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“Did you see the way that commoner talked to Lord Victor?”
“I did! I can’t believe she flirted with a man so far above her station.”
“I can believe it. Commoners have no tact, no pride, and no morals.”
“I take offense to that. None of my maids would dream of being remotely as slutty as her .”
“You’re right, my apologies. That whore truly is in a class on her own.”
“Do you think she fucked for pocket money when she lived in that orphanage?”
“I can see it! I can absolutely see that!”
Elsa gripped the broom as tightly as she could, but she couldn’t stop her hands from shivering as if it were the dead of winter. She should’ve been used to this by now. She’d been bullied ever since she arrived at this academy. But still…all she did was ask that boy for directions…
“Oh! Greetings, Miss Smollett! Did you hear what that commoner did?”
Elsa’s blood ran cold when she heard the name. Yvonne Smollett, the most powerful and influential person at this academy, had made her dislike of Elsa clear from day one. Indeed, it was that dislike that had caused Elsa to become bullied in the first place. For some reason, Miss Smollett had never joined in the bullying directly, but if that was about to change now, then –
“Indeed I did,” Miss Smollett said. “May I offer a piece of advice to you all?”
“Of course, Your Ladyship.”
“You won’t be able to eat the precious food our parents are paying for if you fill your stomachs with ugly jealousy instead.”
Huh? Elsa looked up, and couldn’t stifle a small gasp. She’d thought Miss Smollett’s glares were frightening before, but those were nothing compared to the pure contempt she was directing at Elsa’s bullies now.
“M-Miss Smollett,” one of the bullies stuttered out, “I-I thought you hated the commoner –”
“Oh? Is House Dedmond in the business of baseless assumptions now?”
“I…I’m sorry, I…”
“Am I the one you should be apologizing to?”
The three bullies mumbled apologies to Elsa, then fled the room, leaving her alone with her…savior? If Miss Smollett didn’t hate her, why had she repeatedly ignored Elsa until now? But there would be time for confusion later.
“Um.” Elsa’s hands were shaking again, but for a different reason. “Thank you, Miss Smollet. I…” Her sentence, whatever it would’ve been, trailed off as she glanced up and saw Miss Smollett’s face. She was gazing at something behind Elsa, biting her lip, her eyes wide. Elsa looked behind herself, but nothing was there. What was going on?
“...Miss Smollett?” When Elsa looked back, the noble girl’s expression had gotten even worse. She was trembling, and there were tears in her eyes now. Elsa started to panic. “What’s wrong? Miss Smollet!” She felt an urge to grab Miss Smollett’s shoulders, and quickly squashed it. Their positions were so different, but…but then what should she do?
Elsa was about to shout for a teacher when Miss Smollet finally looked at her, and her gaze was so intense it caused Elsa to shrink back. The tears were gone; her face was heartless stone as her eyes bore into Elsa’s own. Elsa hung her head, fighting back tears. Had she done something wrong again?
Finally she heard footsteps as Miss Smollett left the room, and when the door slammed close, Elsa sighed in relief and collapsed to the floor.
“I’m sorry you had to find out in this way, Miss Smollett, but I’m afraid your father’s sudden illness appears very serious. I know this must be extremely difficult for you, especially after your mother’s unfortunate passing. We will, of course, support you in any way we can.”
Yvonne nodded at the principal, her mind blank. She had harbored a faint, flickering hope that the system was lying to her, but now even that was snuffed out.
“If you wish, we can grant you a leave of absence for as long as you desire.”
The perks of being a Smollett; Yvonne doubted any other student would receive such grace. However, leaving the school premises would break the rules of the villainess system, so she could not accept.
“Thank you, Principal Alessi. But I promised my father I would succeed at this school. I wish to stay here, at least until he…” Yvonne drew in a breath. Her despair was not faked. “Until we know he’s about to…”
“I understand. Whatever you desire, Miss Smollet. We’re here for you.”
Yvonne repeated her thanks, then left the principal’s office. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve…
And it appeared.
[Notification: New item added. Name: Miraculous Recovery. Cost: 50 points. Effect: Restore one individual of the user’s choice to full health.]
Yvonne roared and punched the notification window with all her might. Of course her fist passed right through it and collided with the wall. Her hand erupted in pain, but Yvonne didn’t care. She was in enough pain already.
At least the principal had enough civility not to say anything about the noise.
Elsa sighed when she saw the insults carved into her desk. Good thing I had to repair things so often at the orphanage , she thought as she used wood magic to make her desk smooth and clear again.
That wasn’t the only thing she had to be thankful for. The past couple days, nobody had bullied her out in the open; it was all sneaky and underhanded methods these days. Disheartening though they may be, it was still better than getting insulted to her face, or worse.
She knew she had Miss Smollett to thank for this. Rumors of her intervention on Elsa’s behalf, and the subsequent news of her father falling deathly ill, had permeated the student body so thoroughly that even the friendless Elsa had heard about them. Nobody wanted to upset the Smollett heir, especially when she seemed destined to become an orphan soon.
Elsa wondered if she ought to say something to Miss Smollett, to thank her or offer her condolences. Part of her even had the wild, presumptuous thought to offer her empathy as an orphan herself. But there was never an opportunity to talk to her. Whenever Elsa saw Miss Smollett in the hallway or classroom, she was always surrounded by a gaggle of fellow noble girls; Elsa was far too intimidated to approach them.
And besides…Miss Smollett may have saved her, but she couldn’t forget her nonsensical behavior afterward either. It was probably best to just keep to herself.
“Miss Dorothy?”
“Yes?” Elsa responded without thinking, then let out a gasp. Miss Smollett herself was standing in front of her desk, her friends a short distance away.
“Are you free after school today?” Miss Smollett’s face betrayed no emotion.
“Um. Yes.”
“Good. Please meet me in classroom 307 after school ends. I have something to say to you in private.” With that, she turned and left the room, her friends following behind her.
It was with some trepidation that Elsa went to that classroom at the designated time. Miss Smollett’s friends were standing around the door, and one of them pointed a threatening finger at Elsa.
“Listen, commoner,” she said. “I don’t know or care what Miss Yvonne wants with you. But you’d better do anything she says, if you know what’s good for you.” Elsa chose not to respond and silently entered the door opened for her. It quickly closed with a bang, leaving her and Miss Smollet alone.
“Miss Dorothy,” the noble girl called from the far wall, beckoning her closer. Elsa gulped. Miss Smollett was standing right next to the window, the setting sun casting an angelic glow about her. Elsa’s heartbeat sped up as she approached.
“Um,” Elsa said. Her mouth was dry. “I heard about your father, Miss Smollett. I’m so sorry –” All of a sudden Yvonne’s expression became fierce, and Elsa flinched back. “I’m sorry!” she said frantically. “I didn’t –”
Miss Smollett sighed. “It’s alright, Miss Dorothy, calm down. I appreciate your sympathy.” Neither of them said anything for a while, then Miss Smollett spoke again. “I called you here because… I wanted to give you a warning.”
Sweat dripped down Elsa’s neck. If the person responsible for her relative peace was angry at her now… ”I-I apologize profusely, Miss Smollett. Whatever I may have done, I swear I’ll –”
“Stop,” Miss Smollett said, holding up her hand, and Elsa shut up. “It’s not your fault, Miss Dorothy. You haven’t done anything wrong.” The other girl made a small, crooked smile. “Nonetheless, I’ll have no choice but to do awful things to you in the future. Much more awful than anything you’ve experienced thus far. So I just wanted to warn you to prepare yourself. Though I suppose this may be just to relieve a small portion of my own guilt.”
Elsa was utterly baffled. It almost sounded like a joke. But Miss Smollett’s blank expression contained not a hint of irony. So all she could do was nod slowly.
Miss Smollett pushed herself off the wall and approached Elsa, causing her heart to beat quickly again. The noble girl paused, then put a hand on Elsa’s shoulder; Elsa willed herself to stay calm. “You may suffer much in the near future, Miss Dorothy, but I promise that a happy ending awaits you. Stay strong, don’t lose your kind heart. And…” She looked down and away. “I don’t have the right to say this, but I’m sorry for everything I’m about to do.”
She left, leaving Elsa standing there. Elsa didn’t know how much time passed before she recovered and returned to her dorm room.
That night, she couldn’t sleep. She just kept thinking of her two strange encounters with Miss Smollett, over and over again. Perhaps the noble girl was just insane, but if she wasn’t, then…
Then what? Elsa couldn’t answer that question. So her thoughts kept running in circles.
As Yvonne gently rubbed her galewyrm Sphynx’s head, she attempted to quell her tempest of emotions and clear her mind. This morning, a letter had arrived from her estate, with more information on her father’s condition. They couldn’t give a precise prediction, but his death was apparently a matter of weeks, not months.
Yvonne desperately wanted to see her father again. In the original plot, the villainess’s father had grown distant from her after her mother’s death; it had taken time, sweat, and tears, but she had managed to rebuild their relationship before she’d left for school. But breaking the system’s rules and defending Elsa instead of bullying her was what had caused his illness in the first place. If she broke the rules again by leaving the school grounds, she would have no hope of saving him.
There was another consideration: the new item. Ever since that day, she had yet to receive another task. She had a feeling that this delay was no coincidence. And if the system was waiting for something, her receiving proof of her father’s imminent demise would seem to make sense. All the easier to threaten her with.
As if it could read her mind, the red notification box appeared in front of her once more. Yvonne forced herself to read it.
[Option 1: Cover the heroine in landwyrm manure. (+10)]
[Option 2: Shove the heroine’s head into a toilet, and repeat ten times. (+1)]
[Time limit: 30 minutes.]
Just like last time, there were only two options, neither of which were acceptable to Yvonne. Last time she rebelled against the system by not only disobeying it, but proactively aiding the heroine. She could not afford to do so a second time.
No, there was one difference now. There might have technically been two options, but really there was only one. If she only earned one point at a time, she likely wouldn’t make it to 50 before her father died.
Yvonne grit her teeth and clenched her fists. But not for long. She was on a timer.
Classes hadn't started yet, so the heroine should still be in her dorm room. It wasn't hard to guess which room was hers, either, since there was only one door covered in disgusting insults.
Not that I'm in a position to criticize , Yvonne thought glumly. She glanced at the timer: 20 minutes left.
There would be more than enough time for self-flagellation later. Yvonne banged on the door with her first. "Dorothy!" she yelled. "Open up. Now!"
After a few more tries, the door finally opened. The heroine's hair was messy and unkempt, and her nightgown was slipping off her shoulder. "Miss Smollett?" she said dazedly, rubbing her eyes.
Yvonne grabbed the heroine's hand. "Come with me," she ordered, and started dragging her to the landwyrm stable.
"Wait! I-I just woke up. Let me –" But Yvonne ignored the heroine's pleas. She just pulled her along in silence, refusing to answer any of her questions. One of the rules was that she had to act like a villainess while a task was in progress.
And besides…it would probably be better for the heroine if she hated Yvonne anyway.
Five minutes remained when they finally reached the landwyrm stables. The heroine, who had been silent for the last few minutes, spoke again: “Are we leaving the school?” There was a hopeful melody in her voice that weighed down Yvonne’s heart. She clenched her eyes shut, gripped the heroine’s hand tighter, and took her behind the stable, to the manure pile.
Three minutes left.
Yvonne had been around landwyrms for most of her life, and the stench still made her queasy. The heroine had probably never seen one before; she’d been covering her nose with her sleeve before the manure even came into sight.
I’m sorry , she thought, but didn’t dare to say. If the system docked her for not acting like a proper villainess, all this would be pointless. She stalked to the pile, gripped the heroine’s arm, and faster than guilt, threw her into it back-first.
Two minutes left.
One minute, 59 seconds left.
Fuck!
“Miss Yvonne –” the heroine said while dragging herself out of the pile. In a panic, Yvonne pushed her back in with her foot.
Why isn’t it complete!? She read over the task instructions again: “Cover the heroine in landwyrm manure.”
…Oh. Cover.
“Invocation of wind!” Yvonne screamed, and blew clumps of shit onto the heroine until she was buried completely.
[Task complete.]
Yvonne sighed in relief. Then she panicked, thrust her hands into the manure pile, grasped around wildly, found some fabric, and pulled with all her might.
She’d trained her body well; she got the heroine out in one go. The other girl’s dung-smeared face stared at her for one long second.
Then she threw up on her.
I suppose this is karma . “Come on,” she told the heroine when she’d finished. “Let’s go wash up.” Arm around her shoulder, she guided her to the landwyrms’ washbasin, pausing periodically for the heroine to vomit again. They used water magic to clean themselves.
“...I’ll give you one of my nightgowns,” Yvonne said. The heroine’s was beyond ruined.
Elsa Dorothy just nodded, saying nothing at all.
After what Elsa called (to herself) the poop incident, her time at school became…strange.
Miss Smollett didn’t do anything as bad as the poop incident to her again, but she did start bullying her at regular intervals. Tripping her in the hallway and making her fall flat on her face (then escorting her to the medical office), barraging her with vicious insults for five straight minutes (then giving her an apology letter the next day), sabotaging her magical engineering project (then freely admitting to it and willingly receiving punishment)...
That was the truly strange thing about Miss Smollett – she always seemed to be trying to make amends, so to speak, for her bullying. Even that time she dumped ink all over Elsa’s textbooks, Elsa got a brand new set delivered to her room the next day “anonymously.”
Well, there was one other thing. Elsa often saw Miss Smollett staring at empty space.
Regardless, Miss Smollett’s bullying campaign had other unexpected results. First, it was destroying the noble girl’s image. From what Elsa overheard, even the students who hated Elsa for being a commoner thought Miss Smollett’s direct, public, and uncompromising targeting of her was going too far – and above all, an unforgivable breach of decorum. Additionally, Elsa’s friends told her that Miss Smollett was developing a reputation for coldness and arrogance; some of her followers had even begun leaving her. Because of all this, the number of other people bullying Elsa was on a steady decline, out of genuine sympathy for her, a desire not to be associated with Miss Smollett, or both.
On that note, Elsa was actually starting to make friends, kind of. Not everyone here hated commoners on principle, and when a boy Elsa suspected had a crush on her talked with her without suffering repercussions from Miss Smollett, more boys and girls (largely low-ranking nobles) soon followed. Elsa wasn’t particularly close to any of them, but it at least made her feel less lonely. She was starting to believe she really could graduate, become a royal mage, and give Sister Dahlia and the other orphans everything they deserved and more.
All she needed was to put up with Miss Smollett’s bullying.
Yvonne gripped the letter in her hands until it tore. Her father’s condition had become worse yet again. He had days left now.
The letter also contained an extended passage detailing how much her father wanted to see her, one last time. Yvonne knew everyone in her household must think of her as the worst daughter ever. But that was okay. She knew nobody else could possibly understand.
She glanced at the status window that was following her everywhere now. [Villainess Points: 39.] After the first time, the “big value” villainess tasks had only gotten more extreme. Perhaps it was foolish arrogance, but Yvonne had been hoping she could get by with just the 1-point tasks until she made it to 50 and could get the cure-all medicine. But part of her knew it was never going to be that easy.
The telltale ping of a new task notification reverberated inside her head. She faced it with resigned defeat, knowing that whatever the 10-point task was, she had no choice but to do it.
Yvonne read. And her heart dropped into her feet.
Elsa was drinking tea with her friends after school when Analise whispered, “Everyone, don’t look now, but Miss Smollett is heading towards us.”
A hush fell over the group, and the others cast guilty looks in Elsa’s direction. They were her friends, but none of them were willing to stand up to the Smollett family openly for her sake, and Elsa knew they felt bad about that.
Unbidden, a memory flashed through Elsa’s mind, of the time before she was under Dahlia’s care, before the boy with the golden hair saved her, back when she was what she now understood to be a “trafficked child.” At that time, too, the other children had stood around and watched whenever their captor singled out one of them. Elsa supposed that was just how most people were. She didn’t blame them.
“Dorothy,” Miss Smollett said harshly as she approached their group. She was by herself, no followers in sight. Her expression was unreadable. “I have business with you. Alone.”
Elsa nodded. She had yet to be bullied by her today, so she had expected something to happen. As she stood up, though, Bernard – whom Elsa was now certain had a crush on her – balled his hands into fists and shouted, “Why don’t you just leave Elsa alone? What did she ever do to you?”
Miss Smollett’s expression morphed into something practically demonic, but before she could say anything, Elsa quickly spoke up: “It’s okay, Bernard, don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
For some reason, Bernard looked like a hurt puppy. “But Elsa –”
“Seriously. Miss Smollett has never done anything that bad. Just wait for me here, okay?” As she said that, though, Elsa noticed Miss Smollett flinch out of the corner of her eye.
They only ever interacted while Miss Smollett was bullying her, but Elsa felt like she still had a fair idea of what kind of person the Duke’s daughter was. Her pulse quickened, and a chill started seeping through her body.
But she kept a smile on her face nonetheless as she left her friends and followed Miss Smollett back to the school building. Neither of them spoke as Miss Smollett led them through some hallways until, finally, she stopped at what appeared to be a janitorial closet. She opened the door, but when she looked back at Elsa, her lips were wavering and tears glistened in her eyes.
Elsa was scared herself, but there was no point making this harder than it had to be, so she steeled her will and entered the closet. Miss Smollett slowly followed her and closed the door, ensconcing them in pitch darkness until she muttered a command to activate the fire stone inside a candle.
The flickering light was barely bright enough to let Elsa make out Miss Smollett’s expression amid the tight, cramped closet. Hesitation had left the noble girl’s face, leaving only cold iron in its wake.
“Dorothy,” Miss Smollett said, “how much do you know about cursed weapons?”
“...Only what we learned in class,” Elsa replied. Even though it was only the two of them there – or maybe because of that? – she felt compelled to whisper. “They’re illegal, and very dangerous.”
Miss Smollett’s expression didn’t change. “Do you know why they’re so dangerous?”
Elsa shook her head.
The noble girl took something out of her belt and held it up in front of the candle. It was an ordinary-looking knife, except for the thin black mist emanating from the blade.
“Because no magic can cure a wound caused by a cursed weapon. The scars last forever.”
The two of them looked at each other for a moment that lasted a lifetime.
Before Elsa could react, Miss Smollett lunged, grabbed her by the collar, and shoved her into the cabinet behind her. Elsa groaned in pain as cleaning supplies clattered onto the floor around her.
The last thing she saw before white hot pain claimed all her senses was Miss Smollett’s face, tears running in rivers down her cheeks.
Yvonne stared out the window of her room as the sun slowly set, the night sky still much brighter than her thoughts.
The heroine hadn’t told anyone what caused the bright-red festering cut that now ran all the way down the left side of her face, from her forehead to her chin, only barely missing her eye, but everyone knew. Of course they did; the heroine’s friends had all seen the two of them go off together. Perhaps Yvonne had even subconsciously done it that way precisely to ensure she would receive proper punishment for her sin; to be honest, all her memories of the previous day after she’d gotten the villainess task notification were quite hazy, so she couldn’t be sure.
However, despite the overwhelming evidence against her, the principal still used the heroine’s refusal to point fingers as an excuse to avoid giving her real consequences. She wasn’t even getting expelled, technically; she would merely be transferring schools in order to be closer to her household. After all, as nobody said but everyone knew, she would be the head of House Smollett very soon.
Yvonne’s thoughts wandered to all the isekai stories she had read back in her previous world. As a genre, isekai was fundamentally about wish fulfillment; whether it be a boy who gets a pile of magical cheat abilities and a harem of hot girls in love with him for no reason, or a girl who becomes a rich aristocrat and gets an even richer and more powerful man to obsessively love her because she’s “interesting,” isekai stories proffered the fantasy of another world where you could objectively be the most important and influential person in existence. The true realities of life as a medieval European aristocrat – being shackled by social norms, never knowing who was a true friend and who only wanted to be close to you for your status, the entire social and political apparatus favoring you no matter what you did – rarely even got a passing mention. They ruined the fantasy.
Ping!
Took you long enough , Yvonne thought bitterly. At least she only needed one more point before she could finally cure her father, leave this accursed place, and never have to bully anyone ever again. She read the notification window.
Then read it again.
Her brain was swimming in molasses. There was no way this was real, right? Even the villainess system wouldn’t be this cruel. Was she still sleeping? Had her guilt and despair finally driven her insane? She splashed her face with water, slapped her cheeks, and read it a third time.
It hadn’t changed.
[Option 1: Push the heroine Elsa off the top of the school building. (+1)]
[Option 2: Push the heroine Elsa off the top of the school building. (+1)]
No one will ever love you. Your desires shall turn to ash in your mouth, for you are just as worthless as this world. So destroy it. Destroy everything!
With a jolt, Elsa came to, standing on the lip of the school roof. One second more and she would’ve stepped right off. Terror clamped her heart. What was going on? She tried to step down, the wind howling around her almost sweeping her off her feet, but her body was a statue; she couldn’t even blink.
The voice in her head whispered again: Jump now. It is the only way to free yourself from your pain.
Her pain…
Elsa was very familiar with pain. Her time at the orphanage under Sister Dahlia’s care had contained many challenges, but in retrospect, it may end up having been her one, brief respite from pain. The wound on her face still hurt at least as much as her slaver’s whip once did. The school healer told her that the pain would go away one day, even though the scar would last forever, but nobody could say how long that would take.
But maybe it didn’t matter. By the time it did finally heal, surely a new person with more power than heart would come along to hurt her again anyway. That, Elsa was learning, was how this world truly worked.
She still couldn’t move, but she heard footsteps behind her. Something about their sound, their rhythm, made her realize it was Miss Smollett.
Was this her doing? Was she finally taking her bullying to its natural conclusion?
Perhaps Elsa really was a dumb self-sacrificing martyr like her new friends kept telling her, but she couldn’t hate Miss Smollett for it. She only hated herself, for not thinking to ask Miss Smollett to take care of the orphanage in her place. That was her only regret.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a hand reach out, grasp the back of her shirt –
And pull her down off the edge.
After her shock wore off, Elsa realized she was laying on top of Miss Smollett. Standing up in a hurry, noting distantly that she could move again, Elsa cried out, “Miss Smollett! Are you –”
“ Shut up!!! ”
The pure, heart-wrenching agony in Miss Smollett’s scream caused Elsa to stumble, and she fell onto her butt. She stared wide-eyed as the noble young lady curled up into a ball, tears leaking from her eyes in torrents.
“I’m sorry,” Miss Smollett finally said after uncountable minutes, her voice hoarse and raw. “You’ve done nothing wrong…you’ve seriously done nothing wrong, Dorothy, but right now, I kind of wish you were dead.”
Elsa said nothing. Even her scar had been reduced to a dull, throbbing ache.
Eventually, Miss Smollett sat up. She turned to face Elsa, her eyes red as blood. “Listen, Dorothy,” she said, and Elsa had to strain her eyes to hear the noble girl’s thin voice, “this may not mean anything coming from me, but…your life until now, the awful things that happened to you, the terrible things I’ve done, none of it will last forever. When you turn sixteen, you’ll meet your Destined Soulmate again, and he will give you all the happiness you deserve. So…don’t lose hope.” Her gaze collapsed to the floor. “Don’t end up like me.”
“Miss Smollett, I –”
“Shut up,” Miss Smollett said again, but it wasn’t a scream this time, just a resigned, empty plea. Elsa closed her mouth anyway.
Miss Smollett stood up, slowly and agonizingly, and shambled to the exit. Elsa watched her leave, her emotions running so chaotically rampant she could barely even think.
After that night, Yvonne’s life turned in a predictable direction.
Her father died, of course. Then, per the “Criminal Charges” ending, forged evidence ‘proving’ he had been collaborating with demons turned up and was used to strip away the Smollett family’s title and most of its assets. She asked her head maid Linda to use the remainder of their assets to ensure all the former servants landed on their feet before she began her house arrest.
However, after a year, partly thanks to Prince Michel’s surprising assistance, Yvonne herself was declared innocent of all charges. She had still lost her noble title and almost all her money (Linda had kept some to give to her despite her orders), but she was a free citizen once again. For as much as that was worth.
Still, though she had lost everything, Yvonne decided not to give up. Her parents wouldn’t have wanted that. For their sakes, if nothing else, she resolved to find whatever scraps of happiness she could in this rotten world. The first step was finishing her education, so she moved to the remote Emerald Harbor and enrolled in the school there. All she wanted was to obtain a calm, peaceful, uneventful life.
Which was why, when she saw the new transfer student Elsa Dorothy at the podium one sunny morning, Yvonne had to excuse herself so she could go to the bathroom and scream until she puked. And when Dorothy approached her after classes and asked to talk in private, she seriously considered punching the girl in the face.
But she couldn’t. Not after seeing the jagged, horrid scar that she herself had made. So she just followed her to an empty classroom.
“What are you doing here?” Yvonne muttered. “Shouldn’t you be with Michel?”
“Oh?” The heroine leaned against a desk, smirking. “How do you know I know Prince Michel?”
…Crap. The heroine’s sudden appearance had flustered her, and she accidentally revealed information she wasn’t supposed to know. As her rusty thought processes creaked back into gear, Yvonne found something resembling an excuse. “He told me, of course,” she said, attempting to summon up her old villainess arrogance. “He said he’s been in love with you ever since you met as children. That’s why I bullied you, of course, but I suppose it didn’t work. So run back to your Destined Soulmate and go celebrate your victory, you homewrecker.”
Please , Yvonne pleaded in her head. I don’t want to bully you anymore. I don’t want to think about you anymore. Please just leave me alone.
The heroine didn’t respond at first. Her gaze wandered around the classroom, as Yvonne’s heart beat faster with each passing moment. Then, the heroine said, “Miss Smollett, you are a terrible liar.”
Yvonne’s mouth gaped open like a fish. The heroine kept speaking, her eyes trained on the far corner of the room. “However you know, though, you are right. Prince Michel saved me from an awful situation a long time ago, and I’ve been dreaming of meeting him again ever since. I mean, if I have a Destined Soulmate, it’s gotta be him, right? And yet, I chose to leave him and come all the way out here…” Her eyes locked onto Yvonne’s. Her smile was gone. “In order to ask you a single question.”
Silence stretched on. Yvonne gulped, multiple times.
Finally, the heroine said: “Miss Smollett, you were being forced to bully me, right?”
Yvonne’s eyes went wide. “How did you – um, I mean, what are you talking –”
“Don’t bother.” The heroine waved her hand. “I don’t know who was forcing you, or why. But it was blatantly obvious you hated every second of bullying me. And you didn’t exactly hide how you kept looking into empty space, as if you were reading invisible words. I’ve never heard of that type of magic, but they must have been sending you orders somehow, right? And…”
The heroine’s speech had been confident, almost haughty. But now, her eyes drooped, she looked down, and she almost whispered, “They threatened your father’s life. That’s why he got sick right before you started bullying me. And that night on the roof…” She looked up, her eyes shining with tears. “You were ordered to kill me, right? But you saved me instead. So they killed your father instead, to punish you.”
In the otome gacha game Wings of the Heart , the protagonist was more or less an empty cipher. She didn’t even have a settled name, “Elsa Dorothy” was just the default. Like most gacha game protagonists, she was deliberately designed to be an empty shell to facilitate the audience self-inserting into her. Even the one real trait the writers gave her, that she was a prodigy at magic, didn’t stop her from constantly getting into trouble so that she could be rescued by some male lead or other and give the player a nice romantic CG.
Of course, Yvonne had never been under any illusions that this world she had isekai’d into was actually a video game and everyone else was just an NPC. She knew they were just as real as she was, including the heroine. But she had still believed…or, perhaps, she’d wanted to believe…that even as a “real person,” the heroine was still just a boring, generic nice girl.
However, in reality, the heroine – no, Elsa Dorothy – was intelligent, perceptive, insightful, and…
“You said you came here to ask me a question,” Yvonne said, unconsciously hugging herself. “What is it?”
“...Why did you choose me?”
Yvonne’s eyes snapped up, but Elsa was hanging her head, her expression hidden from view. Elsa said, “You barely know me. But you still saved my life, even though you knew that meant your own father would die. Why?”
Yvonne didn’t know what to say. It was an impossible question to answer, yet at the same time it was extraordinarily simple. “...My father loved me more than anything,” she finally managed to force out. “He never would’ve wanted me to become a murderer. And…”
She trailed off, but Elsa remained silent, unmoving. Yvonne sighed, and continued: “To be frank, when I stepped onto the roof, even up to the point I grabbed you, I hadn’t decided what I was going to do. I think I was close to killing you. But…at the critical moment, I couldn’t.” She finally had to avert her eyes. “I couldn’t kill an innocent girl, even to save my father’s life.”
Water dripped onto the floor below her. Yvonne realized it was from her eyes. She rubbed them furiously. “There, you have your answer. Now, please leave so – ack!”
While she wasn’t looking, Elsa had run over and thrown her arms around her. Yvonne felt a tidal wave of emotions threatening to break through the wall of stoicism she had been constructing for the past year. “What are you doing!?” she shouted. “Get off me!”
“Yvonne.” Elsa looked up, the long scar on her face, the proof of Yvonne’s sin, shining red. “I forgive you.”
Yvonne froze. Her arms hung limply at her sides.
Elsa’s arms tightened around her. “I forgive you,” she repeated. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You did the best you could.”
Yvonne stood dumbly for an interminable length of time. Then she buried her head into Elsa’s shoulder and sobbed out two lifetimes’ worth of regrets.
As the former Duke’s daughter broke down in Elsa’s arms, her heart came to a resolution before her brain could catch up.
Elsa decided: she would stay with this poor, stupid, selfless, noble girl who had sacrificed everything to save Elsa’s life.
She would save her in turn. No matter what it took.
With a start, the witch woke up. She looked around wildly, terror in her heart, then sighed in relief when she didn’t see either of them. She wasn’t sure if she had been asleep and dreaming or just in deep reminiscence, but either way, if that had caused her to miss the timing and screw up her plan, she would never forgive herself.
She sighed again, her heartbeat slowly returning to normal as she leaned against the wall of the clock tower. It had been a very long time since she last recalled those memories. But maybe it made sense. Her magical reserves were almost used up, which meant there would be no more trial and error, no more timeline hunting; this was her last chance. So perhaps it was only appropriate for her to remember how this all began, right when it was all about to end, one way or the other.
The witch traced the line on her face where the scar used to be. It had taken a lot of time and effort to find a way to dispel the curse and heal it. In retrospect, if she had left it be, she might have had enough magic left to do one more timeline reset.
She didn’t regret it, though. While she had never minded the scar herself, Evie – her Evie – had always hated it.
The front door of the school opened, and the two of them walked out into the rain. The witch smiled broadly at Evie, but against her will, her eyes were drawn to the other one. Her “past” self. Her other self.
The version of her who hadn’t gone through the pain and struggles that she had. The version of her who would reap all the rewards of Evie’s love. To be frank, the witch hated her.
“But that’s okay, isn’t it?” the witch whispered, smiling sadly. “You would understand. Out of everyone on earth, I’m sure you alone would understand.”
She saw Evie flinch, then stare off into the distance, her eyes wide. The witch couldn’t help but chuckle. No matter the timeline, Evie was always an awful liar.
The witch took out her wand, pointed it, then hesitated. The knowledge that this was her last chance squeezed her throat tight and made her hands shake.
Then she remembered Evie sobbing into her arms. Her wand pointed straight ahead, and she muttered the incantation she had used so many times before.
In the past, whenever she’d added a zero-point option, the witch had done so surreptitiously so that Evie wouldn’t notice. This time, though, she deliberately did it while Evie was watching. If her plan had any chance of succeeding, she needed Evie to understand that her enemy was not all-powerful, that it could be resisted. Otherwise, Evie would never trust her – would never trust this version of her.
She grinned as confusion and relief washed over Evie’s face, then watched with a tumultuous mix of emotions as the two of them played and laughed together in the rain.
Not for too long, though. The next step of her plan was approaching quickly. After one last longing look, the witch turned around and set off for her next destination.
Her goal was the same as it had always been: she would save Evie. And because it was the only way to save her, she would save everyone else too. No matter what.
End