CSTV 06

Chapter : 06

After returning to my room, I collapsed onto the bed, completely drained of energy.

The Duchess, Marina, apologized to me.

‘I’m afraid we raised our child poorly. As his sister, could you be generous and let this one slide?’

I frantically refused, saying that it was fine and that there was no need to apologize, but apparently, she didn’t really take my words to heart.

Watching the Duchess resolve to raise him even more strictly made my heart burn.

‘But then I’m the one who gets screwed over!’

Was it because I wasn’t an adult or a parent myself? I could understand Alexei’s feelings a little better now.

Unlike his parents, Cassandra herself had never been close to the people of the Clayman ducal family.

From Alexei’s perspective, some kid he didn’t even know had suddenly been adopted into his family. Of course he would feel resistant toward her.

‘I don’t think people would even force pets to live together this recklessly.’

Judging by how many times Alexei brought up the Clayman family, he seemed to have a great deal of pride in his family.

He probably disliked what I did because it seemed inadequate to him, and he was dissatisfied with me, but his parents didn’t understand him…

“Lady Cassandra.”

I knew this.

This was one of those reasons villains in dramas became twisted!

A kind protagonist would suddenly get adopted and steal the parents’ love away from the original child. That was how the villain became a sympathetic bad guy with a tragic backstory!

“Hm?”

“It’s time for your medicine.”

Ugh.

At the word medicine, I instinctively grimaced, making Hanna giggle softly.

Hanna, a kind and gentle girl.

Maybe it was because she was a maid, but among everyone in this household, she was particularly friendly toward me.

‘I’m not some kind and sociable protagonist from a drama.’

Just because I understood Alexei didn’t mean I sympathized with him that much.

I was merely shrinking back and cowering.

If I were a kind protagonist, I would probably ignore something like this and approach the villain first.

‘But I don’t want to approach him…’

Every time I met Alexei, the situation only got worse.

‘Alexei is already the murderer who will kill me in the future, and I’m piling up grudges against me one by one.’

Please, stop giving me more foreshadowing and justification for my murder ending!

“…I hate this.”

“B-but you have to take it to get better…”

“Hm? No, no! I was just complaining! I’ll take it.”

Gulp.

I swallowed the disgusting medicine in one shot and frowned.

Maybe things would have been better if I were more cheerful and outgoing.

Like Hanna.

‘If I were that kind of person, maybe I could have handled this situation better.’

Unfortunately, the person holding the leash on my life was Alexei, so if I became close to him, there was a greater chance I could stay safe.

Of course, the Duke and Duchess were friendly toward me.

But I wasn’t some lovable, kind protagonist who could steal enough affection from them to take Alexei’s share of their love.

I was selfish enough to ignore the Duke and Duchess’s kindness if it meant securing my own survival.

‘And I’m fine without parental love anyway.’

It wasn’t as if I had received much of it in the first place, so the more kindly they treated me, the more awkward I felt.

Looking at it that way, perhaps repairing my relationship with Alexei wasn’t actually that difficult.

I had no intention of taking anything that belonged to him.

And yet, what should have been an easy task felt impossibly difficult to me.

I had spent such a long time being bullied and isolated that I couldn’t even think of a single person I could call a friend.

I was simply not sociable.

Building positive, friendly relationships with people was extremely difficult for me.

“Here, have some honey to get rid of the taste.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

I accepted the spoonful of honey and put it into my mouth.

A spoon.

Immediately, Alexei’s cold face flashed through my mind again.

The bitter taste seemed to flow back up over the sweetness that was practically melting my tongue.

“Hanna, by any chance, about Alexei…”

“The Young Duke?!”

Hanna was reaching for the spoon in my hand when she suddenly panicked and dropped it.

Clang!

The sound of the spoon hitting the floor echoed through the air.

“……”

Silence briefly enveloped the two of us.

Avoiding my gaze, Hanna finally spoke.

“Ah, why do you ask about the Young Duke…?”

“Do you happen to know anything…?”

“I don’t! I don’t know anything about the Young Duke!”

Don’t say it like that!

Anyone would think you knew him extremely well!

Perhaps Hanna realized that herself, because her face turned red.

“Well… If you don’t know, then okay.”

The girl who had been so kind to me until now was so flustered that I felt bad interrogating her, so I gave her an awkward smile.

Information gathering was apparently a lost cause.

“……It’s because of what happened today, isn’t it?”

“Hm? Oh, yes.”

Not just because of what happened today, though.

‘I know Alexei.’

But the Alexei I knew wasn’t the young boy standing before me now.

Alexei, who entered the academy at eighteen alongside his first love.

Alexei, who went mad after despairing over love.

Alexei, the psychopath who killed his parents and sister for the sake of his love…

That was the only Alexei I knew.

‘Ah, no. I also know that he absolutely hates me. Haha…’

In any case, I had no idea how I was supposed to treat the Alexei of the present.

I wanted to start by reducing the hatred points I had accumulated against me from the moment we met back down to zero.

‘Even if I run away, with the amount of hatred he has toward me right now, I feel like he’d chase me down just to kill me…’

“The Young Duke isn’t as kind as you are, Lady Cassandra.”

“Me? I am?”

Was I kind?

Was I?

Somehow, I suddenly felt embarrassed, and my face grew red.

“The Young Duke is… um, a, a little… rough around the edges. So he’s difficult for servants like us to approach.”

“I can imagine.”

It’s not just you.

He’s difficult for me, too!

When I agreed with her, Hanna suddenly looked up.

Her face, which had been filled with fear, brightened slightly as though she was relieved.

“Sometimes… when he’s in a bad mood, he breaks things, too…”

“……That must have been hard.”

Looking at her frightened expression, I realized something.

He probably didn’t only break things.

Did he break people, too?

Was it not just that he disliked me?

Did he simply hate having people around him?

‘Right. In the novel, he disliked everyone except Serena.’

He was sensitive, had an intense hatred of humanity, and was violent by nature.

What a wonderful combination.

And if I added an unhappy family environment to the mix, it would actually be stranger if he didn’t become a villain.

“No, it’s okay. He only does that a few times a month. It’s not that often. According to the head maid, who has served three generations of the family, the Young Duke is still better than the previous Clayman Duke…”

Wait.

Was everyone in the Clayman family mentally unstable for generations?

It wasn’t just Alexei who had a bad personality?

And they even had a regular schedule for causing havoc?!

I stared at her with my mouth hanging open, and Hanna quickly covered her own mouth.

“B-but more importantly, Lady Cassandra.”

“Yeah.”

Perhaps realizing that the conversation had gone a little too far, Hanna hurriedly changed the subject.

“The Duke dislikes people walking around during his sleeping hours. So once it’s nighttime, please try to go to bed, and if you need anything, pull the cord and call me. Please don’t leave your room.”

“Okay. Thank you for telling me.”

After Hanna left, I sat down at my desk and began frantically organizing every piece of information I could remember about the original novel.

Even the insignificant details.

For example, this was the author’s second work.

Although it was supposedly part of a series, none of the protagonists from the previous story appeared in it, and both the setting and time period were completely different.

Both works were reverse-harem romances, and both featured a kind, cheerful heroine with golden-blonde hair.

‘But the heroine in that one was a saint, and the male lead was some arrogant, rude tyrant, right?’

Personally, neither a saint heroine nor an obnoxious tyrant male lead was my cup of tea, so I hadn’t read it.

Well, even if I had, it probably wouldn’t have helped me much in my current situation…

“Phew.”

I let out a long sigh and looked at the moon visible through my bedroom window.

The white, glowing full moon reminded me of someone.

‘Alexei.’

The eldest son and heir of the Clayman ducal family.

Strong pride in his family.

Madly in love with Serena, eventually leading to his downfall…

‘…Wait. When did Alexei meet Serena?’

The story began when Serena entered the academy.

Serena lived in the territory of the Clayman ducal family, but she was a commoner, and her parents ran a clothing shop—a fitting occupation for someone with the surname Cotton.

In the original novel, Alexei was granted permission to enter the academy.

Serena was supposed to attend the academy as well, but she had no way of getting there.

That was when Alexei appeared before her and offered her the use of his carriage.

As they traveled together in the carriage, Serena recalled the first time she had met Alexei.

I remembered being touched by how considerate the rude boy from her memories had become when he grew up.

She even thought his personality had improved because he had matured.

‘Poor, oblivious Serena. He probably only treated you that way.’

In other words, the two of them had known each other even before entering the academy and had already been acquainted for quite some time.

‘Besides, there’s no way Alexei and I will end up together.’

So it didn’t really matter when the two of them had met.

The development in which Alexei met Serena and fell in love with her was an immutable fact that couldn’t be changed.

‘If it’s Serena…’

A thought suddenly occurred to me, and I shot to my feet.

“I need to find Serena!”

The most important protagonist in this world.

Serena Cotton.

Perhaps she could change this completely insane chain of events.

I needed to find out whether Serena had already met Alexei or not.

And, if possible, I needed to become friends with her.

‘If we become close, maybe I can get promoted from an extra to a supporting character!’

Perhaps because so many incredible men chased after her, Serena had almost no friends.

The few acquaintances she had all turned their backs on her because of the schemes of the villainous Marchioness’s daughter, Feroniac.

If I remembered correctly, it wasn’t until much later in the story that she finally became friends with the princess.

‘If I become Serena’s friend…’

I could have a much bigger role than Cassandra originally did!

‘…Though I don’t know if that would actually make my death flag disappear.’

Alexei wanted to obtain power for the sake of his love, and he killed his family to obtain that power.

‘Someone who could commit an insane act like that probably wasn’t normal to begin with.’

So even if I became friends with Serena, would he really let me live?

He might actually find me even more irritating and increase the hatred points against me.

At the dinner, I had thought the Duke and Duchess were being unusually harsh toward Alexei.

Could all those accumulated grudges have been what drove him insane?

‘If that’s the case, does that mean what I did today contributed to planting another death flag?’

“……His hands were stained with blood. His white face, drenched in blood, split into a horrifying red smile……”

Alexei entered the room where the Duke and Duchess were.

Through the crack of the open door, Cassandra discovered the Duke and Duchess lying dead, and Alexei standing there with blood on his hands.

Even the chilling smile he wore immediately after committing parricide was described.

‘…That was it. That was the entire description of the horrific crime of murdering his parents.’

But there was no doubt that the Duke and Duchess had been murdered horribly.

Cassandra had witnessed the murder and screamed in terror before running away.

“Ugh…”

Just imagining myself in Cassandra’s place sent chills down my spine.

‘Would things have been better if Cassandra hadn’t screamed and had simply run away without making a sound?’

‘No. Alexei would have killed her somehow. He killed his parents, so why would he spare his sister?!’

‘It said there was blood on his hands, so he probably killed them with his bare hands.’

‘Is he ridiculously strong? Is he a Sword Master? Does becoming a Sword Master make your grip strength stronger, too? But was there even a Sword Master in this world? There was someone who was insanely good with a sword, but I don’t remember if they were actually called a Sword Master…’

“……I don’t remember.”

The only thing I could clearly remember was the romance between Serena and Anthony.

The rebellion arc that followed had much less of Anthony and Serena’s romance, so I had skimmed through it.

‘Why did I rush through the really important parts?! I had no idea I’d need to know what happened next!’

Those transmigrators who remembered their original novels perfectly were truly amazing.

They remembered all those tiny details, used them to win over the male leads, and even obtained wealth and power!

‘I can’t properly remember anything except the romance plot…’

And on top of that, instead of winning over a male lead, I was busy piling up the justification for my own murder ending.

‘Sob, sob. Senior transmigrators, I’m sure you would have become incredibly successful even if you hadn’t transmigrated.’