Honestly, I never really liked otome games.
Or at the very least, I was supposed to hate them.
The game I had been playing was called Magic and Love, a classic otome game with branching romance routes and an innocent heroine that everyone adored. Normally, it was not the kind of game I would ever touch.
But there was one reason I kept playing.
The villain.
Veralyn Silvercrown.
Her design was downright unfair. Long silver hair, a cold gaze, the aura of a noblewoman who took everything far too seriously. The kind of character clearly designed to be hated, and yet she was the one who captivated me. Unfortunately, like every otome villain before her, her fate was always the same.
Death, or exile.
"At least don't make the villain this attractive!"
When I first started playing, I was frustrated. Veralyn kept driving the heroine away. Her stare was sharp, her words were cold, and her attitude made it seem like she looked down on everyone. A textbook otome villain, designed so that players would feel satisfied when she was finally brought down.
I thought it was overdone.
Until I finished the game.
In a secret ending hidden far behind a series of difficult choices, Veralyn appeared once more. Not as a fallen noblewoman, but as the final ruler. A high-level sorceress, a master of complex magic, with attack patterns that were absolutely infuriating.
It took me a long time to defeat her.
And after that, a cutscene began.
A flashback.
For the first time, the story was not told from the heroine's perspective. I saw the world through Veralyn's eyes.
And that was when I realized her behavior actually made sense.
The heroine was reckless. Far too reckless. She wandered into noble quarters without proper etiquette, spoke too familiarly with the aristocrats, and had been seen walking alone with a prince on more than one occasion. A prince who already had a fiancee.
In that world, status was not merely decoration. A commoner was expected to know their boundaries, to know their place. Not because they were lesser, but because a single misstep could become a political catastrophe.
And Veralyn understood that.
She was not being childishly jealous. She was warning. Maintaining propriety. Protecting the honor of both herself and the kingdom. Anyone would be upset if their partner was suddenly being approached by someone else.
Yet every warning she gave was framed as "cruelty."
Every cold glance was treated as oppression.
Every effort to maintain distance only made her look more like a monster.
When the cutscene ended, I stared at the screen for a long time.
"Now that I think about it..." I muttered, "the prince is the one who deserves to be executed!"
And for the first time since I started that game, I no longer saw Veralyn Silvercrown as a villain. I saw her as a woman who lost not because she was wrong, but because the story never gave her a chance to explain herself. The world had decided her role from the very beginning. She was nothing more than a stepping stone for the heroine to look righteous.
The more I thought about it, the more infuriating it became.
But before I could dwell on it any further, my life ended first.
Not long after I discovered that secret ending, death came without warning. Without drama. One second I was still staring at my monitor, and the next, everything went dark.
And when I opened my eyes again, the world that greeted me was no longer my room.
It was the world of Magic and Love.
I was reincarnated as an ordinary commoner.
My name was Raymond.
I was born in a small village that was barely marked on any map. No noble blood. No inheritance. My parents were nothing more than commoners who lived off their daily labor.
At first, I had hoped. Maybe I would wake up with extraordinary magical talent, an unlimited mana reserve, or some kind of cheat ability like in all those other isekai stories.
But in reality, I was just an ordinary person. No special skills. No hidden power.
It took me years to accept that. Yet at the same time, I realized something important.
I may not have had a cheat ability. But I possessed something that no one else in this world had.
Knowledge.
Knowledge from my previous world. About concepts, tools, and technologies that did not yet exist here. And most importantly, knowledge of the storyline of Magic and Love.
I knew what was going to happen. Who would do what. And when everything would fall apart.
So from that moment on, I began to prepare. Not with magic. Not with strength.
But with my mind.
And from there, my journey in this world truly began.