Kidnapping the Villainesses
I am Shin Hyun-jae… no, Luizen now. The name Shin Hyun-jae feels like a distant memory from before I possessed this world.
“Haa…”
I straightened my posture after swinging my sword and headed back to my house. It hadn’t been that long since I arrived in this other world, but after living diligently, I had managed to buy a home under my own name.
It felt far too large for one person. The house had three bedrooms and a spacious living room. While it was definitely oversized for a single man, that didn’t matter.
Because today, the two little girls destined to become the next generation’s villainesses would be moving in with me.
Luizen closed his eyes and recalled the moment he first arrived in this place.
The reason I came across this novel was because of a junior I happened to bump into. At the time, I had just finished my exams and was spending each day in complete lethargy. Games had lost their appeal, there were no new manga worth reading, and as for hanging out with friends… unfortunately, I didn’t have many of those.
“I’m so bored…”
I lay slumped over my desk, wasting time meaninglessly. That day was no different—I was floundering in boredom. But something about that day felt off. The clouds in the sky looked strangely peculiar, almost as if they were advertising that something new was about to happen. It was the day the shape of the clouds was especially bizarre, and that was the day my life changed completely.
“Ugh… I’m sleepy…”
I was walking down the hallway half-asleep, moving like a plague-ridden ghoul. My body felt completely soulless. While shuffling along like that, I accidentally collided with someone I didn’t know and fell over.
“Ah!”
We both tumbled to the ground from the impact.
“Sorry…”
I fixed my messy hair and stood up, then reached out a hand to the fallen junior.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No…”
The student took my hand and got up. Once on her feet, she began patting down her clothes, apparently having lost whatever she’d been carrying.
“Where’s my phone??”
She rummaged through her pockets. Following her lead, I scanned the area around us and soon spotted what looked like her phone.
“Is this yours?”
When I handed it over, her eyes widened and she accepted it with both hands.
“Thank you so much, sunbae!”
After receiving her phone, she thanked me. Curiosity suddenly struck me, so I asked,
“Were you watching something interesting?”
I glanced at her phone as I spoke. She replied,
“Yes! It’s a web novel that just finished. It’s really good!”
The word “good” immediately caught my attention.
“What’s the title?”
She answered, “The Story of the Female Knight Who Prevents the Destruction of the Empire!”
What a dizzying title. I’d heard that a lot of novels these days had titles like that, but hearing it out loud made my head spin even more.
“The story is about a female protagonist who was discriminated against since childhood, then one day awakens her powers. She starts as the village nuisance and gradually grows into a hero. The second half is absolutely insane. In the later parts, there’s—”
She poured out her impressions without pause. Realizing I’d picked the wrong person to talk to, I cut her off and made my escape.
“Oh! I just remembered the teacher called for me! I’ll head out first! Let’s talk about it later!”
I quickly left the scene. Letting out a sigh of relief, I muttered,
“Whew… I almost got stuck listening for hours.”
By the time I hurried away, school had ended, so I headed home. Once there, I dove straight into bed. When there’s nothing to do, sleeping is the best option. I pulled the blanket over myself, but the image of that junior passionately explaining the novel kept floating in my mind. She had looked like she’d discovered a priceless treasure.
Well, I had nothing better to do anyway. I picked up my phone and searched for the novel she’d mentioned.
“The Story of the Female Knight Who Prevents the Destruction of the Empire… Man, that title is way too long.”
It didn’t take long to find it. The entire thing was only about sixty chapters—pretty short. With time to kill, I started reading. Two hours flew by.
“All done.”
After two hours, I had finished the novel. If I had to give my honest impression… it was heartbreaking.
The story was about the protagonist enduring a brutal final battle, defeating the final boss, and marrying the empire’s handsome male lead. But I found myself far more invested in the final bosses than the heroine.
In the latter half, you meet the true bosses—the villainesses Rita and Scarlet. Their pasts were far darker than the protagonist’s.
Scarlet and Rita were born from a prostitute mother and her customers. As children, they had been bright and cheerful, but their biological mother saw their smiles as an eyesore and beat them so badly they couldn’t walk. Their father was violent whenever he came home drunk, and the parents fought every day over his drinking and the mother’s work. On those nights, they would throw whatever they could grab at each other.
Then one day, during another violent fight, things went too far. The father pinned the mother down and began beating her even more savagely than usual. Blood splattered everywhere. The older sister, Scarlet, was so terrified of their father that she hid in the corner, waiting for his rage to subside. But the younger sister, Rita, walked toward him on trembling legs.
“Daddy… s-stop…”
Rita grabbed her father’s hand to stop the violence, but the man, lost in blind fury, hurled her across the room.
“Kyaa!”
Rita flew through the air and crashed headfirst. Blood began to seep from her skull.
“Damn it! Why do both the mother and her brats keep pissing me off?!”
“Rita!”
Seeing her sister collapse helplessly, Scarlet rushed over and cradled her. She glared at the beast who had hurt her sister as if she wanted to kill him.
“You little…”
Enraged by Scarlet’s gaze, their father threw a nearby liquor bottle and roared,
“Don’t ever come back into this house!!”
Having said that, the monster began hurling objects at them again. Scarlet silently endured the barrage, shielding Rita as they fled the house together.
“………”
Scarlet walked down the street without saying a word. Then she felt the tears streaming down her cheeks. The emotions she had held back for so long finally exploded. She broke down sobbing in an empty alleyway.
After walking for who knows how long, they arrived at an orphanage.
“Oh my…! What happened to you two?!”
A woman who heard Scarlet’s cries took them in. From that day on, Rita and Scarlet lived at the orphanage. At first they were wary of the woman who had accepted them without conditions, but seeing her genuine kindness, they gradually opened their hearts.
Every day they ate with children their own age and fell asleep together. For the first time in their lives, they experienced a happiness they never thought they would have. They went to bed each night hoping tomorrow would be just like today.
But that night, their dream was shattered into pieces.
“Kill the men and capture all the young girls alive!!”
Bandits had attacked. The orphanage that had been their safe haven was burning to the ground.
“Everyone, evacuate quickly!!”
The orphanage teachers were trying to get the children out first.
“Not so fast!”
But one of the teachers who had been helping them was stabbed right before their eyes and died.
Scarlet fell into despair. Why couldn’t they ever be happy? Why did they always have to suffer?
She looked at the blood on her hands. It was dark red and sticky. The warmth of the blood felt unbearably hot.
After losing the orphanage, the girls were kidnapped by the bandits and sold to a nobleman as toys. Whether they were sleeping or eating, they had to obey him. Ten years passed like that.
Then one day, Scarlet learned that her sister Rita had contracted an incurable disease and that the noble was planning to abandon her. In response, Scarlet killed the man. And then she made a contract with a devil.
In exchange for saving her sister’s life, she offered all other lives in a blood pact.
That was how Scarlet and Rita became villainesses.
I felt so sorry for them. They had never received love since childhood. Before falling asleep, I wished I could make them happy. And that’s when I possessed the novel.
The first thing I did after realizing I had possessed the story was register as an adventurer. After hunting monsters and accumulating wealth, I was able to buy a house. Then I waited for the right moment. And today was finally that day.
Today was the day the black market opened, and the day when Scarlet and Rita—kidnapped by bandits—would appear as merchandise.
I wanted to rescue them immediately, but I didn’t have enough information about the orphanage to locate it. So I had waited until the day the suspected marketplace opened.
“Shall we go, then?”
I secretly tucked a knife into my clothes and headed toward the underground market where shady deals took place. With a vow in my heart to set them free.