TTM 01

Chapter 01

“Miss, are you really planning to go see that boy?”

The prison guard, speaking with concern, looked down at the little girl standing before him.

“Mm-hmm!”

Kinemia Lion, the eleven-year-old Grand Duchess, nodded with an angelic smile.

As her soft, pale-golden hair swayed gently with the movement, the guard clutched his chest, which had suddenly grown warm with affection.

So cute…!

The people working at the Grand Duke’s castle often said that their greatest wish was to have a daughter just like Miss Kinemia.

Her soft, pale-golden hair, her large, round eyes, and her plump, rosy cheeks that practically begged to be bitten.

The Grand Duchess standing before him was a precious young lady whom someone like him, who worked in the underground prison, rarely had the chance to see.

And yet, that very young lady had just dropped a bombshell by declaring that she wanted to meet a prisoner.

The guard glanced nervously at the nanny standing behind her and spoke.

“But he isn’t someone a young lady like you should be meeting…”

The nanny let out a quiet sigh. Apparently, even the woman who had served Miss Kinemia her entire life had been unable to break her stubborn resolve.

“That boy’s a dangerous individual, miss.”

Two weeks ago, a boy had trespassed into the Grand Duke’s hunting grounds.

The boy had been covered in blood, his head tilted slightly to one side.

After looking at the dozen or so knights who stood before him in bewilderment, he smiled and muttered,

“I thought I’d killed them all. Didn’t think there’d still be some left.”

Rather than being frightened in the slightest by the knights standing before him, the boy had remained completely at ease.

In fact, it was the knights who had grown tense.

But immediately afterward, he had suddenly passed out.

The guard privately thought that must have been the only reason they had managed to capture him.

The unidentified boy, who had been drenched in someone else’s blood, was now locked in the underground prison on the grounds that he had undoubtedly harmed someone.

Despite the guard’s concerns, however, Kinemia spoke in a firm voice.

“I know. Now hurry up and show me the way.”

The determination in her eyes made it clear that she had no intention of backing down.

Although the girl before him was only eleven, she was the Grand Duchess who would one day inherit the title of Grand Duke—and the master of this very castle.

A mere prison guard had no right to disobey her orders under the pretext of concern.

“Yes, miss.”

The guard answered and began leading the way.

“Please watch your step, miss.”

“It’s fine.”

“There are rats down here, too. Occasionally, that is…”

Kinemia, who had confidently declared that everything was fine, quietly reached for Nanny Vanessa’s hand.

Vanessa gently clasped the little girl’s hand, her expression practically saying, And this is why you shouldn’t have insisted on coming down to the underground prison.

Kinemia discreetly turned her head away, pretending not to notice.

Sorry, Nanny. But I have my reasons for all this…

Even Kinemia wasn’t particularly thrilled about coming to an underground prison that was damp, dark, gloomy, and full of rats just to see the chilling face of a twelve-year-old brat.

However, she hadn’t come here for the reasons Vanessa might have imagined.

It wasn’t because her life as the Grand Duchess had become so boring that she’d thought, I want to try something new! or All right! An adventurous Grand Duchess causing all sorts of chaos in the underground prison!

I’m doing this for my own safety and the prosperity of our family, you know?

Of course, she wouldn’t be able to explain what she knew to anyone else in a remotely logical manner.

The truth was that Kinemia had a secret she couldn’t tell anyone.

The first was that Kinemia Lion had been reincarnated.

The second was that the world she had been reincarnated into was none other than the world of The Chronicles of Aldium, a web novel she had enjoyed reading in her previous life.

The third was that Kinemia Lion was destined to die before long.

How am I supposed to explain any of this…?

Kinemia bit her lower lip and mumbled to herself.

It’s so embarrassing that I can barely bring myself to say the first syllable of The Chronicles of Aldium, let alone the word reincarnation.

She had regained the memories of her previous life in the spring of her tenth year, not long after her father had passed away.

It hadn’t been a particularly special day. There had been no dramatic incident, such as hitting her head on something or nearly drowning.

She had simply gone to sleep, as usual, with her pillow damp from tears, and then woken up.

Oh. That dream I just had… Those were memories from my previous life.

The moment she opened her eyes the next morning, she had realized that everything in the previous night’s dream had been memories of her past life.

…Just like that? Seriously?

If only some divine revelation had descended upon her with a spectacular display of thunder and lightning…

How was she supposed to convince anyone else that she had simply woken up one day and realized her dreams were memories of a previous life?!

But the bigger problem lay elsewhere.

Kinemia had been born into the web novel The Chronicles of Aldium, which she had read in her previous life.

It was a run-of-the-mill fantasy novel with a promotional blurb that went something like, An outsider transported to another world experiences a boundless world of fantasy!

What a trash novel…

At some point, the main storyline seemed to have been abandoned altogether. The plot had gone completely off the rails, with the protagonist doing little more than gathering herbs and conquering dungeons.

It was basically a full-fledged fantasy novel about a protagonist grinding away at repetitive tasks.

Kinemia Lion was a villain in that web novel, one burdened with an exceptionally tragic fate.

…Why did I have to be reincarnated as this particular character?!

To explain Kinemia Lion’s unfortunate fate, she first had to talk about her family history.

First, there was Kenneth Lion, Kinemia’s grandfather, who had seized the regency in place of the ailing former emperor.

He was what one might call a righteous scoundrel.

It was a time when corruption and embezzlement had run rampant throughout the empire because the former emperor had abandoned his governing duties.

Kenneth Lion, who considered justice and moral principles the guiding lights of his life, simply couldn’t tolerate it…

“How dare you talk back to me with that filthy mouth of yours?!”

That was the sort of foul temper he had.

“And I am the empire itself! The empire’s power is my power!”

And that was the sort of utter nonsense he spouted while purging nobles and making life miserable for his own retainers.

And how did his final years turn out?

He was poisoned to death.

The culprit was never identified, but there was no room for doubt that it had been a murder motivated by a grudge.

Kenneth Lion’s sudden death threw the Grand Duchy of Lion into turmoil, and fierce conflicts erupted over those seeking to seize the Lion family’s power.

The one who led Lion through that crisis was Kinemia’s mother, Airia Lion, the former Grand Duchess.

“Magic may have passed me by, but the sword was my destiny.”

Airia Lion had not been born with magical powers. However, her swordsmanship was beyond imagination, and she conquered neighboring kingdoms, bringing glory to the empire.

The honor and prestige of House Lion began to rise once more.

But where there was light, there was also shadow.

The empire’s hero was the sworn enemy of the nations she had crushed.

Airia Lion, who had continued to achieve victory after victory, was struck by an arrow aimed straight at her heart during a victory celebration.

She died.

The person arrested on suspicion of murdering her was the third prince of a kingdom Airia had wiped out.

Standing before the guillotine, he shouted,

“Airia Lion, the Demon King of the Empire, cut off my parents’ heads and crippled my siblings! I have not the slightest regret for capturing the embodiment of evil with my own hands!”

There was no room for doubt that it had been a murder motivated by a grudge.

And so, another crisis descended upon House Lion.

Kinemia’s father, Troy Lion, had been sitting in the position of Grand Duke thanks to his wife’s abilities and his noble bloodline.

The only thing he possessed that was the finest in the empire was his beautiful face.

Even his marriage to Airia had come about because of his Grand Ducal lineage, which accounted for twenty percent of the reason, while his handsome face accounted for the remaining eighty percent.

Devastated by the death of his capable wife, Troy Lion—

“Daddy, don’t cry.”

—resolved to pull himself together for the sake of his young daughter.

“M-Mii… Sob. Daddy’s… Daddy’s fine. Hic… Waaah!”

Troy Lion, who had done nothing but cry, resolved to make a comeback as both the head of his family and the head of his house.

He decided to use his handsome face to launch a business.

“You there, madam with the particularly lovely hangnails. I have an excellent business proposal. Would you care to hear it?”

Whether it was because he had been quick to recognize an untapped market or because even a slug had its own special talent, Troy Lion managed to succeed in business using the capital he had attracted with his face.

He began to restore House Lion’s standing once more.

“Mii! Daddy’s made lots of money! See? I told you Daddy was fine.”

“Daddy, you’re amazing!”

However, Troy Lion didn’t get to enjoy his rising fortunes for very long before he was stabbed to death.

The culprit was a countess who had been involved with Troy Lion in a love quadrangle.

As she was dragged away to the underground prison, she shouted,

“What do you mean, ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen,’ now of all times?! So what if you made me rich?! Troy Lion stole my heart completely, only to cast me straight into hell!”

There was no room for doubt that it had been a murder motivated by a grudge.