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Chapter – 02
1. The Possessor and the Hunting Tournament
“Miss, are you awake?”
“…Huh? Yeah.”
Arsene reflexively responded to the clear voice coming from outside the door.
After saying it, she quickly added, realizing it was not proper speech for a noble lady.
“I’m fine. Bring breakfast to my room.”
As she sat up and looked into the dressing table mirror, the unfamiliar pink hair stole her attention.
Arsene Marcedes.
It had already been almost a week since she possessed this villainess girl’s body.
When she first opened her eyes, she had been surrounded by maids in medieval-style uniforms, all gathered around her bed.
‘What the—’
Before she could even process the situation, sixteen years of the original owner’s memories rushed in.
And soon after, she naturally came to realize that this world was the setting of the novel she had read in her past life.
This third-rate dark fantasy novel begins with Emperor Balthazar killing his older brother, the former emperor.
To eliminate any future threats, Balthazar searched the entire empire for his late brother’s only son—but failed.
The only clue was violet eyes, inherited only by the imperial bloodline.
That son was the protagonist, Cardi.
Hiding his eye color and barely surviving in the slums, he was eventually traced by an informant working for Arsene’s father, Marquis Marcedes.
That was the beginning of all misfortune.
In the end, after being captured by the Marcedes household and later dragged into the imperial palace, he endured unspeakable suffering… and awakened, becoming a being who took revenge on everyone who had ruined his life.
It wasn’t even a particularly enjoyable novel.
‘And yet why do I remember every single line as if I read it yesterday?’
Perhaps this world she had to live in was so cruel that only something like this could balance it out.
After the divine beasts gave magic to humans and returned to the stars, humanity advanced with that power—but shadows deepened just as much.
Magical power became a symbol of strength, and territorial wars between noble houses led by mages never ceased.
Although the divine beasts, bound by contracts, remained in the mortal world to help stabilize the chaos alongside the imperial family, the culture of power-worship remained deeply rooted.
And that logic was exactly the same in the Marcedes household where Arsene was born.
Marquis Marcedes once grabbed five-year-old Arsene’s wrist while she was drawing on the floor, glanced at her magic test results, and clicked his tongue.
“You have pathetic mana. Even worse than your older brother…”
After that, he lost all interest in her.
The frail marchioness passed away from illness when Arsene was twelve.
All she had in terms of siblings was an older brother who constantly antagonized her and picked fights.
…The moment she recalled “Arsene’s” memories up to this point, she was certain.
‘It’s doomed. This family is doomed.’
And Arsene herself wasn’t exceptional either.
In the original story, she was just another insignificant villain with no magical talent and no real abilities—only a decent-looking face.
Her older brother Daniel was the same.
The reason Marquis Marcedes eventually took the reckless step of bringing in the protagonist was clear.
This family had neither prosperity in its territory nor strong connections in the central court. It had a long history and prestige, but lacked resources, and was steadily declining.
In the end, they had no choice but to rely on their children—their only assets.
‘But both of them have zero magical talent…’
The marquis had ended up blaming the instability of the family entirely on his incompetent children.
And the proof was right in front of her.
Arsene rubbed her forehead and touched the faint bruise above it.
‘Did she fall from the third-floor attic window?’
A week ago—right before she had possessed this body.
“Arsene” had refused magical training because the pitying gaze of her magic tutor made her skin crawl.
“How dare a common mage look down on me?!”
She had torn books apart, destroyed magical tools, and even driven the tutor out of the mansion.
The enraged Marquis Marcedes locked her in the attic room on the third floor and ordered that no food or water be given to her…
In her fury, Arsene broke the window and jumped out.
She had blacked out—and when she woke up, the possession had occurred.
‘She fell from that height and only got a bruise?’
At first, she thought the body might be indestructible, but that wasn’t the case.
Apparently, the knight commander Oliver, who had been training nearby, had barely managed to catch her mid-fall.
A touching display of loyalty toward a useless young lady.
‘Surprisingly… I didn’t expect that from him.’
In Arsene’s memory, Oliver was indifferent to everything and always half a step slow.
‘I should at least thank him.’
Even though part of her—possibly inherited from the original Arsene’s personality—wanted to complain, why did you even bother saving me?, she couldn’t live so shamelessly.
‘Besides, if I follow the original story, isn’t this basically a death flag?’
She had spent a week locked in her room under the excuse of a concussion, enough time to adjust to this world. It was about time to step outside.
She called a maid, asked for Oliver’s location, and headed toward the training grounds.
On her way from the main gate toward the training field, Arsene tilted her head at a strange sense of discomfort.
‘No, something’s off. Even in my memories and the original story, Oliver wasn’t loyal like this.’
The distance between the training grounds and the mansion was quite large. Catching someone falling from a third-floor window was dangerous—he could have broken his arms.
There was no way the knight commander, who already disliked her, wouldn’t know that.
Did he really have enough loyalty to sprint that distance and catch her midair?
And in the original story, Oliver was the type of person who abandoned the family first when it began falling into ruin.
It was later revealed he had been secretly meeting with an underground intelligence organization called Mysterium.
Even in Arsene’s memory, he always wore a bored expression at the training grounds, wasting time.
Just like now.
“Good day, my lady.”
Oliver, a broad-shouldered man with green hair standing at the entrance of the training grounds, bowed slightly.
Though he didn’t show it openly, there was a faint hint of surprise at her appearance.
“It seems you’ve recovered. What brings you here?”
“I heard you caught me when I fell. I came to thank you.”
“Oh, that was…”
Oliver started to speak casually, then paused and cleared his throat.
“…No. It was simply my duty as knight commander.”
At that moment—
Clang!
A sharp metallic sound echoed from inside the training grounds.
Before she could even ask what was happening, a boy burst out through the gate.
“What? You’re walking around just fine? Already recovered?”
Brown hair. Blue eyes.
A refined, strikingly handsome face.
It was Arsene’s older brother, Daniel.
