Chapter : 04
How is a character whose only certain fate is death supposed to find a way to survive?
“My lady, the swelling in your face is almost completely gone.”
Hannah smiled brightly as she brushed my hair.
It was a warm, sunny morning. When I looked at my face in the mirror……
It really is exactly the same as my original face!
No, is there any reason it has to be this identical?
Could the reason I was possessed be because our appearances are the same?
Please, let there be a better reason than something so pointless.
As I stared at my swollen face in the mirror, I slowly smiled.
Even my smile is the same.
“Lady Cassandra, it won’t feel so awkward once you’ve fully recovered.”
Apparently, even Hannah thinks my smile looks awkward.
It’s not because I haven’t recovered yet.
It’s because, as a person, I was never good at making natural smiles in the first place.
I used to force my facial muscles to become stiff and maintain a blank expression so that I wouldn’t react when people teased me.
Ironically, that made smiling look even more awkward and strange.
“……Thank you.”
Snap!
Enough being depressed!
I decided to put some energy into it and think positively.
For starters, after all those twists and turns, I had become a duke’s daughter.
That meant I was part of the upper class—the top five percent of a society ruled by social status!
Thank you. Thank you…….
Even though my position came with a guaranteed death sentence, at least it was fortunate that I had reached a status where a maid was assigned to look after me.
I was nothing more than a studious nerd back in my original world.
Not only that, I had majored in the humanities.
I had absolutely no useful survival skills or knowledge that could help me make a living in another world.
At least I hadn’t suddenly been transported to another dimension and forced to start from absolute zero.
To Cassandra’s late parents……
You were fictional characters, but still, may you rest in peace.
I hope you have gone somewhere good…….
I’ll do my best to protect your daughter’s body somehow.
“Hannah, do you know where the library or study is?”
“Oh! I’ll show you.”
What could I possibly do to survive?
The reason Alexei went insane was because he wasn’t chosen by Serena.
If that’s the case……
Since I’d already possessed Alexei’s adopted sister—
What if I helped him achieve his love?
……No.
That’s impossible.
In the original I Didn’t Want a Reverse Harem, Alexei was the first male lead Serena met.
However, Serena was incredibly oblivious to Alexei’s advances and never saw him as anything more than a friend.
A friend……
I think?
The chosen male lead, Anthony Lionhearts.
The moment Serena saw him—a gentle, refined, handsome man with the personality of a big puppy—she fell madly in love with him.
The other male leads realized that there was no room for them in her heart and dropped out one after another.
Except for the crazy psychopath Alexei, of course…….
Alexei, why are you the only one who refuses to give up?!
Haven’t you ever heard that giving up is the easier option?
I sighed and folded down my thumb.
For now, I was crossing that plan off the list.
Hannah arrived in front of the study and opened the door for me.
Then she bowed and explained that she wasn’t allowed to enter.
Huh? Really?
Before I even had time to wonder why, I saw someone inside.
I reflexively put on an awkward smile.
“A-Alexei.”
I forced myself to smile at the young Alexei standing before me.
But Alexei frowned as though my smile itself offended him.
“……Cassandra.”
You’re not going to call me Sister?
Ah, right.
This is the West.
Families here call each other by their names.
“Why are you here?”
“Hm? Oh, I thought I might read a book……”
No.
It’s not because we’re in the West.
Alexei looked at me with undisguised dislike.
Then, without even greeting me, he walked away.
……
Even if I try to think positively, there’s one unavoidable truth.
The murderer who will kill me in the future has absolutely no affection for me.
There isn’t even a one-in-a-million chance that I’ll seduce Alexei and somehow make him fall in love with me instead of Serena.
Well, that’s only natural…….
He has been making his dislike of me painfully obvious from the very beginning.
And even if I somehow overcame that and managed to achieve a romantic ending with him, there’s another enormous problem.
Alexei is a sucker for beautiful faces……
Considering he fell in love the moment he saw Serena, a blonde, green-eyed beauty, I’m definitely a million light-years away from his type!
I don’t like you that much either, hmph!
Even though Alexei was wildly popular among the readers because everyone thought he was so attractive, I had always supported Anthony.
I’m a reader with principles, you know.
Grumbling internally, I folded down my index finger.
If things have come to this……
Should I strike first?
Kill him before he kills me!
They say the best defense is a good offense!
“No, this is guaranteed to fail……”
Alexei seemed to have had psychopathic tendencies since childhood.
Whenever some playboy appeared and tried to flirt with Serena, the narration would go something like, “His eyes turned cold……”
And then the guy would simply disappear from the story.
He eliminates people just because he doesn’t like them…….
It was terrifying enough that he was insane.
But what frightened me even more was that he was actually capable of carrying it out.
There was at least a five-hundred-percent chance that I’d be killed before I even had a chance to try.
Then…… should I tell someone?
Alexei will kill the Duke and Duchess of Clayman.
And he’ll kill me because I’m a witness.
……That’s the worst idea yet.
Who would believe something like that coming from a newly adopted daughter?
Besides, judging from what I’ve seen, he seems to listen to the duke and duchess quite well, unlike the way he treats me.
In a situation like this, I doubt they’d believe me even if I were their biological daughter.
That scene had been insane even from a reader’s perspective.
Besides, why would anyone believe a newly adopted girl who claimed that Alexei was so mentally disturbed that he’d suddenly kill his own family just to inherit the title?
Even if I had evidence, it would be hard to believe.
Four of my five fingers had now been folded down.
That left only one conclusion.
Run away before Alexei kills his family according to the original plot.
For now, that was the most plausible solution.
Throw away my conscience and find a way for myself to survive!
I felt genuinely sorry for the duchess who had helped me.
But this was a society ruled by status.
And the only thing I knew how to do was study.
Even if I ran away, how exactly was I supposed to make a decent living?
What on earth can I do in this world……?
Still, there was one thing I could do.
I’d been worried that I might become illiterate because the writing system in this world obviously wouldn’t be Korean.
Fortunately, that wasn’t the case.
I could read most of the books in the study without any difficulty.
Is this the possession bonus?
Thank you so much.
At least I have this.
I’m practically crying with gratitude.
The setting of this world was the typical special kind of medieval era found in romance-fantasy novels.
There were mages, spirit summoners, and priests.
The religion was monotheistic, much like Christianity, and just like in other Western medieval settings, priests possessed healing powers and wielded enormous influence over both commoners and royalty.
A Western-style world with kings, nobles, a rigid social hierarchy, and a whole bunch of fantasy elements thrown into the mix.
For the record, I was an atheist.
I’d never been interested in religion even in my previous life.
Then why is the very first book I pick up a religious text……?
I could read the words, but I lacked all the basic knowledge necessary to understand what they were actually talking about.
Demons? Divine power? Descendants of demons? Healing powers? Demonic powers?
It felt a little ridiculous, considering I’d only survived thanks to the divine power a priest had poured into me.
But the whole demon thing seemed a little much.
There was certainly a character with a personality like a demon—Alexei—but an actual demon never appeared in the novel.
Maybe it’s because demons are ugly?
Or perhaps adding a demon male lead would have made the story too complicated?
In any case, all of the male lead candidates were human.
There were no non-human male leads, such as demons, beastmen, or dragons.
There was a great mage whose age couldn’t be determined, though…….
Well, he was probably human originally.
Having grown bored of the religious text, I closed the book without properly reading it.
“Oh! This one is about spirit summoners!”
If you were dropped into a fantasy world, what would you want to become the most?
It would probably be different for everyone.
But I wanted to become a spirit summoner.
I wanted to make friends with spirits.
And I wanted to use all sorts of mysterious powers.
I’d get friends and superpowers at the same time!
Two birds with one stone!
My heart pounding with excitement, I eagerly opened the book.
“……In this regard, spirit summoners are similar to mages, but different.
Both mages and spirit summoners require innate power, but mages require extensive education and use magic through staffs and magic circles.
Spirit summoners, on the other hand, use their power by summoning spirits and…….”
Yes! This is it!
This was my dream in life.
Summoning spirits~
Becoming friends with them~
There were all sorts of stories like that, weren’t there?
Someone like me shouldn’t even dare to dream this big.
I won’t even expect romance.
So please, at least let me have this…….
“……Nevertheless, while mages are made through training, spirit summoners are closer to being born with their abilities.
They can see spirits from birth, and therefore enter into contracts with them and summon them.
Like priests, spirit summoners are chosen by God……”
I closed the book.
And then I slammed my head against it.
Bang!
“Ouch!”
Obviously, it hurt.
No.
Actually, it wasn’t obvious.
This body wasn’t my body.
No matter how similar its appearance was to mine, it belonged to someone else.
And yet I could still feel the pain in it.
Why?
Because I had been possessed?
Why had I been possessed in the first place?
I couldn’t see spirits.
I didn’t have any innate power.
I wasn’t destined to play any important role.
I wasn’t even destined to live a happy life.
So why?
I’m even going to die young.
And I’ll be murdered!
I pressed down on my tear-soaked eyes and took a deep breath.
“This isn’t right……”
No matter how hard I tried to run an optimistic scenario through my head, nothing worked.
Every direction I looked, there was another wall blocking my way.
Who had possessed me?
Was it God?
If that god were standing in front of me right now, I wanted to grab him by the collar and shake him violently.
This is a scam!
If this were a contract, I’d have grounds to sue!
How many romance-fantasy novels have I read?!
And possession stories weren’t even my favorite genre, so I hadn’t read that many!
I had always preferred regression stories, time loops, or traditional fantasy because I found it unsettling how easily people in possession stories accepted having a completely different appearance as their own body.
And where did the original soul even go?
That bothered me.
Could it be that Cassandra and I look so similar because it was supposed to make the possession easier for me to accept……?
Why did you only think about that?!
If you’re going to possess me, at least do it properly!
I want fantasy abilities!
Give me magical powers!
The reason I’d started reading this novel in the first place was because Serena was a spirit summoner.
I’d begun reading it because I was thrilled by the satisfying scenes where she blew away people trying to assault her with the power of the wind!
“Cassandra.”
Gasp.
I involuntarily held my breath at Alexei’s appearance.
I thought I’d moved somewhere far away from you.
When did you get here……?
I’d been sitting on the floor in a corner with books scattered all around me, so I hurriedly stood up.
But Alexei had apparently already seen the mess I was in.
He looked down at me coldly.
“A-Alexei……”
“Shut up. You’re noisy.”
My mouth was immediately sealed shut.
Alexei silenced me with those few words before speaking with a mocking smile.
“Apparently, the word ‘decorum’ doesn’t exist in that tiny, adorable head of yours.”
“……”
“Take this opportunity to put it in there. Now that you’ve entered the Clayman family, you’ll have to behave like a duke’s daughter.”
His contemptuous gaze didn’t linger on me for long.
As though he didn’t even want to waste any more time dealing with me, he simply walked away.
……It’s been a while since someone openly insulted me to my face.
Only after he had left could I finally breathe properly again.
I pressed my hand against my flushed cheek and felt the heat against my palm.
……I suppose it was my fault.
I was grumbling way too much in the study.
He wasn’t wrong.
Even though this seemed to be his private study, it was still a place where I was supposed to remain quiet.
So naturally, he would be annoyed that I was being so noisy.
Yes.
As the owner of the study, he had every right to be upset.
But still……
His choice of words was seriously brutal…….
I’d already had an idea of what his personality was like.
Even so, being on the receiving end of it was inevitably painful.
I pressed my hand against my heart and thought.
Apparently, there wasn’t even a one-percent chance of developing a positive relationship with Alexei and somehow escaping my predetermined death.
