"The Flower of Erenel" is a popular romantic fantasy novel that our protagonist has read over and over again. After finishing the novel for the zillionth time, she goes to bed...only to wake up in another person's body by a maid in a glamorous room! The body's name is Ripley de Liverpool, and she is a count's daughter. After realizing that Ripley's an extra in "The Flower of Erenel", our protagonist decides to live it up as a rich girl and watch the novel's events unfold before her eyes until the novel's conclusion, which by then she will (hopefully) be sent back home. She attends a birthday party for the main protagonist of the novel, Etoile, and drinks a couple glasses of champagne...and then wakes up the next morning in the bed of Duke Zeronis de Inglid, the male lead of the novel!
Now engaged to the handsome, but obsessive, male lead, Ripley must find a way to get Zeronis and Etoile together as they should be. Coupled with the novel's villainess making her moves against her and her own budding feelings, Ripley may not be able to escape this mishap as easily as she thought she could.
The First Night With the Duke
started as a web novel written by Hwang Dotol. The manhwa adaptation by Teava and MSG began publishing on Webtoon in in English on July 7th, 2020, and concluded its original run on April 10th, 2022. A side story published soon after on April 24th, 2022, and concluded on August 9th, 2022. The manhwa's upcoming print edition will be released in English by NETCOMICS on August 15th, 2023.
The First Night With The Duke contains examples of:
- All-Loving Heroine: Despite being somewhat materialistic and short-tempered, Ripley is kind-hearted and friendly to all.
- Etoile also qualifies, even more so than Ripley. She’s the original protagonist for a reason.
- Alpha Bitch: Rose is the typical stuck-up lady who becomes intensely jealous and enraged when the Duke falls in love with someone she considers lower than herself. She then subjects the “interloper” to petty acts of bullying, though the acts intensify into attempted murder and kidnapping. All of which Rose is initially able to get away with because of her father’s wealth and connections.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Zeronis is attracted to Ripley because of this. She comforted him over the death of his mother (while drunk of course) and he realizes that there;'s someone who understands his pain. It takes him a while after genuinely fall in love with her, however.
- Bed Mate Reveal: Ripley wakes up to find a hot blonde dude watching her sleep in the same bed, and she realizes that they spent the night together in his mansion.
- Big Damn Heroes: Zeronis has saved Ripley a number of times, usually in a flashy way.
- Cruel Mercy: Ripley does this twice to Rose. The first time was after the kidnapping incident; Ripley tells Rose she begged Zeronis not to kill Rose or destroy the Jenkinson family, but Rose must live in an abbey for the rest of her life, which Rose sees as a Fate Worse than Death. The second time was after the fire; Ripley and Sylvia find Rose burnt and insane, believing she is a duchess and living on rotten foods in the slums. While Sylvia wants to tell Zeronis and have Rose executed, Ripley decides to let her live as the original Ripley would have wanted her to live on.
- Deadpan Snarker: Sylvia ia definitely the queen of snark. Zeronis and Rose show shades of this as well.
- Everybody Loves Blondes: Applies to Erenel's entire society; the novel's author adored blond hair and made most of his major characters blonde. Ripley, Sylvia, Wright, and Archen's king and prince are exceptions to this trope.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: How our Ripley came to be in the novel’s world. The original Ripley used a doll to go to a new world, but ended up swapping bodies with our protagonist. They make it permanent after our Ripley briefly returns to her world.
- Insecure Love Interest: Ripley is initially uncomfortable with becoming Zeronis’ bride because she does not believe she should take was isn’t hers. She tries her best to pair Zeronis and Etoile together, but to no avail. It takes quite a bit of work for Zeronis to convince Ripley to let go of the original plot.
- Zeronis also experiences this during the last mini-arc of the story. After Wright points out that he never made a proper wedding proposal to Ripley, Zeronis becomes awkward at the mention of his wedding, something Ripley finds out of character.
- Just Between You and Me: Rose does this to Ripley when she had the latter kidnapped and held at her family's warehouse; she gloats over her evil plans to have Ripley write a breakup letter to Zeronis and then leave her to die. This bites her in the butt later when Zeronis rescues Ripley and threatens to destroy the Jenkinson family.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Rose in the original novel does everything she can to get rid of the romantic rival standing in her way of becoming the Duchess, including murder. She also tries this against Ripley, attempting to kill her and Sylvia while disguised as a maid. She ends up setting the Duke’s mansion on fire and getting so severely burned she goes insane.
- Not What It Looks Like: A recurring gag with Lord Wright and Ridley; the two will be doing something together, Zeronis suddenly appears sporting a Death Glare at the pair, to which then the two do their best to clear up the misunderstanding.
- Vacation Episode: The side story takes place in the neighboring country of Archen (briefly mentioned during the main story) where Ripley and Zeronis are having their honeymoon. Major characters like Etoile and Wright do not make an appearance.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: The plot begins with Ripley waking up in Duke Zeronis' bedroom, having no recollection of what happened the night before at Etoile's birthday party, only that she possibly slept with the Duke. She learns bits and pieces of what happened over the course of the story.
- Would Rather Suffer: Ripley does this to Prince Sharman when he reveals his plan to take her as his wife after Zeronis' "death". She would rather throw herself off the balcony than be with Sharman a second longer.
- Ripley: Fine, I'll do as you wish. But, before that, I have a favor to ask.Prince Sharman: Say it.Ripley: Please...drop dead.
