Chapter 2
When I was twelve, I fell in love with Chesire as if by fate.
I had to feel it was fate.
“Hello, Duchess. Are you lost?”
The moment I saw the boy my age fiercely swinging his sword in a secluded forest path of the Imperial Palace, the axis of my world shifted entirely to him.
Falling in love, I gave up the position of the Junior Duke of Valtres and became engaged to Chesire.
For the past ten years, all I had wanted from him was the spot beside him.
“…Yet I didn’t even get that.”
So, just moments ago, I clearly intended to kill him with my own will. And I planned to die right after him. I even hoped my hated family, Valtres, would be utterly ruined by the fallout. I was that despairing; I wanted everything to be destroyed.
But just as your mind changes between going into a restroom and coming out, my feelings changed the moment I became aware of my past life.
‘I don’t want to die.’
My current age, and the age I died in my past life in an accident, is twenty-two. Life is too precious to die young again. There are so many things I haven’t done because of the titles—Crown Prince’s fiancée, Duchess of Valtres.
Perhaps the problem is that, being the villainess I am, I executed my revenge perfectly. A proper villainess might stab the hateful female lead instead of the beloved male lead, but…
‘It was Chesire who betrayed me, wasn’t it?’
Truthfully, I didn’t resent or hate Lissie as the world claimed. She was just a loose stone that rolled into my path. One day, my father brought her home without warning—a pretty orphan from the temple whom he installed as a Duchess.
First, I pondered her value, which everyone seemed to know except me. Then, I thought she was lucky. And finally, after she awakened as the Saintess…
It was at that moment.
“O-Older sister…?”
Blue, wavy, water-colored hair and clear golden eyes.
The female protagonist of this world, Lissie, whose colors were like the dawn rising in the morning sky, appeared.
The moment our eyes met, her face went pale, and she dropped the tray she was holding.
Clatter!
“I thought your conversation, um, was getting l-long… so I just brought the tea…”
“Lissie.”
“B-But… that blood, the blood… Why are you s-so badly injured?”
Teacups and other crockery were shattered and scattered on the floor. Lissie stumbled over the debris, approaching me.
Holy golden light burst from her hands.
“I will h-heal it with my divine power. Just a moment…!”
…Does she think I am the one who is hurt?
It’s true that Chesire would have been hidden from her view by the sofa from the doorway where Lissie stood. I was also covered in blood, looking like a ghostly mess.
I gently grabbed the wrist of Lissie, who was trembling like a newborn goat, and led her toward Chesire on the floor.
“Lissie, calm down and look closely. The one who is hurt isn’t me, it’s His Highness.”
“…Gasp!“
“Amazingly, he is not dead yet, so you can save him with your divine power.”
Fortunately or unfortunately, the blade went in slightly shallowly.
It seemed his partially intact Aura Core was protecting his heart.
‘…To think I feel nothing for Chesire now.’
Can a world really flip so completely?
My love vanished instantly. It started and ended just as suddenly as the day I first fell for him.
“Who, who did this…!”
“I did.”
Lissie knelt by Chesire’s side, looking up at me with eyes wide in disbelief.
But no divine power came from her hands.
That was a little strange.
In the ‘original novel,’ Chesire is healed by Lissie at this point and survives, holding the villainess’s execution. That was the climax of the middle section.
Watching her, I could easily read her emotions.
“You don’t love His Highness, do you? Do you hate him?”
Her hands, stopping ambiguously instead of immediately pouring out divine power, even though he was in such a terrible state, confirmed it.
‘Chesire. Even your noble love seems to have just been an obsession.’
Come to think of it, Chesire was the so-called ‘Obsessive Male Lead’ in the original story.
“…This is truly funny.”
I feel an unrecognizable mix of pleasant and unpleasant emotions. I simply blurted out:
“Lissie. You choose.”
“Pardon? C-Could you at least explain what is happening…”
“I did it because I was too angry. Don’t just stand there like an idiot; do something with your own will. Are you just going to let the men who like you drag you around?”
“Why would you say that? I…”
“You can either let him die and report me as the culprit, or you can save His Highness right now. But don’t look for me. I’m leaving far, far away, starting now.”
Yes, I need to leave for anywhere.
‘If I stay here, I’ll be on the execution block immediately.’
Fortunately, only Lissie is here.
When Chesire gifted this villa to Lissie, he supposedly wanted to be alone with her. That’s why there aren’t even any servants here.
A sudden realization flashed through my mind.
‘Now is the only time to run.’
Soon, my brother, Noahren Valtres, will arrive here to take Lissie, who is supposedly held captive by the Crown Prince, back to the Duke’s estate.
‘I have to run. Quickly. To a place they can’t easily find.’
Coincidentally, if I cross the Mahmut Mountains to the north from here, I’ll reach the Bellmeier Grand Duchy.
It is an enemy country in a precarious truce with the Hilbarcia Empire, and the home of the ‘Demon Grand Duke.’
‘Though that Grand Duke will bring about the world’s destruction a year from now.’
For now, there is no more suitable refuge.
If the world truly ends, we will all die equally anyway. And before that happens, perhaps the Great Saintess will save the world.
…She will save the world, right?
“Lissie, please take care of things.”
I couldn’t afford any more rational thought.
Even if things go wrong and I die in Bellmeier, it will be a better end than facing the execution block as in the original novel. I refuse to live a life dictated by the original story any longer.
“Let’s not meet again, you and I.”
Whoosh!
I violently ripped open the window and jumped from the second-floor terrace.
“…Older sister!”
Lissie’s piercing scream followed. Aided by magic, I landed, then immediately mounted the horse I had tied up without looking back.
As I rode North, I kept one thing in mind:
‘I must escape.’
From the Empire, and from my destiny.
1. The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend
“Damn it…!”
I gritted my teeth and concentrated on my magic calculations.
I had an innate talent for using magic, but unfortunately, I had a small pool of magical power. This had to be my last shot, so I needed to be careful. I squeezed the magical power I had already bottomed out, like wringing out a dried-up tube of toothpaste, and managed to gather enough for one final spell.
Bang!
Screeech!
Half the head of the colossal eagle, whose wing I had sliced, exploded like a bomb. The monster let out a death cry, spewed black, sludge-like blood, and collapsed.
At this, the pink-haired man, who hadn’t once drawn the sword sheathed at his waist, muttered:
“Did we get it?”
“Aargh! Don’t say such inauspicious things!”
I immediately dragged him away from the carcass. Fortunately, the resurrection spell hadn’t worked, and the giant eagle didn’t suddenly jump up and chase us.
“Whew, now we can finally relax.”
…But then the platinum-haired man, who was clasping his hands behind his head, planted another flag.
‘Are you serious?’
Cliché Rule #1 of genre novels: after such a line, a powerful enemy always resurrects, and things get insanely busy. Since I was reincarnated into a novel, I was sensitive to such superstitions. I instantly flared my eyes and yelled:
“Relaxation canceled! CANCELED!”
“W-What’s wrong?”
Whether they looked at me strangely or not, I finally felt relieved after confirming there were no more monster presences around.
Thump-thump.
My heart was pounding fiercely due to the overheated magic circuit. It was hard to even move my body, let alone use magic.
“Why am I going through all this hardship…”
All this sudden, outrageous suffering was because of the two men in front of me—these two superficially dashing knights.
It was the fourth day since I started climbing the Mahmut Mountains.
Whether by luck or misfortune, I ran into a group of Bellmeier knights who were being chased by an angry flock of griffins.
“I’m hungry.”
“Don’t you have any food?”
…No, wait, are they thugs from Bellmeier?
It’s not enough that I saved them from drowning; they’re now demanding my belongings? Why are they so shameless?
This mountain range was notorious for a reason.
The snow and cold winds typical of the North? The high altitude and steep slopes? They are all problems, but primarily, the mountain itself is a massive habitat for high-level monsters. Climbing this mountain to cross the border was a somewhat crazy idea, but for me, it was fine.
What I didn’t expect were two things:
That the griffins, the kings of this ecosystem, were in their nesting season, making the monsters extremely agitated.
That some crazy humans had angered those griffins and brought all sorts of monsters right to me!
A little while ago:
“Hey, you blockhead! Why did you mess with the eggs!”
“I was hungry. If you had packed enough food, I wouldn’t have.”
“Who tries to eat griffin eggs? Are they chicken eggs? Are they chickens?!”
“Mad Dog, stop barking. My head is ringing from hunger.”
“That’s because you use your power in useless ways… What is that?”
It was quite a sight to behold, them running with monsters trailing them like goldfish droppings while blaming each other.
It was such a good sight that, as soon as I saw them, I launched the highest-power magic missile I could at the chasing monsters.
