Chapter 1 prologue

Prologue.

Everything was perfect.

Even the half underground house for one person which is the size of the bathroom of the house I lived before.

The fact that I had to work starting next was also not a matter to me.

I’ve finally escaped from that hell-like house and got my freedom. I could live happily just from that one thing.

But…… .

“I’m pretty sure I told you to live as quiet as a mouse without any fuss, with not even your breathing sound could be heard.”

A man opened his mouth.

His hateful gaze on me seemed as if he was seeing a hideous bug.

“I heard that you acted like an mad dog at the crowned prince’s return ceremony banquet.”

Those icy deadly gaze seeming like it wants to kick me to death was familiar to me.

It was the kind of gaze I always got from that house.

However it didn’t mean I was fine even though I had experienced it a lot.

“What was your purpose for acting like that?”

I couldn’t breathe right at his aura. My lips started to tremble in fear.

It was then.

A white chart appeared in front of my face.

And I could see the words written line by line in the chart.

How do I know?

I didn’t have a purpose.

(With a pitiful tone of voice) Well…… Um, that’s…… .

‘……What is this?’

I was going to ask what this was, however as if something was stuck in my throat, I couldn’t let out a sound.

The man’s voice threatened me when I just stood there without speaking a word.

“You better speak.”

I felt the deadly aura to the point it hurt my skin. I’ll die when I don’t give an answer.

I unconsciously pressed the number 3 on the white chart.

“Well…… Um, that’s…… .”

The same words on the chart automatically came out my mouth without my wills.

‘What the. What’s this?!’

My mouth opened idiotically, still not believing what I just said.

I couldn’t take guess what kind of situation I was in right now.

I was in an unfamiliar place when I woke up, and came to face these unfamiliar people whom all held deadly aura.

I couldn’t think a thing as if I just woke up from sleeping.

“Well um that’s, next.”

The man didn’t seem to like the incomplete answer as he commanded me for the actual answer with a scary face.

It was then when the new sentences eventually appeared in the chart.

I’m sorry. I’ll act properly next time.

A stupid maid was the one to start all the fuss.

The lowly ones treated me low. The me who is the only daughter of Eckhart!

I didn’t have time to sit around, thinking of what was going on right now.

I hurriedly picked an answer while taking hint of the mood here.

Even though I know nothing, I must speak of something in this situation. This was the result of my reaction from all the painful experiences back then.

“I’m sor…… .”

“We wouldn’t have met each other like this in the first place if it was something that’d all be solved with a simple apology.”

My line was cut by him right away.

My heart reached the bottom from the stabbing tone of voice he used.

I curled my body up instinctively. Then the man spoke in an icy tone.

“Penelope Eckhart.”

‘Penelope Eckhart?’

“We’ll withdraw our name ‘Eckhart’ from you for some time.”

The line and the name was very familiar.

I raised my head in a lightning speed.

Then I could clearly see the face of the man I couldn’t see well before.

The man who was some distance away from the bed was not one of the ‘people of that house’, but a foreigner who I’ve never seen before.

The blue eyes that reflects the ocean, and the black hair that reminds me of obsidian.

Above them was a long bar that was similar to the phone’s battery sign, with the white word that sparkled.

‘In…… terest……?’

If my eyes are perfectly fine, then the white sparkling words above the man’s head definitely said ‘Interest’.

“Definitely no parties or banquet during that time, and your absolutely not allowed to leave the room. You think over what you did wrong, and think of what you’d do from now on during…… .”

“…… .”

“Where are you looking at?”

The man’s emotionless face turned to a frown as if he was unpleasant with me staring at something else than where I was supposed to look.

However I couldn’t react to that and only kept on checking the bar above the man’s head.

[Interest 0%]

‘No way…… .’

I unconsciously shook my head couple of times.

It was really unbelievable.

Really.

“The rumours saying that you went insane was true.”

The man glared at me for a moment from my weird actions before turning away from me.

He walked toward the door with big and fast steps as if he didn’t want to stay in the same place with me for even a second more. [Interest 0%] Is moving away from me.

‘What did I do wrong?’

It was the time I think about what this situation was about while staring at the back of the leaving figure.

I felt someone’s eyes on me with the aura seeming to mock me with a smirk.

I turned my head to see another person with pink hair, standing with his arms crossed in the shadow by the door.

He had the same blue eyes as the person who just left. His face held a smile that seemed to ridicule.

[Interest -10%]

The white word sparkled above the boy’s figure.

It’s even a negative.

“Fool bitch. Serves you right.”

Unlike how he has a pretty face, he swore some nasty bad words and left the room following the man who previously left.

Thud-! The door slammed.

I stayed seated with my head blank for a long while in the room where only I existed.

My head didn’t work well and I still couldn’t figure out the situation I was in currently.

I thought for a while and realized that the place I was in and the two people I just saw were both somewhat familiar to me.

“It’s a lie, right……?”

I could finally speak what I wished to speak when I was left alone.

But I didn’t have time to notice that.

I couldn’t believe this. This was not something that happens everyday for me too.

“There’s no way though.”

It can’t be that the scene from a game I was playing before falling into sleep was replaying like it’s reality.

And with me as one of the characters in the game.

“I’m dreaming right now.”

There didn’t exist another case for this other than that.

However no matter how much I pulled on my hair and pinched my face, I still couldn’t wake up from this dream.

“N, no…… No, no! No! I say no-!”

Penelope Eckhart.

She was the villainess of the most popular game for girls these days, and the heroine of the difficult mode.

_______

Them feeling regret that they bothered their sisters and the protagonist attacking their hearts little by little was enough for me to dive into this game and drown in it.

And me, who once chose to take a look at the game, was now drowning into the game.

Reaching for the ending was easy even though, it was my first time playing these kind of games.

It was fun, I totally agreed on that, however the normal mode was way too easy even for the beginner like me.

From the start, All the male lead's interest towards the heroine started from 30% interest.

I saw every character's ending within 3 hours of time.

Then a card popped on the screen which said the ‘Hidden Ending’ with a drawing of lock on it.

"One-One hundred dollars?! Why is a single ending so expensive?!"

To earn the hidden ending, you either need to pay a crazy high price for it or to finish the hard mode of each of the characters.

"It's so late already, and I have class tomorrow"

I thought about the class I had early in the morning. However that didn’t go for long.

"Ah, Whatever! How hard could hard mode be?"

When I look back, the good feelings of the ending had mad me momentarily crazy. I wouldn't have acted that way normally.

My fingers excitedly clicked on the hard mode button.

The different prologue video played, this time, with a grand background music.

"The Villainess is the heroine now."

It was unexpected that the heroine changed in this mode.

She was the villain from the normal mode, the fake mistress of the duke family.

The story was set before the heroine of the normal mode appeared so it felt like a whole different story from a different game.

“Maybe this is why this game’s so popular.”

The detailed illustration of the heroine in the hard mode appeared on my screen that woke me up for good.

The unique system of this game was not like any other game. This made me be more interested in this app.

The villain who was evil to the angel-like heroine was the one who was winning the hearts of the strictly love-barriered male leads now.

That gave me the excitement and heart flutters that I couldn’t quite explain.

I proceeded to the main story of the hard mode. I was overly confident about this since I finished all the normal mode routes.

Even though it was called a hard mode, I expected that the choices of lines would be just a bit more difficult to choose.

However, that was just my grave mistaken guess.

"Ugh! Again! I died again!

Hard mode was extremely difficult.

The heroine who was the villainess from the first place. It was set that raising the characters’ interest was challenging enough as a Villainess.

It wasn’t only that.

The interests raised with my hard work all dropped down to ‘game over’ after just one smallest wrong decision.

Not just a normal game over thing, but very disturbing ‘death’ of the heroine.

"Why is this extremely difficult?! I know this is hard mode..."

The illustration was also so realistic and cruel.

I frowned at the illustration of the heroine getting sliced on the neck by the crown prince.

"This goddamn game... ."

I died several times due to the hard choices I made sincerely in the game. Frustration filled my heart at this horrible system.

What was the producer thinking, making the difficulty setting like this?

I died so many times that I started to feel the stress playing this.

"Just survive once! Just once!"

Initially, I just wanted the hidden ending, but I actually like playing it now.

I want to see this poor Villainess survive, and win over just one person and live happily.

'What did the Villainess do wrong? She's just a Villainess because she was given the bad role.

The heroin wins everyone's love so effortlessly in easy mode. In contrast, the Villainess's predicament becomes more unfortunate no matter how much she begs for affection.

The Villainess in hard mode, who's every ending is death. I saw myself, in the Villainess.

“I’m seeing the endings to this no matter what.”

I was killed again due to the older goddamn brothers. The sound of me gritting my teeth was heard in the room.

I don’t remember how much I died here now.

My two hands which clenched my heated up phone, trembled.

I thought that I was getting too emotional to this, but I couldn’t stop my fingers clicking the reset button.

I started all over again, from the start.

I chose the lines, slowly raised their interests, and gotten fame, glamour, and money to open up the new route.

"So annoyed..."

I was annoyed to the point I had a thought of just buying the interest using money.

If the producer’s goal was to make others pay for the damn thing, then they succeeded greatly.

Since they made me, who treasures money like no one else does, want to use up my money for this.

I didn’t use my money ’till the end, but I was on fire the whole night to see the ending of at least one of the characters.

Die, and start over.

Die again and start over.

Die,

Die,

And die again.

I only died until the sunrise.

However, I wasn’t able to see the ending of any of them ’till then.

“Fuck…… Again…… .”

Me, who was going to press the reset button again, couldn’t handle it anymore as I fainted to sleep with my phone in my hand.

"I am going to start again... Until the Villainess's end... isn't death."

And when I opened my eyes.

“Penelope Eckhart.”

Said the man with the blank gauge bar above him with the sparkling letters written ‘Interest 0%’.

"I am temporarily removing Eckhart from your name. ”

I was the villainess in the game which I never got to see the ending of.

"...My Lady"

"My Lady wake up."

I heard someone whispering above me.

Oh right. Yesterday night, When I opened my eyes, I gound myself here instead of my bed. And I had became someone else, I prayed and prayed all night. But it really wasn't a dream afterall. I really turned into the Villainess of the game. Penelope Eckhart.

"My lady." The cautious voice was heard again.

'Is she calling for me?'

The two man with blue eyes left already, and from what I remember, no one was in this room except for me ’till the very last moment I was awake.

For that reason, the one who could be called a ‘lady’ was me alone.

“…… .”

I was drowsy when I was lost in my thoughts that I couldn’t answer the call right away.

It was a moment later when I heard a rustling sound from the back.

I was somewhat awake from sleep now. I was about to put my strength to my body to get myself up from the bed.

A lightning-like pain was felt on my forearm from outside the comforter.

"Agh...!!"

My eyes automatically flashed open.

I screamed as I got up from the spot, kicking the comforter away. Next, I pulled my sleeves up.

It was to check my pained forearm.

"Wh-What is this?"

I was shocked to see the flesh shown under the light sky blue pajama sleeves, making my jaws drop.

The thin forearm was covered with blue bruised scar of the needles.

If it weren’t a human flesh but some kind of fabric, it would’ve had lots of visible holes on it.

It was when I was still shocked by the sight of a drop of blood on one of my forearm.

"You are awake now."

Unconcerned casual voice came from beside the bed.

I turned my head towards that direction to see a brown hair girl with lots of freckles. She was a maid.

In the illustrations, every maids had no faces drawn and all wore the same maid outfit.

Including the girl standing in front of me.

I don’t know where she hid the needle she poked me with, but there was nothing in her hands.

She was observing me with the face of mockery and some kind of satisfaction.

'Why the hell is she doing this to a sleeping person...?!

I opened my mouth in desire to snap at her.

“……!”

However, no words came out of my mouth no matter how hard I tried.

'Damn it! My voice won't come out! Ugh, Does that mean I can't speak unless the choices appear??'

When I only glared at her with no words said, the maid acted as if nothing happened.

"I have prepared water for you in bathe in, So please go and wash, my lady.

An evil smile was reflected on her face as she started to make the bed. She seemed to be used to doing this to this body.

I sat still, biting on my lower lip, but was forced to enter the bathroom due to the maid’s push.

She told me she prepared the bathing water, but the only thing in the empty bathroom was a bucket filled with cold water.

It was freezing cold like ice water that it gave me goosebumps just by dipping my finger tip in.

'I didn't even hope for her to attend on me, but a mere bowl of clod water is too much'

There were some stories about how the villainess got the worse ever treatment, but nothing explained something this specific.

I was once again, forced to realize from the overflowing feeling of reality.

That I’ve actually entered the game.

I pulled up the sleeve to see the scar with dried blood covering it again, and when I did, I sort of teared up.

'Needles... This didn't show up in the ga-'

Suddenly, an image popped up in my head as a reminder.

It was an illustration of the villainess with a open-shoulder dress.

Unlike the other illustrations that had not the smallest mistakes in it, on the illustration of the villainess had several small dots drawn on the one forearm

'Crap! Anyone would think those were blood stains. Was that actually a clue about this?! How was anyone supposed to recognise that?'

'The game is uselessly detail-oriented. Ugh! Great.'

"My lady, Breakfast is ready. Will you be a little while longer?"

The maid urged from the other side of the bathroom door.

'Goddamn her... I have no choice..."

I felt annoyed but with no choice, I dipped my hand into the freezing cold water again.

To me who suffered the worse for years in that doghouse, I was forced to call home, this doesn't even tickle me.

I was the villainess anyways, so while I was at it, I wanted to make needle marks on that bitch as she did to me but I had to give it more time for me to investigate everything first.

Because unfortunately, I was in a state where I couldn’t even speak freely of what I wanted to speak.

The moment I stepped out the bathroom, drying my face with the towel, I could see the table all set with some food on it like the maid had said.

Seemed like I even had to eat my meal in the room. Probably because I was grounded by the first son of the duke.

"Please Have a seat, My Lady."

I was pulled by the maid’s hand and sat on the seat by the table. As soon as I did though, I couldn’t do anything but to frown.

The food prepared as a meal for a human didn’t look edible at all.

On the plate was a piece of blue moldy bread and on the bowl was a kind of thick grey soup with undefined solids floating around.

"Please Enjoy. You must be hungry."

The maid smiled widely as she urged me to eat. I clenched my teeth and glared at her.

A white square screen popped into view right in front of my eyes.

(Flip the table) What’s this? Are you insane?! Call the cook!

(Shove the fork in the maid’s mouth) How about you stuff yourself instead!

(Eat.)

I’ve experienced the ‘game over’ twice at this scene.

If I choose 1, The poor maid rushes to the duke and tells of the Villainess's wickedness. If the oldest brother hears of this, I'll be locked up without a single drop of water and starve to death.

I can't choose 2 either. The young brother happens to walk by right at that moment and witnesses the scene, and when he pushes me off the maid, my neck will be accidentally stabbed by a fork on the floor, and I die.

‘In the end, there’s only one to choose.’

This scene is probably the episode which held the story about the relationships between the villainess who became the heroine and the workers here who worked in the mansion for a long time.

However, me who didn’t want to see the scene where the heroine is mistreated from the start, just skipped the episode to the next one after dying twice.

It was because there were tens of episodes I had to unlock anyways even if it weren’t this one.

This is reality. There is no reset button.

‘Damn…… .’

I sorrowfully glared at the maid standing next to me as I powerlessly clicked the number 3.

Once I did, as if someone was controlling my body, I started to move automatically without my wills.

My hands held onto the spoon and scooped up a spoonful of rotten soup.

My wills of me not wanting to eat this may have affected my movements as my hands with the spoon started to tremble on its way to my mouth.

The drops of grey liquid fell on the table.

No matter how strong my wills were, I couldn’t stop my body from moving on its own.

In the end, the spoon with the soup was shoved into my forcefully opened mouth.

"Eek...!"

The warm sensation of the grey liquid was felt on my tongue. At the same time, the horrible taste of it was sensed.

This wasn’t food. It was the taste of disgusting swill.

My body continued to act on its own as it forcefully gulped down the garbage water which has entered my mouth, down my throat.

"Huh?"

The maid who watched, gasped, as if she didn’t expect me to really eat it.

‘Urgh, I feel like I’m going to vomit!’

I gagged. I was trying so hard to forget the feeling I was currently feeling.

‘I’m guessing that once is enough.’

I wouldn’t die just by consuming a spoonful of organic garbage.

I let out a sigh of relief since I’ve safely got over an episode.

It was my misunderstanding.

My hand which held the spoon with didn’t stop.

‘What’s it doing! What’s–!’

Even afterwards, I had to keep on shoving the moldy blue bread and the grey soup in my mouth.

It was not due to my wills.

The maid’s face paled at the sight of me forcefully eat the overdued foods.

My body which repeated those crazy motions came to a stop when the duke’s son happened to come in.

"What is going on?"

"Oh...! M-MASTER REYNOLD!"

The maid came to panik at the sudden appearance of a figure.

"Urrrk"

Me, on the other hand, didn’t have the time to focus on that. I had to cover my mouth with both my hands so fast.

I gagged so much. I felt as if everything I’ve consumed today was going to come flooding out any moment now.

'Why do I have to suffer like this?'

I’ve already experienced these things enough even before entering the game.

How many time did I have to suffer all the pains given by the two bastards in that hell-like house.

But I have to experience these things over again even in this fictional world?

"U-Ugh"

A strand of salvia escaped my mouth, out through my palms.

I felt myself tearing up due to this unfair situation and the disgust.

I groaned like a person who just drank poison. Seeing that, the pink hair approached me with a shocked expression on his face.

"H-Hey, Are you okay...?

He stopped in his words. He froze still with more shock shown on his face as he looked at what was set on the table.

"What is this...?!"

Moldy blue bread, rotten soup.

It was a mess. No one would be able to guess that this was served to a lady from the duke family. Not even the commoners would eat these garbage for breakfast.

The sight of the half of those foods gone and his pale younger step sister covering her mouth.

The face of the pink hair who turned his face to look back at the maid, changed to a horrifying frown.

"Hey."

The maid gasps startles at his word.

"What did you just feed her?"

"M-Master! I-It's just...

The maid turned pale at the deathly aura and started to shiver in fear.

‘He obviously wouldn’t have guessed.’

How would an extra who was just passing by, have guessed that the fake lady who was always making a fuss of one or another would be eating the rotten food, purposely prepared, without any complaints.

The pink hair snapped at the maid who wouldn’t properly answer.

"Even if you dare disrespect the Duke's household, There's a limit! A mere maid gives this garbage to their mistress for food...!

"Master...!, I... This isn't what it looks like! I-"

"Leave this room now."

"Ah... Uhh..."

"I will be telling my father and brother about this. Is anyone outside? Butler!"

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