Chapter 1
My younger sister was a little slow in the head.
“Big Sis!”
She was undeniably adorable, chirping away with such an innocent expression.
“I bought a pretty jewel outside today!”
But if you considered that the behavior of a grown woman, you had to admit there was a serious problem.
Lydia let out a sigh as she watched her younger sister, Sylvia Preston, proudly show off some cheap imitation jewelry she had bought for an exorbitant price.
It was already the fifth time this month.
Once again, Sylvia had been swindled by some shameless con artist, yet she had returned home grinning like a fool.
She was completely oblivious to what had gone wrong and was cheerfully showing off her purchase.
Anyone watching her was liable to die of sheer frustration.
“Here, this is a present for you, Big Sis!”
However, when Lydia saw how thoughtfully her sister had remembered her, she couldn’t bring herself to scold her outright.
Having all but resigned herself to her fate, Lydia accepted the object her sister held out with a complicated expression.
No matter how she looked at it, it was nothing more than an imitation jewel that glittered on the surface. Its actual value was about the same as a random pebble lying on the roadside.
…Right. What could she do about it?
This world had been set up this way from the very beginning.
I need to keep my head on straight, at least.
“Thank you, Sylvia.”
At Lydia’s words of gratitude, Sylvia giggled happily.
“I’m glad you like it, Big Sis!”
As expected of a romance-fantasy heroine, she had a lovely, lovable face.
That’s right. A heroine.
Looking at her younger sister, whose dazzling beauty could capture anyone’s attention, Lydia smiled bitterly.
This world was inside a damn dark reverse-harem romance-fantasy novel.
And Lydia’s younger sister was the novel’s airheaded heroine.
The Lady in the Cage was once an immensely popular romance-fantasy novel.
Among the countless romance-fantasy novels out there, this one had a seemingly ordinary title. There was only one reason it had become so popular.
Darkness.
There really wasn’t much of a plot.
A beautiful heroine who was so innocent that she bordered on being an idiot, and a bunch of insane male leads who were obsessively attached to her.
After falling in love with the heroine at first sight, the male leads fought among themselves to win her. In the end, however, they reached an agreement among themselves.
They would kidnap and imprison the heroine, making her the possession of all of them.
So that’s why it’s called The Lady in the Cage…
The story had absolutely no morals, but its bold and provocative content made it incredibly popular among a certain group of readers.
In other words, it was a dark reverse-harem romance fantasy.
Naturally, Lydia wasn’t happy about being reincarnated into a novel like this.
But since I’ve already ended up here, what matters is how I survive from now on.
How could she survive in this world?
Although The Lady in the Cage was an utterly hopeless train wreck of a novel, it did have some semblance of a worldbuilding system.
To summarize it briefly, things worked like this.
There were transcendent beings in this world.
These transcendent beings could wield supernatural abilities that surpassed the limits of ordinary humans. However, the more they used their powers, the more unstable they became, eventually going berserk.
To restore stability to these transcendent beings, Purifiers were needed.
Purifiers were people who possessed special abilities within this world’s setting. Through deep physical contact with a Purifier, transcendent beings could regain their stability…
The heroine, Sylvia Preston, possessed overwhelming abilities even among the rare Purifiers.
Unfortunately, that was all she had going for her.
Her family had fallen into ruin, she had no power to protect herself, and she herself was an airhead.
To make matters worse, her only surviving blood relative envied and resented her.
She had all the ideal conditions for a tragic heroine in a dark romance novel to be put through one miserable ordeal after another.
And in this godforsaken story…
Lydia played the role of the wicked older sister who grew jealous of Sylvia because the male leads, who were transcendent beings, became obsessed with her and tried to harm her.
In other words, she was the villainess.
Damn it.
As befitted a villainess, Lydia met a horrific end at the hands of the male leads in the original story.
Having been reincarnated into this world, Lydia absolutely refused to meet that kind of bad ending.
Besides, she wasn’t even jealous of her younger sister in the first place.
However, thanks to a friend from her previous life who had practically drilled the concept into her head, Lydia had a rough idea of how reincarnation stories set in romance-fantasy novels tended to unfold.
No matter how hard you tried to avoid it, you’d eventually get caught up in the original plot.
That was the fate of anyone reincarnated into a novel.
If I really want to escape the original storyline, I need to leave and go somewhere far away.
Having come to that conclusion, Lydia attempted to run away in the middle of the night on her tenth birthday.
It was a grand, resolute decision to escape the original story as quickly as possible.
However…
“Big Siiiis… Where are you going?”
The moment Lydia saw her younger sister, who had woken up from her sleep and was standing there in rumpled clothes, rubbing her sleepy eyes as she tried to stop her, Lydia felt her breath catch in her throat.
By that point, Lydia had already regained the memories of her previous life. In an attempt to distance herself emotionally from her sister, she had deliberately acted cold and indifferent toward her.
But her thickheaded younger sister didn’t seem to mind at all. She was always following Lydia around, giggling foolishly and smiling as if she liked her no matter how coldly she was treated.
Sylvia was six years old.
If I leave now… what will happen to her?
The life of the original Sylvia could be summed up in one word: tragedy.
A life spent being pushed around by others and forced to endure things she never wanted.
Of course, the male leads would love her…
But was that really a good thing for the heroine of a dark romance?
“I want to go with you, too…”
Sylvia’s tiny fist clutched Lydia’s clothes tightly.
She held on with all her strength, as if she were terrified of losing her grip.
Even though she wouldn’t stand a chance if Lydia simply shook her off.
Is it really right to leave her behind?
Lydia had always considered herself a cold-blooded person.
She had never given a second thought to things like family bonds.
And yet…
As Lydia remained silent for a long time, Sylvia’s eyes began to fill with tears.
Perhaps she had instinctively realized that she was about to be abandoned.
Don’t let yourself soften. Think about your future.
Lydia repeated those words to herself, desperately trying to steel her resolve.
“Big Siiiis…”
But at the sound of her little sister’s voice, Lydia’s heart crumbled completely.
In the end, Lydia couldn’t bring herself to leave that night.
It was a fateful night that changed the life plan Lydia had spent years preparing in a single instant.
Back to the present.
“How can you possibly do this to me?!”
BANG!
A man with a flushed, furious face slammed his hand down on the desk.
“Look at this! A promise is a promise, and you have to honor it!”
Lydia gazed down at the desk with an indifferent expression.
A document lay on top of it.
Marriage Pledge
“Look here! Huh? Can’t you see that your sister signed this? We agreed to get married! That’s what this is about!”
“So?”
Lydia’s nonchalant response made the man fly into a rage.
“What do you mean, ‘so’?! You have to honor the agreement! Where is Lady Sylvia? My beautiful fiancée…!”
Just then, Lydia picked up the marriage pledge.
Without hesitating for even a moment, she tore it in half.
Riiiip.
“N-No! What are you…?!”
Having witnessed the document being torn apart right before his eyes, the man thrust his face toward Lydia.
He looked as though he were about to grab her by the collar.
“Listen here, Lady Preston! Even you can’t do something like this! This is a sacred marriage pledge…!”
“Baron Allen.”
Lydia shot him a frigid glare.
“That’s enough, don’t you think?”
“W-What did you say…?!”
“Do you think you’re the first person like you I’ve ever dealt with?”
Rip. Riiip.
Lydia tore the marriage pledge into even smaller pieces.
“You obviously tricked Sylvia, didn’t you? You probably offered her something to eat or gave her a pretty pebble. Getting her signature first and making up the contents afterward would be easy enough for someone like you.”
“W-What an outrageous accusation! Why would I ever do such a thing?! Stop making me out to be some kind of villain!”
The man stammered, looking flustered.
“Lady Sylvia isn’t some kind of mentally deficient person. There’s no way she’d fall for such a cheap trick…”
“Great. I’m glad you brought that up.”
Lydia had now dropped all pretense of speaking politely to him.
“Honestly, Sylvia’s head is a little too full of sunshine. You knew that and took advantage of her, didn’t you? But did you really think I wouldn’t have taken precautions against something like this?”
Lydia took a piece of paper from the documents she always carried with her.
“Look. This document proves that I’m Sylvia’s legal guardian. Sylvia isn’t allowed to sign documents that bring about major changes to her personal circumstances, such as a marriage pledge. More precisely, she can sign them a hundred times over, and they still won’t be legally valid. Why? Because any document that hasn’t been reviewed by her guardian is null and void.”
With her other hand, Lydia pointed to the shredded marriage pledge.
“So this is invalid. If you understand that, get out of here.”
Perhaps he hadn’t expected her to hit back with such a solid counterargument, because the man stood there with his mouth hanging open.
Lydia sneered at him.
If you’re so unhappy about it, why don’t you become Sylvia’s older sister yourself?
“Grrr…! You…!”
Eventually, the man snapped out of his daze and began fuming with frustration.
Lydia casually dismissed him.
“What are you staring at? Never seen a bitch before?”
“Argh!”
The man looked furious enough to explode, but in the end, he couldn’t come up with a single counterargument. All he could do was let out an enraged scream.
“Just you wait! I’ll be back someday, and I’ll make you pay for this!”
With that, he stomped out of the room, making a tremendous racket with every step.
Naturally, Lydia didn’t care in the slightest.
That insignificant nobody sure has a lot of nerve.
That’s right.
It had been twelve years since Lydia gave up on escaping the original story.
And in that time, she had made a spectacular career change into a villainess.
