I Played the Role of the Adopted Daughter Too Well

Viola bit her lip. She also bit her fingernails.

“Why is this?”

Why didn’t she wake up from her dream? Was it a dream come true?

Two days had passed.

So far, no one has disturbed Viola. There’s something magical about this wide, fluffy white bed. She felt like her body would melt just by touching it, so it was comfortable, but her heart was uncomfortable.

She got up and walked towards her desk. She pulled a chair and sat down.

Too young. She was very short. She sat on a chair and her legs didn’t even touch the ground.

‘It’s so vivid.’

At this point, Viola couldn’t help but think of ‘possession’.

‘Did I possess this body?’

That meant…

‘I’m in the body of the 7 years old princess Viola?’

She possessed the heroine who succeeded her father as a 10,000-deaths Duke and was reborn as her 10,000-deaths princess.

Ten thousand deaths. It meant killing ten thousand people.

‘Nonsense.’

No, he thought this was a dream but it was not. How could anyone have thought that this absurd anomaly was real! She tore her hair again.

‘It’s true that I possessed it.’

A bloody crest family. An iron-blooded Duke… She became Bellato’s adopted daughter and was abandoned.

‘If I become the female lead.’

She imagined this a lot, but she never thought it would actually happen. After more than ten hours, Arin acknowledged it.

Arin, living in the 21st century, became Viola, the adopted daughter of the Bellato family.

She sat at her desk and worked hard thinking. Even if the tiger goes into the den, it would live as long as it stayed alert.

Whoa!

She chose to breathe. That place was where she must thoroughly prove her abilities. When a Bellato didn’t act as a Bellato, he or she used to be chased by the rest of the family children. He or she may be purged.

As a reader, it’s full of tension! It was her heartbreaking worldview. But it was dog shit when she got into the character’s shoes.

‘First of all, I have to make the Bellato psychos recognize me as Bellato, right?’

She had to survive and be recognized.

She bit her nails.

‘Then, I will promote the first princess as her successor.’

If the first princess in the original story hadn’t done anything but wicked tricks, she would have easily taken the place of her successor as Viola. When the successor was chosen, the war between brothers ended. And dangerous missions would also disappear.

‘Okay. Let’s make the first princess the next Duke.’

She was not quite the same as Viola in the original story. To do the same, she would have to kill ten thousand people, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to die, no, she didn’t want to die.

Viola’s expression became serious.

Arin, the reader, felt sorry for Viola. She didn’t want to be a ruler, but she didn’t want to be a lonely, pitiful ruler either. Fortunately, she went through this novel several times and even read the setting book written on the author’s blog.

‘I will live differently.’

What was the meaning of an ending where no one was left by her side? She made a promise and brainwashed herself.

‘Okay. This is a fanfiction written with the body.’

The trap was that she could die if misused, but she fully acknowledged the possession. Then, now was the time to do her best. With her half-hearted attitude and decision, she couldn’t even keep her life in this iron-blooded ducal family. But Arin, who became a Viola, did not want to die.

She remembered her elementary school days. Arin, who was young, wanted to die.

‘Do you know what? They say her mother is dead and her father is gone.’

‘Really? How could that be?’

‘She lives in an orphanage.’

Arin was an orphan, and she grew up in an orphanage. The nursery school teachers were warm, but they couldn’t fill the place of parents.

‘Teacher, when will Dad pick me up?’

My dad said he would come pick me up after apparently only a hundred nights sleep. That was when she was five years old. But after a hundred nights and two hundred nights passed, her dad still didn’t come. It wasn’t until she was in middle school that Arin understood.

‘I was abandoned.’

Little Arin had no family. She was miserable. It seemed like everyone else had mom and dad, and she didn’t have them. Her sense of emptiness made her feel sick of her life.

Fifteen-year-old Arin walked up to the roof of the school. She stood on the railing. She could see the hard ground down there. And there she realized.

“Still, I want to live.”

She wanted to live.

It was okay to not have a family who loved her. She could have one when she gets a little older. She thought that when she grows up to be a better adult, she could have people she loved.

She would not abandon her family. She wouldn’t make another child like her.

Fifteen-year-old Arin had made such a promise. Since then, Arin has always lived her best life. She also studied hard. As she went through high school, she made many friends and got into a good university. She did well in the country and also supported her scholarship.

During the University acceptance day, her friends congratulated her wholeheartedly.

‘Amazing. Really congratulations!’

‘Arin, we knew you could do anything!’

Arin was used to always doing her best. 

She was in the second semester of her first year of university and even when she was preparing for her midterm exams, she did her best. She studied hard in the library and fell asleep.

When she opened her eyes, she was in Viola’s body. So she decided that now she became Viola but she was Arin.

‘Still…’

There she had a father. There she had a family for the first time in her life. She seemed much better than without, she thought. At the same time she was feeling a bit sad.

Heron Bellato was actually a zero, no, -100 father-points to be a father. Nevertheless, he did not hate Arin. It seemed that letting her have a brutal succession competition was better than leaving her behind.

At least he was by her side.

‘After reading the entire novel, it’s not like I don’t understand Heron Bellato.’

At first she thought Heron Bellato was just a madman. However, sheread Heron’s circumstances, and Arin deeply sympathized with him and understood him. That’s what for him she could be the best girl, but her father wasn’t the only one there. There were also people who were not sane but called family. People who had longed for it so much.

It’s a very, very long way to go, but it happened anyway.

‘Okay. The mental breakdown is over now!’

Now she had to adapt to this world. As always, she decided to try her best to survive. For that, she remembered the contents of the novel.

“Carlton. In your opinion, what are the odds that the child will survive in Bellato to adulthood?”

“I think it will be less than 10%.”

Viola did not know. She never thought Carlton would actually say this.

‘I think it would be less than 40%.’

It was 10% in fiction. Now that it has become a reality, he mentioned 40 percent.

Viola kept thinking about the contents of her novel.

⌠“Attach Zenon as her temporary butler.”

“All right.”⌡

She, too, did not know this part. In the novel, they attached a temporary butler to her. Now that it has become a reality, she had a regular butler.

She didn’t know the fact that she’s playing her role as an adopted daughter too well.

Arin closed her eyes and thought.

‘Temporary butler Zenon.

Zenon was an elite swordsman from a prestigious family. Due to a certain incident, he annihilated about 20 first-class regular knights of the Empire in one place and entrusted himself to Bellato.

‘A watcher and competent butler who constantly tests and observes Viola’s qualities.’

Zenon did not approve of Viola at first. It was only in the middle of the work that he fully acknowledged Viola, and he established himself as Viola’s closest aide.

She remembered the setting for Zenon.

Purple hair, handsome face with a good impression, a warm smile. He was always undisturbed, with a neat appearance and attitude.

「But he would always observe Viola with mysterious eyes.」

This was the description of Zeno.

Knock, knock.

A knock was heard and a gentle voice came from outside.

“Princess Viola, may I come in? My name is Zenon, the newly assigned butler.”

Viola doubted her ears.

‘Huh?’

Something had subtly changed.

⌠“Princess Viola, is it okay if I go in? This is Zenon, who has been newly assigned as temporary butler.”⌡

But he said ‘butler,’ not ‘temporary butler’.

Viola raised her body. She walked over to the door and opened the door herself.

‘Why is the doorknob so high?’

Was it because it was a fantasy world? The doorknob was quite high. Otherwise, the seven-year-old Viola’s body could be much smaller than the seven-year-olds of her age.

She raised her arms high and reached her heels before reaching her hand for the doorknob. When she opened the door, she saw Zenon’s face.

‘Wow, he is tall.’

It was as described in the work. From purple hair to a warm smile. Even the eyes that looked suspicious somehow.

He asked with a smile and with his eyes narrowed.

“Did you open the door yourself?”

“Huh.”

“From now on, all you have to do is give an order. The person who opens the door is the butler, not the princess.”

Viola laughed lightly. Viola was a character born to live according to the setting. It wasn’t Arin’s intention, but Viola’s eyes were bloody.

“Are you admonishing me?”

She knew the character Zenon well. She couldn’t just skip over there. Zenon was a character who always tested Viola.

“Did you feel it was an admonition?”

“No?”

“No, sorry.”

Zenon was quick to admit his mistake. He thought it was foolish to see a princess open the door herself. So she relaxed a bit, but she must have misjudged it.

“The role of a butler is to give advice, not to admonish. Be mindful.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

How to survive as Viola Bellato? It was about not losing her Bellato look.

Without losing her prestige and authority as Bellato, she had to get those around her to side with me. The Viola in the original work had not lost her prestige and authority. She held people down with fear and power, and eventually lost everyone around her.

“I heard that the role of butlers is important in Bellatu.”, she said.

Bellato’s butlers were deeply involved in the succession race. The butlers who helped the heir who was weeded out in the succession competition were purged or kicked out. Conversely, a butler who has established a successor may wield unbridled power.

“I wanted to see my butler’s face for myself.”

“I see.”

“That’s why I opened the door myself.”

“I didn’t know that meaning was hidden, I’m sorry.”

Zenon got down on one knee.

Viola met his smiling eyes. Zenon was giving a pretty eye smile.

“My face is like this. I am very happy to be Princess Viola’s butler because she is so intelligent.”

“I like you too.”

“Even if I made a big mistake?”

“Huh.”

As a reader, Arin Han had come into contact with this world a lot. How could she win the hearts of the characters? She seemed to know how to make a good living there.

“Still, you’re a butler who knows how to tell me the right things. It’s not like Bellato’s princess to open the door herself. So you got the problem right.”

As a genuine reader of this work, she pointed out the core.

“It wasn’t the content of your words that bothered me, it was your attitude.”

Zenon looked into Viola’s eyes for a long time. He was a little shocked.

That’s right.

‘Those purple eyes… They say it sometimes turns red, right?’

It was said that only a small percentage of people who were born in the position of the killing star showed that kind of appearance. A person who has had a particular kind of life since birth. But now she didn’t feel that way.

That’s how she was doing a good job of living.

‘A princess with greater qualities than I thought became Bellato.’, thought the butler.

Viola said.

“Zenon, I will give you the first command.”

Zenon swallowed a laugh inwardly. Originally today, he was going to briefly introduce himself and explain what Bellato was, and the situation Princess Viola now finds herself in as well as what to do going forward.

He tried to briefly explain those things. He didn’t know that the first day they met he would receive the first official order in a short timing of less than 10 minutes after meeting. It was a situation far beyond what was expected.

He received no explanation, but the young princess seemed to have a good grip on her role.

Zenon smiled and replied.

“Yes, please give me the first command.”

Upon hearing Viola’s first command, Zenon had to doubt his own ears.

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Translator Note: