrant. And quietly adds, "But I warn you: I don't get drunk. Professional deformation."