chapter 1
Tullia was beautiful.
And she had a filthy personality. Absolutely filthy.
In other words, she was a villainess.
The kind of cliché villainess doomed to drown in blood no matter which path she took.
If there was anything even slightly “less ordinary” about Tullia Frazier, it was the fact that she wasn’t a villainess from a novel, but from a game.
That alone had made her a little different… but I never expected there to be one more thing added to the list just now.
Why the hell did I have to wake up as this legendary piece of trash?
My original name was Han Ina.
If I had to summarize Han Ina’s life in one sentence, it would be this:
A ruined life.
Things had never gone especially smoothly for me, but my life truly fell apart after my mom and stepfather died one after another.
I never imagined my legally-related-but-not-blood-related older brothers would make such a ridiculous proposal.
A blind date? I was twenty-two at the time.
It hadn’t even been six months since the funeral.
The nonsense they spouted about him being “the only son of an important business partner” went in one ear and out the other.
So what if his family was rich?
He was seventeen years older than me and already divorced twice.
The moment he completely wrecked the family business he inherited, my brothers suddenly started trying to force me into this marriage. It disgusted me.
When I told them that if the match was so great, they should marry him themselves, I got slapped.
When I said my older sister was closer in age and should go on the date instead, I got kicked out of the house.
Fortunately, I managed to find a decent one-room apartment right away.
And so, while juggling part-time jobs, school, and job hunting alone, one day…
I played that game like I always did.
Or, for short: .
The game had exploded in popularity the moment it launched and, even after several years, still sat firmly at the top of the app store rankings.
A half-blood young lady enters a grand duke’s household as a prospective bride. Raise your stats and win over the family and the male leads! Power and love will all be mine!
Didn’t people say classics never died?
This game—a chaotic mix of raising-sim and romance—had built an incredibly loyal fanbase thanks to its gorgeous illustrations, endless foreshadowing, and massive amount of content.
I’d been playing it on and off for years myself.
“If only I had money, I’d buy all the endings and watch them right away.”
Like most games, let you easily unlock different endings if you spent money.
But for someone like me, who barely had enough to pay rent every month, in-game purchases were pure luxury. So instead, I chose to spend time grinding through the game manually.
That was probably why I’d been playing it for so long, though I never really got bored of it.
There were literally hundreds of illustrations prepared for the game, and even seeing the side characters was entertaining enough.
Lately, though, I’d become obsessed with one particular villainess with pink hair.
At first, when she appeared, I only thought she was beautiful and flashy like every other character in .
But the more I played, the more I realized she was completely hopeless.
She was obsessed with class superiority and constantly tormented the protagonist, who was born illegitimate. And the methods she used were vicious beyond belief.
Whenever the grand duke grandfather adored and trusted the heroine like a real granddaughter, or whenever the male leads fell in love with her, this villainess would always show up to bully or try to kill the protagonist.
“How many death endings does this girl even have?”
I’d been playing for years already, but this was my first time seeing an illustration of her dying with a sword through her chest.
She’d already died enough times as it was.
Executed on the guillotine.
Forced to drink poison.
Pushed off a cliff.
Run over by a carriage.
I thought that was more than enough deaths for one character.
Right as I zoomed in on the villainess’s face—wearing an especially psychotic expression—
—GAME OVER
“Huh?”
Why did the game suddenly end?
Even though I hadn’t touched anything, the game abruptly shut down and displayed [GAME OVER]. Startled, I grabbed my phone properly.
But it wouldn’t move at all.
Frozen on the words GAME OVER, the dead screen looked eerie, like some kind of cursed movie prop.
“Good thing I’m off work tomorrow…”
Thinking I should take it to a repair shop in the morning, I went to sleep like usual.
But…
I never got to see the next day’s sun.
My sister and brothers somehow found my apartment and dragged me into a car in the middle of the night by force.
“Ina, the company president’s son saw your Instagram. He really likes you.”
They coaxed me.
“They said you look so pure compared to girls these days.”
They persuaded me.
“You selfish bitch! What are we supposed to do if all our company deals fall apart because of you?!”
They threatened me.
It was a night of torrential rain, and there was no way a car full of screaming people arguing with each other could stay calm.
“……!”
My final memory was the car skidding on the rain-soaked road, my body tilting sideways, and the panicked screams of my brothers and sister as they grabbed the steering wheel.
After that, everything went black.
How much time had passed?
When I opened my eyes again and ran toward a mirror, I couldn’t help but scream.
That beautiful face paired with those unsettling eyes.
The insane villainess with dozens of death illustrations prepared for her.
I had become Tullia Frazier.
So, I’d read plenty of web novels where people died and possessed characters inside fictional stories, or traveled back in time.
If this was going to happen anyway, couldn’t they at least have sent me back in time instead?!
I ground my teeth in frustration.
If that had happened, I could’ve dealt with my siblings’ bullshit in a smarter, stronger way.
No—better yet, I could’ve gone back even further and begged my mom not to remarry, cried and asked her to just live with me instead…
Forget it.
What was the point of thinking about that now?
What mattered was the reality in front of me.
Thankfully—or maybe not—all of Tullia’s memories came naturally to me.
Because of that, it didn’t take long to understand my absurd situation.
I’m fifteen right now.
My gaze drifted toward the painting hanging beside the bed.
That painting had been sent by Tullia’s father, Marquis Frazier, on her last birthday.
The Marquis, who was currently stationed along the border overrun with barbarians, sent Tullia one small painting every year on her birthday. Thanks to that, I immediately knew how old I was.
[Tullia Frazier, 15th Birthday.]
A painting with nothing written on it except a dry sentence.
No “Congratulations.”
No “I love you.”
Because Marquis Frazier hated Tullia.
After the marchioness died in an accident while eloping with her first love, Marquis Frazier abandoned the estate and left for the empire’s borderlands.
As though fighting barbarians was preferable to staying here, he hadn’t shown his face to Tullia for years.
The cheap painting he sent every birthday was the only gift she ever received from him.
And on top of that…
He barely even sends child support.
That was why Tullia grew up in poverty before eventually turning to evil deeds.
Even though her father was Marquis Frazier, and her grandfather was none other than the empire’s one and only Grand Duke Frazier.
In other words, Tullia was the granddaughter of a grand duke.
Of course, she never received any affection.
That was reserved for this game’s heroine, Corico.
That was how you unlocked the good endings, after all.
The protagonist buff existed for a reason.
Due to political conflicts within the temple, Corico entered the grand duke’s household as a prospective bride, and depending on the player’s choices, she easily won the family’s love.
Even Grand Duke Frazier—whom even his own children feared and found difficult—softened only for Corico, treating her like a real beloved granddaughter.
The only people who stubbornly continued to look down on Corico for being illegitimate were countless insignificant side characters…
…and Tullia.
And Tullia was already infamous in high society for being a complete trainwreck of a person.
Tullia couldn’t stand seeing someone else possess what she lacked.
And she harbored a deep inferiority complex toward the beloved Corico.
Crazy bitch Tullia.
No, now that I was Tullia, that meant I was the crazy one…
Tullia constantly bullied Corico and, in return, got punished in every possible way.
No matter how she died, from the player’s perspective it was just another “defeat the villain boss” event.
Sometimes the male leads killed her.
Other times, members of the Grand Duke Frazier household did.
And in one ending, Corico herself finally snapped and chopped off Tullia’s head with an axe.
Honestly, until today, that had been my favorite ending. It felt the most satisfying and decisive.
Before it became my problem.
Did they really need to kill her in so many creative ways…?
Still, it seemed my fate hadn’t been sealed yet.
Judging by how old and modest the bedroom furniture looked, this was still before Tullia had committed any major atrocities.
Thankfully.
Tullia, being a noble lady to her core, couldn’t endure this kind of life and eventually went dark.
But I was different.
After my mother remarried, I’d practically taken care of myself alone anyway.
It always felt awkward joining that family for warm dinners together.
Neither my mother nor stepfather were the kind of people who would guilt-trip me over food.
But even when I made excuses about staying late at the study café and ate dinner outside seven days a week, they never paid much attention.
Not once.
“……”
Well, whatever.
Convenience store cup noodles, triangle kimbap, bread… if you rotated them enough, they were manageable.
And I worked myself to the bone studying, got into a good university too.
People praised me a lot for that.
So it was fine.
Anyway, even if Tullia’s allowance was pitifully tiny, I could survive this!
But the next morning, at the crack of dawn—
“No. I can’t survive this.”
I buried my face in my hands in despair.