Prologue
Recently, Seria had been sleeping far more than usual.
The Seria of only a year ago had been a notorious villainess in high society.
Every night she attended balls and banquets, foregoing sleep to engage in debauchery.
With her high status amongst the nobility, there was no one to stop her from doing exactly what she wanted.
But that was all in the past.
It was well known that Seria had changed her ways.
It had happened gradually, and over time everyone was begrudgingly forced to accept her transformation.
How such a wild and eccentric woman had become so meek as a lamb over the course of a single year was a mystery.
Regardless, there was Seria, peacefully nodding off on the extravagant terrace.
“It is merely a symptom of catching a cold, my lady,” the priestess explained.
“It is said that the winter in this region has a way of inducing sleep.” The priestess had been dispatched from the High Church, journeying to this remote estate solely to attend to Seria’s illness.
The priestess gazed down from the terrace.
Down below in the garden stood a woman with jet-black hair.
“The arrival of the Saint from the heavens is truly a divine blessing,” the priestess continued.
“Of course, you too, Lady Seria, are a recipient of God’s favor, and no doubt this trifling cold will be shaken off in no time.
May you always be in good health, my lady.”
The Saint.
Seria followed the priestess’s gaze down to the garden.
There she saw a woman, the deep black of her hair contrasted against her alabaster skin.
Her name was Lina.
In the book Seria had read, the main female character was almost always referred to as the Saint.
Somehow, Seria was now in the world of that very novel.
In keeping with the plot of the story, the main female character had descended from the heavens only a few days ago.
“That man with her, is he not your betrothed, my lady?” the priestess asked, pointing at the man by Lina’s side.
The priestess was correct.
Next to Lina stood a striking blond man, Callis Hanneton.
Even from a distance, his features were eye-catching.
Lina smiled at him.
A wide, radiant smile, visible even from the terrace high above.
The elegant gown she wore left her shoulders exposed.
As a chilly breeze blew through the garden, Callis removed his coat and draped it around her.
Seeing this, Seria’s stomach twisted into knots.
What is that bastard thinking?
He was her betrothed, and their wedding was merely a week away.
I should go down there and rip his hair out.
But could I do that without getting myself killed?
“It seems the patient intends to spend the whole day out on the terrace,” came a voice from behind, interrupting her thoughts.
Seria immediately rose from her seat while the priestess bowed her head.
“Archduke Rouche Berk,” Seria acknowledged respectfully.
Berk’s unnatural crimson eyes, seemingly laced with blood, bore into the priestess.
His cold gaze openly proclaimed his intense irritation.
“Lady Seria, if you stay on the terrace all day and your cold worsens, that meddlesome fiancé of yours might summon the High Priest next,” rebuked the archduke.
“That is trouble I do not need in my castle.”
Rouch Berk was not at all concerned about Seria’s health.
He simply found it aggravating that a priestess, and possibly a High Priest, had to visit his territory.
“I apologize, Your Grace,” Seria replied with a nod.
“And please,” he said, turning sharply to the priestess, “escort the Saint to the High Church at your earliest convenience.”
“As I have mentioned, Your Grace, the Saint wishes to stay here a little longer for her recuperation,” the priestess reminded him, but the archduke was already walking away.
The priestess hurried after him.
Seria, however, was not particularly concerned.
He is the story’s male lead, after all.
Though he was cold and distant now, he would eventually gaze upon the heroine with soft, loving eyes.
Such is the fate of the main male character in this story.
So thought Seria.
Or rather, the one who had possessed Seria.
* * *
Perhaps I should start by saying that I used to be an ordinary graduate student.
I swear, that’s all I was.
Then, one day, just like that, I found myself reincarnated as a character from the novel I was reading at the time.
I will not delve into how I died as the memory is still too painful.
What matters right now is the character I have been reincarnated as—Seria Sterne.
Seria Sterne was the villainess of the novel.
She was a staple of high society with a beautiful face and ice in her veins.
Anybody who got on her nerves or offended her in any way was liable to have champagne splashed in their face—depending on their social status, of course.
Of course, such audacity was meant to disguise her deep-seated feelings of inferiority.
Although Seria was a lady of a prestigious house in the west—the Marquisate of Keliden—her mother was not the lady of that house, but rather an actress.
In this world, performing is a lowly job, one held by commoners.
However, Seria’s mother also happened to be beautiful.
And so Seria, like her birth mother, was a stunning beauty who had inherited her mother’s sparkling green tresses and icy blue pupils.
However, the Marquis of Keliden already had two sons.
Both were born to his legitimate wife who came from a noble background, meaning the sons boasted an impeccable lineage.
As a result, Seria always had difficulty getting along with her family and was a constant cause of turmoil.
She developed a keenness for all things luxurious and a talent for wastefulness.
As she grew up, her relationship with her family only seemed to get worse.
However, all of that changed when Seria turned fifteen.
It was revealed that Seria was a character blessed with divine powers.
What happened then?
The High Church bestowed Seria with the title of “Sterne,” after which she left the Marquis of Keliden’s estate, moved to the capital of the empire, and began indulging in a life of debauchery.
It was so frustrating when I first possessed her body, not only because I had to deal with the fact that I’d just died, but because I had been reincarnated as a total cliché—a clichéd villain in a clichéd novel.
This was a world in which Lina, the main female character, shows up by way of interdimensional travel and is lavishly showered with love by the main male character and his rivals.
And, of course, it faithfully follows through with the cliché happy ending.
But where there is light, there must also be shadow.
In this case, a villainess doomed to die a miserable death.
That villainess is me, Seria Sterne.
Which meant I was destined to have my throat slit by Callis’s blade.
But I wanted to live.
I had met an untimely end in my previous life, and I did not want this life to end prematurely as well.
Unlike Seria, I had no fetish for wickedness, so it was easy to renounce her past heinous behavior.
But her reputation—now my reputation—had been so tarnished by her own hands that it was going to require a great deal more time and effort to rejuvenate it.
In the midst of my struggles, I happened to fall in love with Callis Hanneton.
As the secondary male character in the novel, he was the strikingly handsome blond and the Marquis of House Hanneton.
And one month ago he proposed to me.
For some time, Callis had been secretly enduring the pain of an injured arm.
In the novel, it was the main female character, Lina, who healed him.
Naturally, Callis developed a fondness for the woman who’d nursed his injuries, a fondness that eventually evolved into love.
In the end, Callis was so devoted to her that he volunteered to personally deal with Seria who had long tormented Lina.
However, despite this blatant display of loyalty, Lina did not choose Callis.
In the end, he tragically took his own life.
Now that I was occupying Seria’s body, I was honestly afraid of Callis.
I shuddered at the vivid memory of that scene in the story where he slit Seria’s throat.
Moreover, Callis’s injured arm was due to an incident involving Seria, which fueled his hatred for her.
In an attempt to escape Seria’s fate, I sought out Callis and humbly begged him to let me heal his injury.
After all, I had read the original story, so I knew how Lina was going to help him.
And that’s how I managed to win the favor of a man who was destined to murder me in cold blood.
Still, I never expected him to confess his love to me.
At first I resisted, but eventually I also began to develop a fondness for Callis.
After all, I knew that the heroine was going to fall in love with the main male character, so wouldn’t it just be better for everyone if the secondary male character, instead of unduly suffering and being driven to suicide, found happiness with the reformed villainess instead?
It made sense to me.
I thought it would make for a perfect resolution, even better than the original ending.
The only problem was—
“Seria Sterne!” a voice broke through my thoughts.
I looked up at the man shaking me.
He was not my fiancé, Callis Hanneton.
A crumpled veil fell from his hand.
He was gritting his teeth.
My wedding dress was soaked in blood.
It was my own blood, and it had tinged his beautiful silver hair as well.
“Pull yourself together.
You cannot die.
You will not die, damn it!”
How exactly did things come to this?
Well…