Everything was perfect.

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

The fact that I had to work starting next was also not a problem 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 making any fuss, not even your breathing sound should 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.”

That icy, deadly gaze looked 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 with it 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 the hell 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 if 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 understand 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. I am the only daughter of Eckart!

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 say 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 sank from the stabbing tone of voice he used.

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

“Penelope Eckart.”

‘Penelope Eckart?’

“We’ll withdraw our name ‘Eckart’ 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 reflect the ocean, and the black hair that reminds me of obsidian.

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

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.”

I couldn't think of anything other than that being the case.

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 Eckart.

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 sister and the protagonist attacking their hearts little by little was enough for me to dive into this game and drown in it.

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

Reaching the ending was easy even though it was my first playing these kind of game.

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

From the start, all the male lead’s interest towards the heroine started with 30%.

It was to the point it could be called easy mode, and not normal.

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.

“A hu, hundred dollars? Are they crazy? Why is it so expensive?”

To see the hidden ending, you needed to either pay a crazy high prise for it or finish the hard modes of each characters.

“Shit…… It’s already midnight though.”

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

“Ah, whatever! Let’s get it done with!”

I was insane, being controlled by the game. I wouldn’t have done anything like this usually.

My fingers excitedly clicked on the hard mode button.

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

“Ooh. The heroine changed to her.”

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 wishful thinking...

“Ack! Ack! Why did I die 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 freaking hard.

It wasn’t only that.

The interests raised with my hard work all dropped down to ‘game over’ after just one tiny mistake.

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

“Why did this have to be so extreme.”

The illustration was also so realistic and cruel.

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

“This mad 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.

“Please let me live for once, please!”

My goal was to unlock the ‘Hidden Ending’, however it was long ago since that goal was forgotten.

I will have to see this poor pitiful villainess not die and live happily with at least one of the male leads.

‘What makes the villainess the guilty one? Honestly it was the author who made her the villainess!’

Unlike the heroine from the normal mode who’ve got everyone’s love no matter which choice I made in, the villainess who was only abused and mistreated no matter how much she begged for love reminded me of my life before.

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

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

I don’t remember how many times 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 carefully, slowly raised their interests, and got fame, glamour, and money to open up the new route.

“Ack! Why! Why!”

But I died again.

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 untill 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.

And when I opened my eyes.

“Penelope Eckart.”

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

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

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

“Lady. Wake up now.”

I heard someone whispering above me.

Even though I was fast asleep, I was able to wake up even by the smallest presence of someone.

I refused to believe in what had happened to me which kept me awake all night, hoping that this was all just a dream. I wished so hard for me to wake up from it, and I think I fell asleep during the process of that.

“Lady.”

The cautious voice was heard again.

‘Is she calling me?’

The two men 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.

“Ack!”

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.

‘Th, 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’re 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 maidhad 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.

‘What’s up with her, doing this kind of thing to a person who was doing absolutely nothing!’

I opened my mouth in desire to snap at her.

“……!”

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

‘Why isn’t anything helping me out in this kind of situation? Damn it!’

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

“I’ve prepared the bathing water for you in the bathroom so go and wash yourself first, 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 expect any service in helping me bathe but this, this is just too extreme.’

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.

‘What’s this. Nothing like this was shown 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.

‘Nuts. I thought those were actual birthmarks!’

If it weren’t, then, maybe it was something important that would be mentioned in one of the stories I failed to unlock…… .

Who knew those were the traces proving all the abuses.

Though this was unbelievable, I was once again surprised of how detailed the story was plotted.

“Lady. Breakfast has been prepared. Are you done yet?”

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

‘Ugh, says her who isn’t a match for me.’

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 from my step brother bastards, this was not even tickling.

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.

“Take a seat, 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.

“Hurry up and eat. I know you’re 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.

(Flipping the table) What’s this? You crazy?! Bring me the chef right now! Right now!

(Shove the fork in the maid’s mouth) You tell me to eat these that not even the dogs would eat? Then how about you do it first!

(Eat.)

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

When I chose 1, every one of the workers ran to the duke acted pitiful and poor to complain about the villainess’ troublesome actions.

The son who grounded the villainess hears about this and grows so furious that he prohibited anyone offering a single drop of water to me during the grounded days.

So I died in hunger.

On my next turn, I chose 2.

Then the son of the duke who was just coincidentally passing by, jumped in to get the villainess off of the maid.

During the process, the villainess who was pushed roughly, fell, and the fork which fell on her afterwards stabbed her neck.

It was really a ridiculous way to 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.

Right now though, in front of my eyes, there were no ‘Return’ buttons that would take me to the page that enabled me to choose the episodes from.

‘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 will.

My hand 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.

“Ugh.”

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 the boiled cup of organic garbage.

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

“Gasp!”

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.

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

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

“What’re you doing?”

“Y, young master Reynold!”

The maid panicked at the sudden appearance of a figure.

“Urgh, ugh!”

I, 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 experience these things?’

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

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

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

“Uhh, 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.

“Hey, are you oka…… .”

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.

“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 haired guy who turned his face to look back at the maid, changed to a horrifying frown.

“Hey, what did you just feed her?”

“Y, young master! Th, this is, well…… .”

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 haired guy snapped at the maid who wouldn’t properly answer.

“This is more than enough humiliating to dare mock our family! A mere maid like you, doing these things to the one she’s serving……!”

“Young master! That, that’s a misunderstanding! Young master!”

“Get lost!.Scram from this room!”

“Y, young master!”

“I’ll kindly explain this whole thing to my father and brother. Is there someone out there? Butler!”