Prologue
Standing before the school gates always flooded my mind with a thousand worries. Would some strange smell cling to me? Was my shirt sticking out of my waistband? Would I walk in, clueless, right while the kids were trash-talking me behind my back… and so on.
Most of it was unfounded anxiety, of course—but a person doesn't change even if they die and come back to life. Not even if they become a woman and end up trapped inside a novel.
I never imagined the author would actually reincarnate me just because I snarked at him once when he joked that writing toxic comments would get you reincarnated. Still, making the protagonist get ostracized mid-story over a single slip of the tongue feels a bit much, doesn't it?
Not that I ever got bullied for saying the wrong thing in my past life. Drawing attention doesn't really bother me that much either. Transferring in and introducing yourself, for instance. Or suddenly dropping into a classroom of students who had already finished sorting into factions the day after the entrance ceremony and were ready to start the academy's first semester.
Or barging into that crucial first period of the first semester—when the homeroom teacher and students meet for the first time—and announcing yourself with something like, I wasn't at the entrance ceremony, but from today on, I'll be joining all of you.
"There's no need to be nervous, Dorothy… she's a student… just a student…"
Ah. And here I am, the eldest daughter of a fairly famous house, yet so utterly lacking in presence that even my homeroom teacher can't remember my name properly.
Ugh. I can feel my pride getting shredded in real time. If the teacher can't even get my name right, will the kids remember it? Everyone else has Western-style names—if I'm the only one stuck with an Eastern Continent name, won't they mock me for being rustic or weird?
Does this academy even have anyone else from the Eastern Continent? The original work featured plenty of different races and just as many racial conflicts. Even as a noble daughter, I might face discrimination.
The source material already showed open prejudice against beastkin. Can I really escape the racial bigotry rampant in this world?
As far as I remember, every student here is some kind of noble or royalty. The title itself is I Became the Commoner of a Noble Academy—if I mess up in front of those highborn heirs, won't they just go, Oh ho ho, beasts belong in cages where they belong, and ostracize me on the spot?
No, no—more importantly, how do I even greet them? In my past life I used to shake so hard during presentations that I always dumped them on the team leader.
Ah, my tail's swishing on its own again. Father taught me how to control my expression and gaze in this world, but he never taught me what to do about the tail.
—Creak.
The door opened. The way I looked right now, I probably resembled a prisoner being dragged to the execution ground. I could feel their eyes on me. Eyes. Eyes. White and black things staring at me.
The homeroom teacher was saying something, but none of it reached my ears. What was she saying right now?
"U-um… so then, Hoyeon… miss? Would you like to introduce yourself now?"
Ah. Here it comes.
"………I am Baek Hoyeon, eldest princess of the Baek Imperial Family."
The classroom fell so quiet you couldn't even hear chairs creaking or students whispering among themselves. My plan to leave a cheerful first impression and enjoy a fun academy life had completely crashed and burned.
They're definitely going to bully me now. Tomorrow, when I get to my seat, the desk will be covered in graffiti saying things like "cursed," "filthy," or "you stink."
But I was still in the middle of my introduction—I should at least finish properly. I took a deep breath…
"……Haa. I look forward to working with you all."
I don't remember much of what happened after that. Somehow, after the teacher said something into the silence, a seat was assigned to me.
The seat next to the academy's only commoner student—the protagonist of the novel, and of the world I now lived in. That was the place given to me.
Was the plot derailed because of the irregular that is me, or is it because this is no longer a novel but a real world? A character who never existed in the original was more than enough to seize my attention.
Especially if they were connected to the villain faction of Part Two. The Baek Empire. The military dictatorship that had conquered over eighty-five percent of the Eastern Continent. As far as I remembered, the Baek Imperial Family had no children in the original work—so according to the source material, the girl standing at the front of this classroom should not exist.
White hair, golden eyes, and an expression that said she couldn't care less about the likes of us.
"………I am Baek Hoyeon, eldest princess of the Baek Imperial Family."
Displeasure seeped from every syllable, as if she couldn't comprehend why she was even here. This academy was full of people who didn't lose out in terms of status, but compared to her, their positions must have seemed truly shabby.
Readers once debated why the heroines in this novel were so full of themselves, and concluded it was because they'd been coddled since childhood.
The leading evidence was the reasonable suspicion that they'd grown up in wealth with everyone fawning over them. And the line one of the actually rude heroines said when she finally got put in her place: "Even Father never hit me!"
"……Haa. I look forward to working with you all."
So just how full of herself was that girl? Looking at the way she openly sighed as if looking down on us and said she'd be in our care like she had no choice—I couldn't even begin to gauge it.
"Uh… well then… let's see, empty seats…"
Our homeroom teacher—the only cute one among the faculty—looked around this way and that, then fixed her gaze on the seat next to mine.
Ah. Damn it.