The novel was called “A Rose Among Thorns” and it was a reverse harem story. 

A shitty reverse harem story, though not just because it was a harem story alone. Sure most harem webnovels tended to be shit, but Lucy had read enough good ones to give it the benefit of the doubt when someone online recommended it to her. 

And yeah it had a chapter count that rivaled even the longest of cultivation novels but fuck, it wasn’t as though too much content was a bad thing. It was about time she read something longer than a oneshot anyway. 

So she sat down on her bed, cracked open a Coke, and got to reading. 

And at first it was… pretty decent. Yeah the main character was a bit too kind and forgiving to be real, the plot was predictable, and the male leads just fell for her like dominos, but it was all written well enough that Lucy was willing to forgive and overlook it. 

The background lore, magical creatures, and some of the setting characteristics were what drew her in more than anything. The author had a meticulous way of describing things that Lucy really appreciated; not enough webnovels took the time to really go into detail about what the world looked like.

And yeah it got a bit too long winded at times, but the author really seemed to know how to tone it down when they had to. More often than not, the sheer amount of detail managed to draw Lucy into the world the author was creating. She could feel as though she were really there, dancing alongside the protagonist as she was being held by her newest harem member. 

But then things started going down hill. Starting when the author suddenly and without warning killed off the main villain, Duchess Lucille Feola Rabold nee Rachel. 

Lucille Feola Rabold was a textbook evil stepmother. Cruel, vicious, and full of envy towards the main protagonist’s power and beauty, she made it a point to make every second of her new stepdaughter’s life a living hell. Making her sleep with the dogs, dressing her with rags, starving her, refusing to teach her how to wield her newfound powers, sending cruel thugs to try and “toy” with her at night -- she did everything short of murder to the poor girl.

And for the most part, she was able to get away with it with little to no consequences whatsoever. Part of the reason why was because of the nature of her marriage to the main character’s father, Duke Abbadon Rebold. 

The two main species in the story were humans and demons. Humans lived in the Human Realm, a world that was a lot like Earth, while demons lived in the Demon Realm, a world that was a lot like Earth only with a red sky, two moons, and thousands of demonic creatures trying to kill anything that moved. 

These two realms were connected by twenty gates, called World Gates. These gates were something like ten miles high and five miles long, so they couldn't exactly be hidden. Anyone could come to and from these World Gates, which was a bit of a hazard when both Realms were at war with each other. 

The story didn’t say why the humans and demons were at war with each other, only that they were and that it’s been going on for millennia. It was only very recently that humans and demons were able to come to a sort of shaky truce. 

And what better way to solidify said truce than through marriage! 

The thing was, the crown prince and princess from the Human and Demon Realms were already married. Neither royal families had any other relatives to marry off either, so after a few weeks of debate they both ended up agreeing to offer up the heads of the most influential and powerful noble families in their respective courts. For the Demon Realm it was Duke Abbadon Rabold, and for the Human Realm it was Duchess Lucille Feola Rachel. 

Basically, the only thing keeping two trigger happy species from going to yet another millennia long war with one another was a single marriage. And both royal families were willing to do whatever to took -- even overlook blatant and over-the-top child abuse -- in order to make that marriage be as stable as possible. 

So yeah, that was the main reason. It wasn’t, however, the biggest reason why Lucille was able to get away with doing so much shit. 

The biggest reason why was because Duke Abbadon Rabold simply wasn’t there to reign her in. 

Yep, the day after marrying Lucille and promising to protect his newfound daughter, Duke Abbadon left to do some “important business” in the Demon Realm and was never seen in the story since. 

Lucy, like many readers, assumed that the guy died at some point in the story. Maybe Lucille killed him, or maybe a new villain decided to get rid of him off screen, or maybe he lost his memories and was left wandering around trying to find his lost identity or something. It wouldn’t be the first time the book would pull the whole amnesia trope. 

But no, he just… never showed up again. Ever.

Like, he was mentioned maybe once or twice when the main character talked about a recent letter she got from him, but that was over seven hundred chapters after his first appearance. By that point Lucy had to go back and remind herself of who the character even was. 

Eventually he just stopped being mentioned all together. Like the author completely forgot that the main character’s father was even a thing. 

So with the power of two royal families and the absence of the only person powerful enough to reign her in, Duchess Lucille basically did whatever the fuck she wanted. And what she wanted was to get revenge against the little girl she felt slighted her. 

For over one hundred chapters she reigned supreme no matter what the main protagonist and her harem did. 

Complain to the royal families? She already had them in her corner from the start! 

Try to out her to the world? She’ll just have her men get rid of the evidence! 

Reveal her wrong doings to the public? She’ll frame the revealer for an even bigger scandal! 

Send assassins? That’s what guards are there for, fool! 

Fight her one on one? She’s a master sorceress and swordswoman! You’ll be lucky if you even touch her! 

Duchess Lucille was practically invincible in the beginning of the story. Nothing the main character or her harem did seemed to stick, and what few victories they had against her only gave her minor setbacks at best.

Her only real weakness was the fact that she was obsessed with public perception; she wanted the world to see her as a calm and poise Duchess rather than the shrieking shrew she really was. So while in public she treated the main character as nice as nice could be, behind closed doors she just threw her to the dogs. Sometimes literally. 

Like a lot of readers, Lucy was interested in how the main character and her harem would take down Lucille. It was an ongoing debate among the comments and forums as people discussed and came up with possible methods as to how the main character would get rid of her. 

Then the main villain got oneshotted by the newest harem member and the whole story went straight to hell. 

You see, the new harem member was someone that came completely and utterly out of nowhere. A textbook deus ex machina that wasn’t foreshadowed in the slightest, didn’t have anything to do with the main character before this, and -- the worst possible offense for any kind of story -- completely broke the setting rules due to his mere presence. 

Because this new harem member came from a third Realm, one that was never mentioned beforehand, never foreshadowed beforehand, and did not fit with any of the established lore or backstory, but was all of a sudden just part of the setting. Like, one of the characters mentioned something along the lines of “oh yeah, there’s just this third Realm that we never really talked about and never really mentioned, they’ve been a neutral party in the war” and that was it. 

The new harem member was apparently the king of this third realm, and had been spying on the main character ever since she was born. He fell in love with her when she was ten years old, and decided to save her from her wicked stepmother as a way of showing his devotion to her. 

And because he has the ability to negate magical and demonic energies and is also a ten thousand year old immortal swordsman with the additional ability to teleport anywhere between the three realms whenever he fucking wants, he was able to do so with ease. 

And because his realm is apparently the most powerful out of all three realms, he was able to get away with killing off the main villain despite the massive political backlash such a move would normally give him. Basically rendering the last one hundred chapters of conflict and political intrigue completely and utterly pointless. 

It was so out of nowhere and out of place that Lucy thought she was reading a bad fanfic or something. She even checked the upload date to see if it was written on April Fools. 

Things only got more ridiculous from there. 

More Realms started showing up, along with more and more powerful harem members who instantly fall under the charms of the main character as soon as they laid eyes on her. Random kidnapping attempts made by one note villains that turned into more harem members. Amnesia plots upon more amnesia plots. World ending catastrophes that ended with love orgies. Random sex scenes all over the damn place. Plot threads and mysterious villains that die off screen and go nowhere. 

It was like the author went insane. There were over two hundred harem members by the last update, over a hundred new unmentioned Realms, fifty new villains, ninety more new superpowers and forgotten bloodlines the main character managed to receive then forget she had, God only knows how many kidnapping and rape attempts, more than a dozen actual rapes, and more. 

The only thing that managed to stay the same was the author’s writing style and impeccable grammar. It was honestly amazing how they managed to take a kinda good reverse harem story and turn it into a pile of shit. 

And Lucy read the entire fucking thing. 

Why? 

Because she was a glutton for punishment, that’s why. 

She had long since stopped holding out hope for things to get better. Instead she wanted to see how far down the shitter the story would go, what cliches and fanfiction tropes they would touch up on, how shitty and predictable the plots would become. She wanted to see how one dimensional the characters would become, how forgettable the villains are, and how convoluted the schemes and plots would be.

She read the entire thing, up to the most recent update, and bookmarked that shit just so she could know when to read more. 

It was a guilty pleasure. Something she’d go back to read whenever she needed a good pick-me-up. 

Because as shitty as her life would get, she would just comfort herself by thinking that at least she wasn’t living in the world of “A Rose Among Thorns”. 

Then she died and ended up in Lucille’s body. 

Life can be such a bitch.