Chapter 1

“Urgh, out of everyone, I had to spawn in front of the villainess! This is the worst!”

I, Raena von Armina, had woken up to find a small fairy sat upon a tiny book before my eyes. She was smaller than my palm and had bright green hair and vibrant violet eyes.

If she hadn’t been dramatically clutching her head and screaming at the sky, I think I would have found her cute, cute enough perhaps to put in a cage to keep as a pet.

“Eeek! She’s laughing! The villainess is laughing at me! Run away! Run aw-!”

Oh dear, apparently I’d laughed at her.

I gently held her little wings between two fingers, though the fairy didn’t seem to notice for a few seconds.

She tired herself out before meekly turning to face me again, trying to cower behind her book.

“I’m sorry for frightening you, little fairy. What’s your name? I’m-”

“Raena von Armina, the eldest daughter of the Armina Ducal Family of the Golden Sun Empire, a country with a rich history that has stood for nearly 800 years. Over its long history, the Golden Sun Empire has been invaded multiple times but has always pushed back its invaders and slowly conquered a third of the world as its own. It’s governed by 5 ancient houses; yours is one of the 4 ducal families and your house guards the northern borders from the Gaultens to the north.”

“Oh, to think you possessed such thorough knowledge of my homeland.”

“Of course I do. It was all part of the prologue of the otome game from my past life.”

“Game?”

The fairy nodded.

“What is an o-to-me game?”

“It’s a videogame where you-”

“Vid-eo?”

“You know, like visual novels.”

“What-?”

“Oh, right, medieval fantasy setting, duh.” The fairy smacked herself on her forehead, perhaps too hard as her eyes started spinning around in her head. She violently shook her head from side to side to recovered. “Basically, it’s like a book with pictures and people to voice the characters - does that make sense?”

“…Do you mean a play?”

“…You know what, sure - that’s probably the best comparison I can make here. Anyway, this whole world takes place in one of those and you are the main antagonist of the play.”

“Huh?”

“Eeek!”

Oops. I let out too much bloodlust just then.

I coughed lightly and feigned a joyful smile. “My apologies, little fairy. I must’ve misheard you just then. I believe what you meant to say-”

“N-n-nonononononono, you’re the villainess who gets in the-urgh!”

I clasped her frail, little body in my fist and stared daggers into her soul. “What was that?”

“Eeek! T-this is what I mean, villainess! No matter how you look at it, you’re not the heroine! Not even close! Devil. Oni. Demon. Monster. Vicious woman! Devil’s consort! Devil!”

“You’ve already called me that.”

“Because it’s still true!” She shrieked. “If I didn’t have memories of my past life, I’d probably think you wanted to eat me or have me killed and stuffed to mount on your wall!”

“Why in the name of the Father would I do that?”

“But that’s what you do in ten years’ time! You mount your victim’s heads on spikes in the bad endings!”

…What in the world is this little fairy talking about?

I sighed and released her, after which the fairy flew to the window and desperately tried to open it. Alas, her palms were far too small which was delightful to watch.

“She even laughs at me because I’m small and weak! Villainess! Evil woman!”

“Honestly, you are quite loud for someone so small,” I mused, strolling towards her. “I didn’t mean you any harm, but you insisted on calling me nasty names without any proof.”

“I have lots of proof now!”

“Regardless.” My cold tone forcefully calmed her down. “You said something about ‘bad endings’. What do you mean?”

“Huh?”

“Based on your earlier analogy, this ‘otome game’ is like a play. Plays have fixed beginnings, middles and ends and these only ever change in very rare instances. Yet-”

“Oh, well, that depends on which route you pursue."

“Route?”

“Yes!” The fairy flew rapidly towards me with stars in her eyes.

As for what happened next, I am not entirely sure - she started talking very fast.

From what I could gleam, the ‘heroine’ of this otome game is Yui, the daughter of a merchant friend of my father, a commoner. She would be welcomed by my parents as a daughter of the Armina house, which angered and upset me, the villainess.

The story, as it were, began at the Royal Academy where she would run into 5 attractive young men who’d be attracted to and fawn over her. There was the Crown Prince Cain, the next duke of Wessex, Lord Michael, a foreign prince called Ah-rahm, the future prime minister Cederik Cullen and my cousin, Marcus.

The ‘routes’ the fairy spoke off seemed to be a choice of the romantic partner of the story’s heroine.

“So, to summarise.” I felt my head throb as I tried to comprehend everything she’d told me. “This heroine, my adopted sister Yui, enters the academy, then manages to associate with very important, attractive young men, develops a relationship with them that ultimately results in my execution for tormenting Laila?”

“Not in every route,” the fairy corrected me. “If you’re going for the Crown Prince, then you’re the main villain. But if you go for the future foreign emperor or the duke, you get their respective fiancés as the villainesses. Oh, they’re at the academy too. Then again, if you go for the reverse harem route, everyone, including the villainesses, lives happily ever after.”

“How shameless - that many people entering into a relationship with one another.”

“It’s better than people dying or losing their head!”

“I suppose, but it’s still shameless. So?” I folded my arms. “I’m guessing that there was no character like you to tell someone the future?”

“Of course not. Ah.” Oh, it seems the little fairy has realised an error in her passionate speech. “Wait a minute! The villainess knows the future! What’s going to happen from here on out?!”

“A little late to realise,” I laughed. “However, why not think of this as a chance to change the future for the better?”

“What do-?”

“If I don’t bully my sister and if I help ensure she ends up with the best partner, wouldn't that potentially be for the best?”

“Hmm, maybe, but…” The fairy continued to hum, frown and fly around in a circle. “Ah! Of course! We could stop the trauma flags too!”

“’Trauma’ flags?”

The fairy nodded. “In otome games, all the love interests have terrible wounds from their pasts which the heroine helps them overcome! In Lord Cain’s route, he has a deep fear of intimacy because of a sexual assault attempt by his aunt when he was 13. If we prevent that, Lord Cain won’t have to suffer!”

“See?” I smiled. “With you knowledge of the future and my abilities, we can change the story for the better.”

And, if what you’ve said is true, I can avoid meeting a bad end. You, little fairy, might become my-

“Ah, eh…hehehehe.”

“…What?”

“Eeek! N-now, don’t be too upset but…I only ever did Lord Cain’s route from start to finish.”

“…Huh?”

“There it is! The oni-face that only 2D artwork can properly capture, and yet I’m seeing it in the flesh! This is far more terrifying than I ever thought it’d be! Hep me, Jesus, buddha, mama, papa, big brother!”

While I do not know who those first individuals are, I can’t help but feel like that order is completely all over the place.

“What do you mean you only played Prince Cain’s route?”

“W-well, I, uh, I got bored playing the other routes, but I wanted to get a full CG gallery, so…I turned on skill all, held down the ‘Control’ button and just skipped through everything…and replayed the…H…H-scenes to see if I’d missed anything good.”

“While I dread to ask, what is a ‘H-scene’?”

The fairy blushed deeply and spun around my head a few times, screaming into her palms like a madwoman.

“I can’t say it! She’ll kill me, she’ll definitely kill me!”

“I swear on my name, Raena von Armina, that I shall not harm a single hair on your head once you have explained to me what a H-scene is.”

The tiny fairy came to a stop before my face, then shyly held up her pinkie finger. “Promise?”

Ah, how cute.

I raised my own and gently tapped it against hers.

“They’re, um…th-they’re…dirty…scenes…o-o-of…of.” The fairy groaned and hid her face behind her hands, then muttered, “Kill me” to herself before finally whispering the truth. “I-intimate scenes…between a man…and…a woman.”

…

…

…

…

“Pervert.”

“Ah, don’t say that!” The fairy shivered as she yelled in a depressed tone, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “I knew you’d say it, but it still cut too deeply! I shouldn’t have said a thing and now she thinks I’m a dirty woman!”

“You are though.”

“I’m not! There’s nothing wrong with a girl liking that sort of thing. I bet you will too when you’re older too.”

“Mother has strictly warned me about those sorts of subjects and says that I must wait until I am happily married before learning about them.”

“Jeez, no wonder your older self is so cranky and annoying.”

“Huh?”

“Eeek!” She recoiled away from me but then stopped suddenly and titled her head to the side. “Wait, how old are you?”

“Today is the day of my 8th birthday. Father had some urgent business to attend to last night, so we won’t be…”

“You’re kidding.” The fairy shrieked. “It had to be today of all days.”

“…Let me guess.”

She just nodded at me. “…Yui’s parents funeral was yesterday; your father only learned of their deaths last night and raced to go check on her.”

If the fairy is telling me the truth, today is the day the story begins and I’ll have a new sibling, only in name though.

“When does he-?”

“My lady!” My personal maid, Teles, came bursting in. “The duke has-!”

“Get my slippers.” I turned to the fairy and quietly said, “Follow behind me. Hide in my hair.”

She nodded and did just that.

As Teles put my slippers on, another two maids tended to my hair and made it presentable.

I thanked them and followed Teles to the main entrance.

Standing in the doorway were two figures.

One was my father, Paul Armina, who looked as if he had not slept.

“Raena.” He smiled wearily.

From behind him, I could see a young girl about my height with dirtied silver hair, pink eyes and a cute complexion, so cute in fact I could discern such a fact despite her sunken cheeks and dirty on her face. She was a little shorter than me from what I could tell.

“I know this is sudden and I’ll explain everything later, but this.” He put a hand on her head. “Is Yui. She’ll be staying with us for a while. It’d make me happy if you could treat her like a sister.”

Ah, I see.

I smiled, perhaps a little too mischievously as little Yui flinched and clung more tightly to father’s leg.

“It was true. But.” My whispers went unnoticed as I giggled. “She’s quite cute.”

My father smiled. “See, Yui? I told you she’d treat you kindly.”

Oh, I will, father. I covered my mouth as I pretended to yawn, hiding my greatly amused expression.

“Oh God, it’s too late! The villainess has set her sights on the heroine already!”

“No, that’s not right, little fairy.” I walked towards Yui and held out my hand to her. “I’m Raena von Armina. Welcome to our home; oh, and feel free to treat me like your big sister.”

“Big…sister?”

I nodded at her trembling, sweet voice.

Timidly, she took my hand.

In that moment, as she looked up at me like a little shy kitten, I wondered why my future self would abuse such a cute toy.

You, my new sister, will be much fun to play with.