02. Madness Served Beside a Selfish Princess

“Ahahahahaha! Everyone looks so stupid!”

The girl inside the smartphone tossed onto the street laughed loudly.
She had tricked a foolish prince, executed the woman who stood in her way, and now the wicked noblewoman Lubka basked in her victory.

“Nice… really nice…”

I wanted to reach for my precious phone, but I couldn’t move an inch.
I had been thrown by a car, crushed between a concrete wall, and was slowly dying in agony.
Everything felt broken, yet my head remained strangely clear.

The only thought that surfaced clearly was that even if I died, my old man, the cause of it all, would probably feel nothing.

【Lubka Dior! You are under arrest for treason!】
【W-what! I did nothing wrong!】

The otome game running on autoplay kept going without me.
Lubka would soon be executed by the revolutionaries and decapitated by guillotine.
A fittingly pitiful end for a spoiled, selfish girl.

Then again, for someone dying slowly in a traffic accident, a swift guillotine death almost sounded merciful.

【Your life will be spared. Please repent.】

Ah, the heroine appeared.
So cool.
I wanted to keep watching. I loved this scene so much…

【No! I lived as myself! There is no way I will ever change!】

Lubka never bowed her head and remained defiant to the end, locked away in a dungeon.
She was to be executed in a few days.

“We’re the same, aren’t we?”

Those words were my last.
That was the end of my previous life.

Pathetic, miserable, and utterly pitiful.

* * *

In my past life, I was just an ordinary girl.
My dad was a yakuza boss, enemies were everywhere, and lately there had been people trying to kill me.
Even so, I was still just a normal girl.

But getting rammed by a car on my way home from school was overkill, wasn’t it?
I was sent flying, and when I came to, I had been reborn.

The world I was reborn into was my favorite game, flos.
It looked like a medieval-style France filled with swords, magic, dreams, dresses, and jewels.

The heroine, Soleil, entered the knights’ order disguised as a man named Sol.
She hid her identity while falling in love with princes and knights of all ranks.

I adored that heroine most of all.

In my old life, I had been caught up in my father’s violent world and died because of it.
If I could have been as strong as her, I could have lived as I pleased too.

“So why… why did it have to be Lubka!”

I had been reborn as Lubka Dior, a haughty princess-like young lady.
Originally a baron’s daughter born a commoner, she used her looks to charm men and spent lavishly in a financially ruined country.
She turned against the heroine and refused the hand that was offered to save her.

Then came her execution.

“Wait a second, I’m already about to be executed, aren’t I!”

I thought I would get to live in a lovely mansion as a noblewoman, but instead my new home was a narrow, filthy dungeon.

Gray walls, a stone floor, straw instead of a bed… straw!?
Iron rings nailed to the wall, and a tin bucket sitting in the corner.

There was no mirror, but I could see strands of bright red hair in my vision.
That was strange.
Lubka was supposed to have silver hair.

“Wait, this is a total game over situation!”

No one was there to explain anything, and I was all alone.
Whoever reincarnated me should take responsibility!

“Lady Lubka, it is time to take you to the execution grounds.”

Oh, someone came.
But apparently not to rescue me.
A young man with pink hair and some masked executioners stood before me.

That pink hair looked familiar somehow…

“Ah, Soleil—”
“Be silent!”

It was the heroine, Lady Soleil de Luxion!
Right now she was disguised as a man and going by Sol.
I must not get in her way.
I quickly covered my mouth before I could slip up.

“Move it! You wretched woman!”

While I hesitated, one of the executioners lost patience and grabbed my arm.
Lubka’s arm was thin and covered in bruises.

Thump.

At that instant, my heart gave a hard beat, and Lubka’s memories flooded into my head like a torrent.

She had seduced the crown prince, indulged in luxury, then accused his fiancée and had her executed.
That was why she had been captured.

It was hell.

Women had no rights, and the vulgar guards shouted insults every day.

‘Right… that’s how my hair turned red. I cursed the world every day.’

Flaming red hair was the mark of a curse.
She had cursed so much that a contract with a demon had formed, changing her hair.
So this was it, huh? I was supposed to deal with all this myself?

The eyes behind the cloth mask of the rough executioner looked familiar.
He was one of the men who had tormented Lubka.

“She is still a noblewoman! Handle her with care!”

Soleil was so kind.
She, or rather he since she was in disguise, was a gentleman angry at the executioner’s roughness.

But I had no time to appreciate it.

“Immediate death after reincarnation? That’s pointless!”

“She’s lost her mind! You wretched witch!”

“You’re one to talk! You’re the one who kept touching me every night—”

“Silence!”

The executioner swung his arm.
I thought I was about to be struck, but his movement seemed strangely slow.

In my past life, I was the daughter of a yakuza boss.
Since people constantly tried to kill my father, they came after me too.
Violence was a part of daily life, and I learned how to fight to protect myself.
I could read every movement and predict what came next.
My sharpened reflexes made everything appear slow.

Inside that frozen moment, I moved.
I pulled my arm free, turned my body, and slipped behind him.
I felt a brief moment of relief, but then—

“…Maybe I should kill him. Lubka wants that too, doesn’t she?”

For a moment, I could understand the anger and pain that had driven Lubka to curse the world.
Because I had lived the same way.

Yes. For the pitiful Lubka and for my new life, I decided to kill him.
I wrapped my arm around the executioner’s neck and tightened with all my strength.

“Ghhh—!”

Then the trance ended, and the executioner collapsed, foaming at the mouth.

“You!”

Might as well kill the rest of them too.
These men had tormented Lubka. They could die.

I twisted the sword arm of one, stole his weapon as his strength gave out, and before he could even scream, I slashed his throat.
The second and third fell just as easily.

“Holy Lance!”

“What…!”

Soleil’s voice rang out, followed by a sharp sound like an arrow slicing the air.
A spear of light grazed past my side.

“Magic…!”

I had forgotten. This world had magic.
Magic was a terrifying power here. Hand-to-hand combat and swordplay could not compete.

“This is bad…!”

The light spear shot toward me, but flames flared up before my eyes, forming a barrier that melted the attack away.

“Impressive, Lubka. You truly did rise to fame through magic alone.”

Right. Lubka had been gifted in magic, which had earned her adoption into a baron’s family.
Born with an excess of magical power, she could wield fire as easily as breathing.
That was her talent.

“Go.”

“Huh…?”

“This is a place of justice. I cannot kill someone who has been treated unfairly.”

I thought it would turn into a fight, but Soleil let me go.

“Forgive me. I did not know.”

She even apologized.

It was the first time anyone had ever apologized to me.
The first time anyone had been kind.

I could feel my heartbeat pounding in my chest.
My face grew hot, and I could not speak.

This feeling must be what I had always longed for.

Love.