The Beloved Fiancee Is Likely to Be the Villain - CH 31

Serena was 14 years old when she regained her memory of her previous life.

“Eh?”

She put down her brush in a hurry, almost soiling the manuscript in the beat of her voice, then looked around in a circle.

The house, which should have been familiar to her since she was a child, suddenly seemed like a strange place. The ceiling was high. The tables were too heavy. And the wallpaper was too extravagant. Statues of angels were surrounded by flowers and blowing trumpets in the garden.

Serens had been led to believe that this was a poor Baron’s house with a title in name only, but from the 50-year-old house she lived in her previous life, it was a mansion that made her eyeballs pop out of her head.

She tucked the strands of bangs which fell to her eyes, and covered her pale face.

This is that thing, the otherworldly reincarnation I’ve read about so many times in my previous life!

In her previous life, Serena was a shy 17-year-old who girl loved Otome games.

She got hooked on Otome games when she was in junior high school after borrowing a phone from her older sister. She spent her annual allowance on three shadow games at the same time and was particularly fond of fantasy games set in an aristocratic society. She also liked “otherworldly reincarnation” games.

This world seemed similar to the world of Otome games, but she couldn’t remember her name or appearance. Serena guessed that she had not entered into the story, but had simply been reincarnated in another world.

She didn’t know why, she just knew she had reincarnated.

One thing she did understand is the cause of her longstanding feeling of inadequacy in this world of fiction.

Serena was once called a child prodigy. She learned to read quickly and could read even difficult books with ease. In retrospect, it was due to the power of her previous life. In her previous life, reading and writing were her natural skills, not the privilege of the aristocracy or the wealthy as in this world. She was simply used to it.

So as soon as she had a tutor and began to study specialized subjects such as history, music, and philosophy, Serena’s brain stalled.

Her father, with a subtle look on his face, still believed in Serena’s potential and was trying to raise the money to enroll her in the Royal Academies. While this was a joy for Serena, it was also a burden for her since she did not know much about the life of aristocracy in this world.

Using the only thing she was good at, reading and writing, Serena decided to help out the family financially by copying books.

Although letterpress printing had already been invented, there were still many chips and errors, and manuscripts were still in demand among the aristocracy, who valued old-fashioned traditions. Beautiful handwritten calligraphy was laid out on bleached paper, and the margins were decorated with gold leaf. For Serena, a lover of detailed work, manuscripts were her calling.

She thought that if she saved her expenses from now on, she would be able to earn enough money to pay for her school fees.

However, as she continued to copy and read the various books she was commissioned to read, she began to feel that something was missing.

A prince chases after a villain who has kidnapped a princess. The prince who rescues the unfortunate princess. Every time she read a popular novel, she felt like she knew a more interesting story, a more beautiful princess, a more epic love story. …… Such frustration burned her heart, but she couldn’t remember the title or even the important details.

It was a problem she have been agonizing over for the past few years.

But one day, by some chance, she suddenly found the answer.

What Serena remembered was that in her previous life, she had read about the more sophisticated “otome games” and novelizations of them.

There were detailed descriptions of beautiful characters, heartbreaking episodes, and scenarios that make you believe you are the protagonist.

In comparison, the novels of this world were written in the 18th century. In a world without cameras or television, novels are extraordinary entertainment. In order to emphasize the extraordinary nature of the novel, the narrative is hearsay style, the psychological descriptions are full of anguish, and the characters wander from place to place, devoting many pages to describing the scenery. Such were the templates for bestsellers.

But I didn’t have that much time, Serena thought.

She took up a piece of paper, separated it from the manuscript and began to write something on it.

****

Three years had passed since she began writing. A year after entering the Royal Academies, Serena had grown into a popular mid-level writer.

She had earned enough money to pay her own entrance fee, and she had reached the point where she would be able to pay her tuition for three years if she wrote one more story.

The secret to her popularity was an idea she had gotten from an Otome game. To put it simply, it was a cheat with knowledge from her previous life.

Serena’s sales pitch was a medium-length novel that was easy to understand and gives dreams and crushes to ordinary people.

The publisher to whom she had submitted her manuscript said that her writing skills were not good, but that she had a good eye for detail. The novels of this world were in the Gothic novel genre of the previous generation, where the profoundly decadent and bizarre novels created by philanthropic dilettantes were being touted as a new type of literature.

Serena entered the market with the ease and accessibility of a novel.

The story progressed with the first meeting of the hero and heroine, full of realism. A little mystery that didn’t have to be serious but was intriguing. The dialogue is full of awkwardness that made one want to be told.

The setting was not some faraway country. They were in the same country, and you can even see the main character. It was a book that one can get into and that would leave you feeling refreshed after one finished reading it.

A light read.

It was truly a light novel.

Serena’s novels were printed in large quantities on poor half-sheets of paper, closed with string, and sold.

She had no intention of writing high literature for the aristocracy. Serena’s brain was not capable of writing such high literature, and her knowledge of her previous life might be exposed if her side business was known in the aristocratic circles. Serena dared to choose a field of “medium-sized” in terms of sales and with a small profit margin, even if the number of copies was large.

Today Serena is still busy writing.

The groundwork has been laid for several years.

Her novels, which had never been published before, rapidly captured the hearts of the general public, and her own composition and expression skills improved dramatically thanks to her prolific writing. The number of copies of each new work has increased as a result of the synergistic effect.

After entering the Royal Academy and spending a year there, Serena learned about this world of “Academia”. She learned about the life of the dazzling upper class aristocracy. Just talking with her sparkling classmates makes her palpitate with nervousness, but such sensibility from a commoner’s point of view is also important for her works.

I can go for it. ……!

Selena’s cheeks flushed with excitement as she slammed the sentence that flooded her brain onto paper.

It was time to write.

It was time to write the novelization of the masterpiece that had turned Serena into an otome game geek in her previous life, “The Sacred Maiden Sends Down Stars in the Night Sky,” in this world.

****

Then another year later.

Selena was pale and trembling.

The “editor-in-chief,” who was the only one who knew about Serena’s side job, which she had not revealed even to her family, rubbed his nose with an ink-stained fingertip and laughed heartily.

“If the bosses find out about you, I’ll close the store for a while! Don’t worry, I won’t say a word about you!”

“That’s not the point!”

“We’ll have to cheer you on with all our hearts. After all, you wrote such a good piece of work.

“No, there’s no need to be so enthusiastic! What if, just in case, just in case, the Crown Prince or the Duke catches the sight of it and catches us?”

“Well, if something like that happens, you just have to change your name and make a fresh start. You should think of a new pen name, too.”

“They are going to be pissed, won’t they!?”

Serena’s screams were drowned out by the editor-in-chief’s hearty laughter.

How thoughtless of her, Serena regretted what she did. With the momentum of writing, combined with some “I hope it will be popular and sell well,” Serena borrowed the appearance of the main characters from real people.

The main character was her.

And the Crown Prince in the story was the actual Crown Prince of the country.

The villain was the Duke’s daughter and the Crown Prince’s fiancée.

It was the her own fault. But by the time she realized it, it was too late. The editor-in-chief was even more greedy for money than Serena. It was only natural that he wanted to sell a large number of books, since he was selling them at a very low profit margin.

He went to the trouble of preparing twice as many illustrations as usual, and portrayed the Crown Prince and the Duchess in a manner that barely resembled each other to the point of being excusable (by the way, the main character was an active-looking girl with bigger eyes than Selena’s).

When shown the finished book, after hundreds of copies had already been printed, it was too late to stop the publishing.

“Actually, I come from a merchant family, too. I was thrilled to read it! This is sure going to be a big hit!”

“Ohhhhhh ……”

Serena let out a decisive scream and crumpled to the floor.

It’s over. It’s all over.

What if I’m sentenced to 50 years in jail?

If it gets out that she was the one who wrote this as an aristocrat, she will be expelled from the school. Or even deprived of her status. It could lead to such a situation.

Turning her back on the editor-in-chief, who was pumping his fist in the air, Selena prayed with tears in her eyes to the god who might have reincarnated her.

****

A few more months passed.

Serena had not yet been captured.

But a more serious incident had occurred.

A girl who looked exactly like the main character in “The Sacred Maiden Sends Down Stars into the Night Sky” appeared, and the girl and the son of the Knight Commander were seen together more and more often.

The students were gossiping amongst themselves that the “Star Maiden” had slipped out of the novel and appeared.

The Crown Prince and his fiancée, the Duchess, were somewhat distant from each other. The only thing in their eyes was concern,…….

What on earth is this …… about?

There was no way that “The Star Maiden” was real. The person who wrote it knows that better than anyone else.

Could it be that the novels of reincarnated people have the power to make scenarios come true?

The hypothesis that came to mind made her blood boil.

She wanted to write a romance that was here and now, not an exotic legend. A realistic romance. It was only on the spur of the moment that she borrowed the characteristics of a real person to spice things up.

However, the situation that happened was beyond such words.

She, and her novel, have torn the two people that loves each other apart, causing chaos at the school.

I’m sorry, you two! ……!!!

Serena regretted her mistake from the bottom of her heart.

She repented, regretted, and decided that if she had the power to do so, she must make them lovey-dovey.

The crushes she had from the Otome games in her previous life and her knowledge as an aristocrat in this life, she fully utilized both of them to complete a realistic blockbuster.

In her spare time, Serena devoted herself to writing a novel about the crown prince, Vincent, and his fiancée, Elizabeth.

Little did she know that her novels would catch the attention of the Crown Prince Vincent and his fiancée Elizabeth, who would become her sole and biggest fan.