CHAPTER 04
I swear, it wasn’t intentional.
My body just didn’t obey—I was too hungry.
It was a mistake.
“Eeeeek!”
Chloe screamed in terror.
At the aristocratic girl’s shriek, all the knights drew their real swords.
“Are you alright, Miss!”
“…I look fine, Lord Nardo! But my dress is covered in filth!”
‘Wait…’
She said filth?
‘Well, if Chloe cooked herself, she must have seen the poor ingredients firsthand. The story describes her as smart—there’s no way she didn’t notice Count Hubert’s embezzlement.’
It was as if she’d been doused in sewage; Chloe flailed in rage.
The Count frowned at the blue soup smeared on the end of her sleeve.
The soup had long since gone cold.
“You filthy beggar!”
Although Chloe wasn’t hurt beyond her soiled dress, the maids pointed at me, yelling:
“How dare you dirty the lady’s dress!”
They were all adults several times my size.
I backed away, tripping over a stone and falling flat on the ground.
“Do you even know how much one of the lady’s dresses costs? A whopping 200 gold! Even if you worked until the day you die, you’d never touch that kind of money!”
As befitted a heroine with the Blessing of the World, the people around Chloe seemed to vent their anger on her behalf.
“Already impersonating a high noble!”
“Everyone… stop it.”
Chloe elegantly tried to calm them, yet her gaze—cool as ice as she walked toward me—was unforgiving.
“She’s only five. A mere child.”
“But Miss! Impersonating a high noble is a grave crime, comparable to insulting royalty. If you allow us, we can punish her immediately.”
“Stop! Let’s be lenient this once.”
Though it seemed like she was defending me…
Chloe despised me more fiercely than anyone.
‘Contempt for poverty.’
Her unchanging status window proved it.
“…Ah, Miss… will you forgive me? Me, an uneducated, lowly beggar?”
“You are truly magnanimous, Miss! Hey, orphan! You should know how lucky you are!”
‘I’m not impersonating a high noble—I really am Princess Ariana.’
No one believed me as I trembled.
The Count, who had embezzled funds without anyone noticing, approached with a seemingly generous expression.
“My daughter is so wise. Indeed, one must even save the time it takes to be angry at unintelligent creatures.”
The Count gently stroked Chloe’s hair.
“Father… they say that of three people you meet on the street, one can become your teacher. Even this beggar child has lessons to teach: the importance of truthfulness despite desperation, and deep gratitude for being born a noble.”
“You already know ancient proverbs? Investing in tutors was worth it.”
“Father… but I’m so upset my dress got ruined. I was going to wear it at the upcoming royal tea time… You’ll buy me a new one, right?”
“Of course, Chloe. I’ll get you a dress twice as expensive.”
I sat there, dazed, watching the father and daughter converse.
No one reached out a hand to help me.
They simply ignored me.
It felt almost like being invisible…
‘What is this familiar feeling of humiliation?’
I felt a tingling in my fingers, deprived of even minimal human dignity.
I remembered when I had felt something like this before.
‘When my half-brothers, the heirs of a conglomerate, orchestrated the bullying… everyone joined in.’
The memories of school violence I thought I had forgotten resurfaced, and my vision went white.
“Senpai… what did I ever do to deserve this?”
One day, I finally confronted my half-brothers.
Although we shared a father, they hated being called my brother, so I had to call them senpai.
“Jiyeon, are you really asking that?”
“You shouldn’t have been born at all. Your existence is a sin.”
“This is too much. Please stop tormenting me. I’ll beg you, just stop.”
“Why don’t you ignore us like when you were little? What, are you scared now that you’re in high school?”
“It’s all my fault, senpai… please forgive me.”
“Jiyeon, don’t get discouraged so easily. We’ll make sure you’re miserable for life.”
They smirked lazily, patting my head.
“Ah… as an illegitimate child of a conglomerate, don’t expect to inherit anything. We’ll make sure you shiver in poverty until the day you die.”
Was it trauma?
I couldn’t speak.
And maybe…
I envied them a little.
‘So this is what it’s like to be a heroine loved by everyone.’
Hubert, lifting pouting Chloe, promising to buy her a jeweled dress.
The maids in a frenzy to fetch a scroll for a cleaning spell.
Even the knights glaring at me.
Chloe was the perfect, adored romance-fantasy heroine.
‘Am I truly someone unwelcome, even while possessed?’
Was I destined to be the villainess?
Chloe and I breathed the same air, stood in the same space, yet the way people treated us was worlds apart.
We were living in completely different worlds.
Oh no, you didn’t eat the food provided. Picky children are bad. People who’ve gone a week without food cannot maintain their sanity. The “status ailment” penalty is applied to the reader.
Night fell, and I hadn’t eaten a thing.
My head felt like it would split.
No matter how I thought about it…
I really had been tricked into possessing a baby bird.
‘First I got scammed renting a place, and now I get tricked by a possession…’
It felt cruel.
After starving so long, my body could no longer endure.
I was cold, hungry, and probably had caught a cold.
With the status ailment penalty, I couldn’t even speak.
My whole body went limp as I huddled in a corner, shivering.
I wanted anything to eat.
I wished someone would save me.
Anyone…
“Did you hear? Duke Adrian recently started cracking down on the underworld.”
“Ah, yes. He just returned from the campaign. Without rest, immediately… That’s why criminals have been cautious lately. That’s why security has improved.”
‘Adrian?’
Adrian was my father.
Even with my consciousness fading from hunger, my ears perked up reflexively.
It sounded like my only hope.
“By the way, isn’t it almost the anniversary of the Duchess’s death?”
“Ah, Duchess Moltke. She supposedly committed suicide less than two months after her youngest daughter went missing, right?”
I flinched and slowly lifted my head.
The missing youngest daughter they spoke of was me; the woman who supposedly committed suicide was my biological mother.
“Yes… it was already four years ago.”
“Back then, Duke Adrian was truly terrifying…”
“I think… he may have spread rumors of watching the underworld just to scare criminals. Who knows if he’s truly gone mad as the anniversary approaches.”
“Reasonable speculation.”
I slowly recalled the original story.
After Moltke’s suicide, Adrian went mad…
‘Mom didn’t commit suicide. She was murdered. The culprit in the middle of Tyrant Solo was my aunt, Laollette. Her motive? Jealousy toward my mother…’
Originally, Laollette liked my father and tried to arrange a marriage into the Berkshire household.
But my father had an old lover—my mother.
Laollette was forced to marry Hamillax, the third son, instead of Adrian, and was greatly upset.
Although Laollette came from a wealthier family than my mother, her husband-to-be, Hamillax, ranked low in the succession and was foolish.
Feeling cheated out of my father, Laollette orchestrated my mother’s death.
‘Laollette was also the one who abandoned me in the slums.’
Thinking this, I slowly held my breath.
‘The slums and the underworld are usually connected, right? If I go to the underworld now, maybe I can meet my father…’
