Chapter 1

The back that touched the glass door was now cold.

Nevertheless, I didn't want to take my body off of it.

I thought that if I moved a little, my body would touch the man in front of me.

“I missed you.”

The man, Eden, told me.

To think that there would be a day when the novel's male protagonist would say that to me, the villainess.

If only he said that to my sister,…

Tears were about to form in his bloodshot eyes.

It didn't make any sense how he said that he missed me.

I also tried to erase your memory, just like my father did to you.

With a firm belief that it was all for your own good.

“Eden, how, how come you could remember me…”

But his memories of me remained.

It was the worst.

I couldn't believe he hadn't forgotten the violence he received from my father.

That meant that he also remembered the last thing I said to him.

– What's the benefit of having you by my side?

I thought he would have forgotten about it anyway, so I decided to say something harsh to separate his attachment with me.

– I don't need you.

I believed that the magic would have erased all the time he spent in my house from his memories.

It was no other than me who gave up on Eden, who begged me with tears.

“How can I forget you?”

The current situation was too much for me even to calm down my trembling body.

Eden, who was staring at me, moved his hand and kissed my hair.

His delicate touch was rather suffocating me.

“Though it was you who wanted to forget me…”

Soon after, a sorrowful voice was heard from his mouth.

Every word of him was eating me inside.

“Elysia.”

When I looked at Eden, who was looking down at me.

Eden, who made eye contact with me, smiled brightly.

There was no mistake; his smile was…

“Am I still not good enough to be by your side?”

He looked like an angel who came to wash away my sins.

But it was just an illusion created by Eden's beautiful appearance.

He wasn't like an angel.

“It's a pity that your father died before I could prove my worth.”

That was the easiest way.

Hearing the words that came one after another from his mouth, I was sure of one thing.

Eden was just an ordinary human being who was smothered with a wrong affection. He wasn't an angel who came to forgive my sins.

“You don't have to prove anything. You….”

I, who was too overwhelmed with the past, looked pathetic as I stuttered at the end of my speech. Eden's smile deepened.

“You, you don't have to….”

“Do you really think so?”

Pretending not hearing what I said, Eden grabbed my chin and whispered. His touch was so meticulous that it twisted my gut.

“No, I have to prove my value to you so that I can be with you.”

He forced his selfish reasoning on me.

“You abandoned me because you said that you didn't need me….”

I wanted to cover my ears.

Just like Eden did in front of me in the past.

“If you say that I don't have to do it anymore now…”

He trapped me with his body and suppressed me with words.

“It would be hard for me. Elysia.”

At this moment, I regretted throwing myself easily into his cover.

Elysia's previous life was impoverished.

Initially raised in an orphanage, she had no family.

Then a couple adopted her, and soon after, her adoptive mother died.

Her stepfather, whom she was left alone with, was bothered by her existence as time went by.

It was natural for the annoyance at the beginning to lead to abuse.

Cursing and beatings were on a daily basis, and in severe cases, he tried to strip her dress off.

No one helped her.

There was a sympathetic gaze, but that was it.

She tried running away and begged him not to hit her. But her situation didn't get any better.

As time went by, her options narrowed.

There were only two options left.

Either her stepfather died, or she did.

Or both.

Hence, she chose both.

“Haa… Ha…”

The little hands holding the veranda railing were dirty with her stepfather's blood.

Broken bottles were scattered next to the unconscious man. If she hadn't hit his head with that bottle, she wouldn't have been successfully killed the man.

She had wanted to run away like this.

Though it was so unfair that she had to die after killing a dirty human being like that.

She didn't want to die yet.

But there was no other way but to die. It would be difficult to escape the crime of killing that bast*rd.

What she did wasn't morally wrong, but it was clearly a crime in terms of the standards and laws of this world.

She had no power, so once she was caught, she would be judged by the law.

She didn't want to repent.

The hands holding the railing gradually lost strength.

Soon after, her skinny body crossed the veranda and fell to the ground.

“Ah…”

Elysia, who opened her eyes with dull pain in her head, doubted her eyes.

The reflection of herself in the mirror was the appearance of an unfamiliar girl, no, a child.

Even though the girl in front of her was still a little kid, her well-maintained black hair flowed down to her waist.

When Elysia blinked, she repeatedly covered and opened her red eyes.

'A foreigner?'

Unlike the black hair that she was familiar with, the eye colours that weren't common in where she lived raised Elysia's doubt.

She raised her right arm and waved it. Then, in the mirror, the girl also raised her arm and waved at her.

Elysia, who gasped, raised her left hand and shook it. As expected, the girl in the mirror shook hers at the same time as Elysia.

'Is this me?'

It wasn't shocking enough to suddenly became another person, but the little girl was a foreigner.

When she realized that she was in a realistic situation, Elysia felt dizzier than when she smelled her stepfather's blood.

“Woo!”

A toddler's babbling sound came from behind Elysia, who was so engrossed with her thoughts. Elysia turned her neck toward the source of the sound.

There was a child younger than the one she saw in the mirror.

The child, who seemed to just begin learning how to walk, approached her.

It was her first time seeing this child. The child's eyes also had the same reddish colour as the girl in the mirror.

'Oh my gosh.'

Elysia wanted to close her eyes and turn a blind eye to reality.

But she couldn't because the child's steps approaching her sounded unsteady.

Elysia opened her eyes wide and watched if the child would fall.

Fortunately, the child didn't fall and arrived safely at where Elysia was.

Elysia couldn't grasp the situation, but it seemed that the child just had her first step.

“Humph!”

The child landed in Elysia's arms as if she had put all her energy into coming all the way here.

Elysia unknowingly hugged the child who came into her arms.

Unfortunately, she, too, wasn't old enough to even barely support her body, so she soon fell on her behind as she couldn't support the weight of a child who was a little smaller than her.

'Who is she and who am I….'

Where was she now…

Elysia, who collapsed under the weight of the little child, could only hold her questions inside.

Even in the unexpected second life, Elysia couldn't relax and laugh.

Not long after she first woke up, she realized where she was and whose body she entered.

It was all thanks to Isabella, her mother, who affectionately called her Elysia.

Isabella was a friendly mother and cared for her two daughters, Elysia and Ariel.

Elysia and Ariel.

As soon as she heard the names, Elysia noticed that this was a novel she had read.

. Thanks to the names of her younger sister, the female protagonist, who was also in the title, Elysia was able to recognize her current situation without much difficulty.

'It's ridiculous enough to possess another person's body, let alone to possess the elder sister of the female protagonist and the villainess, on top of that…'

Elysia Valtine, the body she possessed, was the first daughter of the Duke of Valtine. While Ariel, the main character, is the second daughter of the Duke of Valtine.

It was well up to that point. Of course, possessing another person's body itself didn't make any sense, so to be the first daughter of a Duke wasn't that much of a big deal.

But there was another problem.

The fact that 'Elysia', whose body she possessed, was an evil woman who made the main characters suffer in their childhood.

She didn't grow up to be a bully, but she harrassed Ariel, the female protagonist, and Eden, the male protagonist, as she grew up.

Of course, she still bothered them even after she grew up.

Elysia, a wicked woman who harassed growing children, was a manifestation of a scar that the main characters couldn't heal from.

Elysia herself knew best how much childhood abuse had a significant influence on someone more than anyone else.

As soon as she recognized that she was Elysia, she predicted her future.

'If I bully Ariel and Eden as the original storyline, I will die.'

Later, Eden would destroy the House of Duke of Valtine to save Ariel and get his revenge.

And the villainess Elysia Valtine would also die from his revenge.

'Dying once is one thing, but if I have to die again….'

Elysia, who recalled the tragic story of the original 'Elysia', was thinking while watching Ariel practicing walking every day.

'Let's just be nice to Ariel.'

That was the only way to live.

It had been nine years since she took a baby step and took care of Ariel.

Elysia constantly vowed for nine years.

Even if the Duke of Valtine brought Eden in, Elysia wouldn't interfere with the romance between him and Ariel like in the original novel.

'If anyone should die, it would only be right to kill the Duke of Valtine who kidnapped Eden.'

Elysia didn't want to die because of her parent twice.

Whether it was due to suicide or due to other people's revenge.

When Elysia was lost in thought, she felt a familiar presence next to her.

It was Butler Edic.

“Miss Elysia. Miss Ariel had another accident…”

“I'll talk to her, so leave her be.”

Elysia, who recalled her resolution, answered with her forehead crumpled.

Ariel, Elysia's lovely sister and the female protagonist, often caused problems. It was, of course, her duty to deal with it.

As Elysia got up from her seat and beckoned the butler to step back, Edic bowed while maintaining an appropriate distance.

After sending out the butler, Elysia also stepped out from her room and headed to Ariel's room, where she caused a problem.

“Ariel.”

She knocked on the large door with her small hand and called Ariel. There was only silence behind the door, even though Ariel did something problematic in her room.

Elysia kicked her tongue and opened the door.

“Ariel!”

“S-Sister…”

Ariel, who hid herself with a blanket, stuttered. Then she wriggled out of the blanket. As soon as Elysia, who was staring at her, made eye contact with Ariel, the little girl immediately lowered her gaze.

In Elysia's eyes, even Ariel's shrinking appearance was lovely.

Ariel, who had just turned nine, had chubby cheeks.

Ariel who had black hair and red eyes like Elysia.

In terms of appearance alone, she looked more alike with the Duke of Valtine than Elysia.

“What kind of accident did you have today?”

Even if she resembled the Duke of Valtine, Ariel looked the cutest and most lovely in the world in Elysia's eyes.

Elysia asked in a stern voice, reminding herself to stay calm.

“I-It was…”

Elysia thought nine years old was the age when she could consider Ariel's mischief as a cute small accident. But, of course, it was entirely because she had her own bias.

However, there was an etiquette to follow here that 'if you had a status of a noble family, you should be mindful of your behaviour even if you were just a child'.

Even though Elysia thought it didn't fit well with her values, she still scolded Ariel regularly.

That idea was way better than leaving the problem she caused unattended and reaching the Duke of Valtine's ears.