CH 1

Chapter 1

Translator: Key

Proofreader: Potato

1. An Evil Woman Feels More Comfortable with a Villain than with the Prince.

“There’s no need to have mercy on such a wholly wicked woman.”

Even after hearing the emperor’s condemning words, Lilith didn’t cry. She had clearly loved him, but those feelings were set ablaze and turned her to ash.

“Do you have any last words?”

“No.”

Born as the only daughter to the Detroi Duke family, she lived an easy life with everything in her grasp. She had the highest honor of being called the Empire’s first lady with the most remarkably beautiful looks. Not once did she doubt that she would someday become the Empress.

However, due to the birth of the Empire’s Saintess, she was deprived of everything. The honor of being the Empire’s first lady was given to the Saintess instead.

In the face of the Saintess’ praiseworthy pure and graceful charm, her flashy and lascivious looks were put to shame.

But the thing hardest to bear was the Emperor abandoning her.

She loved the Emperor. She hadn’t been pretending to like him because of their engagement; rather, her feelings for him were completely sincere.

However, the Emperor fell in love with the Saintess at first sight, and immediately announced the annulment of their engagement. He then proceeded to make his marriage to the Saintess public.

The absolute earthly Emperor, and the Saintess who descended from the Heavens. The people were all greatly enthusiastic over the beautiful pair.

All except for Lilith, of course.

She wished for the Saintess who deprived her of everything to die.

Because of this, she took any and every opportunity to formulate plans to cleverly torment and drive the Saintess astray. However, the Saintess remained steadfast, while Lilith slowly lost her rationality.

Ultimately, she asked for her father's cooperation. The Detroi Duke family wasn’t originally an innocent household, so it was possible to receive their assistance in kidnapping the Saintess.

And at last, in order to finally kill the Saintess, Lilith raised a poison smeared knife.

But stabbing the Saintess didn’t go as easily as she’d hoped.

Just how did I end up like this?

In her brief moment of hesitation as she raised her head, she was detained by the knights the Emperor sent. It seemed like the ending of a villain in a novel.

At the realization, Lilith began to feel regret for the first time. But it was far too late by then.

“Drink it before I put in in your mouth myself.”

“I wouldn’t do something so tedious.”

Dying at the mere age of twenty-five was terribly early. But it was only after everything had occurred when she realized it had been her own fault.

So Lilith drank the poison the prince handed her without a shred of hesitation. That’s right. She clearly drank it, and yet—.

“Lilith! Didn’t I tell you to clean my room, too?”

Why she was stuck in her current situation of scrubbing the floors, she didn’t know. Lilith glared at the guiltless floor while thinking about the absurd outcome of her situation.

I wanted to atone for my sins, but this isn’t exactly how I wished to go about it?

Lilith had thought it would all end in death, only to wake up in the body of a certain noble’s daughter. However, even though she was a noble’s daughter in name, her circumstances were no better than that of a poor servant girl’s.

Her words about turning into ashes had only been a figure of speech. She’d never dreamed that she would actually end up covered in ashes due to tending to the kitchen’s fireplace.

“I’ll just bear with it.”

Lilith, who had acceded to her stepsister’s nagging, started cleaning the floors again wordlessly. That’s right, I committed many bad deeds and should be punished for them. But this is—

“There’s no way I can put up with this!”

I’m mistreated by my stepmother and will end up getting married to an abusive baron! There’s no way I could possibly accept this.

———————

Lilith knew of her own future because of a book she read in her past life.

What was the title? 〈Kalix’s Crazy Love〉, was it?

The sole reason she dared touch such an immaturely titled book was because it had the name of her beloved Emperor. And surprisingly, her name also made an appearance.

The Lilith in the book was a young noble lady born to the Delfila Earl family. She was merely a side character meant to raise the male lead’s charm factor, and therefore only showed up a few times, but Lilith was greatly annoyed by the pushover who shared her name.

If your stepmother mistreats you, then you should obviously get revenge, so why are you just sitting there and taking it silently? If your husband beats you, it wouldn’t be enough even if you paid it back tenfold, so why are you crying like your life depends on it?

Lilith, who was greatly absorbed in the life of the character who shared her name rather than the heroine, closed the book in anger. She never read the ending and threw it away.

If I’d known it’d be like this I would’ve paid closer attention.

Lilith, who had just drank poison, opened her eyes to meet a shabby room. Out of habit, she went to pick up the mirror she kept next to her as she did every morning.

“Why is this so filthy?”

The filthy mirror had gold only on its corners; it wasn’t even remotely similar to the gold-rimmed mirror she used daily. But what was more incredible was herself inside the mirror. Right now, she wore a shabby maid outfit that she would throw out 100 out of 100 times if given the choice.

“What’s with this piece of straw.”

Her face remained the same, but other than that, nothing else was similar. If that wasn’t bad enough, the maids’ clothes she was currently wearing were in worse condition than the ones she‘d used her entire time while imprisoned.

The dress she had worn then was the disheveled one she had been captured in when the Emperor’s army arrived.

What’s more, the small room she was lying in had no bars. This meant that it wasn’t a prison, yet it still had a strangely prison-like atmosphere.

It was quite cramped and narrow, with a window barely the size of a palm. The entirety of the room was made up only of a creaky bed and tiny worn dresser.

“...Did I drink sleeping pills instead of poison?”

She clearly remembered that the Emperor gave her poison to drink, and yet Lilith remained alive and intact.

She put down the seemingly unreliable mirror and fumbled with her own face. The proof of her being alive was in her warm skin.

Did they change the punishment from death to banishment?, she thought while blankly pinching her cheeks. She had awoken in a room meant for sinners, and although it was the most plausible possibility, she had a hunch that that wasn’t it.

It was obvious that there would be no time to look after one's skin in prison, so feeling the elasticity of her cheek as she pinched it shocked her greatly.

Even excluding that, there were too many strange things to count. The wound she’d gotten on her shoulder when the Emperor came to rescue the Saintess had, for some reason, disappeared, and the hair that had been chopped short when she had been dragged away was now flowing down to her waist.

But the strangest thing was her being alive in itself.

“How did this happen...”

She picked up the mirror once again and began to closely examine her reflection. She then started noticing things that she hadn’t prior to her shock.

She had thought her face looked the same earlier, but after staring at herself for a bit longer, she realized that wasn’t the case.

The red hair that fell down to her waist and beautiful features looked just as they had when she was in her prime. Strangely, Lilith thought she looked young.

I think this is how I looked in my late teens.

Though she looked young, she was still beautiful. If she looked like a fully bloomed flower in the past, she could now be said to look like a small, yet-to-bloom bud. An exhausted and drooping bud.

—Is it because I’m in such bad shape?

From the moment she’d woken up, her entire body had been in terrible condition. She’d assumed she had gotten muscle aches from riding in some sort of carriage. There were many strange points, but thinking nothing of them, she opened the long-since outdated drawer and put back the mirror.

She then pulled out a book she was all too familiar with.

“Kalix’s Crazy Love?”

It was the romance novel she had put so much effort into reading.

Why is this book here?

She unconsciously touched the book placed in such an unexpected spot, and received a great shock in return.

“I… isn’t this story about me...?”

This book was not the same story she was familiar with. The entirety of her past life was written in it.

As if possessed, she began to fervently read the book.

Kalix and Lilith’s first meeting. A temporary period of affection. The appearance of the Saintess. Her noble achievements. Kalix, who had been enchanted by the Saintess at first sight. Their noble and pure love. Lilith’s misdeeds. The failure of her evil plot. All leading up to Lilith’s death.

She had been introduced not as the heroine, but as the villainess. The book describes her as a woman who has possessed a wicked nature ever since she inherited the evil gene passed down in her family from generation to generation.

In her final moments, Lilith felt remorse for her actions, but it had been written that for the sake of justice, her crimes called for the death penalty.

While the description was much too unjust towards her, she had just enough conscience to admit that there was a bit of truth in it.

People felt that her house’s appalling family customs suited her well. No matter what others thought, she had no qualms living the way she wished.

Additionally, her conduct after meeting the Saintess consisted of an insane list of evil deeds.

For her to have abducted and attempted to murder the Saintess, she must have been blinded by love and completely lost her reason.

“I’m awfully sorry towards the Saintess...”

Even though she was, in essence, a villain, she knew she had done something no one should do. She felt nothing but guilt over what she did to the Saintess.

Why did I try to torment the Saintess? The one in the wrong was Kalix.

When being objective, it’s possible to see the truth in all things. The truth being that Kalix was a steaming pile of horse crap.

He fell in love with another person at first sight, and was able to easily bid farewell to his former lover.

His unruly and impolite behavior had insulted Lilith, who couldn’t overlook his actions. Unable to overcome her strong contempt, she instead took it out on the Saintess.

I chose the wrong target to get revenge on, didn’t I. It’d have been better if I had harassed and kidnapped Kalix instead.

“Evil bastard.”

Lilith, who was busy spewing out curses, slammed the book shut. She then desperately began to pray.

“God, if you exist, please let Kalix fall and break his nose even if he were to fall backwards. And of course, let the Saintess live a long and happy life.”

And please, let her learn of what a bastard that pile of dung is.

Lilith, who had just finished praying with repentance, swore to live the rest of her life as a kind person.

She didn’t know why she was alive when she had clearly died in the book, but she was given the chance to atone for her sins, so she planned to abandon her evil nature and live as the most sincere human she could be. She refused to end up miserable because of her own bad deeds again.

—But where exactly am I?

“Lilith!”

She heard a voice from beyond the door. Wondering what had happened, she opened it. She could see a girl around her age standing behind the threshold.

For some reason, the girl stood there snorting angrily.

“Why haven’t you come in yet?”

“What?”

“Are you really pretending not to understand what I’m saying? I told you early this morning to come to my room because I needed help getting ready!”

While still trying to figure out what exactly was going on, Lilith continued standing absentmindedly. This led the girl to yell again.

“Are you trying to disobey me right now?”

“Ack!”

Lilith collapsed on a chair in intense pain as a strong pinch assaulted her side. Snickering at her misfortune, the girl began to speak mockingly.

“Why did you disobey me when you know it’s futile? When you’re done preparing, come to my room.”

Once she finished talking, the girl made an animated exit. Lilith remained there, holding onto her side; the pain severe enough to bring her to tears. Even without looking, she could already tell a deep blue bruise had formed. Only after the pain had eased did she leap to her feet and wheeze angrily.

“How can a person be that much of a crazy bitch?”

As if she has the right to tell me where I need to be. Only after getting angry did she realize. Ah, I literally just made a promise to be kind. Let’s start off with not cursing.

“How can a person live with so little conscience?”

I’m kind, so I can tolerate this. Though Lilith’s anger had been sparked, she stroked her aching side while stepping out of the room.

It seems that I work as a maid in that insufferable person’s house.

—However, that had been a great miscalculation. Lilith was not a maid, and it was those terrible “people’s” house.