***
My head felt like it was split in two.
No, that wasn't right. It felt like it was split in two, dunked in ice, and then run over by a truck. It was a pounding, foundational migraine that was only matched by the icy cold seeping into me from a mattress that felt less like memory foam and more like a bag of frozen gravel.
I've never owned a mattress this bad. Mine was cheap, but it was mine.
My eyes snapped open.
This was not my tiny, cramped studio apartment, illuminated by the 4 AM glow of a laptop screen. This was a stone room— a cell. The air was damp, smelling of mildew, old straw, and a faint, sharp tang of despair. A single, guttering candle on a rusted plate cast weak, flickering shadows on the gray walls, which seemed to weep with moisture.
I sat up, a wave of vertigo slamming into me. My body ached. Every joint screamed in protest. I looked down at the hands I raised to my throbbing temples.
They were not my hands.
My hands were calloused from typing, with short, bitten-down nails. These hands were pale, thin to the point of being skeletal, and tipped with long, dirty, broken nails. A thin, scratchy blanket fell away from a body I didn't recognize, clad in a linen shift so coarse it felt like sandpaper.
"Where...?" My voice was a dry, unused croak.
A sharp, digital ping! Noise echoed, not in the room, but directly inside my skull.
A transparent blue window shimmered into existence before my eyes.
It was just like... one of those game-lit manhwas I'd read to escape my 80-hour work week, where I'd work 16 hours a day, Monday through Friday, with weekends off. The ones I binged on my phone while eating instant noodles for my one sole "meal" of the day.
[System Alert: Synchronization Complete!]
Welcome, Player.
Character: Elara von Steiner (Age: 19) Role: Minor Villain (Chapter 1-3 Governess) Novel: "The Archduke's Black Rose"
[Current Situation Analysis] You are Elara, a destitute, distant relative of the Voronoff family, hired as a temporary governess for the 'Cursed Child,' Kaelen Voronoff. Status: Malnourished. Exhausted. Low Reputation. Location: Voronoff Ducal Estate (Attic Servant's Cell 4B)
[Original Fate] Driven by fear, greed, and a lifetime of resentment, Elara von Steiner consistently abuses the child. In three days, the child's uncle, Male Lead Duke Zander Voronoff, arrives for a surprise inspection. He discovers the abuse and the child's horrific living conditions. Elara is executed via ice magic, her body left frozen as a statue in the courtyard for three days as a warning.
[System Objective] Survive.
My blood, which had been sluggish and cold, turned to pure ice.
I wasn't just in some fantasy world. I was in that novel. The one that was my only escape. The one with the obsessive, cold-blooded, terrifyingly handsome Duke and his traumatized nephew, Kaelen—the nephew who grows up to be the grand arch-villain who burns half the continent.
And I... I was Elara.
I remembered her. Of course, I remembered her. She was the "starter" villain—the first pathetic, cruel adult who pushed Kaelen onto his path of darkness. I remembered reading her death scene and thinking, "Good riddance," before feeling a brief pang of pity that anyone had to die that gruesomely.
I was just killed by overwork, collapsing onto a spreadsheet of Q4 profit margins. I am not dying again as a high-definition ice-sculpture for a 2D tyrant.
No. No, I refuse this. I will not be a tutorial-stage villain. I will not die here.
Before I could even begin to form a plan, a thunderous BANG! BANG! BANG! Echoed on the rickety wooden door of my cell.
"Governess Elara!" a sharp, nasally voice snapped from the other side. "Get up! The young master has been moved to the East Tower's nursery. He has... spilled his soup again." The voice was filled with a mixture of disdain and fear. "The Head Butler requests—no, demands—you deal with it immediately."
The woman, whom I vaguely recalled was a maid named Eliza, didn't even wait for an answer. Her footsteps, heavy and disapproving, stomped away, echoing down the hall.
My heart hammered against my ribs so hard it hurt. The East Tower. The spilled soup.
This was it. I remembered this scene from the comments section of the webnovel. This was the first time the original Elara hit Kaelen. This was the lynchpin. This was the moment that set Elara's three-day countdown to execution in stone.
[System Alert: New Scenario Quest Issued.] [Go to East Tower Nursery.] [Time Limit: 5:00 Minutes] [Failure: Punishment (Intense Pain)]
"I'm going! I'm going!" I hissed, scrambling off the straw mattress. My legs felt like lead, my bare feet hitting the freezing stone floor with a slap. I grabbed a tattered, wool-thin shawl from a peg—my only other possession—and threw it over the linen shift.
I burst out of the cell and into the hallway. It was a gothic, freezing mausoleum, an endless corridor of dark stone and faded, grotesque tapestries. The main ducal estate was supposed to be opulent, but this servants' wing was a nightmare. I was in the attic, and the wind howled through cracks in the stone, whistling a tune of my impending doom.
I ran.
My lungs burned. This body was so weak. I stumbled down spiraling staircases, my bare feet aching, my breath pluming in front of my face. The East Tower. Why the East Tower? It was the oldest and most derelict part of the castle, barely used. I must have run for five minutes, barely making it in time, my body screaming, before I reached the isolated wing. The air here was even colder, the stone slick with a dampness that was almost frost.
The scent hit me before I saw the door—sour, spoiled milk and a sharp, metallic tang that I couldn't place.
The nursery was at the end of a long, dark hall, isolated from everything else. I pushed the heavy, iron-banded door open, my hand trembling.
It was not a nursery. It was a prison cell, just like mine, only bigger.
The room was tiny, barely larger than my own cell, with a single, tall, iron-barred window that let in a sliver of weak, gray light. There was no fire in the hearth, only a pile of cold ashes. The air was so cold I could see my breath, a little puff of white in the gloom. There were no toys. No books. No color.
In the middle of the floor sat a small, overturned wooden bowl. A thin, gray-ish, lumpy gruel was splattered across the dusty, splintered floorboards.
And in the farthest, darkest corner, huddled against the wall, was a child.
He couldn't have been more than five years old. He was all sharp angles and bones, drowning in a thin, oversized tunic that was probably a cast-off. His hair, which I'd seen in the manhwa illustrations, was a stark, shocking shock of silver, matted and unkempt.
He was staring at me.
He wasn't crying. He wasn't cowering, not exactly. He was trembling, yes, from cold or fear, I couldn't tell. But his chin was up. And his eyes...
His eyes were a piercing, bright, unnatural magenta. The "Cursed Eyes of the Voronoff."
And they were fixed on me, not with the terror of a child, but with a quiet, simmering hatred that was far, far too old for his small face.
This was him. Kaelen Voronoff. The boy who would one day become an arch-villain capable of leveling cities, all because no one, not one person, had ever shown him an ounce of kindness.
And I was one of the first links in that chain of abuse.
My breath caught in my throat. I stood there, frozen in the doorway, the icy draft chilling me to the bone. I should do something. I had to do something. The original Elara, I remembered, had screamed at him. She had grabbed him.
I looked at his tiny, clenched fists. I looked at his sunken eyes.
I couldn't.
I wouldn't.
My heart hammered. I had to survive. But I couldn't... I couldn't do that.
I took a shaky breath, ignoring the pounding in my head. I willed my own trembling legs to move. Slowly, I took one step into the room. Then another. The floorboards creaked under my weight, the sound cannon-shot loud in the silence.
The boy flinched, a sharp, tiny movement, and his hatred flickered, replaced for just one second by a flash of pure, animal terror. He pressed himself harder against the stone wall, making himself impossibly smaller.
That terror, aimed at me, was like a physical blow.
I stopped. I couldn't just stand there, and I couldn't be the monster he expected. I had to do something different. I had to break the script.
I bent my knees.
Slowly, painfully, with my joints slightly creaking in protest, I knelt on the filthy, cold floor, lowering myself to his level. I was still ten feet away, but I wasn't towering over him anymore.
He stared, his magenta eyes wide with pure, lucid confusion. His hatred was gone, replaced by shock.
This was it. This was my first real action.
And right as I opened my mouth, a sharp, digital ping noise echoed in my skull.
[A Main Scenario has Arrived!]
(End of Chapter 1)
(Author's Note)
We are officially in the game! 🟦
Elara has just gone off-script for the first time. The original Elara would have yelled—our Elara knelt. But Kaelen is terrified, the room is freezing, and the System is watching.
Don't forget to Add to the Library so you get the notification when the System issues the quest, next #TickyTockTuesday!
👉 SCENARIO POLL! (Comment on the paragraph to vote):
The System is about to demand a choice. What is Elara's best strategy to handle the terrified future villain?
A) Be the real heroine. (The "Unconditional Kindness" route)
B) Be a professional. (The "By the Book Governess" route)
C) Clear the quest. (The "Pragmatic Gamer" route)
D) Just... don't be Elara. (The "Do No Harm" route)
E) Gain his trust, fast. (The "He's My Shield" route)