How painfully ironic it was for dear Talia, now Cressida.
Once, she was a woman who spent her life trying to prove her worth; now, she inhabited the body of a girl who had done anything to pretend she already had it.
The role of a minor villainess was nothing new.
It wasn’t just in manhwas or novels, they were everywhere in shoujo stories: the petty antagonist surrounded by simpering followers, fueled by envy and insecurity, dood to chase after a male lead who never looked her way.
They either grew up spoiled or simply grew up wrong.
"Is this how the gods choose to punish ?" she whispered, fingertips brushing her jaw.
After all, she bore a sin.
A terrible, unforgivable sin she would rather bury than na.
A guilt that crawled to her back like a shadow, refusing to fade no matter how many tis she tried to forget.
"The fact that I reincarnated in this body ans death was never an escape for what I’ve done."
If she died again, would it stop there?
Would her soul drift from one vessel to the next, or would she finally be forced to remain?
There was only one way to find out.
Under the pale night, she tore through drawers and desk compartnts, one after another, until her fingers grazed sothing sharp.
In her final monts before, she hadn’t cared about dying.
It had co as the inevitable sum of every mistake she’d refused to face. And now, though this might seem like a second chance, she knew better; this life wasn’t a gift to live idly. It was a sentence. A chance not to start over, but to make ands for the ruin she left behind.
"There it is."
Her trembling hand closed around the scissors’ handle, and without hesitation, she drew the blade across her wrist, enough for the blood to spill freely.
But before the crimson could stain the floor, sothing suddenly felt cold.
║[SYSTEM WARNING]║
║Unauthorized termination detected.║
║The host is not permitted to die.║
║Attempting to override existential continuity protocol...║
"W-What?!"
The wound sealed itself with a faint hiss of light, leaving behind only a thin, silvery scar.
"I’m... immortal..." Disbelief was heavy in her throat.
It explained everything, how she had survived that stab without a trace.
But sothing didn’t add up. From what she rembered, Cressida wasn’t immortal. She had been nothing more than a disposable pawn tangled in noble politics, especially under Agrona, the main villainess. Whenever sches collapsed or scandals erupted, Cressida was the first to be offered as sacrifice.
A foolish woman painted as wicked. Naïve enough to serve evil, yet too powerless to ever be it.
║[SYSTEM ALERT]║
║Scheduled Event Detected: "The Grand Assembly"║
║Ti: Tomorrow, 09:00 A.M.║
║Classification: Critical Narrative Event║
║NOTICE: Participation is optional. Both choices carry irreversible consequences.║
║[Join the Event] — Intervene and alter the course of the story.║
║[Ignore the Event] — Allow destiny to proceed unchallenged.║
║Warning: Once a choice is made, it cannot be undone. You will not regress upon failure. You will simply return to life.║
"So no matter what I do, each has a consequence, huh?"
A butterfly effect.
Even the smallest action such as a single word or a breath out of place could ripple outward and reshape the future in unimaginable ways.
A butterfly flaps its wings, and sowhere across the world, a storm begins.
In practice, it ant that if she sneezed at the wrong ti, soone’s engagent might collapse, a kingdom might fall, or the main villainess might suddenly decide she’s her new best friend.
Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.
"I would rather not be involved with that woman... or anyone," she muttered, sinking into the chair.
The title of the Novel she got transmigrated into was the War of Seduction, a reverse harem story.
Each man was a "jewel," a key capable of unlocking power, redemption, or ruin, depending on who seduced them first.
Tomorrow’s critical event: the return of the Crown Prince.
It was the grand reintroduction of the kingdom’s most dangerous variable, a golden heir draped in charm and politics, the kind of man whose smile could ignite wars and whose absence had left nobles starving for power.
It was the night when Agrona, the regressor villainess, would confront the self-aware heroine.
Neither of them knew the other’s secret; Agrona was a regressor who’s repeated her life countless tis by dying, and the heroine was a self-aware character who knew that the world was fiction. But there was one thing they knew: they both had dood endings.
"No," she tapped the "Ignore The Event" option without a hint of hesitation.
First of all, the whole thing was so painfully cringe.
Second, she hated this novel. It was aggressively diocre, the kind of story that thought tropes counted as depth and that giving every man tragic eyes made them interesting.
And third, the fun one, she still didn’t know who had her killed. Whoever it was, they’d probably faint when they realized their scapegoat was walking around again.
Now that was sothing worth living for.
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