I’m a villain, but I want to live a long life.

CHAPTER 1   ” I’m a villain, but I want to live a long life.”

Honestly, honestly.

There were times when I wanted the company to collapse. Not a lot, maybe four times a week?

‘Please let the company collapse. Better yet, let it disappear without a trace, evaporate over the weekend…….’

I prayed every day, every chance I got……. Even so.

“……Although.”

I stared into the mirror, my eyes devastated .

“I’m not breaking anything!!!”

And when I was the only one in the room!

I remember exactly what happened.

It was 11:15 and I’ve barely finished the paperwork the gunner wants by 8 am tomorrow.

I patted my sore back, packed my stuff, and put on my coat at 17 minutes.

I take one last look around the empty office, turn off the lights, walk out, and press the elevator button.

I yawned heavily and checked the last train.

‘Arriving in 3 minutes’ flashed across my phone screen. For a split second, I foolishly thought I’d gotten very lucky today.

But when I hummed to myself and opened the webpage of the novel I’ve been reading lately.

Just then, it happened.

The company building collapsed.

I can still remember the earth shaking with an ear-splitting roar, and the sensation of being plunged to the ground.

Amidst the dust and falling chunks of concrete that obscured my vision, I screamed and thought, “This can’t be happening.

This was so ridiculous.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that it was possible for a building to collapse out of nowhere.

But what if there was only one person left inside, and that person had to die a violent death?

“That’s not me, the guy who worked 15 hours a day, is it?

Or when the gunner you entrusted with your job just took what he could get,

Or when you were bullshitted into doing a last-minute project on the weekend,

or when the crazy assistant manager next to me sneakily rubbed his biceps at the dinner table.

……I sucked it up.

‘I’m sorry, sir, but I think this is outside my scope of work’.

‘You’re asking me to work on weekends, wasn’t that a contract violation?

“What do you think you’re doing?! This is sexual harassment”!

The cider ending of saying everything you need to say to your boss and confronting the perpetrator didn’t happen.

Because once you’ve said everything you need to say in anger and frustration, then what?

It was pretty obvious. It would only make my already hellish corporate life more hellish.

I wasn’t very smart, but I knew one thing for sure.

My life wasn’t a novel or a movie, it was 100% real with no twists and turns.

For a simple, penniless “citizen 1” like me, even standing up for my rights was a luxury.

……And. What the hell was I doing working for a company that paid me 180 after taxes in the first place?

“Because I never wanted to go back to job-hunting hell”.

Anyone who was ever been through a job search can relate.

The feeling of your ego sinking to the bottom with every rejection.

That’s not all.

Whenever I hear from one of my old classmates, it’s always one of two things.

“Hey, I just opened a cafe, it’s got a great menu, write a few posts with a hashtag!

Or something like,

“Hey, Se-bin, I’m going on a vacation with the kids this time, do you want to come with me? Your S-company just got married, so let’s hang out!

Or something like that.

I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been through it.

You know that feeling when you see a friend from school who is very successful in life and you can’t help but laugh.

“…… I’m an asshole.”

I grit my teeth as I stare at the strange woman in the mirror.

“I’m an asshole!!!”

It wasn’t that my good friends were assholes.

It was the damn fate that had sent me, Se-bin-lee, to the other side, trying to made my way in a world that was never easy.

For the absurd reason of a building collapse.

And even more absurd than that…….

“Where the hell am I, and who am I!!!”

* * *

I looked at the woman in front of me with a half-stunned face.

“My goodness miss, what’s wrong with your complexion?”

An unfamiliar-looking woman, dressed in a maid’s outfit, entered my room and called me Miss.

An absurd thought flashed through my mind. I mumbled in disbelief.

“……Anna?”

“Yes. What is it, Miss?”

The nonchalant reply came back. I slowly closed my gaping mouth.

“I was just wondering, just in case…….

This is Anna.

Anna was one of the characters in the novel I was reading just before the building collapsed.

She had a very small supporting role, but I remembered her presence vividly.

“Her lines were so memorable, they stuck in my head.

She plays a character who tries to did something terrible to the heroine and fails.

Somehow, Anna manages to escape the scene but was soon caught, and, unable to hold her tongue, she blows up the man behind the scenes.

“Now, I’m wrong, please spare my life, I had no other choice, I can’t refuse Lady Selenea’s orders……!

But the last line was unfinished. Before she could finish, the male protagonist’s sword flew into her throat.

I was so saddened by Anna’s death that I even left my first comment on the episode.

Ropanchadol

Was I the only one who felt sorry for Anna? I mean, what was a user to do if their boss is a dick?

But that Anna. The Anna from the novel! Why was she in front of me?

“……Ahnna!”

The voice suddenly brought me back to my senses and I stumbled backwards as if I had seen a ghost.

My back stiffened from the shock of the situation.

“Oh, no, no, no, I’ve walked into the novel I was reading right before I died!

There was no other way to explain what was happening.

Anna shook her head and muttered to herself as I gaped at her, my hands shaking.

“Miss, you seem a little off today.”

Her gaze felt piercing, and a cold sweat broke out on my hands.

“You’re up so much earlier than usual.”

I looked away, confused, and toward the window.

The sun was high in the sky.

“And you’ve been screaming like a whale this morning.”

I couldn’t help but be surprised. How could anyone look at a stranger in the mirror and not scream?

Anna rubbed her chin and made a “hmmm” sound. Her innocent-looking green eyes suddenly sparkled.

“Did you ever…….”

“…….”

“Is this about Estelin’s birthday party tonight?”

The tightly closed lips slowly parted.

A birthday party? Wait, whose birthday party did she just say?

Anna sighed heavily and stalked toward my frozen form.

Then she suddenly shoved her face into mine.

I reflexively flinched, and then she whispered in my ear, barely above a whisper.

“Miss, don’t worry. The ‘it’ you spoke of earlier was safely delivered to the maid in charge of the banquet hall kitchen, just as you ordered.”

I jerked my head back involuntarily and looked at Anna.

“It, it, what is it……?”

She didn’t answer, just stared at me with her eyes wide open.

But after a few moments, she froze in place, glanced around at no one, and whispered.

“Of course……. The vial you gave me.”

……A vial?

After a long pause, I clamped my mouth shut with a “Hmph!

Immediately, goosebumps sprouted up on my spine. A chill ran down the nape of my neck.

In my busy mind, I was picturing a scene from the novel I had read before I died.

……She dropped the goblet she was holding at the heavy pain she felt deep in her chest, the wine spilling out and staining the carpet red.

“……Sue, the wine is poisoned!”

“Get a councilor here now!”

The banquet hall quickly descended into chaos. Red blood trickled from her mouth as she gasped for air.

……We’re in trouble. I’ve seen this in novels. In the mirror, my lips slowly turned to flies.

Sensing something was wrong, Anna hesitantly approached.

“Miss, what’s wrong? Did you…….”

“…….”

“Now, wait a minute, those pills, they’re laxatives like you said, right?”

What diarrhea medicine? I stumbled back to my bed without answering.

“As soon as I woke up, I thought, ‘What the hell is going on…….’

My temples stiffened and a deep sigh escaped from my lips.

But, should I say thankfully?

Amid my confusion, one thing became clear.

The body I’m in now is the villain of the original novel,

Selenea Tigeris is the villainess who was attempting to poison the heroine today.

* * *

“Miss, you must have your outer garments!”

I scrambled out of the carriage and sprinted across the large garden.

“You can’t run like that, miss!”

I heard Anna’s desperate cry from behind me. But I didn’t stop.

With each rough pounding, my shoes dug into the ground with their delicate heels.

But the pain didn’t matter now.

“I have to stop them from eating it at all costs.

Not Estelin, to be precise, but her sister Eria.

In the novel, Selenea is not the one who drinks the poison in the cup.

“It was her sister, Eria.

And she was only twelve years old.

I bit my lip tightly.

Now that I knew what was going on, I couldn’t let her die, at least not yet.

And most of all…….

‘Selenea will be executed later when this is discovered.

It was, and it was the first and most horrific of many misdeeds that Selenea would commit.

I was told that I had to do something about this, that I could either live here or not.

‘And if we fail, we were stuck with the execution ending…….’

That was much, much worse than a building collapse!

Breathing heavily, he looked up and finally saw the gates of the eerie mansion.