After Aura brought me back to her estate – or technically the estate of her adoptive parents, Baron and Baroness Maxbury – my life followed a strict, stringent routine for the following one and a half months.

I hadn’t been allowed to witness the discussion she’d had with her parents the morning we’d arrived – not that I would’ve understood it anyway – but it soon became clear that I would basically function as Aura’s personal maid. I awakened early in the mornings to prepare her clothes and accessories, then woke her up at a designated time to help bathe and dress her. (Looking at her naked body was pretty embarrassing the first couple times, especially since it was so fucking perfect I was super jealous, but I got used to it soon enough.) I accompanied her in the mornings to fetch things, do small jobs, freshen her up, and otherwise enact whatever orders crossed through her mind at any given time. I then spent a few hours every evening learning Lornish from her before finally getting to go to bed. I never felt like I got enough sleep.

It didn’t help that I wasn’t really able to talk with anyone. Of course I still wasn’t great with Lornish, though I did feel I was getting much better at it all the time, but that wasn’t all. Aura was all-business with me, whether giving me orders or having me practice Lornish over and over. The Baron and Baroness Maxbury, as well as their (biological) son Rowan, rarely ever even glanced my way. And as for the other servants…I had read enough otome isekai to expect some bullying, but they didn’t really bully me or welcome me, mostly they just kind of awkwardly told me to do things whenever I was alone with them.

I asked Aura once why the servants were being weird with me. She just smiled and said, slowly as always so I could understand, “Most of our servants are of noble birth. Even those that aren’t are from rich or high-status families. And even commoners get to look down on slaves. Yet here you are, the only slave in the household, and you’re the one who gets to spend all her time around me. They don’t know whether they outrank you or you outrank them. They can’t monkild you – do you know what monkild means?”

“No.”

After a few minutes of explanation I figured out it meant something like ‘classify’.

“They can’t classify you, they don’t know where you fit, so they don’t know how to interact with you. Make sense?”

“Yes, it does. Thank you, mistress.” Aura barked a laugh, like she always did when I called her ‘mistress.’ But honestly, the weird thing was, it did make sense. Aura was actually a pretty great, albeit mean, teacher, both when she taught me Lornish and the rare times like these when I got her to talk about something substantive.

What was weird was, I hadn’t thought Aura was actually, well, that smart. In the webtoon she was kind of a stupid dumbass, regularly getting outmaneuvered by Veronica and Damian and relying mostly on batting her eyelashes at the various powerful men in her life to get them to accomplish things for her. It almost made me wonder if this world was actually different from the one I’d read about in Then Let Me Be a Villainess – even aside from, you know, me being in it. But everything else had been exactly the same so far…I filed it away in the back of my mind.

Anyway, whenever I wasn’t doing maid stuff or taking a language class, I mostly spent my time on a personal project: writing down everything I remembered about the webtoon whose world I now lived in. Partly to make sure I didn’t forget anything important – sure, I had reread it countless times, but as meeting Lucia had taught me even extremely minor details might be critical – and partly because having it all down on paper helped me organize it in my mind. (Of course it was all in Korean, I would’ve written it in Korean even if I knew how to write Lornish, which I didn’t and maybe never would?) That, plus the stability I had finally managed to find for the first time since coming to this world, helped me orient myself in the webtoon’s timeline.

I was still toward the beginning of Then Let Me Be a Villainess. The first few chapters were largely about introducing the major characters – Veronica, her brother and father, and Xavier mainly, though she did have a charged meeting with the male lead Damian too – and setting up the plot. The first real important plot event was still in the future, albeit coming up fast: Aura’s debutante ball, held at a later age than they usually were due to Aura being adopted in her early 20s. (Exact ages were rarely given in the webtoon but I got the impression Veronica and Aura were both around 23 or 24, with Xavier a bit younger and Damian a bit older.)

In the “original game” that Veronica isekai’d into – come to think of it, since that “game” never existed in my Korea, did that mean Veronica and I actually came from different “Koreas”? – this debutante ball was apparently the end of the “common route,” after which you would be sent to the route of whichever male lead you had chosen to pursue on that playthrough. In the webcomic, it was when the plot really kicked off: Veronica tried to keep out of Aura’s way to avoid her death flags, but Aura revealed her true colors by lying that Veronica was insulting and assaulting her, only to get caught by Damian who had witnessed her deception. Of course nobody believed Damian because of his terrible reputation, but that wasn’t important, what was important was that Damian was so impressed by Veronica’s levelheadedness and disdain for aristocratic convention that he actually tried to help her out in the first place. And so their romance began to bloom…

Crap, I was thinking like a Then Let Me Be a Villainess fan again. Which, I mean, I still was, even if Veronica did kind of abandon me (in fairness just calling out to her in Korean as soon as we met was perhaps not my brightest idea). But that wasn’t important right now. What was important was figuring out how to get Aura to survive. A prospect which I did still have some conflicted feelings about, but…she did save me from Karamasque. She even prostituted herself to do it. I owed her for that. And you can’t spend a month around someone practically 24/7 without coming to care for them on some level.

After spending my nights thinking on that and similar matters, I was prepared when one night Aura, instead of forcing me to practice some new set of sentences over and over, instead said: “I think you’re competent enough in Lornish now for us to have a real conversation.”

My eyes grew wide, then I nodded.

Aura leaned forward, strands of silver hair falling in front of her golden eyes. “How do I die?”

I gulped. I had planned this out, sure, but actually confronting her in person, due not just to her stunning (and in my world unnatural) face but the sheer intensity of her gaze, was a different matter. But I pushed through and said, “Duke Damian Nomador kills you after he successfully overthrows the king.”

Aura leaned back in her chair, her fingers interlaced on top of her lap. “Why does he kill me?”

“As I said before, I don’t think giving you all the details right now would benefit me.”

Aura’s grin was crooked. “Because you’re worried I’ll kill you?”

I couldn’t maintain eye contact. I stared at the floor and muttered, “I mean, it would be the easiest way for you to clean up loose ends, right? I know stuff about you that you don’t want getting out, after all.”

For a few seconds, all I heard was Aura’s soft humming. Then she said, “Well, you’re not wrong. Very well. But you need to give me something, Mi-rae. My debutante’s in less than a week.”

I nodded. “He kills you because he fell in love with Veronica Whitney, and you’d been constantly antagonizing her. Starting from your debutante, actually.”

When I built up the courage to look at her again, Aura’s smile was softer now, like she was faintly amused. She put her elbow on her armrest, rested her cheek on her palm, and asked, “How will I antagonize her?”

“Um. Lots of ways, but you’ll start by falling down the stairs and lying that she pushed you.”

Aura’s eyes went wide, just for a second, and then she started laughing. It was the first time she’d displayed real humanity since the last time she’d laughed, the night we first met. I still didn’t know what to think about it. “...Mistress?” I said tentatively.

“Oh, it’s nothing, Mi-rae.” She shook her head. “To be honest, I had kind of thought you’d been lying to me this entire time. But it seems you really can see the future.” She patted my head, her face twisted into an innocent angel’s. “I’m glad.”

I let out a few nervous chuckles, not least because I was in fact lying to her. The story I’d told Aura was that I was an immigrant from a far eastern country; I had learned from my time with the slavers that many other slaves were immigrants who couldn’t speak Lornish, though I hadn’t seen any other East Asians since I’d gotten here. I figured it was a safe lie, she had no way of disproving it, and she certainly wouldn’t believe I was actually from another dimension (or whatever had in fact happened) even if I told her, but still…

Anyway, after Aura withdrew her hand, I said, “So I guess the easiest way to avoid your death is to just not mess with Veronica.”

Her smile immediately disappeared, her mouth turning into a fine line. This scared me a little, but the silence scared me even more, so I kept talking. “You don’t actually need to do it, okay? She’s already planning on not protesting when Prince Edgar breaks their engagement. And I’m sure you can get Prince Edgar to fall in love with you without destroying Veronica’s reputation. So…yeah…” The more I talked without Aura making a sound or movement in response, the more terrified I got, until eventually I trailed off into silence. And in silence we remained. A minute passed, then another, then I stopped counting and just started praying for her to say something, anything.

Finally, she did: “You’ve never had sex, have you?”

I almost fell off my chair. “W-what!?”

Aura smiled. “Thought so. That’s fine. I’m jealous, honestly. But it explains why you’re so naive. So,” her smile turned malicious, “out of gratitude for the information you’ve given me, allow me to teach you about men. You claim our beloved crown prince will fall in love with me regardless, but in point of fact, men do not fall in love with women, ever.”

My mouth was agape. I had no idea how to respond.

Aura tapped her chin with her index finger. “Hmmm, I guess that’s not fully accurate. Let me think…ah, I know!” She stood up and walked over to one of the swords mounted on the wall of her bedroom. She unsheathed it. I involuntarily shivered at the sound of sharpened metal scraping against metal but she either didn’t notice or didn’t call me out for it. Instead she just gestured with the sword like a flagbearer leading a charge, and continued:

“Men love women in the same way they love swords. Aristocratic men do love their swords, you know. They name them. They sharpen and clean them every day until they shine like the sun. They practice for hours at a time – not to fight, oh no that’s secondary at best, but to look impressive and manly. Plenty of men spend more time with their swords than they do with their own children.

“However.” She pressed down the end of the sword, bending it into a perfect semicircle, before letting it go, its wobble accompanying her next words. “As soon as their sword dulls, rusts, or breaks, or their favorite blacksmith crafts a new sword that’s longer, sharper, or just plain newer…”

Without warning Aura’s face distorted into a deep scowl and she threw the sword across the room; it landed in the corner, sounding like the cymbals of a drum as it clattered to a stop. “They don’t hesitate to throw it in the fucking garbage.”

She looked back at me, her dark expression gone in an instant. Now her eyes were bright, her face serene. “So Mi-rae, as a sword, how do you get a man to keep you around?”

My palms were damp with sweat. I hastily wiped them on my maid uniform. “I don’t know, mistress.”

“Don’t be so modest, Mi-rae. Of course you know.” She leaned back against the wall, arms crossed in front of her. “It’s the same way you’ve gotten me to keep you around.”

I blinked. “...By being useful to you?”

“Exactly!” Aura beamed. “I knew you’d figure it out. Now then,” arms still crossed, she raised two fingers, “there are two main ways women can be useful for men. One,” she lowered one finger, “the only method available to most women, is to give birth to his children. Sons especially. Men love having sons, it makes them feel imgoten, but they don’t want to actually raise them, so if you do that he’ll usually be willing to stay with you. Helps if you let him fuck you a few minutes a night, and if you don’t complain when he slaps you around after he has a bad day. Not a great life, but when the alternative is the whorehouse you don’t exactly have much choice, right?”

I stared blankly at her. She smiled cherubically at me. Eventually I asked, “What about the other way?”

“Ah, yes, this is where things get interesting. A select few women are lucky enough to possess something men want. Power, prestige, a rich or influential family. Beauty,” she flipped her hair, “though that last one is fleeting of course. Our friend Victoria Whitney, for example, belongs to the second most important house in the country after the royal family itself. Edgar might hate her guts, but he was never marrying her, he was marrying the Whitneys. Her father would raise a complete shitstorm if he broke off the engagement, to save his family’s pride if nothing else.”

Aura waltzed back to her chair, but she didn’t sit down in it. She stood behind it, resting her arms on its back, and looked down at me imperiously. “Unfortunately, as you well know, I do not possess power, prestige, or an influential family. I can depend on my beauty for now, but only for now. I need to obtain power before that beauty fades, at least if I don’t want to spend my life as a broodmare. So how do you propose I prevent our noble Prince Edgar from throwing me away the moment he gets tired of me?”

My mind was coated with mud, but Aura seemed content to just stare at me and wait, so I pounded my brain into pulp until it spat out what she probably wanted me to say. “...Get him to break his engagement by destroying Victoria’s reputation?”

“See! I knew you could do it if you tried.” Aura plopped down on the chair and crossed her legs. “If I make Whitney out to be a violent michelkior, then even if her father believes it’s my own deception he still won’t have a leg to stand on. And if Edgar illschanterie disgraces his duchess fiancee just to marry little old ex-commoner me, his own pride won’t allow him to break it off even after he gets tired of me. Oh, he’ll probably find other women to fuck anyway,” there was the malicious grin again, “but I don’t give a shit, as long as I can be queen.

“With all that in mind, Mi-rae sweetie,” she said even though I was older than her, “do you still think there’s no need for me to ‘mess with’ Duchess Whitney?”

“...No, mistress.”

“I am delighted that we agree. Now come up with a plan for me to ruin her reputation that won’t lead to the death you foresee. You’re a smart girl, Mi-rae, I’m sure you can come up with something. Dismissed.”

I didn’t get a wink of sleep that night.

---

“Please rise for her Ladyship, Baroness Aura Maxbury!” At that announcement, Aura descended the stairs of the estate’s main hall. If you saw her in that pure white sapphire-studded dress, her perfectly-coifed hair floating freely behind her, a compassionate smile etched on her face as she stepped so gracefully she almost floated, you might think she was an angel come to earth.

If you didn’t know anything about her, that is. As for me, I was tagging along a respectable distance behind her, doing my best to appear as inconspicuous as possible. This was going to be a challenging day for me in several respects.

First, of course, was the mission Aura had charged me with. I couldn’t dissuade her from the “pretend Veronica pushed me down the stairs” plan, so the only option left I could think of was distracting Damian long enough that he can’t witness her deception. This, of course, had a number of complications, such as: how was I supposed to distract Damian? What unpredictable consequences might ensure from any changes I made to the webtoon’s course of events? And…

And, well, would that mean I’d be derailing Veronica and Damian’s romance before it even really began? I had enough self-awareness to acknowledge I was pretty resentful of Veronica for abandoning me to my fate, but she was still the protagonist of my favorite webtoon of all time; I still wanted her to have her happy ending. And it’s not like I could get on my high horse when I was about to actively aid Aura in destroying her reputation with malicious lies.

Speaking of, the second challenge was the risk that Veronica would recognize me. Now, it was extremely unlikely she would actually tell anyone that I was really from another world, since that would expose her as well. But I had no idea what she might think once she saw me again, especially since I was now under Aura’s control, especially especially if she realized I was helping out Aura with her deception. I didn’t actually want to make her my enemy, but the way things were going, that was slowly turning into an inevitability.

The third challenge was the one I was facing at that moment, which was that, as soon as they noticed me, almost every noble here gawked at me like I was a fucking circus act. Like, it’s not my fault everyone else you’ve ever met was a lily-white ghost, assholes.

As I was thinking that, I could almost feel someone glaring at me, and turning I saw my fourth challenge: the Maxbury scion and one of the male leads of the “original game,” Rowan Maxbury, his green eyes scowling under his light brown hair.

To lay my cards on the table, Rowan was probably my least favorite part of Then Let Me Be a Villainess (hey, nothing’s perfect). He spent most of the webtoon being an annoying as all hell blind simp for Aura, defending her no matter what she did. Which was whatever, villains don’t have to be likable, the problem was the ending of his arc where Veronica proved to him that Aura never saved his life, that she’d actually just been a petty thief. The author really tried her best to make me feel bad for the guy, spending a lot of time on his internal turmoil and the pain of Aura’s betrayal and all that crap.

And like, look, I get it, you want to believe in the person who you thought saved your life. Hell, here I was helping Aura out despite knowing exactly what she was partly because she really did save my life. But when all your page appearances depict you exclusively as an annoying dimwit who insults the protagonist, don’t then try to pull on my heartstrings and portray him as some poor pitiable soft boy at the eleventh hour, you know? And no, RoFanLover2008, him revealing Aura’s location to Veronica and Damian wasn’t “redemption,” it was the bare fucking minimum. God, I wasted so much time trying to force logic through that commenter’s thick skull…

Where was I? Oh right, Rowan. Anyway, the first time he said more than two words to me was yesterday, when he pulled me aside and growled at me, “I don’t know why Aura wants you to accompany her so bad, but if you embarrass her during her debutante, I will find a way to send you to the mines.”

See? Simps are the worst.

Anyway, the plan was for me to basically just follow Aura around and do nothing while she wined and dined the guests until shortly before she would enact her plan. Damian was the only witness in the webtoon, so as long as I could somehow distract him she should be successful. Ideally, my biggest enemy until then would be boredom.

“Ah, Prince Edgar, it’s so nice to see you again,” I heard Aura say, and I jolted, remembering what came next. Aura continued: “And I assume this is your fiancee? I am delighted to finally make your acquaintance, Duchess Whitney, I have heard ever so much about you.” I quickly busied myself counting the grains in the wooden floor.

“I’m very happy to see you too, Baroness Maxbury,” a male voice said. “Are you adapting to the life of a noble? It’s a big change, I’m sure.”

Aura laughed softly, though as someone who had seen her honest laughs, this one was so obviously faked I almost smirked. “You’re so kind, Your Majesty,” she said, “but you shouldn’t worry about me. I’m sure you have far more important subjects to put your mind to.”

“All of my subjects are equally important, milady.” I practically gagged at that line. I had almost forgotten how much I hated Edgar, but he really was –

“That maid…” I heard Veronica mutter, and I flinched. Well, plan “try to remain inconspicuous and hope Veronica doesn’t recognize me” was officially in the gutter. Time to try out plan “scare her until she realizes it’s better for both of us if she doesn’t say anything about me.” I raised my eyes.

Unfortunately, Edgar was the first person I saw. He was, very intentionally so, your typical prince character: short blonde hair, blue eyes, a generically handsome face, etc etc any romance fantasy fan had seen a million characters exactly like him. It didn’t help he had such similar coloration to Veronica they looked like siblings, yet another reason why the small but annoyingly persistent coterie of Veronica/Edgar shippers could go pound sand.

Speaking of, Veronica was standing to the side and just a little behind him, wearing a radiant blue dress that to this day remained one of my favorite outfits for her. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Aura narrow her eyes at me; I had neglected to tell Aura I met Veronica once before, out of the hope she wouldn’t find out, and it seemed I was due to suffer for that decision once the night was over.

Oh well, no time to worry about that now. I met Veronica’s eyes for the briefest of seconds, then gave a low and deep curtsy just the way Aura had taught me. “Does milady need this lowly maid for any service?” I asked, using speech that was so stilted it made hasoseo-che sound like a couple of bros shouting at each other at a bar after the Korean national team inevitably lost at the World Cup yet again.

“...No, that’s alright,” Veronica said, after a pause that I dearly hoped was just short enough to avoid suspicion. “It’s just, I’ve never seen someone who looks like her before. How did you come to employ this maid, Baroness?”

“You know, I hadn’t considered that, but you’re right, Veronica,” Edgar chimed in. “You certainly found a unique machion, didn’t you Aura?” I had no idea what a machion was but from his tone it certainly sounded insulting. Not to mention calling Aura by her first name when they still barely knew each other. What a douchebag, seriously.

“Oh, it’s barely even a story, really,” Aura said, not missing a beat. “She’s an acquaintance of one of my other maids, actually. She’s an immigrant, obviously, so she still doesn’t speak Lornish very well, and she has much to learn about being a maid,” yeah, Aura was definitely pissed, “but she’s an earnest worker and a sweet, lovely girl.” I’m older than you are, I once again thought with futility.

Though Aura’s speech also reminded me – slavery was, in fact, technically illegal in this country, the government just kind of turned a blind eye to it because of how many aristocrats still owned slaves. That was why Aura was lying that I was really a paid servant. While Veronica knew she was lying, she couldn’t call her out on it without revealing she had herself been to a slave market, fortunately.

…Or was it fortunate? If Aura was proven to own slaves in an undeniable way and sent to jail, did that mean I would be freed? Or would I just be carted off to some other, probably worse master? The webtoon hadn’t really gone into detail about how slavery worked in its universe so I frankly had no idea.

“I’m impressed,” Edgar said as I was thinking. “I know many nobles who’d cut off their leg before letting a poor immigrant into their home.” He deliberately turned to face Veronica as he said that, making it loud and clear that he classified her as one of those nobles – even though, at this point, they were still engaged. I clenched my fists; he seemed intent on reminding me of every reason why I hated him in the span of a few minutes. “You truly are one of a kind, Aura.”

“Oh, you flatter me,” Aura tittered, hiding her mouth behind her hand. I narrowed my eyes. Come to think of it, this was the first time I had seen Aura’s fake white lotus act since coming to this world, and it was somehow even more infuriating in-person than it had been on my phone screen. She was kinda scary and mean when we were alone together, but at least she was human, not whatever this mask of hers was. It sure worked like a charm on Edgar, though, who was smiling at her like a lovestruck teenager. For all she had insisted he would throw her away eventually if she didn’t find a way to tie him down, it sure didn’t seem that way looking at him now.

Veronica cleared her throat, then said, “Edgar, it seems you’re well-acquainted with Baroness Maxbury. I’ll head off and mingle so you two can catch up.” After making eye contact with me one last time, she walked away, Edgar’s mouth hanging open in surprise as he watched her leave.

Hmm. There was a scene like this in the original webtoon too. My presence had changed things somewhat, of course, but it still ended in the same way: Veronica deciding to not get in the way of Aura and Edgar’s budding “romance” in order to avoid her death flags. Well, that was good, right? If I could keep the course of events mostly the same and just find a way for Aura to survive somehow, that should basically be my golden ending, right?

Aura gave me her ‘go away’ look – from the way she was putting her hand on Edgar’s arm, I guessed she wanted some alone time with him to progress her seduction – and so I headed off too, with a brief twinge of annoyance because of how I had to follow her orders without question. Whatever. I should probably be searching for the male lead Damian anyway…

All of a sudden a hand grasped my wrist, and I was yanked into a side alcove so hard I hit my back on the wall. Rubbing it, I glared up at my attacker, only to see Veronica. Fuck.

“Why are you here?” Veronica hissed in Korean.

“Why do you think?” I whispered back, also in Korean. If she wanted to play it like that, I wasn’t going to back down either. “You wouldn’t buy me so Aura did.”

At least she had the sense to look a little guilty, but her expression quickly morphed into anger. “What was I supposed to do, tell my father I’m fluent in a language I never learned? How did you know I’m Korean, anyway?”

I stared at her levelly. If I told her the truth, that I had reincarnated into a webtoon where she was the protagonist, what would happen? Would she even believe me? If she did, would she, what, try to get me away from Aura? Even if she wanted to, was that even possible at this point? Aura would definitely do whatever it took to keep me tied to her as long as my “predictions” were accurate. As long as I was under her power, I needed to avoid pissing Aura off too bad. And…

“Fine,” Veronica said before I could finish thinking, “don’t tell me. Look, I know Aura’s trying to seduce Edgar away from me, but believe it or not I have no intention of getting in her way, so –”

“I’ve never heard that language before,” a male voice speaking Lornish broke in. Well, fuck. Standing in the entrance to the alcove, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a knowing smirk on his face, was the male lead of Then Let Me Be a Villainess, Damian Nomador.

Damian was, officially, the only son of Duke Barius Nomador, and so was the heir to one of the most powerful noble houses in the country. Unofficially, everyone knew he was really the bastard son of the King and Barius’s late wife. When Barius died the day after his wife did, the rumors Damian had killed him to secure his position as Duke ran rampant. In point of fact, those rumors were accurate – but Damian killed Barius in self-defense, as Barius had only kept Damian alive out of love for his wife, and moved to remove him from the line of succession as soon as she died. The trauma of having to kill the man he had until then viewed as his father, while simultaneously facing the suspicions or hatred of most of the country, broke Damian, turning him into a dark, bitter, power-hungry villain – until he met Veronica, of course.

Not that she “fixed” him or anything, to be clear, he was still cold to pretty much everyone who wasn’t her and almost sadistically vengeful against anyone who did her harm. All this made him extremely hot, of course – at least on my phone screen. But as a real, flesh-and-blood person in front of me…I couldn’t stop my knees from shaking. Though his jet-black hair and dark purple eyes were even hotter in real life, I had to say.

But this was no time to admire his looks. I curtsied as deep as I could, eyes on the floor, praying that Veronica could salvage this somehow.

“Duke Nomador,” Veronica said, her voice shaking slightly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you again.”

“Likewise,” he said. “But I won’t let you dodge me that easily.”

“Of course. Well, you see…” Veronica’s voice trailed off.

Oh come on, Veronica! Was it really that hard to come up with a plausible lie? Not that I could really think of anything, either – we were speaking a language that didn’t actually exist in this world, after all – but still!

Damian spoke up first: “Well, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But I’m left to wonder why. If it’s just you don’t want to tell me, I’d be hurt. But if it’s not something you can tell anyone…” He pushed off the wall, then ambled up to Veronica until he was looming over her, his words long and drawn out. “Then that would be namendeoria interesting.”

Veronica’s eyes grew wide, a deep blush spreading across her cheeks. Eventually she opened her mouth, but before she could speak, another voice broke in: “Veronica! There you are!” I turned to the new interloper, and could barely suppress a sigh. The gang really was all here: it was Veronica’s younger sister, Odette.

Odette was basically the third most prominent villain in Then Let Me Be a Villainess, after Aura and the king (who as far as I knew wasn’t at this debutante thank fucking god). Apparently she was a friendly character in the “original game” Veronica isekai’d into, but the webtoon showed that was only because she hated her sister and so made an alliance of convenience with her sister’s enemy. Odette, despite being constantly spoiled by her father and brother due to being the baby of the family, was always intensely jealous of Veronica for being smarter, prettier, and overall better than her. When Veronica gained her family’s favor post-transmigration, Odette descended into a spiral of anger and resentment, and ended up permanently alienating her family after she helped Aura attempt to murder Veronica. At the end of the story, Veronica spared her life out of consideration for her father – who still held some measure of affection for his daughter – and had Damian send her to a monastery instead of executing her, but that was almost a worse punishment for a lazy, privileged brat who only wanted to be the center of attention and lashed out violently at anyone who took her spotlight.

At this point in the story, though, Veronica still hadn’t realized how evil her sister really was, so when she broke eye contact with Damian she looked visibly relieved. “What is it, Odette?” she asked.

“Baroness Maxbury is asking for you. She says she wants to clear up a misunderstanding.”

Oh! Now this was interesting. Odette hadn’t played a role in this scene in the webtoon. Did my warnings to Aura cause her to rope her co-conspirator into her plans earlier than she did in the webtoon? I felt a flash of annoyance: if so, she could’ve told me!

“I see.” Veronica turned back to Damian, screwing a polite smile back onto her face. “It looks like we’ll have to part here, Duke. I do hope to see you again soon, though.”

Damian’s smile back at her was a lot more genuine. “Be assured, Duchess, your feeling is more than reciprocated.” At that, Veronica whipped her head back around and she followed Odette out.

Leaving me alone with Damian. Fuck.

Or wait, hold on. My job was to distract Damian…did Aura see him with me, decide this was the perfect chance for me to waylay him for a few seconds, and deliberately send Odette to give me that opportunity? If so she was really putting a lot of trust in me, both to notice her intentions and to carry them out…

I shoved those thoughts to the back of my mind. Right now I had to focus on my mission – Damian’s eyes were still following Veronica as she went. “Duke Nomador,” I blurted out.

“Oh?” Damian’s eyes snapped to me. “Aura isn’t a very good mistress if she hasn’t taught her servants to shut up around their superiors. And you’re not even a servant, are you?”

Goosebumps broke out all over my body. I had seen plenty of people look at me with derision, disgust, or contempt since I came to this world. This was far beyond that. Damian’s expression was positively murderous. I suddenly had visions of all the times Damian killed someone in the webtoon, and my heart started to hammer in my chest.

It’s okay, I reassured myself. It’s okay. Even Damian wouldn’t harm another noble’s servant if they hadn’t even committed a crime. I instinctively knelt and started rubbing my hands before remembering that wasn’t how people apologized in this culture. Fuck, let’s just roll with it. “I apologize profusely if this maid has caused any offense –”

“Offense?” Damian snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. I don’t get offended when I step in pond scum, I just get mildly annoyed. And stand up, slave, whatever that is you’re doing makes me want to puke.”

I hurriedly stood up. “If there is anything I could possibly do – umf!” My speech was cut short when Damian grabbed my collar and pulled me so close I could feel his breath on my face.

“Your brain really is a pile of shit, isn’t it?” Damian said, voice low, almost a growl. “You act like you can do something for me, and you think that will calm me down? I don’t make a habit of sticking my fingers into other people’s pies, but if you don’t run back to your master right now –”

A series of crashes interrupted whatever threat he was about to make. With one final disdainful look, Damian left. I collapsed onto the floor, trying my best to not hyperventilate. I wasn’t entirely succeeding.

“Lady Aura!?” someone shouted. “What happened!?” someone else yelled.

Ah, so Aura pulled it off. That thought raised my spirits for some reason, and I managed to pull myself up and head back into the hall. Going up to the railing, I saw that Aura had collapsed at the base of the stairs. Rowan had immediately run to her, and I could hear him calling for a doctor. Even I felt a brief grip of terror that the changes I’d made had somehow caused Aura to screw up her fall and die right here, but no, I could see her moving.

“What have you done, Veronica?”

I turned around; Veronica was staring at the stairway in shocked disbelief, but at Odette’s words her expression became fearful instead. “I-I didn’t do anything!” she said.

“But you were talking with her right before she fell,” Prince Edgar said, looking at Veronica like she was a demon from hell.

“I…she…I didn’t…” Veronica stuttered, looking panicked. I remembered this scene from the webtoon very well. Veronica had tried to make peace with Aura, only to watch as she intentionally fell down the staircase, causing Veronica – who already had a bad reputation thanks to her pre-isekai self’s behavior – to face the suspicious, accusing glares of everyone present.

It was easy to forget while I was focused on my tasks and all hopped up on righteous resentment, but…I really did just help Aura frame her for attempted murder, didn’t I? Even if all I did was distract Damian. A heavy feeling of guilt started seeping through my veins.

“Stay down, Aura!” I heard Rowan shout. Momentarily distracted, I followed the gazes of the crowd as we watched Aura struggle to stand up, leaning heavily on Rowan for support.

“Everyone, please!” Aura’s voice was harsh and ragged, but the hall went silent so they could hear her. After a few seconds, she went on: “I’m sure – ow!” She held her mangled arm, panted for a few seconds, then continued. “I’m sure it was…just an accident. We were having an argument…she probably forgot I was close to the stairs. So please…don’t blame her.”

Aura’s words made me think back to the first time I read Then Let Me Be a Villainess. Seeing the typical “all-forgiving heroine” type as a villain, deliberately falling down the stairs and only ‘defending’ Veronica specifically to gain more sympathy for herself and so to make Veronica look even worse by comparison, kind of blew my mind. I instantly despised Aura more than I had any other fictional character before, and was so happy when Damian rode in on his metaphorical white horse and defended Veronica. Most of all, the way the webtoon portrayed Veronica’s crushing despair at being the target of universal hatred, immediately followed by her elation when just one person stood by her side, even if it was the last person she would have expected to…

I guess I was still a fan of the webtoon after all. But, what would happen now? Unlike the webtoon, Damian hadn’t witnessed Aura throwing herself down the stairs. If so, then…

A roar of laughter erupted from somewhere in the crowd. It was Damian. His laughter lasted for almost a full minute as he walked up to Veronica, then turned around to the crowd and wiped a tear from his eye. “Even for you all,” he said, his eyes roaming across all the nobles present, “this is a new low. You’re really going to believe a commoner over a Duchess?”

“Aura isn’t a commoner!” Rowan yelled from below.

Damian sneered. “You can dress a cockroach in your fanciest gown, it’ll still be a cockroach. None of us can go against our blood. Isn’t that right, Prince Edgar?”

“What exactly are you accusing Baroness Maxbury of, Duke Damian?” Edgar asked, stone-faced.

“It’s ingilid of you to play dumb, Your Majesty,” Damian said, tone thick with sarcasm. “The worm is trying to frame her better, and you all are playing along with it because you love the taste of dirt.”

I blinked, trying to get my bearings. This was…weird. Damian hadn’t said anything like this in the webtoon. Sure, I vaguely remembered him hating commoners, it came up a few times in the story, but it was never really relevant since the only commoners he fucked over were evil anyway. But was that really enough for him to publicly defend Veronica like this?

“But if it’s not something you can tell anyone, then that would be namendeoria interesting.”

…Did I…accidentally make him fall in love with her even faster?

---

After that, things progressed more or less as they had in the webtoon. While Damian’s intervention didn’t really convince anyone as to Veronica’s innocence, combined with Aura’s white lotus forgiveness act Edgar ended up allowing her to go home unmolested, with a promise that there would be a full investigation. With the star of the show injured, the debutante ball itself ended soon after. They didn’t let me see Aura while the doctor was working on her, so I ended up tagging along with the servants as they cleaned up the hall, all the while feeling like a guillotine blade was hanging above my head.

Eventually, a servant came up to me and said, “Lady Aura wants to see you,” so I gathered my courage and trudged along after her, entering the door she indicated and trying not to imagine the sound of the door closing behind me as the bottom of a gallows opening up.

“What happened?” Aura said without preamble. She was propped up in a bed with her arm covered in gauze, with additional bandages wrapped around her head, midsection, and legs. One thing nobody could deny, she was certainly willing to put her own body on the line in her plots.

“In my vision, Duke Nomador intervened because he witnessed what happened,” I said. “So this is different from what I saw.”

“But the result is the same.”

I dropped my eyes. “Yes.”

Time ticked away.

“Why did Veronica recognize you?” Aura asked.

There it was. No use hiding it now. “She came to the place where I was being held, before Karamasque bought me. I guess she remembered me from then.”

“...You’re hiding something from me.”

I forced myself to meet her eyes. “I’m not –”

“Don’t bother, Mi-rae. It’ll only piss me off more.”

I clamped my mouth shut and locked my gaze onto the floor.

“The first thing I ask you to do after a month and a half,” Aura said slowly, “and not only did it end in failure, you’re even keeping secrets from me. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t send you back to Karamasque right now.”

“...I’ve proven the future I foresee can be changed,” I said slowly. “That means your death can still be avoided. But without me, you won’t have any idea what to do.”

“Look at me.”

I wrenched my eyes up. Aura looked pale, even paler than she usually was. There were bags under her eyes and her breath was shallow and labored. She said, “What I’m asking, Mi-rae, is how I’m supposed to trust you.”

The words came before I could stop them: “Are you even capable of trusting anyone?”

Aura’s eyes went wide, her mouth hung open. I could almost hear the guillotine blade whizzing through the air.

Then she closed her mouth, and…smiled. “Well, at least you understand me,” she said. “That’s a start.”