Born as the Hidden Daughter of a Villainess and the Male Lead

<Episode 94>

 

The prime minister, whom she and her sister had followed as their teacher since childhood, bowed his head to the floor and shouted in a strong voice.

‘.…don’t forget your name.’

The last thing she remembered of him was neither miserable nor humiliating.

“……”

But why was she unable to stop her tears from flowing out?

Clearly, he was brutally tortured to death after she left.

The woman swallowed the tears that were threatening to well up again and forced her unsteady legs to move as she climbed the rugged mountainside.

How much further did she walk?

Now, perhaps because she was soaking wet from the flowing rain or because she was truly delirious, she couldn’t even see clearly in front of her, so she leaned against the crack of a rough rock and panted for cold breath.

The moment, she raised her head to try to get some more air…

She discovered, in her dim vision, the spire of a castle, something she would never have thought would be located on a cliff in such a deep mountain.

“Ah…!”

A ray of hope had finally appeared.

She stood up with all her might, scratching the ground until her fingernails bled.

She took another step towards the precarious mountainside and finally arrived at the castle gate.

Even in the midst of her confusion and blurry vision, it felt like decades had passed since it had been abandoned…It was an ownerless castle.

She instantly despaired at that fact.

“Until the rain stops….”

It was fortunate that she was able to avoid the rain.

She barely managed to hold on to her body, which seemed ready to collapse at any moment, and entered the gate.

The ceiling was covered in spiderwebs, and the interior was empty and desolate, as if all the valuables that once filled this castle had been stolen.

Raindrops were dripping down from the old, broken ceiling.

Even though her body was pushed to its limit, she needed not to be caught by any pursuers who might be chasing after her.

She barely managed to walk, leaning against the wall, and took a seat in the most remote corner of the room.

She then entered an empty circular hall with nothing blocking its door and collapsed to the ground.

“…!”

Now, the pain that had always pierced her like a fixed rule became so intense that her vision were turning black.

It was a pain that arose when the natural flow of life within the body was distorted due to an artifact that forcibly blocked the flow of mana.

“Agh, Aah….”

Red blood poured down from her chapped lips.

Her silver eyes that had lost their light blankly looked down at the blood.

She no longer had the strength to be surprised or angry.

And just like a dry fallen leaf, she slowly laid her head on the floor, stared at the faded ceiling, as she forced herself not to close her eyes.

But fate could not be resisted.

As her eyes closed, a single, transparent teardrop flowed down her drooping face.

 

***

 

A faint movement rose up from the ruins where only cold silence had settled.

“……”

A woman whose whole body was frozen and unable to move even a single fingertip, desperately tried to open her eyes.

However, her eyes were completely different from those of the woman who had closed her eyes a long time ago.

“…What, ugh.”

The woman, who instinctively felt a sense of alienation and was mumbling something with her dry lips, soon twisted her face in the intense pain that was rushing in and just scratched the floor with her fingernails.

“Ugh…”

She let out a groan of shock at the pain she had never experienced before and was unable to move for a while, but then the pain gradually subsided.

The woman let out a sigh and sat up.

“Where is this…?”

She, Edith, muttered in confusion.

 

***

 

I was so confused by the excruciating pain that enveloped me as soon as I came to my senses.

Looking back at my surroundings, I could conclude that this place was… cold and desolate.

“……”

It felt like a ruined castle hall that had been abandoned for decades.

The windows were all broken, leaving no room for me to see my reflection.

I looked down at my hands.

It wasn’t the small girl’s hand that I had become accustomed to over the past decade…It was a skinny hand, exactly the same size as my previous life’s.

I looked down at my legs, felt around, and used my wisdom to figure out that the body I was in was that of a woman in her late teens, if not older.

Her hair, that flowed down to her waist in waves, was a deep blue color.

But the most creepy thing was.

“…blood?”

…was a dried, dark red stain of blood that I discovered when I turned my head absentmindedly.

“…Why?”

I froze and looked away from the bloodstain.

I had no way of knowing whose blood it was.

“Could it be that the pain that came over me as soon as I woke up…?”

Could this person have been sick?

I was lost in thought, gently pressing my heart, which still lingered with a slight pain.

“……Then what happened to the original owner of this body?”

At the end of my complicated thoughts, the question that should have come to my mind first suddenly arose.

Idris explained it in an easy-to-understand way, as a form of the soul possessing another’s body.

So then, who was the original owner of this body?

“Why was she alone in this ruin that looked like it had been abandoned for decades…?”

In the quiet spacious room, only my voice, whispering softly, rang hollowly.

‘The Grand Princess will go into the past and carry out all your missions.’

‘After going to the past, you will share a lot the spirit of the person you possessed, but I think l need to briefly explain the situation at that time, so I will explain it now.’

Idris said that I would definitely share the memories of the possessed person.

I closed my eyes and concentrated my mind, recalling what Idris had said and the fragments of memories left behind by the master of this body.

“…Nothing?”

But even after struggling for a long time, I couldn’t recall any memories.

What is this?

I muttered in bewilderment.

…Was the method I tried wrong?

No, what else was there to do besides trying to recall the memories?

‘The country that led the Duchy of Hacardella to its destruction is the current Kingdom of Nisha.’

“If you just explain that much…”

In the end, all I knew for sure, having fallen into the past, was that the owner of this body was probably a young woman who was suffering from an illness.

The Duchy of Hacardella most likely had met its destruction by now.

“Did she run away from something and end up in these ruins….”

It had exactly the same atmosphere as the abandoned castle where Ashmed had been imprisoned alone in the past.

“……Really, what should I do?”

The moment when I was muttering in a daze, feeling utterly at a loss and didn’t know what to do.

Tak-

“…!”

A quiet noise was heard through the empty castle where only I seemed to exist.

It was an unexpected situation.

I was so startled that I held my breath and listened to the sounds coming closer.

Beyond the arched entrance, without any screen, a large, black figure stood against the high, gray wall.

“……”

Who the hell was that?

What should I do?

There was no escape route…!

Tak-

The moment I directed my gaze towards the sound while sweating profusely.

The unidentified visitor finally reached right before my eyes.

I looked back at the eerie figure that had entered my sight, immersed in a fear that froze my whole body.

“…!”

And, crushed by an indescribable shock, I was at a loss.

I looked up into those gloomy, cold, fluorescent blue eyes.

The figure of the man before me was large and so overwhelming that just seeing him took my breath away.

His long black hair flowed down to his feet in curls like the mane of an animal, and on his head he wore a pure white crown that seemed to be made of animal and human bones.

The dazzling blue, almost gentle glow of the dragon dam flowers that bloomed as if entangled in the bones, withered and fell endlessly.

It was also producing red berries, as if symbolizing the blood of dead.

Behind the black and blue tangle, a black cloak seemingly woven in countless layers of crow’s feather, hung long over his feet and on the floor, and black thorns grew like vines coiling around his pale, gnarled hands.

Although it was a being she had never seen before, her instincts told her that the being in front of her was not a human but a spirit.

But for some unknown reason…

“…Nonsense, that’s impossible.”

A boy I knew so well, whom I hadn’t seen for a while came to mind.

He reminded me of Ashmed.

When he grows up and becomes an adult….won’t he be like this?

[…why.]

Numbly, without a single emotion, the spirit that had been looking down at me for a while, with its face covered in a cold, dark blue mist, suddenly opened its mouth with a puzzled expression.

[You came back to life?]

I was startled by the words spoken by the strange figure and I looked up at him blankly.

[You should have died…What a strange thing.]

…This body should have died?

Could it be that the owner of this body died before I entered?

At that moment, as I was absentmindedly thinking, a sudden realization occurred to me and I was overcome with rage.

…Are you crazy?

Of all the many, many bodies, why this one?

You put me in a dead person’s body?!

[Anyway, all life is something I must consume.]

What?

As my eyes froze in confusion, a hand entangled in black thorns approached me, casting its shadow right before my eyes.

A cold voice spoke slowly, as if it were pronouncing a sentence upon me.

[Rose Hacardella. From this moment on, I declare death to your body.]

At the name that spirit spat out…

“…!”

I was crushed by a shock that overwhelmed everything, including my soul.

Rose Hacardella.

Hacardella…

I repeated the name in a daze.

This is getting so heated, omg!