A Stepmother's Märchen (어떤 계모님의 메르헨)

[wuhugm]

Original Title : 어떤 계모님의 메르헨
English Title : A Stepmother's Märchen
Author : Nyang'iwa Hyangsinryu
Status : 40 chapters

Info : Mangaupdates

Originally Posted by MU

The Iron Widow, the Spider Widow, the Male Hunter, the Witch of the Neuschwanstein Castle, the embarrassment of noble ladies... These were all the words used to describe the Marchioness Shuli Von Neuschwanstein. Despite receiving such harsh criticism from everyone, she persisted in raising her 'children', left behind from her late husband. On the day of her eldest son's wedding, signaling his possession of the family's seat as Marchess, she felt she had finally tied up all loose ends and could live the rest of her life out peacefully. However, she had been terribly mistaken as she finds herself getting caught up in an accident and dying whilst leaving the castle on his wedding day. Upon opening her eyes, she finds herself waking up to the day of her husband's funeral, seven years ago.

'I refuse to suffer any more. I won’t live as I did in the past a second time!'

This is the greatest stepmom of all time

[Sixth]

Spoiler for The original timeline:

She got murdered brutally by her daughter-in-law parents and relatives. Her body was cut to piece. It pissed off the step-sons and one of them was about to strangled her bride to death (Ohara)on spot when he learned that her father (and church) was responsible for her death. The step-sons were planning to call her "MOTHER" at the wedding place and now they don't have chance to do so. The step-sons never hate their mother because they realize that their mother is protecting them and their property. It was Ohara who made a lie to the stepmother that her son doesn't want her to attend the wedding because she was jealous of the stepmother and afraid that her so-called husband will marry the stepmother. Her death is the trigger to the civil war noble vs church. It was a dark timeline as the stepsons never able to smile happily anymore and the relationship between big brother and 2nd brother went bad because the 2nd brother married Ohara due to the pregnancy where the 1st brother can't forgive Ohara for her family deed.

[Tenzen12]

I would prefer if they really hated her though. She might try her best in original timeline, but her choices were unfortunate at minimum and it would be understandable if she was truly hated. If children understood context of her actions there is little reason redo whole thing...

[AnimeFangirl]

Hope she doesn't hang out with the Crown Prince any further than this. If you can't return his feelings, don't lead him on. And nothing good comes of being involved with people at this level of politics.

Spoiler for Question about original timeline:

How did Elias get Ohara pregnant when Jeremy was the one who was going to marry her?

[Tenzen12]

Not sure, but I would assume it involved sex

[Sixth]

Originally Posted by AnimeFangirl

Hope she doesn't hang out with the Crown Prince any further than this. If you can't return his feelings, don't lead him on. And nothing good comes of being involved with people at this level of politics.

Spoiler for Question about original timeline:

How did Elias get Ohara pregnant when Jeremy was the one who was going to marry her?

Spoiler for The marriage didn't go thru:

Jeremy was almost killed Ohara at the wedding when he learned her mother died. And then Ohara was desperate as she was no longer a noble girl because her family was arrested for killing Jeremy's mother, so she went to seduce the 2nd brother and succeed.

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

I would prefer if they really hated her though. She might try her best in original timeline, but her choices were unfortunate at minimum and it would be understandable if she was truly hated. If children understood context of her actions there is little reason redo whole thing...

Well, she doesn't know that her child don't hate her. Also, the redo is to give her a happy ending for what she has been thru. Remember, she was 16 years when she became their mother. She is basically wasted her youth on taking people's child and not for her own happiness. In the first timeline, she was always on edge and desperate as she wasn't good enough to run the family business and constant on guard that people are going to took her's family wealth away, so she resorts to a lot of desperate measure that ruining her reputation. Her bad reputation is what get her killed.

Spoiler for Who killed her in the first timeline:

Due to her bad reputation, those so-called knights and church members are willing to dress themselves as bandit to kill and chop her. Sure, that was order from Ohara's father, but to have knights and church members willing to dirty their hands just telling how much she was hated.

[AnimeFangirl]

I see. Where does all this information about the original line come from? Webnovel?

Spoiler for Interesting original timeline:

If that's the way Ohara is, then I don't want her together with Jeremy in this timeline. Even if she was desperate, it still takes a depraved and selfish nature to break up a family by seducing your ex-fiance's younger brother. And Elias... I'm so disappointed. The girl's family killed your stepmother who you supposedly loved, and yet you got her pregnant and married her?

Update: read the latest chapter. Everyone in this series is an idiot.

[Sixth]

Originally Posted by AnimeFangirl

I see. Where does all this information about the original line come from? Webnovel?

Yes. It is novel, and the chapter title is "The End of Fairy Tale", where everyone was sad and tragic.

Originally Posted by AnimeFangirl

Spoiler for Interesting original timeline:

If that's the way Ohara is, then I don't want her together with Jeremy in this timeline. Even if she was desperate, it still takes a depraved and selfish nature to break up a family by seducing your ex-fiance's younger brother. And Elias... I'm so disappointed. The girl's family killed your stepmother who you supposedly loved, and yet you got her pregnant and married her?

Spoiler for About Elias/2nd brother:

He is the source for most of the conflict in this series. Mostly because he was used indirectly by the bad guys.

Spoiler for Ohara's husband in current timeline:

Surprise! It is still the 2nd brother. It is almost like the world really wants both of them ended up together.

[wuhugm]

I support the Crown Prince

[Sixth]

Originally Posted by wuhugm

I support the Crown Prince

You shouldn't.

Anyone who threw his own cousin under the bus for his own pleasure is not a good person.

[wuhugm]

^So be it

I just want interesting development

[zztop]

Originally Posted by Sixth

You shouldn't.

Anyone who threw his own cousin under the bus for his own pleasure is not a good person.

True, although if I recall

Spoiler for the prince's views on familial love:

the 1st prince is so emotionally twisted because he never received proper love and affection growing up, and knows no other form of parental love.

Iirc his mother the 1st empress died in childbirth, and the emperor couldn't bring himself to care for the prince because he sort of blamed the prince for her death (he loved the empress very much). The prince was largely raised by servants and retainers, who only knew how to praise him when he acted adorable (plus it helped he takes after his mother's looks a lot).

Somewhere along the way he started equating love = others' undivided attention, and learned to put on this perfect facade so everyone would always praise and adore him. And to him, throwing others under the bus so he can maintain his image of perfection and always be loved is acceptable in his books, even if they are his cousin/stepbrother. Iirc the older people are the most likely to fall for his manipulations.

[Twi]

This one is really good. True, the fact that their father married someone who was around their age because she bore some kind of resemblance to his wife raised... questions (I am banking on the fact that nothing squicky happened), it was clear she cared enough about the man to do whatever she could to maintain his household after his death.

[Sixth]

Originally Posted by Twi

This one is really good. True, the fact that their father married someone who was around their age because she bore some kind of resemblance to his wife raised... questions (I am banking on the fact that nothing squicky happened), it was clear she cared enough about the man to do whatever she could to maintain his household after his death.

Spoiler for For those who want to know whether the father ravages the MC or not:

MC is a virgin.

Spoiler for Why is father, duke and king treating MC so well and nice?:

Because she resembles their previous lover aka the dead Empress. Yes. 3 men fall in love with the same girl and King won for the obvious reason because he is KING. That is why they helped MC to keep her inheritance from husband's relatives despite how incompetent of her to handle her husband's business and property.

[Tenzen12]

Well, she wasn't in previous timeline...

[Sixth]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

Well, she wasn't in previous timeline...

She is.

[Tenzen12]

Originally Posted by Sixth

She is.

You are saying she didn't sleep with guys in previous timeline? Seriously, if she did everything right she should have die happy and not bother with redoing anything. if her only problem was bad luck, there is nothing that can be fixed about that. And if she actually succeed this time despite not being actually aware what was wrong, it will be just matter of luck too.

I am starting consider dropping this.

[Twi]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

You are saying she didn't sleep with guys in previous timeline? Seriously, if she did everything right she should have die happy and not bother with redoing anything. if her only problem was bad luck, there is nothing that can be fixed about that. And if she actually succeed this time despite not being actually aware what was wrong, it will be just matter of luck too.

I am starting consider dropping this.

Spoiler to be safe, but based off the information I gathered:

Spoiler for Information gathered based on existing chapters:

The idea is that to keep the kids safe in the previous time line she built up a bad reputation for being a heartless woman and by the time the kids got her reasoning behind it the damage was done. She died thinking the kids hated her because she couldn't even go to the wedding, which bothered her because she does actually love them (it's a bit more complicated than that).

In this timeline she opted to be a lot less colder and approach things with more confidence and a certain amount of trust, which is why she let the greedy relatives stay with her so they could comfort the kids since their father just died and they still don't like her. But because she did they began abusing the kids, reaffirming that they intended to ruin her reputation as being an unfit mother to try and get the wealth bequeathed to her for her oldest son to them. This also made it perfectly clear to the kids what kind of people their relatives are since they didn't get the boot seemingly unfairly this time around, so they get it made clear that she does care for them earlier on.


Likewise, she humbled herself before the other mothers to get them on her side since previously she didn't because she needed to present herself as a cruel woman. That gives her a certain amount of political power that she didn't have before, so she doesn't have to rely purely on the goodwill of the Emperor.

So in the first time line, she got the job done of protecting their family's wealth until her oldest son got married and she decided to leave the household, which was exactly when she was murdered by happenstance as it would appear. But she had her regrets that there were some things she could have done better and so she's acting on it now, showing the wisdom she gained from that time line.

I don't personally care whether or not she slept with someone else since I don't care for romances all that much, but I find the premise fascinating as I do a lot of the recent Otome stories for some reason.

[wuhugm]

She slept with old nobles

[Tenzen12]

Supposedly that's not actually true.