Chapter 1
The back that touched the glass door felt cold.
Yet, I didn’t want to move away.
I was afraid that even a slight movement would cause me to touch the man in front of me.
“I missed you,” the man, Eden, said to me.
The day had come when the male lead of the novel said such words to me, the villainess.
I wish he had said those words to my sister instead…
Tears threatened to form in my bloodshot eyes.
I couldn’t fathom him saying he missed me based on my common sense.
Just like my father did to you, I tried to erase your memories.
I firmly believed it was for your own good.
“Eden. Why… why do you remember me…?”
But he still remembered me.
It was the worst.
To think he had endured the violence from our father and still remembered.
That meant he remembered the last words I said to him as well.
-What good is it to me to have you by my side?
Believing he would eventually forget everything spent in our house, I said harsh words to push him away.
‘’-You’re not needed. You.’’
It was me who brushed off the tearful hand of young Eden begging for mercy.
“How can I forget you?”
The current situation was too overwhelming for me to calm my trembling body.
As I sat there, Eden, who had been quietly watching me, moved his hand to kiss my hair.
His cautious gesture only suffocated me more.
“You may have wanted me to forget you…”
His voice, wounded, followed soon after.
His every word gnawed at my sanity.
“Elysia.”
I lifted my eyes to meet Eden’s.
As our eyes met, Eden flashed a faint smile.
It was as if he was saying,
“Am I still far from being by your side?”
He seemed like an angel sent to cleanse my sins.
But that was just an illusion created by Eden’s beautiful appearance.
He wasn’t like an angel at all.
“Unfortunately, I can’t immediately prove my worth because your father passed away.”
That was the easiest way out.
I was certain amidst the ensuing words.
Eden was just a mundane human, ensnared by misplaced affection. Not some angel to forgive my sins.
“You don’t have to prove yourself. You…”
He trailed off, unable to escape the past.
Eden’s smile deepened.
“You, you don’t need to…”
“Do you really think that?”
I heard what I wasn’t supposed to, he whispered, grasping my chin gently. Even so, Eden’s touch felt too delicate, unsettling.
“No, I don’t. I shouldn’t have to prove my worth to you.”
He insisted his thoughts upon me.
“It’s not necessary, yet you…”
I wanted to block my ears.
Just like Eden did in the past, before me.
“Now you say it’s not needed…”
He confined me with his body, oppressed me with his words.
“It’s difficult, Elysia.”
At that moment, I regretted falling into his trap with my own feet.
Elysia’s past life was harsh.
Being an orphan from the beginning, she had no family.
Then one couple adopted her, but her adoptive mother died shortly after.
Left alone, her stepfather grew increasingly irritated by her presence.
The irritation turned into abuse as time passed.
Verbal insults and physical violence were routine, and at times, he even attempted to strip her naked.
No one helped her.
There were pitying glances, but that was it.
She tried to escape and resisted being beaten, but her situation didn’t improve at all.
As time went on, her options dwindled.
The remaining options were only two.
Either my foster father dies, or I do.
Or, both.
What she chose was both.
“Ha… Ha….”
The hand grasping the balcony railing was stained with her foster father’s blood.
Beside the fallen man were broken bottles scattered everywhere. If she hadn’t smashed his head with those bottles, she wouldn’t have been able to kill him so easily.
She wanted to run away like this.
It was too unfair that she had to die just because she killed one human being.
She didn’t want to die yet.
But there was no other way but death. It was difficult to escape from the sin of killing that man.
It wasn’t a moral wrong, but in the eyes of the world and the law, it was clearly a crime.
She had no power, so the moment she was caught, she would inevitably face the judgment of the law.
She didn’t want to repent.
The hand grasping the railing slowly lost its strength.
Soon after, her emaciated body fell from the balcony to the ground.
Uh….”
Elysia woke up with a dull headache and doubted her own eyes.
The reflection in the mirror was that of a completely unfamiliar girl, no, a child.
Even though she was still a child, her well-kept night-sky black hair was long enough to reach her waist.
Every time Elysia blinked, her eyelids hid her red irises and then revealed them again.
“…A foreigner?”
Unlike the familiar black hair, the eye color, uncommon in the place where she lived, ignited Elysia’s suspicion.
She waved her right arm. The reflection in the mirror also waved her hand back to her.
Elysia sighed deeply and waved her left arm. As expected, the mirror waved her arm exactly in sync with Elysia’s gesture.
Is this really me?
Suddenly becoming someone else was bad enough, but becoming a foreign-looking child was unbelievable.
In this surreal situation, she felt even more dizzy than when she smelled her foster father’s blood.
“Oof!”
From behind Elysia, who was lost in thought, came the whimpering of a child. Elysia turned her neck towards the origin of the sound.
There, behind her, was an infant, even younger-looking than her own reflection in the mirror.
The child, just beginning to take its first steps, toddled towards her. It was a child she had never seen before.
The eyes of this unfamiliar child, like her own reflected in the mirror, gleamed with a crimson hue.
“This can’t be.”
Elysia wanted to close her eyes and turn away from reality.
But she couldn’t, not with the precarious steps the child was taking towards her.
Elysia watched with bated breath, fearing the child might stumble.
Fortunately, the child made it to her without incident.
Unbeknownst to Elysia, it was the child’s first successful steps.
“Woong!”
Having exerted all its strength to come this far, the child nestled into Elysia’s embrace.
Elysia, inadvertently, reciprocated by embracing the child back.
Unfortunately, being barely able to support her own body, she couldn’t bear the slightly smaller child and promptly fell backward.
“Who is this child, and who am I… Where am I…”
Elysia, overwhelmed by the weight of the child, sat down with a thud, her mind filled with questions.
“Even in her unintended second life, Elysia couldn’t relax and smile.’’
It wasn’t long after she first opened her eyes that she realized where she was and whose body she had inhabited.
It was Isabella Duke, the loving mother who had always affectionately called her Elysia.
Isabella adored her two daughters, Elysia and Ariel, dearly.
Elysia and Ariel.
The moment she heard those names, Elysia realized that this place was straight out of the novel she had read.
The Prison of Ariel. With the protagonist’s name being her own sister, Elysia could easily grasp her current situation.
‘It’s absurd enough to be inhabiting someone else’s body, but to top it off, the body I’ve inhabited is the protagonist’s sister and the villain….’
The Elysia Parthin she had inhabited was the eldest daughter of the Parthin Duke. And the protagonist, Ariel, was the duke’s second daughter.
So far, so good. It was ridiculous enough to be in a situation like this, but being the duke’s eldest daughter wasn’t much of a big deal.
The problem lay elsewhere.
The fact that the ‘Elysia’ she had inhabited was the villain who had made the protagonists’ childhoods miserable was the issue.
Not only did she torment them as children, but as they grew older, she continued to torment them, especially Ariel, the protagonist, and Eden, the male lead.
Of course, she continued to torment them even when they were older.
The villainous Elysia, who tormented children going through their growth period, was a scar that was not good for the protagonists.
Elysia herself knew better than anyone else how much of an impact childhood abuse could have on a person.
As soon as she realized she was Elysia, she foresaw her future.
‘If I torment Ariel and Eden as in the original, I will die….’
In the future, Eden will bring about the downfall of the Parthin Duke’s family in order to save Ariel and seek revenge.
And the villainous Elysia Parthin will also end up dead as a target of revenge.
‘Once I died, it should’ve been over, but again….’
Thinking of the grim fate that ‘Elysia’ faces in the original, Elysia watched Ariel, who was practicing to take her first steps, every day.
‘Let’s be kind to Ariel.'”
‘’It’s the only way to survive.”
Nine years had passed since Ariel took her first steps and started eating solid food.
Throughout those nine years, Elysia had constantly made a vow to herself.
Even if Parthin, the Duke, were to bring Eden back, nothing should interfere with the love between him and Ariel, just like in a novel.
“If someone is to die, it should be Parthin, who kidnapped Eden.”
Elysia didn’t want to die because of her parents, not through suicide or someone else’s revenge.
Lost in thought, Elysia felt a familiar presence beside her.
It was the butler, Edik.
“Lady Elysia, Miss Ariel has gotten into another accident…”
“I’ll handle it, just leave me alone.”
Elysia replied, touching her forehead, recalling her past vows.
As Elysia stood up from her seat, she gestured for the butler to leave, and he bowed respectfully before exiting.
Leaving her room, Elysia headed towards Ariel’s room where she had supposedly caused another mishap.
“Ariel.”
She called out, knocking on the large door with her petite hand. Despite knowing Ariel was inside, the other side of the door remained silent.
With a sigh, Elysia opened the door herself.
“Ariel!”
“Y-yes, sis…?”
Ariel, hiding under the blanket, stuttered, then timidly emerged from underneath. Meeting Elysia’s gaze, Ariel immediately looked away.
In Elysia’s eyes, even Ariel’s disheveled appearance looked adorable.
At just nine years old, Ariel’s cheeks were plump.
Like Elysia, Ariel had black hair and crimson eyes.
Physically, she resembled Parthin, the Duke, more than Elysia did.
“What kind of trouble did you get into today?”
Even though she resembled Parthin, Ariel seemed the most adorable and lovable in Elysia’s eyes.
With a mix of firmness and affection, Elysia asked in a stern voice.
“W-well, I…”
At nine, minor mishaps were considered cute. Of course, this was solely Elysia’s perspective.
In this society, having noble status meant being careful even as a child, according to common knowledge.
Although Elysia didn’t completely agree with this, she scolded Ariel regularly to prevent her from causing trouble that would reach Parthin, the Duke’s ears.
