The moment the memories of her previous life come back, the gears at the back of her mind click and start to turn, smoothly and all at once.
‘This world is that otome game. The one I used to play to kill time. A heroine falls in love with a prince, and the prince’s fiancée—the villainess—gets in her way. The usual trope.’
‘What was its title again? —Gosh, it was too long to remember. Why do games have three-line titles in the first place? Not that it matters whether it was any good. What I do remember is what everyone who played it was talking about: the game was riddled with plot holes, and not one single character ever noticed or pointed any of them out.’
‘Well, fiction is like that to some degree, right? Write everything realistically and it’d just be boring. It’s entertainment, and you’re meant to ignore the small stuff. Even so, that game had an absurd number of moments where I had to stop and wonder what on earth I was looking at. Is this a gag? Is it supposed to be a gag? That’s the mindset I played it in.’
‘First off, like I said, the main love interest already has a fiancée. “Oh, that happens all the time,” you’re thinking—but the heroine actively, purposely trying to steal a man who’s already promised to someone else? Goodness, that put me off. It irks me even now. And what about a prince who’s already betrothed, whose engagement is tied to the kingdom’s interests, and who still turns his head the second the heroine walks by? No matter how you slice it, that guy’s no good. A man meant to bear the crown someday, falling for the oldest trick in the book? I’d be worried sick for that country’s future.’
‘Then there’s the heroine herself. There’s something wrong with her too. She’s a nobleman’s illegitimate daughter, and her story starts when she and her mother move into his mansion after his lawful wife dies.’
“So this is Father’s mansion… Starting today, I’m a noble young lady too…!”
‘She says it with her eyes all sparkling as she walks up to the grand estate—and that’s the scene that cuts to the title screen.’
‘Again, standard stuff… except for one mistake I can’t overlook. “Father’s mansion,” she says. But little girl, that mansion doesn’t belong to your father. It belongs to his late wife. He married into the family; he has no claim to the house whatsoever. Every right to that estate passed from the mother to the lawful wife’s daughter, and the father owns nothing to his name. And, by the way, that daughter is the story’s ‘Villainess.’’
‘A son-in-law without a single drop of the family’s blood goes and has a child on the side. That child does not become a daughter of the house. And if they somehow smuggle her in anyway, that’s a crime. It’s called Supposition of Status. The moment she calls herself that family’s daughter, she may as well be announcing “I’m a criminal” to the world.’
‘And yet, for whatever reason, nobody calls it out, and the story just… goes on. The heroine is treated as that house’s young lady all the way to the end. The true ending even has her marrying the prince and becoming queen.’
“Prince, are you seriously making a criminal your queen? Seriously?”
‘That perfectly reasonable argument went around a lot among players. There’s plenty more, but there’d be no end to it, so let’s stop there. My head’s already hurting.’
‘Incidentally, I—’Chloe’—am not the villainess. I’m not the heroine either. So does that make me a background character with nothing to do with the story? No. That’s not it either. I’m a crucial character, one holding up the very foundation of the plot. After all, I’m the villainess’s dead ‘mother.’’
Chloe von Calendula, Duchess.
‘In the game she only appears in the villainess’s flashback. A few seconds on screen, that’s all. So why do I remember a character with that little screen time in such detail, right down to her name? Because her design was far too good. Fan works were everywhere, and she got so popular that the official site put out merchandise for her, just like the main cast. And the me of my previous life? Bought all of it, of course, and drew fan art of her, like, religiously. That’s how much I loved this character. More than the main cast, honestly.’
‘The impossibly beautiful Duchess Chloe passes away while her daughter, the future villainess, is still a little girl. Illness, supposedly. But it’s later revealed that the real cause was her husband, slowly poisoning her over the years.’
“Hold on, hold on. So the heroine’s the daughter of a criminal, and she’s currently committing Supposition of Status herself, isn’t she?”
‘Or so most of the playerbase thought, and I fully agree.’
‘There was even a scene where the heroine mumbles, all misty-eyed, “Father loved Mother and me so much that he’d even commit a sin for us…” and everyone went, “What is she on about?” See? That girl has some real problems with her sanity. Basically, the heroine was a lunatic.’
[And this heroine’s father… is Leonardo.] (C)
He kept a mistress on the side, had a child with her, and on top of all that poisoned his wife to death. That’s the brute who fathers the heroine. And that man, of all people, is Chloe’s fiancé, Leonardo Linden.
[That scumbag Leonardo is my fiancé? The man who poisons his wife, drags his mistress and her daughter into the mansion before the mourning period’s even over, and then abuses the daughter Chloe left behind—that father, lower than a dog? No… that can’t be… this must be a joke……] (C)
‘Him. Smiling so gently, so sincerely—and behind that smile, the venomous fangs he’ll poison me with.’
[No…………] (C)
Chloe braces her hands on the desk and clutches her head, heedless of her hair coming loose. From behind her long lashes, a single tear traces its way down her cheek. If this world follows the game’s plot as its fate, then in a few years’ time Chloe will die at the hands of the man who becomes her husband. Leonardo.
[No… no. Being murdered, my daughter being mistreated—I won’t have it. What did we ever do to deserve this…? This is… this is just too cruel!] (C)
In that beautifully appointed room, only her despair rings out, terribly real, and her sorrow seems to seep from the floor to the ceiling. Sacrificing her life, and the future of a daughter she hasn’t even met, for the sake of one scenario in a game?
‘Like hell I would accept that!’
Chloe presses a trembling hand to her chest, swallowed by a shock so great she forgets to breathe. In her mind, Leonardo’s gentle smile and warm voice drift back to her like phantoms.
[Chloe, you truly are beautiful.] (L)
[I can hardly wait to be husband and wife with you.] (L)
[…When you smile for me, it makes me happy.] (L)
‘His kind words, his kind smile—was all of it an act? Was everything just… a lie?’
In the game, he mercilessly removes the one person standing in his way—Chloe—so that he can be with the heroine’s mother and bring the heroine in as a noble’s daughter. And then the three of them live together as a happy little family… while treating his own flesh-and-blood daughter with Chloe as a nuisance.
[That kind, gentle, warm Leonardo-sama… The man I know would never do something like that. I can’t……!] (C)
Every time she recalls his words, his gestures, that calm smile of his, her chest aches as if it’s tearing open. She trusted him. Political engagement or not, she trusted him and was ready to become his wife……
Tears roll down her cheeks. And the bond she’d built with him inside her heart crumbles, loudly, to pieces.
Simplyrical 
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