Chapter 17
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 17
Chapter Title: In This Life, the Same... No, a More Perfect Future
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Lady Baldinmar's shocking statement made Roselia's eyes widen as if they might pop out at any moment.
Her lips trembled faintly, as if she couldn't believe what she'd just heard—or perhaps didn't want to believe it.
"Returned... to the past? Then that means you're a regressor?"
"More precisely, a possessor and a regressor. Quite the twisted fate, isn't it?"
Leonier leaned obliquely against the bed's headboard and gave a wry smile.
Her gaze seemed a touch hazier than just moments ago.
It was the look of someone who was in this room yet simultaneously peering into a distant past—or a vanished future.
"When I first opened my eyes, I was just like you. Waking up as the villainess in some tragic novel I was reading? It felt like the sky was crashing down."
With a slightly wistful tone, she began recounting her first life.
"According to the original story, I was the crown prince's fiancée, destined to bully and torment Elina before meeting a miserable end. To escape that mad psychopath crown prince, I had to do whatever it took. So I chose here—Kaltstein."
"......"
"Of course, arriving here brought on my first mental breakdown. Kailus, who was supposed to be there, was nowhere to be found, and some unfamiliar man was sitting in the duke's seat. Noxion—a name that never even appeared in the original story."
Leonier chuckled as she recalled her bewilderment at the time.
"I heard you first met Noxion at his inauguration ceremony. In my previous life, I visited about a month after he became Kaltstein's new lord—right around now. I was just as shocked as you. How could I not be, with the original story's destroyer right in front of me?"
Her voice carried the easy comfort of sharing travel tales with a friend.
But the content was anything but comfortable.
"Still, I had to survive. I offered him a contractual engagement, using a bone from the Titan Race—a heirloom of the Baldinmar family—as collateral. He reacted the same way today... Give him a single bone fragment, and he'd pretend to play hard to get on the surface, but his eyes would glaze over, and he'd agree to help. The man is a profit-seeker down to his marrow."
"Ah..."
Roselia let out an involuntary sigh.
Not because she now knew the identity of the irresistible price Leonier had brought.
But because she remembered how that Titan Race bone was supposed to be used in the original story.
The Baldinmar heirloom had been stolen by one of the sub-male leads—the master of an assassin guild—to forge a dagger.
He'd tried to assassinate Crown Prince Damian de Loen, only to meet a gruesome fate.
"Anyway, as his contractual fiancée, all sorts of things happened. Most of it's fuzzy now, honestly.
But one thing stuck with me in vivid detail even after regressing: the dynamic between that stuffy duke and his adjutant Seria, who pined for him in silence without ever confessing.
You have no idea how much I suffered eating side-eye glances between those two."
Leonier grumbled with an aggrieved expression.
"I spent a whole week playing matchmaker for them. Watching two people who clearly liked each other fumble around was so frustrating. So I vowed: Ah, these two have true love. Before the story ends, I need to bow out of this beautiful romance."
Her eyes wavered faintly with longing for a moment.
"But... human hearts are funny things, aren't they? Going through all the original plot events together, surviving near-death crises with his help time and again... before I knew it, I started seeing him as a real man. And not just any man, but one like... Well, no need to go into that. Anyway."
Leonier blushed slightly and smiled shyly.
Her face bore the pure, beautiful smile of an ordinary woman in love—not the villainess.
"So... after a long, serious drunken talk with Seria all night, I got permission to enter his concubine quarters."
"...What?"
A dumbfounded sound escaped Roselia's lips.
Concubine quarters? For a duke's household, and Lady Baldinmar, ruler of the south, no less?
"Why the reaction? Status means nothing in the face of love. Seria was cool about it too. Well, it would've been a happy ending if we'd all just lived well together in the end, but..."
Seeing Roselia's stupefied look, Leonier burst out laughing and waved it off.
"Ah, sorry, sorry. I've been rambling on about my love life. Boring, right?"
"No, not boring... It was riveting, just a bit shocking."
"Good. Anyway, that life I thought would be happy ended abruptly overnight, and I regressed to the past. More precisely, about a year earlier than when I first possessed Leonier."
The smile vanished from her face in an instant.
The air in the room grew heavy.
The shy girl sharing her love story was gone, replaced by the woman who had witnessed her life's end—yet was forced to live it again.
"And I suspect my second chance came because I made two mistakes, thinking I'd resolved everything."
Mid-explanation, Leonier suddenly stared straight at Roselia and clamped her mouth shut.
But Roselia had a gut feeling the moment she reopened it: the original story knowledge she possessed would become mere scraps of paper.
"Curious, aren't you? About why I died, and how this world ended."
"..."
Roselia couldn't muster a proper reply to her question and merely swallowed dryly.
The light banter from moments ago was utterly gone, replaced by a heavy silence filling the space between them.
But it lasted only a moment. Instinctively, Roselia straightened her posture.
As someone determined to survive in this world, she sensed it.
The story she was about to hear would be the most crucial clue to her survival.
"Tell me. What are those 'mistakes' you suspect?"
At Roselia's serious demeanor, Leonier gave a faint smile.
"Lucky. The new variable isn't a villain. Being an imperial princess will come in quite handy too."
She slowly extended one finger.
"First mistake: Kaltstein didn't completely devour Loen."
"What? What does that...?"
"That man, Noxion, never intended to become the empire's new ruler, not even at the very end.
He deposed and imprisoned Crown Prince Damian, then enthroned a new emperor and returned to the north. That might've been the root of it."
Leonier's voice dropped low.
"In the original story, the Loen Empire should've lost its strongest sword and shield—Kaltstein—and fallen to Damian's tyranny combined with the barbarians and kingdom alliance.
But Noxion intervened, so it survived half-heartedly instead of perishing.
Maybe the world wouldn't tolerate that? Perhaps because the fated future—empire's fall or Loen's destruction—didn't come, it forcibly reset everything."
"......"
Roselia bit her lip.
The price of defying the original flow.
It hadn't ended with mere twists of causality but led to a full world reset.
The scale was so vast it left her mind blank for a moment.
Leonier smiled slightly at Roselia's reaction and extended a second finger.
"Second: Failing to perfectly save the original heroine, Elina."
"...Elina?"
"Yeah. We succeeded in pulling her from the crown prince's clutches—secured her physical safety. But... we couldn't save her heart. She never found true happiness. She lost her smile and withered away. The world loves its 'heroine.' It probably wouldn't accept an ending where she's unhappy."
"That... makes sense."
Roselia nodded dazedly.
The law that the protagonist's happiness completes the world.
By romance fantasy logic, it was a compelling hypothesis.
"And the third and final one."
"Third? You said there were two."
Instead of extending a third finger, Leonier clenched her fist and looked down at her hand.
"This one's just my personal hunch—not certain yet..."
Her words trailed off hesitantly.
It seemed tricky to voice.
"Someone's desperate 'wish' might've restarted everything.
It's a common cliché, right? Some regretful soul begs to turn back time,
and I got caught up in it, returning with my memories intact."
"A wish..."
"Whether it was the crown prince, Elina, or... someone else entirely, I don't know."
Leonier shrugged.
Silence fell for a moment.
Roselia spent a long while sorting through her jumbled thoughts, unable to speak.
Possession, regression, apocalypse, reset.
It all felt so unreal, yet the Leonier before her was utterly convinced.
And above all, she had no reason to lie.
"...Ha."
Roselia let out a deep sigh and lowered her head.
"Got it. When you're this brutally honest, I have no choice but to believe you."
She extended her hand.
"Alright, let's team up. I don't want to die either. Combining your future knowledge with my imperial princess status... we can craft a more solid ending this time."
Leonier grinned and clasped Roselia's hand.
"Wise choice, partner. Looking forward to working with you."
And so, the strange alliance between two women fated to die in the original story was forged.
"Then I'll head out. Staying too long might raise suspicions. Oh, one last piece of advice for our dear, sorely lacking possessor."
"...?"
"Don't get too comfortable. That man's a sly fox."
Leonier rose, straightened her clothes,
and headed for the door without a backward glance.
Watching her retreating figure, Roselia suddenly asked in a cautious tone,
"I don't quite get what you mean, but... can I ask one last question?"
Leonier turned her head, hand on the doorknob.
"A question? Of course."
Roselia met her eyes squarely and posed the question that had lingered in her mind.
"What if... in this life, you don't end up with him? I'm talking about Duke Noxion. You've experienced that love once already. Aren't you afraid you might not get it again?"
Seria, Noxion, and Leonier.
Now a new possessor and wildcard—Roselia—had entered their love story.
And who knew what other variables might arise this time.
But to that question, Leonier answered without a second's hesitation.
What bloomed on her face was a radiant smile of pure confidence in herself—not past pain or future anxiety.
"Afraid? No, not at all."
She flung the door wide open and declared in the most assured voice imaginable.
"I'll succeed this time too, no doubt. Just watch—I'll claim the spot right beside him, not some concubine side-room."
Bam.
The door shut, and Leonier was gone.
Left alone, Roselia stared blankly at the closed door before letting out a chuckle.
"She's no ordinary gambler..."