Seems She’s a Proper Villainess
I asked Grandmother if she could leave the door open and allow just the two of us to talk.
She agreed under the condition that the door stay wide open, that we use a magic tool to block the sound from escaping outside, and that Georges along with Miss Floria’s maid and guard wait near the inner-side of the door inside the room.
Once the magic tool sealed off the outside—
“Thank goodness. If you weren’t from the same country, I really wouldn’t have known what to do.”
“How did you know?”
Glass pens, tea bags, glass beads—new items brought to Soleil by Raphael. Those made her suspect that there might be another reincarnator somewhere in the Aranfes Kingdom.
And from the middle of Raphael’s letters onward, she had started thinking that I might be one.
“What convinced me was curry and rice.”
“Curry rice?”
“That’s right. Curry rice is Japan’s national dish.”
Since she came here directly without going to Clondale, she added that if curry rice existed here, she wanted to try it.
“Why?”
“If I went to Clondale, I’d either be dragged back to the Empire or never allowed to leave the Clondale estate.”
And then I wouldn’t be able to meet you, she said.
“Don’t tell me… did you run away from home?”
“How rude. I didn’t run away. I clearly said I was going to the Clondale Ducal House before leaving.”
“As an escort for a duke’s daughter, only one maid and one guard is too few. Wasn’t that dangerous?”
“Those two are the only ones I can trust. I insisted on taking the train, so they had to accept it.”
“Still, the fact that you were allowed to do that…”
“… So now you understand my position.”
Floria remembered her previous life a year ago.
She fell down the mansion’s staircase and was unconscious in critical condition for about three days.
The one who pushed her down was a maid who worshipped her stepsister.
The stepsister is the child of the second wife, with pink hair and golden eyes.
But she isn’t an illegitimate child—she’s the second wife’s daughter from a previous marriage.
“Pink hair… don’t tell me.”
“That’s right. She’s the heroine of Kimi Koi, that stereotypical hit isekai romance novel that even got an anime adaptation in our previous world.”
The setting is almost identical, and Floria herself is the fiancée of the Soleil Empire’s Second Prince—the villainess.
“Why did the maid push you down the stairs?”
The maid apparently said she couldn’t tolerate how Floria was bullying her stepsister.
“I wasn’t bullying her. As a duke’s daughter, I simply pointed out that she needed to study etiquette more seriously…”
Which the maid interpreted as bullying.
The stepsister is from a count’s family. After her husband died before inheriting the count’s title, the wife returned to her parents’ home with the child. Then came the offer for her to become the duke’s second wife.
“Why couldn’t the stepsister stay at the count’s house?”
Since the father died before inheriting, his younger brother took over as the heir.
Even returning to her parents’ home, the wife was considered someone who had come back after marriage, so the stepsister only received the bare minimum of education and wasn’t fit to be a duke’s daughter.
And that was called bullying.
On top of that, the maid who pushed Floria down the stairs was let off with no punishment because the stepsister begged for leniency.
“That’s why the story is trying to force me into the villainess role.”
Floria has switched from “watakushi” to “watashi”.
“So the Second Prince will fall in love with the stepsister.”
“That’s right. So before I get my comeuppance, I had the brilliant idea of stepping off the stage entirely.”
“You’re the Second Prince’s fiancée?”
“Not yet. And I’ve never even talked to him. Lord Gilbert, the First Prince, is far more competent, and the two princes are half-brothers. There’s no advantage.”
“But in the novel, you’re his fiancée. As the villainess, aren’t you supposed to be in love with him?”
“Even in the novel it wasn’t love. It was duty. Purely political.”
“So you’re saying the engagement hasn’t been made official yet.”
“That’s right. Which is why I ran away. The stepsister can be the fiancée from the start—it’s better that way.”
“Then why not talk to Duke Clondale and just stay in this country?”
“You don’t get it. Who would believe me? ‘I remembered my past life. This is the world of a novel I read.’ Everyone would think I’d lost my mind.”
True.
I was terrified too when I told my family I had memories of a previous life.
The fact that they accepted me is nothing short of a miracle.
“I’ve been thinking desperately for a whole year.”
The best way to avoid becoming the villainess and suffering a downfall is to marry into another country.
And if she goes to the Aranfes Kingdom, where her uncle is a duke, she’ll have relatives and safety.
If I—mentioned often in her cousin’s letters—am a good choice as a potential fiancé…
And if I’m possibly a reincarnator from the same country…
While she agonized over what to do, she became convinced when she saw “curry and rice,” and made up her mind.
“That’s why I’d like to declare that you and I have fallen in love, that I will become the adopted daughter of Duke Clondale, and that you and I will become engaged.”
What do you think about this chapter?
