NOVEL NEXT C7
Chapter 7: The Duke’s daughter’s revenge is not too late even if it takes 3 years (1)
“Holy shit!”
As soon as the morning sun broke over the rural village, Sierra was in a bad mood.
Not because it was morning, exactly, but because it was morning and her eyes were open.
Instead of a fluffy, warm bed, she was on a futon on a cold, hard floor.
Flies fluttered around the house in pairs instead of servants who cared for her and a poor meal with the smell of grass and countryside, different from the sumptuous and rich dinner.
All Sierra could think of was that she couldn’t wait to get back to the Academy.
“If it weren’t for that bitch, I’d never set foot in this shitty countryside again!”
Sierra’s anger flared once more at the thought of returning to the village where she had felt nothing but discontent since childhood.
If things had gone the way they were supposed to, she would be enjoying leisurely days in the palace’s luxurious facilities.
Dragged out by her father to chop firewood, help her mother tend the garden, and so on. She thought she had graduated months ago from the hassle and hard work.
Growing up with memories from her previous life, the countryside was just an uncomfortable place, a smelly, unpleasant place.
There were no cell phones, no TVs, and people still used horse-drawn carriages instead of cars.
Every day was boring and unpleasant.
Until one day, when she was seven years old, a flash of light appeared from her hand.
“I’m in the Academy Light Romance,” she thought, “and I’m the heroine, so why can’t things go my way?”
In a world where only nobles could wield magic, it was unusual for a commoner to be able to do so.
Moreover, as soon as she realized that her name was the same as the protagonist of her favorite game from her previous life, she intuitively realized that she had been reincarnated as the heroine of the game.
As soon as she got that far, the smelly countryside became bearable.
After all, she thought, it was a place she would never return to after her seventeenth summer vacation but this winter, she returned to her hometown anyway.
Not according to her plans, but because something in the game had twisted.
“Must be that fucking Ariana bitch again.”
She didn’t like everything she was doing.
‘Why are you putting yourself in this position by doing stupid shit, instead of just ‘doing what you’re supposed to do and getting yourself destroyed?
“I was so fucking close, why the fuck did you fuck up again at the end, that prince.”
When she entered the academy with rosy visions, the original plot was already strangely skewed.
There’s no gossip about the villainous young lady, Arianna Anastasia, and all of the targets she’s targeting are stuck with their fiancés without misunderstanding or conflict, even Arianna’s younger brother, who enrolled a year later, is following his sister’s lead.
As soon as Sierra realizes that there is no room for her to intervene, she becomes frustrated.
Unless she could somehow connect with her target at the academy, it meant she would have to move back to the countryside after graduation.
“How hard it was to get the story back on track after that damn woman changed it.”
The effort she put into making herself the heroine and Ariana the villain was no small feat.
She deliberately vandalized her books and threw her belongings in the trash, only to have her friends find them.
After making people worry by forcibly getting her clothes dirty, she fake smiled as if it was nothing.
One by one, she created a public opinion that there was someone bullying her, and then executed it: Duchess Arianna’s Attempted Poisoning of Miss Sierra.
It was a self-inflicted situation where she was the obvious culprit, and everyone in the room tentatively treated her as the culprit.
It was the same story that was being played out in the game, and she was confident that if she could get the tone right, it would work.
The results were better than she could have imagined, and she was even able to blame the Duchess Arianna for all of her previous self-inflicted harassment.
Her fiancé and main target, Prince Alexandros, was the only complication, but that was solved with the help of an object she’d prepared in advance.
Her secret flower garden.
Whenever she was alone with him, she would sneak him a whiff of its scent, keeping even the smartest of princes from making the right decision.
After all, she was the heroine of the game, and she knew all the events that would lead to her being alone with the main character.
Even Arianna, who was a more dangerous variable than the prince, had remained silent in the face of the suspicion thrown at her, not even offering a proper defense.
“If you’re going to stay still, then stay still, why do you have to come and interrupt me now….?”
She couldn’t understand what was being said in English, but it definitely involved Ariana.
After meeting and understanding all the characters in Academy Light Romance so far, it was definitely Duchess Ariana who changed the most.
“Was it a bug that changed her personality, or a spin-off, or something else? If not, I don’t think so….”
Someone, like herself, had been brought into the game through possession or reincarnation?
The last was the most plausible of the possibilities, but Sierra quickly crossed that last one off the list.
The impeccable aristocratic demeanor that Duchess Arianna sometimes displayed was not for the faint of heart to emulate.
She was a heavenly lady, excelling in all the liberal arts, including flower arranging, knitting, tea ceremony, calligraphy, and poetry, not to mention basic manners and table manners.
It was impossible for a non-game character to be capable of such a ridiculous amount of learning.
Thinking so, Sierra smiled quietly.
“Anyway, if we’re in the game, I win.”
She wasn’t sure how this came to be, but even if it did, her opponents would be nothing more than artificially created characters.
Eventually, she would have to admit defeat to herself, unable to escape the limits of a mere game.
After thinking like that, Sierra started making plans one by one for what to do after the semester started.
* * *
In order to bring Ms. Sierra to justice, I must first plan and prepare thoroughly.
What if the act of trying to take Alex away from me was not done by the game, but was planned according to her plan from the beginning.
If it was a self-inflicted wound, a trap set for me, then it’s only right that she should pay for it.
“For starters, I need to get back what I lost.”
With all the training she’d had to become Alex’s wife, it wasn’t hard to get to know the other students at the academy.
I had the knowledge to empathize with any young lady I spoke to, and my power within the Academy was considerable.
I spent time with a lot of women, both high and low, and with very few exceptions, most of them took a liking to me.
However, within three months of attending the Academy, public opinion of me began to take a 180-degree turn.
The main cause, of course, was Miss Sierra’s self-inflicted poisoning.
“I should have handled it properly then….”
As soon as the public opinion started to circulate that I was the one who tried to poison Ms. Sierra, the forces around me started to turn against me.
As testimonies poured in that I had been bullying her behind the scenes, even before that, the tide began to turn from love for me to sympathy for her.
Some of the youngsters gave me hopeful glances, believing that I hadn’t done it, but my continued silence eventually drove them away.
Summer break began shortly after that incident, and the rumors that I had bullied Miss Sierra began to swell.
This happened because it was a period when only close friends were able to socialize, rather than during the semester when all students usually socialize together.
The rumors even went so far as to suggest that Sierra’s lack of showing her face at socials and dances was due to me pressuring her, which, if you think about it, doesn’t make sense.
Even if I could work magic, who the hell would invite a commoner’s child to a noble’s event?
It was a bit ridiculous that they didn’t do it themselves and blamed me for it, when they could have invited her if they wanted to in the first place.
And by the time the summer vacation was over and the next semester rolled around, as soon as Alex was caught a few times alone with Miss Sierra after he’d broken off his relationship with me.
The remnants of the faction that had stuck by my side scattered, leaving only a handful of people to stick by me.
“This is going to be a hassle.”
Turning around public opinion once it’s tilted is no easy task.
Since there was a better expert in that field than me, I decided to go out in a carriage for the first time in a long time to meet her.
“Where may I take you, my lady?”
Derek asked me as soon as I stepped into the carriage with Elise, sitting in the coachman’s seat.
“Please go to Margrave Francis mansion.”
“Yes, sir.”
As soon as Derek replied, the carriage carrying the three of us set off westward, toward the home of one of the few people who believed in me and stayed by my side until the last moment.