Chapter 01
“Alright, alright! Welcome, Uncle Parnel, and Aunt Piolet! It’s time, so let’s get started.”
I greeted the two neighbors who had come to our yard today.
In the small yard sat a huge man with a mohawk and a fierce-looking face, and a plump woman with a round face and Beethoven-style hair. They sat politely, looking at me.
They were Uncle Parnel and Aunt Piolet.
With a serious expression, I raised the spoon in my small hand.
“Red sugar beet sherbet is a food that gives you both great taste and good health.”
Think this looks like door-to-door sales?
No.
What I’m doing right now is the ultimate lesson that will save the students in front of me.
It’s called the Red Sugar Beet Recipe Lecture!
For reference, the red sugar beet here was completely different from the modern one. It was a vegetable that was closer to a sweet fruit.
Aunt Piolet, who had been quietly watching my passionate explanation, smiled and spoke.
“You must have put a lot of work into processing the sugar beets.”
“Ah, it’s okay. Uncle Zimmer helped me.”
The moment I mentioned Uncle Zimmer, Aunt Piolet stiffened slightly.
“Ah… I see.”
“…Ahem.”
The giant Uncle Parnel beside her twitched his caterpillar-like eyebrows and snorted.
For the record, Uncle Zimmer—who wasn’t here just now—was my closest friend in the village. He constantly got into silly accidents, and I was always the one scolding him afterward.
Well, I knew Uncle Zimmer wasn’t very close with the other villagers…
But it still made me a little sad whenever they treated him like this.
Even to me, a ten-year-old, he could seem a little unreliable. Adults probably saw him that way even more.
Sigh. Poor Uncle Zimmer.
I can’t let this continue.
At least I should stand up for him.
“Uncle Zimmer is really kind! He may look a little foolish, but once you get to know him, you’ll see him differently!”
“…”
“…”
Silence filled the yard.
“I-Is that so?”
Aunt Piolet nodded, still wearing an awkward smile.
After the awkward moment passed, my lecture resumed.
Calling it a lecture was a bit much. I was simply teaching them how to dry the red sugar beet fruit, when to mix it with grated sugar beet, and how to shape it.
“Now, if you leave this in Ice Valley for about an hour, it’ll become delicious sherbet!”
“My goodness. It’s already this delicious without freezing it… Mm!”
“If one were to charge into a burning battlefield while holding this in one’s mouth, one would know no heat.”
As usual, Uncle Parnel was saying something strange, but let’s ignore that.
“By the way, you didn’t forget the homework I gave you last time, right?”
At my question, Uncle Parnel and Aunt Piolet exchanged glances.
When neither of them answered, I deliberately put on a stern expression.
“The sugar beet pills.”
“Uh… Well… About that…”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t do the homework? I told you! Once they’re aged, they’ll taste amazing!”
After every recipe lesson, I always gave them homework to make preserved food.
Actually, that was my real goal.
I didn’t want the people of this village, whom I’d grown attached to, to starve to death during the coming famine.
“I told you, didn’t I? Someday, a terrifying tyrant will rule the Empire, and a great famine might come!”
That’s right.
Three years from now, the Empire would be struck by a terrible famine. The nation’s finances would become so ruined that even warhorses would be used as food.
That was why I was personally teaching these innocent neighbors how to survive it.
“I-I did admire how useful dried rice cakes would be as military rations, but I shall soon be leaving this place—”
“Mr. Parnel, be quiet. That’s still a secret from Arinel. Shh!”
When Aunt Piolet scolded him with a stern face, Parnel flinched.
These bad students didn’t even do their homework, and now they were whispering?
Just as I was about to scold them, Aunt Piolet quickly changed the subject.
“By the way, Arinel… don’t you want to go to school after all?”
I paused.
Children in the Imperial Capital attended school, just like in the modern world.
“No. I prefer reading books by myself. I’m confident I can do better on my own than the children who go to school.”
Of course, I had no intention of going.
When the great famine came, many people in the cities would starve with no way out.
My home was much better.
Here, I could at least dig up wild plants, and I had my precious red sugar beet pills.
Yes!
I put my hands on my waist and nodded confidently.
“Arinel, I think you’re special. I’ve graduated thousands of young ladies in the Capital…”
“Huh?”
I tilted my head.
“Ah, from my care, that is. When I was young… I ran an orphanage in the Capital. An orphanage… for beautiful young ladies.”
“Really?”
This ordinary country woman had been the head of an orphanage?
That’s amazing!
But did orphanages use the word “graduate”?
I heard Uncle Parnel clear his throat again.
“Ahem!”
“As someone with the finest eye for talent, I can tell that you’re special, Arinel. It’s rare to find a young lady who’s this intelligent, creative, and capable of surviving. You’ll surely become the finest flower among flowers.”
She suddenly grabbed my hands with sparkling eyes.
Her cheeks had turned bright red.
“Someday, there will definitely come a time when you’ll need to learn somewhere other than a school. When that day comes, promise you’ll call for me.”
“Arinel.”
The moment Aunt Piolet finished speaking, Uncle Parnel interrupted.
“The accomplishments of ladies are worthless upon a battlefield stained with blood. In my judgment, your true talents lie elsewhere…”
“Co—… I mean, Mr. Parnel! I called dibs on Arinel first!”
Aunt Piolet protested sharply.
“Arinel shall stand beneath my command. Madam, you would do well not to entertain false hopes.”
Parnel declared solemnly, waving his thick arm.
“Mr. Parnel, I’m disappointed in you. Interrupting someone else’s recruitment like this…”
“You were the one who broke the rules first!”
There they go again.
Whenever they had the chance, the two of them passionately tried to convince me that I should follow them.
I had no idea why things like noble etiquette or battlefield tactics would ever be useful in a tiny countryside village.
“That is enough.”
At that moment, a voice rescued me from the overheated atmosphere.
When did he get here?
The final student to arrive today—the latecomer.
Uncle Amers came running over, his brown ponytail swaying behind him. Adjusting his glasses, he stepped between the two of them.
Uncle Amers lived next door to Uncle Zimmer. He had a strange way of speaking that sounded neither noble nor common.
If I had to describe it…
He sounded like a commoner pretending to be a noble.
Or maybe the other way around.
“What are the two of you doing in front of a child? She thought you were fighting and got frightened. And you two.”
At Uncle Amers’ calm voice, Uncle Parnel and Aunt Piolet both stiffened.
“Breaking the rules we agreed upon is not desirable. If the two of you continue acting like this, then I will have no choice but to join this war as well.”
At what sounded almost like a threat, Uncle Parnel and Aunt Piolet exchanged looks.
Apparently, neither of them thought they could beat Uncle Amers.
Aunt Piolet let out a small sigh.
“I’m sorry, Arinel.”
“Ahem. My greed got the better of me.”
Uncle Parnel apologized as well.
A little later, they left with the Red Sugar Beet Sherbet recipe they had copied down.
“Make sure you do your homework before next time!”
As I called after them, Uncle Amers spoke beside me.
“…Besides those two, have any of the other villagers ever offered to teach you something?”
“Oh. Aunt Annie once said she’d teach me about the law, and Uncle Bernel asked if I was interested in alchemy. But… I’ve been too busy making a living. I wasn’t interested, so I turned them down.”
At my answer, it looked as though sparks flashed in Uncle Amers’ eyes.
He clenched his fist and muttered,
“So they were all pretending otherwise while secretly making their moves.”
Was it my imagination?
He looked oddly betrayed.
After a moment, Uncle Amers looked at me and spoke quietly.
“What they’re talking about isn’t what’s important in life. Those things are only side branches.”
“Ah…”
“The most important thing in life… and what you absolutely must learn…”
His serious voice reached my ears.
Behind the cold lenses of his glasses, his deep gaze rested on me.
“…is money.”
* * *
My name is Arinel Myla.
I’m a victim of the classic reincarnation truck and someone who transmigrated into a romance fantasy novel.
The novel I entered was the dark romance fantasy I’ll Stop Being the Tyrant’s Mistress, the story of Amelia, the tyrant’s mistress, who becomes the object of the tyrant’s obsession.
The terrifying tyrant’s name was Parmes Aslet.
Known as the “Silver-Haired Devil,” he would one day plunge the Empire into terror together with his four ministers.
The ministers, representing the Ministry of the Imperial Household, the Military, the Treasury, and Foreign Affairs, were all terrifying villains who helped fill the novel with misery alongside Parmes.
The reason I said “one day” was because the event later called the worst disaster in history hadn’t happened yet.
But it definitely will happen.
And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Because I had absolutely no connection to the Imperial Palace.
I’m not even Extra No. 1.
I’m just Citizen No. 1 of the Empire.
My mother had once been a knight serving some noble. After becoming pregnant with me, she moved to Galnem Village, a tiny village in the middle of nowhere.
Only seven households lived here.
I grew up picking wild plants.
After my mother passed away when I was seven, I survived by creating food recipes for the villagers, growing red sugar beets with my capable hands, and gathering medicinal herbs.
Every single villager was strange in one way or another.
But they were all kind people.
And among all the neighbors of Galnem Village, the person standing in front of me with a troubled expression was…
“My goodness, again? Sigh…”
The very troublemaker I had mentioned earlier.
Uncle Yon Zimmer.
“What happened this time?”
He showed me a wound on his ankle, saying he’d fallen down the stairs and scraped it on a protruding nail.
I put my small fists on my waist and sighed as though I were angry.
How could an adult get hurt more often than children?
“You’ll just treat me again, Arinel.”
“I don’t know. Next time I’m going to pretend I don’t see you.”
I said that, but I still took out the ointment I’d made from my herb box and applied it to his ankle.
It looked like a fairly deep cut, but it probably wouldn’t leave a scar.
“So you really won’t treat me next time?”
He lowered his eyebrows pitifully as he looked at me.
Seriously?
An adult acting this shameless while being treated by a ten-year-old?
“…Really?”
I wanted to stay angry this time.
But when he looked at me with that face and those eyes…
Whether before or after reincarnating, I’d always been weak against handsome men.
“No. How could I ever ignore you? But it makes me sad whenever you get hurt. You always say I matter to you. Do you really want to see me worried because of you?”
As I spoke firmly, Uncle Zimmer’s ordinary brown eyes trembled slightly.
Was I imagining it?
For just a moment, they seemed to flash with a deep crimson color.
Uncle Zimmer slowly shook his head.
“So don’t get hurt.”
“For my sake, too.”
After finishing the treatment, I reminded him once more.
My neighbor, Yon Zimmer.
No matter how many times I saw him, I still couldn’t get used to how handsome he was.
A simple, gentle smile slowly spread across his face.
“As expected… I like Arinel the best in the whole world.”
His smile seemed bright enough to light up everything around us.
Looking at that smile, I believed that these peaceful, happy days with Uncle Zimmer and all my neighbors would last forever.
I have somewhere I must go urgently, so I’m leaving without saying goodbye. You won’t understand this situation, but be brave and wait for me.
I’ll definitely come back for you, Arinel.
Until one rainy day…
After leaving behind that unbelievable letter, Uncle Zimmer and all the villagers vanished from Galnem Village as if they had evaporated into thin air.
And later that same year, news arrived that the protagonist of I’ll Stop Being the Tyrant’s Mistress—
the tyrant Parmes Aslet—
had succeeded in his rebellion and ascended to the Imperial throne.
