Chapter 13………………………………………………
Tutorial Reward: “Conversation with the Administrator” begins.
Immediately, I opened my eyes to a vast meadow.
A baby bird—the one who had possessed me into this world—was flying in the air.
Just as I had first seen it, it was still wearing a suit.
“Even now, it’s kind of cute.”
So this is the power of cuteness.
I could feel even the anger I had felt at being possessed slowly fading away.
The baby bird flinched at my gaze and then spoke.
“Not angry, huh? I was prepared for you to grab me by the scruff.”
“What’s the point of being angry? I’m the one who asked to be possessed.”
“Well, yes, but…”
There was no time to waste.
Seeing my opportunity, I started bombarding the baby bird with questions.
As a result, I learned quite a few facts.
Fact #1:
This is twelve years before the original story begins.
“I had already suspected this since Chloe is so young.”
Fact #2:
Ariana has a terrible relationship with her family in the original story.
When I asked about her two older brothers, the baby bird replied that, like their father, they had gone abroad to mourn their mother.
“Good. That works out.”
I wasn’t mentally prepared to meet her brothers yet.
After all, in the past, I had been relentlessly bullied by two older half-brothers.
Since they were the same gender and number as the brothers in the original, the overlap was inevitable.
Fact #3:
The Gold Dragon will curse me when I pick up money in the fountain.
The system had even shown me the Berkshire fountain scene in an excerpt, so I was left speechless.
“Specifically, on the day of the title conferment, in the ‘Dragon’s Room’… but if you give the money to him, the curse will immediately lift. As the name ‘Gold Dragon’ implies, he’s obsessed with gold—literally. You’ll need around 5,000 gold, but you can just ask Peres to lend it to you.”
Had the administrator not hurriedly added that last part, I might have lost my patience and grabbed the baby bird by the scruff.
Finally, the most important point:
Fact #4:
If I fail to seduce Peres, Berkshire will be destroyed by him, just like in the original story.
Even if I, as the villainess, don’t torment the heroine Chloe, Peres would still crush Berkshire, his business rival.
“So, to summarize…”
I spoke slowly.
“You’re saying I need to seduce Peres? Considering everything you’ve told me, that’s the only conclusion.”
“That’s correct, Reader!”
Only then did I understand why I had been possessed into five-year-old Ariana.
The system had determined that I needed to build a bond with Peres while he was fixed at age eight to clear the SSS difficulty.
In the original story Tyrant Poison, Peres appears as an adult from the beginning.
“But how? I even modified his status screen to make him feel possessive, but he hasn’t appeared in front of me at all. How am I supposed to seduce Peres?”
I sank into deep thought.
In the original story, in the middle part, Peres develops cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and makes a fortune.
Even now, he possesses immeasurable wealth.
Berkshire’s resources would be meaningless to him.
“Peres has no reason to care about me.”
He has no weaknesses. He is the bank itself.
Even now, he earns money as if raking it up with a claw.
“Even the royal family borrowed money from Peres.”
Of course, they didn’t know that Peres was the true owner of the money. He hides his identity from everyone.
“Among the five male leads in Tyrant Poison, he’s by far the dominant main male lead.”
Even Chloe, the heroine, had difficulty dealing with Peres in the original.
And here I am, with a skill set of “cute but poor,” trying to… somehow raise Peres’ possessiveness to Lv. 9999+.
“But Reader, it seems you already care quite a lot about Berkshire? To seriously think about how to seduce Peres to prevent its destruction…”
“…Even to become the head of Berkshire, I absolutely need Peres’ help. If I’m going to secure the 5,000 gold to give the Gold Dragon within the next few days, I’ll have no choice but to find Peres and borrow it, just as you said.”
5,000 gold is about 2.5 billion won—a staggering amount.
Oddly, that made me calm.
“Reader, have you considered that if people find out you’ve been possessed, Berkshire’s staff might hate you?”
“No, I haven’t.”
My bluntness made the baby bird flinch even more.
“…Reader, your synchronization with the possessed body is astonishing.”
“Well, I’ve read novels—heroines always worry about this. But in the original, Ariana already had a poor relationship with her family. From the very first meeting with Berkshire’s people, the bond starts with my soul. Even if they find out I’m possessed and hate me, is that really my problem?”
I wasn’t even planning to reveal that I’m possessed, but if it happens, so what?
The baby bird stroked its chin, intrigued, and asked another question.
“So, Reader. Since the male lead is supposed to end up with the heroine, don’t you worry about meeting me, the villainess?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“After meeting Chloe personally, I don’t feel guilty about seducing Peres at all.”
I answered indifferently.
The baby bird froze for a moment, then burst into laughter at my response.
It laughed so hard that tears formed in its eyes—apparently, it was thoroughly enjoying our conversation.
I patiently waited until it calmed down.
“…I accept that this is my destiny. Even if it’s Ariana’s life, I’ll treat it as truly my own. I’ll do my best.”
“……”
“SSS difficulty, right? It’s so hard you can’t clear it with half-hearted effort.”
“I have a feeling, Reader, that you’ll succeed.”
The baby bird wiped the tears from its eyes and spoke.
“I want to sincerely cheer for you too. I already did, but now even more strongly.”
The meadow was still; not even a breeze stirred.
Even from the low vantage point of a five-year-old, I had become accustomed to the view.
“If you’re curious about anything, feel free to keep asking. I’ll give you a little more insight.”
It was a conversation with the administrator, starting as a tutorial reward.
The implication of a time limit and the subsequent “bonus” made me smile coldly.
Even in the guise of a baby bird, it was the world’s administrator.
I, too, had won a simulated stock investment competition three times in a row.
I wasn’t clueless about economics.
The most important thing in investing is unwavering composure in any situation.
I was rigorously trained to act with reason, suppressing emotion.
Tyrant Poison’s setting is a reverse harem romance, but its economy is highly advanced.
“Probably why they said Tyrant Poison is the perfect world to possess.”
Having access to excerpts from the original, I knew which stocks would rise in the future.
I couldn’t fail at investing.
I wanted to dominate the Berkshire succession competition over Dandolo, who shoved me into the fountain, and Raoulette, who staged my mother’s death as a suicide.
What I said to Schwaben was for the quest—but it was also my honest truth.
“How can I increase Peres’ possessiveness experience?”
“If you borrow 5,000 gold from Peres, it’ll rise slightly.”
“That’s just because he’s worried about losing his own money, isn’t it?”
I stopped at that point.
“No, wait….”
Now that I think about it, when I first picked up his coins on the street, his status screen had asked if I was going to run away.
I brightened and asked:
“What if I borrow 5,000 gold from Peres and don’t pay it back?”
Would he obsessively track me down?
“Reader, you would then XXX and be possessed while XXed, wouldn’t you?”
The baby bird, however, responded unusually.
I didn’t like that I understood the censored beep sounds.
I had barely thought of a good idea, and then…
“Ah, oops. That choice of words wasn’t appropriate for your age.”
“……No.”
Recalling the depictions in Peres’ story, I could only fall silent for a moment.
