The study room was quiet enough for her to hear her own heartbeat.
Steady.
Quick.
Too loud in the stillness.
Rows of books towered above her, watching her silently from the ancient wooden shelves. Papers were spread across the mahogany desk in careful clusters—her father's handwriting, typed reports, stapled documents, clipped summaries.
The lamp cast a warm yellow light across the room, illuminating the dust in the air like tiny stars.
If she had been the original villainess, she would have run from this room in fear.
She would have cried.
Collapsed.
Screamed at the injustice of her life.
But Seo Yeon-hwa sat at the center of her father's empire, her back straight, pen between her fingers, and eyes heavy with the knowledge of everything she had absorbed.
Every word.
Every number.
Every clue.
Her father had been fighting a war alone.
And she had arrived in the story at the exact moment the war had begun tearing his world apart.
She flipped another page—her fingers trembling now, not from fear, but from exhaustion.
She had been reading for hours.
Not minutes.
Not one or two hours.
Nearly half a day.
She had lost track of time.
Her throat felt dry.
Her shoulders throbbed.
Her fingers ached from writing.
But she forced herself to continue.
If she stopped now, her father's enemies would win.
She turned the page.
A new set of documents appeared—thin, almost fragile sheets that looked nothing like the thick reports she'd been studying.
Attached to the top was a small handwritten note.
"For my eyes only."
Her chest tightened.
Her father's handwriting was sharp, confident—but here, she saw rushed strokes, uneven pressure. He had written this in haste. Under stress. Under threat.
She picked up the stack carefully.
The first page was a transcript—an internal meeting summary that had never been officially recorded.
Unofficial Notes: Board Consultation (Private)
Present: Chairman Seo Ji-won, Executive Director Choi Min-sung, Director Han Dae-won, CFO Park Joon-oh
Date: Two days before Aurora leak
Her eyes widened.
Unofficial?
Private?
No minute-taker present?
No digital log?
Why?
She read the first line.
"Chairman, several board members believe Project Aurora is too unstable. We cannot proceed."
Her father's response was written beneath it.
"We're proceeding. Our competitors know something they shouldn't. Someone leaked the numbers."
Her heart raced.
She leaned closer.
Choi Min-sung's remark:
"Chairman, no one leaked it. You must be mistaken. Perhaps foreign partners—"
Her father's reply was jagged.
"Don't lie."
The next lines were scribbled so hard the pen almost tore the paper.
"None of you were supposed to have access to the financials. No one outside the R&D team had the projections. Yet Changwoon has them."
A chill crawled down her spine.
Changwoon Group didn't predict anything.
They were given the data.
No wonder their "analysis" inside the folder had been so perfect.
Her fingers tightened on the edges of the paper.
A traitor.
A leak.
Someone inside the company had been feeding information directly to the enemy.
She flipped to the next page.
This one was different.
Short.
Almost empty.
Just a single line.
"I'm being warned indirectly."
Her breath caught.
Warned… how?
She turned the page.
Again, only one line.
"Someone approached my secretary yesterday."
Her hand shook.
She swallowed, forcing herself to stay calm.
Another page.
"My security chief said the cameras outside my office were tampered with."
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
A few more pages remained.
She flipped one.
"Someone is waiting for me to make a mistake."
Another page.
"My daughter must not know."
She closed her eyes.
Her father had been trying to protect the villainess.
Even when he was surrounded by betrayal.
Even when his world was cracking open.
And she, the original villainess, had been crying over Min-joon.
When she opened her eyes, the next page nearly made her drop the file.
"Suspicious name:
Lee Joon-ha."
The same name from the earlier report.
Her blood ran cold.
Her father had found the spy.
He had been close to uncovering everything.
Too close.
And then—he had an accident.
Accident?
She flipped to the final page so fast she almost tore it.
This one was the shortest of all.
Black ink.
Bold.
"Watch the stairs."
She froze.
Her fingers went cold.
The stairs.
The stairs that the novel said he "slipped" on.
The stairs that had "poor lighting."
The stairs the villainess never questioned.
The stairs at the main Seo Hwa building.
He had written:
Watch the stairs.
Her entire body stiffened.
He didn't slip.
He didn't fall by chance.
He was pushed.
Her heart hammered so violently she had to grip the desk for balance. Her breath trembled, emotions rising at the back of her throat like a surge breaking past her chest.
She felt the sting behind her eyes.
The ache in her throat.
The heaviness in her chest.
Her father had been attacked.
Not injured.
Not unlucky.
Attacked.
Her father had known he was in danger.
And he still tried to protect the daughter who didn't care.
She needed air.
But also—
she couldn't cry.
She forced her nails into her palm until the pain steadied her breath.
Her vision blurred for a moment—but she gritted her teeth and held it in.
She wasn't going to cry.
Not tonight.
Not now.
Because the villainess had cried useless tears.
But she was not the villainess.
She inhaled sharply.
Her chest rose and fell.
Her eyes burned—but she didn't let the tears fall.
Her father hadn't died for her to crumble.
He was still alive.
Still fighting.
Still breathing.
And she would not disappoint him again.
The system chimed softly.
[Emotional Integrity Stabilized]
[Mission Condition Preserved]
Her breath escaped in a shaky sigh.
She leaned back, staring at the pages again.
Every word, every scribble, every rushed line bore the truth the novel never spoke.
Her father had been pushed.
And whoever pushed him—
was still free.
Still working.
Still smiling in the boardroom.
Her hands curled into fists.
But she forced herself to continue reading.
She spread out the documents into clusters—leaks, board conflicts, accident notes, Aurora projections, suspicious finances. Her notebook filled page after page as she organized her findings, drawing arrows between patterns, circling names, making lists.
This wasn't just studying anymore.
This was discovering a conspiracy.
She could almost see the map forming before her eyes—events, motives, opportunities, possible suspects.
And in every direction, the same words echoed:
Lee Joon-ha.
Tampered cameras.
Foreign interference.
Staircase.
Father's warnings.
Board conflict.
Project Aurora.
Somewhere, the truth connected.
Somewhere, the enemy planned their next move.
She rubbed her temples, forcing herself to think more clearly.
Could it be internal sabotage?
Could Changwoon Group be pulling strings from behind?
Could her father's accident be part of a coordinated attack?
She needed to understand the structure of Seo Hwa Group.
She needed to read his remaining reports.
She needed to decode the internal politics.
Most importantly—
She needed to finish the mission tonight.
She reached for the drawer beneath the desk.
Inside lay more files, a few sealed envelopes, a calculator, and several USB drives.
She pulled one out.
A small, black drive labeled simply:
"Aurora — Draft"
Her hands trembled.
A draft.
Not the final version.
A draft her father never submitted.
A draft that might reveal what he wanted to change.
She placed it onto the desk, connecting it to the desktop computer. The screen flickered to life, the familiar company logo appearing.
Password required.
She froze.
What was her father's password?
She tested the obvious ones.
His birthday?
Her birthday?
Her mother's?
All wrong.
She pressed her lips together.
Then she remembered the photograph that had fallen earlier.
Her father smiling at the Aurora partnership meeting.
The banner behind him.
The date printed on the corner.
She typed it in.
Enter.
The screen unlocked.
Her chest loosened.
The folder opened into dozens of files.
Contracts.
Draft agreements.
Confidential notes.
Blueprints.
Projected budgets.
But what caught her eye was a small file at the bottom.
"Personal: Last Revision"
She clicked it.
Her father's handwriting filled the screen in scanned images.
He had been making last-minute changes—
Removing certain department access points.
Creating backup plans.
Outlining security reinforcements.
Reassigning R&D responsibility to trusted employees.
And then, at the bottom:
"If something happens to me, Aurora must survive."
Her breath stopped.
A tremor ran through her fingers.
Her father had known his life was at risk.
He had known the attack was coming.
He had tried to build a path forward even in case of his collapse.
This was not just business.
This was a war.
She closed her eyes for a moment and let the truth sink into her bones.
She was not protecting a fragile reputation.
She was not protecting a childish vanity.
She was protecting a father who had given everything for this company.
A mother who was breaking quietly.
A home that could crumble at any moment.
An empire built through blood and relentless effort.
And she was the only one left who could see the truth.
Slowly, she reached for her notebook again.
She wrote at the top of the page:
Tomorrow: Investigate the staircase.
She paused.
Then wrote:
Find out who was present that day.
Names.
Faces.
Motives.
Patterns.
She would find all of it.
Not because she was the villainess.
Because she was Seo Ji-won's daughter.
And she would not let the man who raised her fall without justice.
Outside, the sky had turned a deep shade of blue. Night settled heavily across the mansion. The staff had begun switching off lights one by one.
But she was far from done.
She picked up the next file.
Project Aurora Training Manual
For Directors Only
She flipped the first page.
Her eyes widened.
It wasn't a manual.
It was a list of people…
people secretly vetted for Aurora.
People her father trusted.
People her father feared.
People her father suspected.
She circled the names.
Underlined warnings.
Cross-referenced previous reports.
Everything connected.
Suddenly, a shadow passed beneath the study door—footsteps in the hallway.
Her breath held for a moment.
Someone was outside.
Someone walking very quietly.
Someone passing by her father's study late at night.
The footsteps paused.
Right in front of the door.
Her fingers curled slowly.
Not fear—
readiness.
After a few seconds, the footsteps resumed, fading down the hallway.
She exhaled when they disappeared completely.
The mansion was not safe.
Not fully.
Not tonight.
She returned to the desk, organizing the papers, absorbing every detail, expanding her notes, linking the pieces of a puzzle the original villainess never solved.
She worked tirelessly, absorbed in layers of truth and lies.
Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the system chimed again.
[Main Mission Progress: 92 percent]
Not enough.
She needed the final connections.
The final reports.
The final clues.
With trembling hands, she reached for the last set of internal financial documents—the ones her father had marked with a discreet red bookmark.
The same bookmark she remembered reading about in the novel.
The same bookmark the villainess never saw.
She opened the document.
Her heart raced.
Because the numbers revealed something she had not expected.
Not just betrayal.
Not just interference.
But theft.
Money was moving inside Seo Hwa Group.
Quietly.
Secretly.
Leaving the company through a channel hidden in plain sight.
Someone was draining funds.
And it was someone with access to the finance team.
Someone her father wrote down.
Lee Joon-ha.
She wrote his name in capital letters.
Underlined it twice.
Her chest rose and fell slowly.
She wasn't done.
She wouldn't be done until she completed every requirement.
Until she uncovered everything.
Until the mission turned green.
She turned back to the system, expecting an update.
The blue screen appeared.
[User's Determination Level Increased]
[Mental Strength +2]
[Business Ability +1]
[Logic +1]
And then:
[Final Step for Mission Completion: Write a strategy plan for Seo Hwa Group]
Her breath shook.
A strategy plan.
For an entire corporation.
At business level seven.
But her fingers curled.
She could do it.
No matter how flawed.
No matter how rough.
No matter how simple.
She would write it.
She would finish it.
She would complete the mission.
She opened her notebook again, flipping to a clean page.
She wrote:
"Seo Hwa Group — 7-Day Stabilization Strategy"
Her pen didn't stop.
Not once.
She wrote about restructuring.
About board observation.
About security checks.
About internal audits.
About public relations silence.
About leadership substitutes.
About damage control.
About departmental interviews.
About CEO appointment procedures.
About Aurora strengthening.
Her hand cramped halfway through, but she forced herself to continue.
Every line she wrote was a step toward her father's survival.
A step toward her family's future.
A step toward her own life.
Finally, after writing everything she could—her hand shaking, her shoulders tight—she placed the pen down.
The system glowed.
[Mission Completed]
[Business Ability +10]
[Logic +5]
[Reputation +5]
[Skill Unlocked: Basic Chaebol Negotiation]
Her breath escaped in a long, shaky sigh.
She had done it.
She had completed the mission.
She had survived Day 1.
She closed her notebook, leaned back in her chair, and looked around the study room—the empire she had inherited.
She whispered into the silence.
"I'm not the villainess.
I'm the one who fixes what she broke."
Tomorrow, the world would begin to shift.
Tonight, she closed the file.
A storm was coming.
And she would be ready for it.