chapter 2
Is possession always like this?
I slowly looked around the quite room. Even though I had never seen this room before, everything felt strangely familiar, as if I had been living here until just moments ago.
I felt like I could find the mirror, the jewelry box, and the fountain pen with my eyes closed.
My mind was reeling. My unfocused gaze wandered aimlessly.
The dim light of dawn seeped through the window.
A pale ray of sunlight crawled across the bed and illuminated the hair resting against my chest. Unrealistically pink strands shimmered softly.
When I held the pink hair in front of my eyes, it was so delicate and beautiful that it reminded me of a pink rose. For a moment, I could almost imagine I smelled flowers.
My head was spinning.
Pink hair.
My hair is black.
Oh, right.
This is Ariel Valienor’s hair.
So I really have transmigrated into a novel.
And not just any character—I’ve become the eldest daughter of a villainous family destined for annihilation.
…Damn it.
Why the eldest daughter again?
Are you kidding me?
<I Saved a Cat and It became Obsessed with Me>.
The title alone made its intentions painfully obvious. It was a moderately popular novel that had all the standard ingredients: a decent villain, a satisfying dose of wrath and vengeance, and a little romance.
The plot itself couldn’t have been more ordinary.
Richard, the deposed Crown Prince of the Eldrian Empire, is abandoned while wounded and trapped in the form of a cat.
The heroine finds the injured cat collapsed against the wall of her home and nurses him back to health with unwavering care. Once he recovers, the cat transforms back into a human and falls in love with her.
Unfortunately, the heroine is already engaged.
To Jeremiah Valienor, Ariel’s younger brother.
Jeremiah is a man with a deeply twisted view of love, willing to do anything to possess the heroine. He kidnaps her and locks her away in the Valienor ducal estate.
“If you won’t be mine, then everyone dies. Your parents, your friends, your entire territory. If you’re willing to lose everything, do as you please. As you know, the Valienors have the power to destroy everything you love in an instant.”
“You psycho. Just kill me.”
“Sorry, but I can’t do that. Instead, I’ll kill Richard right in front of you.”
In the end, to protect her family, her people, and Richard, the heroine becomes the Duchess of Valienor.
Richard launches a rebellion to save her. Honestly, this part completely threw logic out the window, but every reader was rooting for him anyway.
For one simple reason.
Everyone wanted to see the insane psychopath get what was coming to him.
Richard ascends the throne with ease and wipes out the Valienor family. While justifying the purge, he exposes every one of the family’s crimes to the entire Empire.
The Valienors already had a terrible reputation.
If the Imperial Family was considered the light of the Empire, then the Valienor were its darkness.
It was practically common sense.
“Keep crying and the Valienors will come take you away.”
“I heard the shadowy group led by the Valienors is behind all the Empire’s incidents and disasters.”
“No one knows what they do behind closed doors. Everyone who did know is dead.”
When it was revealed that most of those rumors were actually true, the Valienor family was erased from history.
And then the novel ended with the classic:
“And they lived happily ever after.”
…
My life is such a mess.
Seriously, why is my life always like this?
Why can’t I ever be happy?
………
Why did I have to end up as the villain’s older sister of all people?!
If I’m the protagonist of this fantasy romance novel, then isn’t this basically a survival story?
How to Survive a Family Doomed to Extermination.
Something like that.
If I remembered correctly, Ariel was sixteen right now.
That meant there were still nine years left before the original story even began.
Thank goodness.
Once I became an adult, I could find some way to escape. Maybe a contract marriage would be the safest option? Or perhaps political asylum in another country?
Just as I was tearing my hair out trying to plan a future that seemed completely hopeless, I heard voices outside.
“Where’s Ariel?”
“She hadn’t regained consciousness as of ten minutes ago.”
“How is she?”
“Her breathing, pulse, and body temperature are all normal.”
“I’ll go in.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
The moment I heard that the Duke was coming in, I quickly adjusted my position and shut my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
A chill ran down my spine at the thought of Ariel’s father, Duke Meterio, and the overwhelming pressure he exuded.
I could feel his gaze fixed on me as he sat down in the chair beside the bed.
I didn’t dare breathe too loudly.
“At least she’s breathing.”
The voice was colder than a drawn blade.
My breath caught in my throat.
The actual meaning was probably “Thank goodness she’s breathing.”
But the way he said it sounded pretty much like:
“I will make sure she stops breathing.”
Then again, that was hardly surprising.
In the original novel, the Duke was a cold-blooded monster with neither compassion nor mercy.
Even his own children were no exception.
Meterio Valienor.
By the time the original story began, he was already dead. Despite never appearing directly, his influence loomed over the entire narrative.
“Your Grace, you must become a ruler as dignified as the late Lord Meterio.”
“Sigh… If Lord Meterio were still alive, he never would’ve allowed such insignificant pests to get ideas above their station. Lord Jeremiah is too soft.”
Among all the Valienors throughout history, the one most deserving of the name Valienor was said to be Meterio.
In other words—
He was the biggest psychopath of them all.
The father Ariel remembered wasn’t much different from how he was described in the novel.
A man who was painfully indifferent and ruthlessly cold.
He had never once looked at his children with affection.
The moment it hit me that I was alone in a room with the novel’s ultimate mastermind, every muscle in my body tensed.
At least it didn’t seem like the cruel villain intended to kill me right this second.
That was something.
But what if he suddenly changed his mind?
What if he decided to kill me for coming back to life?
What if he thought I should regret ever surviving?
My imagination immediately spiraled into darker possibilities.
With Ariel’s frail body, fighting back would be impossible.
If things went south, my best option would probably be to strike first and run.
While I sat there hyperaware of every tiny rustle and sound, something completely unbelievable reached my ears.
“Sob. Sob.”
…?
“Sniff… sob… hwaaaah…”
…What did I just hear?
My eyes flew open before I could stop myself.
sob?
Sob…sob?
There’s no way I heard that wrong, right?
“Thank… goodness. You’re alive… hwaaaah…”
…???
I genuinely stopped breathing and stared blankly at the man in front of me.
A beautiful man with silver hair that looked as though it had been spun from liquid mercury was sobbing uncontrollably, wiping away tears and snot with both hands.
“M-my dear… you protected Ariel, didn’t you? That’s what happened, right…? Hwaaaah… sniff.”
…
Excuse me.
You are Meterio Valienor, right?
Since when does the father who treats his family like they’re made of stones act like this?
I continued staring at the crying man with complete disbelief written across my face.
I was so dumbfounded I almost laughed.
Attention, people of the world:
The greatest mastermind villain in the entire setting is currently bawling his eyes out and wiping snot on the bedsheets.
Ha-ha…ha.
Seriously?
This is even more unbelievable than transmigrating into a novel.
“Sob… sniff..
. h-huh?”
The Duke, whose shoulders had been shaking from his full-blown crying fit, suddenly jerked his head up, as though he had finally noticed my stare.
His gray-blue eyes, dry and hard as stone, trembled.
The color drained from his pale face.
“…”
“…”
The Duke and I exchanged awkward glances, each wearing an equally stupid expression.
Apparently, he wanted to believe this was all a dream too.
What am I supposed to do here?
Should I pretend to be asleep again?
…
Yeah. That’s probably my best option.
Moving at a speed that would put a sloth to shame, I slowly wriggled my way back under the blankets.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, the Duke swiftly fixed his expression and straightened his clothes before declaring with utmost dignity,
“Nothing happened.”
“…”
“Nothing at all…”
A single drop of snot hanging from the Duke’s perfectly sculpted nose completely stole my attention.
Acting on pure instinct, I grabbed a towel and handed it to him.
Damn these eldest-daughter instincts.
“You should wipe your nose with this.”
“Nothing happened. Sniff.”
…Right.
Of course.
Please stop snorting your snot back in and just blow your nose.
The Duke obediently blew his nose.
Before he could repeat “Nothing happened” for a third time, I hurriedly struck first.
“Wow, I must be hallucinating now. There’s no way His Grace the Duke would come all the way here just to visit something as insignificant as me. I should probably go back to sleep.”
Perfect.
An Oscar-worthy performance.
I slipped beneath the blankets, gently closed my eyes, and even added some soft, sleepy breathing for good measure.
Not long afterward, the Duke—apparently understanding the unspoken intentions of a considerate eldest daughter—vanished from the room in an instant.
Click.
Thunk.
…
What the hell was that?
What exactly did I just witness?
The image of Meterio—the iron-blooded mastermind villain—bawling and wiping his snot flickered before my eyes like a mirage.
Honestly, it seemed more reasonable to assume I’d just experienced a hallucination-auditory-hallucination combo.
I mean, this was character derailment on a whole new level.
Aren’t mastermind villains supposed to be the type who don’t shed tears, snot, or even sweat?
Are You seriously telling me this idiot of a man whose eyes are supposedly cold enough to cut steel with a glance is actually a crybaby?
I clutched my head and rolled around on the bed.
At some point dawn had fully broken, and warm morning sunlight blanketed the bed like a soft quilt.
An overwhelming wave of drowsiness hit me almost instantly.
Hoping that I’d wake up back in my original body, I slowly closed my eyes.
