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Chapter 1
“Hey, hey, look over there. The Dragon’s Bride is passing by.”
Ugh, my ears are going to ring.
“So she’s the chosen bride this generation? Good. I heard she’s completely useless.”
“Well, yeah. They say she was born without awakening a single ability.”
My name is Calypso Aquasiadel.
I’m someone who transmigrated into a generic childcare fantasy novel…
…and a human cursed by time.
What do I mean by that?
I tried to change the original story so I could live a better life.
Instead, I reached a bad ending.
And I thought that was the end…
Only to find myself trapped in an endless cycle of regression.
Pitiful, isn’t it?
This world comes from the childcare novel I Became the Black Panther Duke’s Terminally Ill Baby Daughter.
Back when I was reading novels, childcare fantasies were everywhere.
This one was no exception.
A beloved heroine.
Doting older brothers who adored her.
A cold father who eventually became a hopeless daughter fanatic.
It was a novel built entirely on familiar clichés.
The important part, however…
None of those clichés applied to me.
What an unfair system.
The original heroine was a squirrel beastkin who was adopted into the Black Panther family.
She was taken in as a child and gradually developed a sweet relationship with the family’s youngest son.
Unfortunately for him, he was only the second male lead.
After being showered with love by the Black Panther family, she eventually ended up with the true male lead—the Lion Beastkin Crown Prince—for a perfect happy ending.
The character I possessed…
…was the powerless youngest daughter of the Orca family.
The very family that served as the story’s final villain.
Unlike the original heroine, who only needed to be cute and lovable to receive affection, the Orca family was a world where everything was determined by strength.
The law of the jungle.
There was no family here that melted just because a child babbled, “Goo-goo?” or called someone “Grandpa?”
For one thing…
The head of the family wasn’t even a grandfather.
It was a grandmother.
Orcas naturally lived in a matriarchal society, so the family had always been ruled by its strongest grandmother.
The current family head had three sons.
I was the youngest granddaughter of her insignificant third son.
To make matters worse, I had no special abilities and possessed an unusually frail body.
I had three older brothers.
Each of them was talented enough to earn our grandmother’s recognition.
As for me…
They simply ignored or looked down on the weakling among them.
In the original story, I was destined to become the Dragon’s Bride, a sacrifice fated to die.
However, by my grandmother’s orders, I was sent to the Black Panther family instead of the dragon.
More precisely…
I was offered as a political marriage sacrifice to the Black Panther household.
There, I became jealous of the original heroine, who was loved despite being weaker than me.
I bullied her.
My actions were exposed.
I was thrown out of the house.
Then I died a horrific death in an accident.
The one who silently watched it happen without lifting a finger…
…was my fiancé.
The Black Panther supporting character who was both the heroine’s adoptive older brother and her future love interest.
The moment I transmigrated, I tried to change all of that…
To put it simply…
I failed spectacularly.
Let’s see…
In my first life, I tried seducing the original male lead and died.
In my second life, I scratched myself on a rusty nail and died from tetanus.
My third life had been the one just before this.
I corrected my previous mistakes and even managed to become the leader of the Orca family.
And yet…
I still ended up with a total annihilation ending after getting caught in the original male lead’s scheme.
But that’s over now.
I possessed an enormous amount of knowledge.
And this time…
I wasn’t going to fail.
This life, I will definitely become the Dragon’s Bride!
So I paid no attention whatsoever to the people whispering around me.
“Hmph. She’ll definitely die as the Dragon’s Bride, but at least she’ll bring wealth to the family. I suppose the family head finally found a use for that worthless child.”
“It’s basically the same as selling her.”
Instead…
Keep talking.
Spread the word everywhere that I’m the Dragon’s Bride!
In this world, the Dragon’s Bride referred to a child offered as a sacrifice to the Dragon Duke.
Once every ten years, a child was offered to calm the dragon’s wrath.
Everyone believed that child was certain to die.
The tradition dated back to the founding of the nation.
According to legend, the country had been established with the dragon’s help.
The dragon later married the first emperor, and together they had two children.
One inherited an ordinary beastkin bloodline and became emperor.
The other inherited too much of the dragon’s blood.
Unable to control that overwhelming power, they frequently went berserk and eventually gave up any claim to the throne.
Instead, they founded the Grand Duke’s lineage.
Their descendants inherited the dragon’s blood generation after generation.
That bloodline eventually became the present-day Dragon Duke’s family.
“So she’s basically a noble girl who’s about to die.”
“Exactly.”
“What a pity. She’s barely lived a year… maybe two. It would’ve been kinder if she’d simply died instead of being chewed up by a dragon.”
“Oh, come on. Then she wouldn’t be contributing anything to the family.”
Listening to every word of their gossip, I arrived at a massive room.
The enormous doors slowly opened before me.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this room.
It was the family head’s office.
Strangely enough, an infant’s crib had been placed in one corner.
The servant carrying me didn’t say a word as he dropped me into the crib.
He wasn’t exactly gentle.
My bottom slammed into the wooden railing, leaving it sore.
Seriously… could you handle me a little more carefully?
This family had absolutely no respect for babies.
Survival of the fittest.
The strong monopolized everything.
Even infants were no exception.
If you survived, you survived.
If you didn’t…
That was your problem.
Today’s the day I receive my name.
I was currently three years old—
Or rather, exactly twenty-four months since my birth.
Among whale beastkin, no child was recognized as an official member of the family until they reached two years of age.
The reason was simple.
Whales had an unusually high rate of sudden death during their first two years of life.
This world was inhabited entirely by beastkin.
The land-dwelling clans and the aquatic clans constantly stood opposed to one another.
Nearly every important character in the original novel belonged to the land factions.
The sea clans…
Were always the villains.
I remember the comment section constantly calling them “those evil fish bastards.”
And the leader of those so-called evil fish…
Had just entered the room.
Despite the wrinkles on her face, she carried herself with overwhelming dignity.
She possessed a towering frame, jet-black hair, and snow-white tips that looked as though they’d been deliberately bleached.
She was my grandmother.
Ocula Aquasiadel.
