Chapter 1: Quitting the Regret Novel Heroine
“Ahhhhh! Sweet potatoes!”
The sound of my frantic footsteps echoed loudly through the hallway. Running with my old dress fluttering behind me must have looked ridiculous, but I just couldn’t hold it in.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Leave her. She’s probably gone mad.”
Exactly! How could they expect me to tolerate such nonsense?
How dare they treat the lady they serve like this? Well, of course, they can—in this damned world.
Bang!
I roughly flung open the door and stepped into the backyard. Suddenly, the previously sunny weather turned gloomy.
Drip, drop.
Raindrops started falling on me.
“Why is it only raining on me? Why me?!”
I glared up at the sky as if I wanted to bite into it, and then clutched the back of my neck.
My name is Giselle Florette.
This terrible situation began about two weeks ago.
—
I was at my usual part-time job dealing with obnoxious customers. Out of frustration, I decided to open a bottle of liquor and drink it all in one go. When I woke up from my hangover, I was in this place, the Florette Mansion.
As soon as I blinked my eyes awake, tossing aside the moldy blanket in the closet they called my room, memories of the past flooded into my mind.
“Wait, I’m actually the female protagonist of a regret-themed romance fantasy novel, Will You Regret It If I Die??”
At that moment, only one thought crossed my mind:
“I’m screwed.”
How infuriating is Will You Regret It If I Die?, you ask?
As the female protagonist, my biological father, the great wizard Count Sehera, and my mother died mysteriously, leaving me to be adopted by the Florette family.
The only person who cared for me, Count Florette, left on a voyage, and I was left in the care of his sister, Lady Mariposa.
From then on, it was nothing but a series of awful trials.
Lady Mariposa constantly tormented me, and two trash male leads showed up to ruin my life.
One pretended to be my friend just to use me, and the other pretended to love me—both were garbage.
To make things worse, in high society, I was called the “Beloved of All” because I supposedly had those two men wrapped around my finger.
All these hardships dumped on one person—can this even be considered normal? But that’s the fate of a regret novel’s heroine. I even left a comment once, joining other readers in protesting the absurdity of the plot.
[Giselle is just so pitiful… The male leads are all insane, and even the maids speak rudely to her. She’s a noble, yet she gets oppressed without any real reason. Why does she have to die like this? ]
[That’s right!!! It’s all part of Giselle’s protagonist buff ^0^]
I was so convinced that the author had no grasp of reality that I left a reply.
[Protagonist buffs are supposed to be a good thing, but what Giselle is going through is just unfair slander, isn’t it???]
[Oh, hehe, don’t worry! If Giselle acts differently, the “protagonist buff” will disappear too~!]
[…? She already died, and the story is over. How can anything change now?]
[Ah, if you don’t like it, feel free to stop reading ^^; Who’s forcing you to read my novel with a knife to your throat?]
[The novel’s already finished! How do you expect me to drop it now?!]
Stupid author.
As I felt the cold rain soaking me, I gritted my teeth in frustration but then paused.
Wait… Wasn’t there something in that author’s comment that I shouldn’t ignore?
I blinked my eyes wide open.
“If Giselle—that is, if I act differently, the cursed protagonist buff, no, the unfairness, will disappear?”
With that thought, I turned around with a sharp glint in my eyes.
Sure enough, a group of maids were snickering at my miserable state from inside the mansion.
As I walked slowly toward them, a rock that hadn’t been there before suddenly appeared on the ground.
“Ahh! My knee!”
I tripped and fell to the ground, and the maids laughed at me, full of mockery.
“Falling like that takes real skill.”
“I’m so delicate, I trip all the time! I need a gentleman to help me up! Sob, sob.”
“Haha, is that how Giselle became the ‘Beloved of All’?”
With the rain drenching me, I clenched my fists.
Then I opened my mouth and spoke to the maids.
“Hey. Aren’t you guys the stupid ones? You’re not even whispering; you’re openly insulting me.”
“W-what did you just say?”
The maids, clearly shocked by my sudden harsh words, couldn’t muster a proper response.
“I don’t care anymore. I’m done.”
I’m quitting this regret novel heroine role!
“W-what’s wrong with you?”
“Why is everyone such a jerk to me? Screw all of you, I’m quitting!”
“Eek!”
I grabbed some dirt from the ground and threw it at them.
And then…
Drip, drop.
The rain started to ease up.
A ray of sunlight broke through the gray clouds above me.
At that moment, I realized that the suffocating pressure around me had slightly lifted.
The maids, too, looked confused. They weren’t spewing the same nonsense as before.
I finally let out a relieved sigh.
“So, if I move against the flow of the story, the protagonist buff—no, the unfairness—disappears?”
I just need to act as differently as possible from the pitiful and tragic “regret novel heroine” type. In that case, it would be best to cause chaos in the most outrageous way.
“I’ll legally make these bastards pay.”
Just as I smiled wickedly, thinking of how to punish everyone in this household and the regretful male leads who tormented me, I heard someone calling my name loudly.
“Giselle Florette!”
It was Lady Mariposa, the one who had constantly oppressed me in the Florette mansion. As I stared at her fiery red hair and green eyes, I recalled the letter I had written in my previous life.
—
[I think it was when I was very young.
I gave Lady Mariposa a letter, filled with affection.
But do you know where that letter, which I had worked so hard on that my small hands ached, ended up the next day?
In the trash.
When I nervously asked her what happened to the letter, trembling, she replied casually, ‘I threw it away.’
Since then, I’ve never gifted anyone anything with my whole heart again. I was too afraid it would be discarded.
Let me tell you something else.
I always wanted to be someone useful because Lady Mariposa constantly told me:
“Giselle, don’t be a burden. You were adopted into this family, so you must fulfill your role.”
“Yes, I’ll do my best. I heard my late father was a great mage…”
“And so what? You didn’t inherit even 1% of your father’s talent, did you?”
“…”
“Everyone laughs at you. But you do know how to do at least one thing, don’t you? Like cleaning, just like the maids.”
Her harsh gaze made it impossible for me to speak up.
It’s true, I might be dumb and foolish.
But I felt like I had discovered some hidden magical talent within me. It seemed like I had quite a bit of mana.]
—
“Oh, target number one for revenge, found.”
I smirked at her, and she immediately spat out her sharp words like a rapid-fire gun.
“Are you going to get that filthy body of yours up or not?”
“Huh?”
“Today is the day we announce your engagement to Viscount Milpianne, as I told you, isn’t it?”
‘Viscount Milpianne? Isn’t he like 30 years older than me?’ Right, today is the day, isn’t it?
‘After the announcement of my engagement to that man, my life quickly plummeted into a nightmare.’
I casually brushed my hair back, as if shaking off the moldy smell from my body, and smiled.
“Oh, sure. I’ll get ready right away. I’m really looking forward to
it.”
A tragic, regretful life as a punching bag in a romance fantasy novel?
It doesn’t matter. I’ll throw everything away, and if I have to, I’ll tear apart this thorny path laid before me.
