Chapter 10
First Interrogation
First Sin
“Justice always prevails in the end. Evil can never surpass good.”
It was a line spoken by the male lead, Dominique, in the scene where the villainess Octavia meets her final end in the novel.
The time had come to pay for the crime of siding with the forces of chaos and taking innocent lives.
“How ridiculous. Justice is nothing more than the spoils of the victor.”
Octavia refused to admit her crimes until the very end, provoking everyone’s outrage with conduct befitting a true villain.
Even after her left arm had been severed, she remained composed, as if everything had dulled within her.
“Octavia. The reason you stand on the execution platform is because the mad prince who aided you betrayed you. It is the result of your own actions. Did you truly believe you could win someone’s heart with such malice? You even caused the deaths of your own father and brothers—the only ones who ever cared for you.”
Despite Dominique’s cold gaze, she remained calm.
And the lines Octavia spoke during her execution were, in hindsight, rather meaningful.
“Yes, I am an evil person. Betrayal is nothing new to someone like me, who has never been able to share genuine feelings with others. But no matter how selfish and wicked I may have lived… I am not a murderer.”
Rather than resenting Admiral Kelsedni, Octavia directed her hatred at Dominique—the man she had once favored—branding him the true traitor.
“And the traitor… is you. Strictly speaking…”
Her clouded violet eyes turned toward Chloe, who stood there with a composed expression.
“No… you hypocrites.”
It seemed she had more to say, but instead she replaced her unfinished words with a gentle smile.
“Whether something is hypocrisy or sincerity… you only find out at the very end. In that case, I suppose I’ll become a hypocrite as well.”
“…I hope I remain your eternal nightmare.”
Clang—!
The blade of the guillotine fell with terrifying force.
It was the miserable end of a villain.
Octavia did not close her eyes. Her platinum hair scattered in the wind, like grains of gold flowing along a river.
That was the final line and narration of Octavia in the original story.
Back then, I reread that part over and over. It wasn’t unusual for a villain to blame others until death without repentance, but something about it felt off—unsettling in a way I couldn’t quite explain.
Now, I stood before the decoding apparatus in my father’s laboratory, trying to uncover the source of that unease.
I quietly looked down at the coded letter in my hand—Dominique’s letter.
There were plenty of books on ancient languages and cryptography in the lab, and in my previous life, I had worked at a military research institute. Deciphering it wouldn’t be difficult.
A chilling premonition ran down my spine—that this letter was connected to the misfortune that befell Octavia and the Ludovici family.
I stared blankly into space, holding the fully decoded letter.
“An attempted coup?”
“What I desire is to inherit the throne. All of this is for the sake of our nation.”
Dominique had been preparing to restore the crown prince’s claim to the throne.
I glared coldly at the next decoded line.
“…To achieve that, the destruction of the Ludovici family—the crown princess Decima’s strongest financial backer and supporter—must come first.”
With each word I read, my heartbeat grew louder.
This was the reason not only Octavia but her entire family had died.
Her father and brothers had insisted on her innocence and attempted to break her out of prison and send her into exile—but they failed.
In the process, they were charged with treason, and many members of the family were executed.
“I’m sorry for always speaking harshly out of concern, Via. It’s my fault for not being a better brother. Father thought of you until his very last moment. And so will we.”
The image of her brothers, facing execution, flashed before my eyes as if I had witnessed it myself.
I can’t get consumed by emotion.
I forced myself to think rationally.
“So… they framed her.”
Shadow Corrosion Syndrome was an extremely rare, incurable disease of unknown origin. Even with divine power, one could only prolong life—there had never been a recorded cure.
The original story concluded that Octavia Ludovici had made a pact with the forces of chaos and cast a mental curse on the prince.
But as it stood—I was nothing more than an ordinary person with no such abilities.
“No matter how selfish and wicked I may have lived… I am not a murderer.”
In the original story, Octavia was found guilty of eight crimes.
Regicide, religious violations, financial crimes, treason—each one severe. But the most catastrophic was aiding the forces of chaos in opening a disaster-level gate that nearly toppled the nation.
Given the circumstances, there was a high chance most of it had been fabricated.
The protagonist Chloe—tagged as a capable and intelligent heroine—did she truly not realize this?
If I revealed this letter to the world and had the male lead executed for treason, the story would end by Chapter 10.
Unfortunately, there was another irregular variable involved.
“If it is to obtain what His Majesty Arseno desires, then this is an unavoidable necessity.”
The recipient of the letter was not Admiral Kelsedni—but the absolute monarch known as the terror of all ages, the most powerful ability user in existence.
Arseno van Descartes, Emperor of the Lucifer Empire.
The very man who had ascended the throne by killing his own imperial family—like a poison derived from arsenophile ore.
The only one who survived his bloody purge was Prince Kelsedni.
Facing such an apex predator, if I tried to bury the truth through manipulation, I might end up buried alongside it.
Worse still, there was no one who would believe Octavia’s whistleblowing—nor did she have any social credibility.
Dominique was one thing, but why Arseno was targeting the Ludovici family remained unclear.
It couldn’t simply be suppression of transmutation abilities—the Lucifer Empire had, after all, actively advanced magi-engineering, the second generation of alchemy.
“Then why does Admiral Kelsedni have this letter?”
Was he an intermediary?
Still, why would such a letter be stuffed among fan mail?
Either way, looking at it positively—I was a transmigrator.
And being a transmigrator was practically a cheat code, even if the genre turned into a disaster story.
Besides, I now have a perfect justification to torment and dismantle the protagonists as much as I want.
With the belief that the best defense is offense, I quickly established my goals.
If I stayed like this, I would eventually be blamed for everything—and my father and brothers would die as well.
- Preemptively dismantle the events tied to the charges that lead to my execution.
- Take everything from the protagonists—Dominique and Chloe.
- Save my father and brothers, becoming both a trustworthy ally and an emotional pillar for the family.
- Revise my plan: instead of merely getting entangled with Admiral Kelsedni—become deeply, messily entangled with him.
A uniformed man who despises me… I’ll make full use of him, exploit him until my tastes change, then discard him.
Octavia headed to the deep research facility in the adjacent building.
As part of the estate, it was a place where confidential experiments and research—never disclosed to the outside world—were conducted.
As a member of the family, entering the research building posed no difficulty.
She passed the design room, testing chamber, and records archive before arriving at the central laboratory—the heart of the facility.
Of course, it was locked.
Knock, knock.
When she knocked directly, a haggard-looking researcher opened the door.
Judging by the insignia, she was the chief research supervisor. Rubbing her tired eyes, she frowned slightly.
“What brings you here?”
“I’d like to take a look around.”
“You think you’d understand anything? You didn’t even major in this.”
Octavia had excelled academically in the past, but she had avoided magi-engineering altogether. Moreover, her past remark—“At best, you’re just walking calculators”—had earned her considerable resentment from the researchers.
“Are you going to crush a budding sprout trying to start anew?”
“Do you think this work is easy? You’ll just skim through it superficially. There are also security concerns. Absolutely not.”
“Hmm.”
A strong sense of loyalty to the organization—impressive.
Peering through the gap in the door at the complex transmutation formulas and blueprints, Octavia nodded slightly.
Transmutation formulas are equations. Transmutation circles are algorithms that execute those equations. Mana is the energy variable.
Though the concepts differed, the underlying structure aligned with her own knowledge.
Beyond the nagging supervisor, she noticed the other researchers—all looking half-dead.
It seemed they were struggling with an unsolved problem.
Having quickly grasped the basics and memorized foundational formulas, Octavia turned away with a faintly sympathetic expression.
Unsolved problems were usually written out publicly for all researchers to tackle—a kind of collective assignment.
Whoever solves it gets rewarded.
In the common hall, she looked at the problem written on the board.
This world might lag behind her own, but it wasn’t primitive enough to struggle with basic mathematics.
A high-dimensional data problem.
In simple terms, it was like assembling hundreds of thousands of puzzle pieces at high speed.
She picked up a piece of chalk and began writing fluidly.
“Giving them technology too far ahead would cause problems… so I’ll just show them an appropriate method.”
She already knew—having lived through it—that rapid advancement beyond a civilization’s level of awareness could lead to catastrophe.
“Instead of viewing the whole, break it down into simpler components, then reverse-calculate the solution—a decomposition method.”
She neatly adapted the formula to fit this world’s conceptual framework.
She didn’t care for recognition or rewards—she simply wanted to help, reminded of her past by the pitiful sight of the researchers.
After Octavia left, the exhausted chief researcher stepped out and noticed the solution written on the board.
“Let’s see what nonsense some idiot scribbled this time.”
But as she read it, her eyes gradually widened—until her mouth fell open.
“W-Who came up with this?!”
What Octavia had written was a concept that, at this world’s level, wouldn’t be fully established for another thirty years.
