Chapter 2

I casually dismissed the maid who had been waiting on me and slowly sorted out the situation. First off, the world I had entered was the setting of a novel called [Harmiel], a quintessential romance fantasy. The protagonist of this novel, true to the book’s title, was Lady Harmiel—one of the precious, pampered daughters of a ducal household, just like me.

Lady Harmiel was basically timid and easily swayed by others. Because she kept getting pushed around here and there, she failed to properly understand or lock down the three male leads who loved her. As a result, she ended up being killed by Lady Armienne and regressed. After regressing, she overcame her weak personality and began approaching the male leads proactively, ultimately triumphing over Lady Armienne and achieving a happy ending. It was that kind of typical romance fantasy.

Naturally, the male leads were utterly cliché: one was the sword genius, Carusien de Farba; another was the magic genius, Ahel de Velia; and finally, as everyone would expect, the man destined to become the king of this kingdom, the charming male lead, Fren von Tarten.

At first, they were drawn to the frail Harmiel, but her suddenly proactive and lively demeanor drew an incomparable level of attention compared to before, eventually causing them to fall for her. That was the sort of story it was…

The problem wasn’t that.

It was the fact that I was Armienne—the one who killed that frail female protagonist, and who ultimately met a miserable death not just for that murder, but for the wicked deeds she committed on a daily basis.

As a young lady of a ducal house, Armienne didn’t just like Prince Fren; she was practically obsessed with him. She naturally assumed that whoever became a member of the royal family would either be herself, a child of the ducal house, or Harmiel. Then, she happened to see Prince Fren holding Harmiel’s hand, which led her to harbor a grudge and decide to torment Harmiel from then on.

Recalling that, a chill ran down my spine.

‘Why would you go that far just because someone held their hand once? It’s not even like Harmiel asked him to hold it; that playboy Fren was the one who grabbed her hand.’

Ugh, women’s love is impossible to understand.

I shook my head vigorously. There was another point I needed to address here. The current timeline was right at the beginning of the story. The question, then, was whether this was after Harmiel had regressed, or before.

That distinction was massive. If this was after her regression, then as far as Harmiel was concerned, I was probably the goddamned worst bitch on earth.

And if so, that created a huge problem. Given the progression of the romance fantasy novel [Harmiel], most of the content I had read was narrated entirely from Harmiel’s perspective, meaning I had hardly seen any details about what kind of malicious acts I had actually committed.

I had no memory of them.

But Harmiel remembered everything.

That was the problem. I hadn’t done anything wrong, yet Harmiel viewed me as her sworn enemy, the likes of which heaven and earth had never seen.

What if she said just one word to Carusien, who was future-fabled as the Sword Emperor—“That woman tried to kill me”?

My head and body would perform a magic trick where they separated before I even noticed.

And it would still be a problem even if she hadn’t regressed yet.

The novel I read was the story after she regressed. I didn’t know a single thing about how things played out before the regression. Normally, when you enter a book like this, you’re supposed to use that knowledge to steer the situation in your favor, but I had to struggle in the body of a villainess without even that advantage.

Above all, the real issue was that I didn’t even remember the plot all that well. Should I call it an occupational hazard of someone who frequently reads fantasy novels?

Even when I used to read in extreme detail, at some point I had fallen into the habit of fooling myself into thinking I was speed-reading, and that careless habit had become deeply ingrained in my body.

“Sigh, whatever.”

In the end, I gave up on thinking. I wasn’t some female protagonist with a burning passion for life, nor was I a woman who wanted to hook some male leads and live a lovey-dovey life, so why did I need to try so hard?

If I just lived quietly even now, I’d probably live in luxury as a young lady of a ducal house anyway.

At that moment, I erased the names of the story’s protagonists—Carusien, Ahel, Fren, and Harmiel—from my mind, along with the plot of the story itself.

Then, I changed my perspective.

‘Actually, this is an opportunity.’

It was a bit of a flaw that I was in a woman’s body, but for someone like me who had always dreamed of fantasy novels, being in this world meant I could learn magic and swordsmanship no matter the circumstances.

Yeah, and since the regressed Harmiel might try to kill me anyway, shouldn’t I at least have enough strength to protect my own body?

You never knew. My hidden talent, which I never discovered in reality, might actually be the sword or magic.

I chuckled to myself at that thought. I suddenly felt excited.

“Hee-yikes!”

I called out to the maid waiting outside, and at my summons, the door swung open without a sound. The face that always woke me up in the morning came into view.

I looked at her, intending to state my business, but immediately asked a different question instead.

“S-sorry, what was your name again?”

At my words, the maid let out a sigh. For some reason, she looked quite used to this kind of situation.

“It’s Yul, Lady Armienne. Did you forget again?”

“…Yeah.”

I flushed with shame. Come to think of it, the villainess Armienne was an idiot with such terrible memory that there was no one in the kingdom who didn’t know about it. Well, I suppose that explained why she could go blind with jealousy and commit such absurd acts.

However, I decided to take this as an opportunity as well. In a world where all I knew was names, playing the fool actually made learning things much easier.

“Is that all you needed, my lady?”

“No.”

The maid, Yul.

She was the only person Armienne trusted, and the only maid she could comfortably confide in. The other maids and servants trembled at a single word from Armienne and wouldn’t even dare approach her, but Yul, who had raised Armienne since she was little, was different.

“Ah…”

I suddenly went to state my purpose, then clamped my mouth shut. I could feel Yul gazing at me with a strange look in her eyes.

I broke out in cold sweat and wrung my brain. What did Armienne call the duke, anyway?

Your Excellency the Duke? Father? Dad?

……….

I was in big trouble. Completely unable to remember what she used to call him, I decided to just use the term my own family usually used.

“I want to go see Dad.”

“I see. His Excellency the Duke should be in his office right now.”

Jackpot. At Yul’s unhesitating reply, I quietly cheered in my mind. Guess calling him Dad was the right move. Thrilled over such a small thing, I smiled brightly and said to Yul.

“Then guide me to Dad’s office, Yul.”

“Sigh, alright.”

Yul shot me a look that seemed to say, ‘You can’t even find your own way to the office? Oh, my pitiful young lady,’ and though I felt embarrassed once more, I didn’t lower my head this time.

Because I knew there would be many more instances like this ahead, I flat-out brazened it out. Do you know what you learn most in the military? It’s shameless lying and putting on a thick face. If you lie with total confidence, it becomes the truth, and if you say something shamelessly with a thick face, the other person won’t suspect a thing.

The duke’s office wasn’t unexpectedly far.

I had only walked for about five minutes following Yul before we were already in front of the office. Well, thinking about it, if it takes a five-minute walk just to get there inside your own house, that was a pretty long distance.

Unconvinced of the financial power of a ducal household in a kingdom with only two such families, I pondered this and that as I knocked on the door.

Putting on a thick face made my worries vanish on their own.

Knock, knock.

About two seconds after I knocked, a charming, middle-aged man’s baritone voice echoed from inside.

“Who is it?”

Oh ho, smiling slightly at a voice that even sounded appealing to a man, I cleared my throat and spoke.

“It’s me, Armienne.”

At the sound that followed simultaneously, my face heavily crumpled.

“Sigh…”

An exaggerated, audible deep sigh. Still, I felt hard done by. Armienne was the idiot here; I wasn’t the idiot, was I?

Besides, why wasn’t he telling me to come in?

I knocked on the door once more.

Knock, knock!

“Ugh…”

“Excuse me?”

Knock, knock, knock!!

“Hoo…”

Just as I was about to kick the door open, figuring he wouldn’t tell me to come in until the very end, a voice came from inside.

“…Come in.”

Hearing a tone that sounded like it came after a tremendous amount of deliberation, I swallowed my anger inwardly. Anyway, he was a duke, and right now, he was Armienne’s dad and my dad.

I carefully opened the door and stepped inside. In the center of the room, a dashing middle-aged man who looked like he was holding up the pillars of the kingdom with paperwork was furiously working away, not even bothering to look in my direction.

‘Well, with that much workload…’

It was obvious he would have gotten angry or chased anyone else away, regardless of whether it was me or someone else. No, he probably just sighed without saying anything harsh precisely because I was his daughter.

Scratch, scratch-

Amidst the solitary, echoing sound of a high-end fountain pen, the duke stopped signing and suddenly asked.

“So, what kind of trouble is it today?”

His tone was completely saturated with the sentiment of wondering what kind of accident this girl was going to cause today. Grown unnecessarily nervous, I forgot what I was going to say and called out to him.

“Dad.”

“…Right, am I dad? Huh…? D…? Dad…? Cough. W-w-wait, Dad?! You called me Dad?!”

“……….”

What the hell. This was completely different from the reaction I had imagined. Was I the only one getting the illusion of flowers blooming from the back of the tired man who, just moments ago, had been rubbing his forehead between his index finger and thumb?

“D-d-d-daaaaaaaad!!!!!”

I clutched my head hard. It was certain that Armienne had never once called His Excellency the Duke “Dad.” Even so, could that kind of reaction possibly come from a normal person?

Watching him instantly awaken from a dignified duke into an utter fool for his daughter, I let out a deep sigh.

“Sigh…”

I looked back at Yul, who was standing behind me like a wooden post.

“……?”

Seeing the maid smiling as if she had no idea what I was looking at, I shook my head. I couldn’t help but think that, contrary to my expectations, the villainess Armienne might not have grown up in a normal household after all.