#06. If It Weren’t For That Damned Girl

But Taran wasn’t satisfied with that and spoke irritably.

“Who searched the castle? Bring me all the gathered information.”

“……!”

All the maids were too shocked to speak.

The order Taran just gave meant he was partially revoking Penelope’s authority that had been implicitly entrusted to her.

In other words, a friendly fire¹AKA ‘team-kill’ refers to attacking or killing a teammate in a multiplayer game.

“I’ll give you one hour. Make sure it’s ready.”

Regardless of everyone’s shock, Taran simply turned around.

Easily supporting me on his back with one hand.

“Let me go!”

Friendly fire aside, why won’t he put me down? I struggled frantically in confusion, but finding it amusing, Taran cheerfully shouted.

“Let’s go, baby!”

Go where, you madman!

* * *

As always, Taran wasn’t the type to listen to others.

In the end, being much smaller than Taran, I was carried with my legs dangling.

“Haah……”

Now I was sitting on the bed in my room, sighing.

‘I should be grateful he at least brought me to my bedroom.’

My mind was in chaos.

It wasn’t just because of Taran.

[Quest <‘Avoid the false accusation in the Divine Beast’s egg theft case’> completed! Reward will be given.]

A piece of □□.

A jewel fragment sparkling blue like a star in the blue sky appeared in midair, then seeped into the back of my hand, creating some kind of pattern.

“……”

And disappeared in the blink of an eye.

What was that now?

I sighed again and buried my face in my hands. I really didn’t understand what was happening.

‘What kind of crazy dream is this?’

They say dreams are projections of desires.

So am I having this dream because I harbored resentment about being falsely accused of losing the Divine Beast’s egg in my past life?

Smashing Penelope’s head, giving her a bloody nose, saying everything I wanted to say to her……

‘……Those are all things I’d want to do.’

But it was just a dream after all, and I wanted to return to my original life quickly.

Perhaps because I suffered so much from my so-called family in my first life. In my second life as Yeon Bora, I had no family.

Life as an orphan wasn’t without hardships, but I consoled myself that it was better than having a family worse than strangers.

Until one day, when I came across a certain novel while web surfing.

* * *

It was a story about the world I had left behind after dying. Or more precisely, a story set in that world.

If I had known from the beginning, I wouldn’t have read it, but unfortunately, I only realized it after getting past the early-middle part.

How could I have known?

「Walk carefully. The ice on this lake is thin and breaks easily.」

Sub-male lead 1, who seemed cold on the outside but was kind-hearted inside, was none other than my first brother Siyeref from my first life.

「Medicine? Just tell me what you need. For you, I’d even make poison.」

The suspicious weirdo sub-male lead 2 was my damnable second brother Taran.

「Are you hurt? Get on my back right now!」

And sub-male lead 3, the intimidating but fiercely loyal big dog once you befriended him, was my third brother Kalenso!

‘How could I recognize them when their attitude toward the female lead Fiona was completely different from how they treated me!’

I knew they treated the real saintess, Fiona, very well.

But in the novel, they were almost like different people.

Honestly, if I hadn’t remembered the names of Dragonia and the three brothers, I would never have recognized them as the same people.

Actually, I recognized them as soon as I saw their names, but I was in denial.

But the moment I read the passage about the ‘lady of Dragonia’ suddenly dying, I instinctively knew.

‘That’s me.’

In the story, I played the role of a villainess who constantly spied on and darkly envied the female protagonist ‘Fiona Phoenix.’

A pathetic villainous supporting character who raged about her losing her brothers’ love and wanted to harm her multiple times.

“……”

I felt a chill run down my spine.

I wanted to argue that I had never tried to harm her, but I couldn’t.

For one thing, there was no one to listen, and…

‘Did I really not envy Fiona Phoenix?’

I couldn’t deny it with certainty.

Yes, I was jealous of Fiona. I felt strongly inferior to her.

She was from House Phoenix, Dragonia’s sworn enemy, yet my brothers loved her.

Unlike me, who was treated as a fake and a substitute, she was praised as the blessed, real saintess of purification.

Even in my final moments as I was dying, she was the one who took away my family’s attention and affection……

‘……But I never committed any evil acts.’

That much I could say with certainty.

However, it seemed that merely harboring feelings of envy toward Fiona was an unforgivable sin for a mere supporting character like me.

The narrative detailed how devious, despicable, and inadequate I was, and portrayed scenes of people mocking and bullying me as ‘satisfying’ moments.

And finally, at my death…

—Author’s note: Finally got rid of her lolololol She probably won’t appear again, huh?

“……”

I felt the blood drain from my body.

Although it was a past life, to think that my painful existence was so casually discarded with someone giggling “finally got rid of her.”

‘It hurts.’

My heart felt like it was caught in a hydraulic press, but perhaps because I had cried too much in my past life, no tears came.

I muttered blankly.

“I guess it’s fortunate I died quickly……”

To think they had wished and longed for my death to this extent.

I wanted to turn off the screen immediately, but for some reason, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from this disgusting story.

I was curious. I wanted to know.

What kind of ending awaited those trash people who abandoned me yet continued to live perfectly fine around Fiona Phoenix.

‘I’ll make sure to see you all ruined.’

But even that resolve met its limit.

“What……? They lost?”

As the story’s development gradually darkened, the Northwest Dragonia finally collapsed.

After treating me so badly that I became terminally ill, they ended up like this right after I died!

I was furious to the point my head was about to explode, but that wasn’t the end of the problem.

“The, the entire family was wiped out……?”

I blinked several times and went back to reread from the beginning, but the words I had read didn’t change.

The great and noble Grand Ducal House of Dragonia of the Northwest had been completely annihilated.

“Are you kidding me?”

I was dumbfounded.

Although I had been reading while cursing and wishing death upon all those Dragonia bastards, I didn’t expect them to be completely wiped out.

‘And by House Phoenix of all people!’

My teeth clenched.

As someone who had once belonged to Dragonia, this was a result I absolutely couldn’t accept.

‘You trash bastards, at the very least you should have taken Phoenix down with you!’

Is it because it’s the female lead Fiona’s family? In my anger, I lost my reason and misclicked.

“Ah, no!”

Having multiple web pages open simultaneously, I lost the page.

‘No, so what happens after House Dragonia is annihilated!’

Alarmed, I hurriedly searched through my history, but perhaps due to having too many windows open at once causing an error, I couldn’t find the page again. It was something I had stumbled upon by chance, so I couldn’t even remember the title well.

In the end, I tried to forget about that novel, just as I had in my past life.

‘……But to think I’d come back here again.’

What could this mean?

After thinking for a long time without finding an answer, I closed my heavy eyelids.

Hoping that all of this was just a dream, and that I would wake up.

* * *

Coincidentally, Partanie wasn’t the only one having such thoughts.

In a remote warehouse of the Blue Brick Castle, while hurriedly moving treasures (of course, not directly, but by supervising her underlings), Penelope thought,

‘This is a nightmare.’

Taran’s maternal family, and Penelope’s original family, was a famous merchant house.

Raised as a merchant to the bone, Penelope controlled her underlings with money, and as such, she had no faith that they wouldn’t succumb to the temptation of more money.

‘If I leave my post even for a moment……’

Of all things, the location of the safe and how to open it had been exposed so publicly, for everyone to see.

Gripped by anxiety that her safe could be robbed at any moment, Penelope felt the need to move it.

As a sharp, cold wind blew wheeingly, Penelope clutched her fur coat and trembled.

“C-cold.”

Although she was a person of Dragonia, she originated from Sheren Grad near the Tykenia River in the relatively warm south.

To think that I have to suffer like this. Is this really reality?

Unable to contain her grievances, Penelope muttered,

“If it weren’t for that damned girl……”

Dragonia’s youngest lady, Partanie.

A lowly bloodline whose mother couldn’t even be identified. A small and delicate body contrary to the robust physique typical of Dragonia.

Just thinking about the child who would never have been acknowledged if the current Grand Duke of Dragonia hadn’t personally brought her in and declared her his daughter made her angry.

Despite her own beauty and intelligence, she was held back by her merchant family background, and even had to be disrespected by her own nephew Taran and live bowing and scraping here and there……

‘Yet that lowly thing, whose Dragonia lineage is questionable, received a name beyond her station.’

And if that wasn’t enough, now she had injured her, made her bleed, and caused her all this trouble!

Full of indignation, Penelope trembled with clenched fists and muttered. “I will definitely—”

“Definitely what?”

“I won’t let this……!”

Startled by the voice that naturally interjected, Penelope instinctively began to respond before freezing.

“……Ta-Taran?”