Arc 1 Chapter 1
What is a hero and what is a villain? I have asked myself this question numerous times and have prayed that somehow, my role as the antagonist would be nulled. It seems that in all of my lives, I have been viewed as the villain, a corrupt existence. Even when I was reincarnated as a hero, I became a villain in the end.
I have learned that even the so-called darlings of the low-leveled planes can have their halo snatched by another character because it happened firsthand to me. As long as the story progresses, the planes can transfer their grace upon anyone. She stole everything that should have been mine. My magic, my lover, my friends, my title, and even my life.
It is often said that the villains have always lost, I believe that statement to be true. I have been abandoned by the world countless times, so before the world has another chance to abandon me, I will turn my back on the world. What is good and what is evil? Sometimes the line between the two is blurred and the only thing that is left is a gray space, the middle ground between the two. I believe that if I become the most despicable villain, that I can save my mother. I believe that this is my gray space.
***
"Voice, what should I call you?" I hop off the bed and stand in the center of the room.
"Host can call me whatever the host wishes." The voice once again replies dully.
I place a hand underneath my chin and contemplate. The voice should be the system that is talking to me, and the system gave me a chance to save my mother.
"Hope." The name rolls off my lips and feels right against my tongue. "I'll call you Hope. You gave me a flash of light in the darkness." After the words come out of mouth, I cover my lips and blush, my cheeks heat up, but I quickly cough to cover up my awkwardness. It's weird saying that to a machine. But it's true.
"Is host ready to begin her first mission?" Hope consciously ignores my embarrassment and asks.
I take a deep breath and clench my fists to mask my nervousness. A person appears in my mind. She has long waist length dark brown hair and light hazel eyes. Her skin is fair, and her hands are as smooth as jade; her face is expressionless and cold, yet her eyes are filled with warmth whenever she looks at me. It's mom.
At this moment, the shadows of my second life and what the future holds in store for me has long faded away.
"Hope." My voice is strong and certain. "I'm ready."
"Transferring Host to Plane…" Her voice answers in response.
***
When I open my eyes, my back is pressed up against the ground. My whole body is sore, and the sun relentlessly rains down on my small body. "Hope?" I question, but there is no answer.
I begin panicking but slowly calm down and pull myself up, once again I'm in the body of a child. I'm dressed in a yellow tunic that seems to be from an ancient Chinese dynasty that is stained with dirt and sprinkled with grass; my clothes are crumpled; the original owner might have been escaping from danger. I quickly scan my surroundings and see a vast expanse of trees that reach towards the sunlight. They form a natural canopy around the clearing where I first woke up.
I rush towards the trees and crouch under a thick branch nearly two times the size of my body. I lean back on the branch in relief and use the shadows of the trees to camouflage myself. If the original owner had pursuers, she might have climbed onto a tree and fallen to her death. There were a few sets of adult footprints where her body perished, they probably already confirmed that she had passed away. Their goal must have been to assassinate her and collect her identification token. This body's attire seems like those from a rich miss from an influential family but there are no jade tokens on her person. There was only a broken jade hairpin.
I bite my lip in frustration. Without the plot, I was just a sitting duck waiting for a random wild animal to consume me whole. The forest was quiet, almost too quiet. It was unnatural. If whatever occupied this part of the forest found me, then I could only be prey.
As if answering my prayers, unfamiliar memories enter my mind. This plane is a low-leveled wuxia world from a crappy novel. The main character of this novel is the only son of Duke Li's manor. Since young, he was doted on by his father and the elders of the family despite being concubine-born. It's the typical case where the father neglects the main wife and dotes on the concubine, and this extends onto the children born to them as well. During his eighth birthday banquet, he wanders into the forest. The original owner follows him to remind him to return to the party along with her mother, the main wife. Although not favored, the main wife comes from a prominent family, so the original owner is not mistreated. But the main character isn't fond of this mother-daughter pair. He believes that if it weren't for them, he would be the main son and his mother would be the main wife. They are the source of his inferiority complex, a stain on his image. Obviously, those that the so-called "darlings of the worlds" dislike deserve to die. The main character was followed by assassins who were paid to dispose of him. He pushes the original owner's mother and uses her as a shield. The main wife is knowledgeable of martial arts, but she is outnumbered and soon falls beneath their blades. The main character doesn't spare his sister either and convinces the assassins that the original owner has more value than him, causing them to change their target. The original owner is furious, but she is only five years old and cannot possibly escape from the assassins unscathed, especially when she only knows basic martial arts. The main character snatches her token and returns to the party; he tells everyone that the main wife is dead and that his sister jumped off a cliff. The duke never does an in-depth investigation, and the main wife's maternal family never has the chance to investigate because the duke obstructs them.
Meanwhile, in the original story, the original owner escapes from the assassins with help from a Gu master that passes by, but by the time she was saved, she is already disfigured. When she learns that her father covered up what happened, she vows to get revenge, but she does not want to implicate her mother's maternal family, so she follows the Gu master to learn poison, learns martial arts, and disguises herself as a man.
When she returns, she learns that her brother exterminated her mother's maternal family and vows to reclaim this blood debt. She schemes against the main character but of course he escapes her traps every time and collects a harem of beauties in the process. In the final battle between the brother and sister, when the main character is on the brink of death, he awakens his hidden bloodline and heals his injuries and finally defeats his sister. The end.
Originally, the main character was supposed to be disfigured by the assassins and then saved by a Gu master that happened to pass by, but she ended up dying after she fell from a tree. My mission was to replace the villain and walk on the same path that she walked in the story.
Isn't this too much for a low-leveled world? The plane can ignore everything as long as the main character is alive? He was obviously the villain in his sister's story. He was the reason why she became that way and yet he still gets his happy ending? "Tch." It pisses me off.
I stand up and pat the dust off my clothes and walk back towards the clearing. According to the original story, the assassins drag the original owner to the river where the Gu Master is camped. The Gu Master realizes that the original owner has a physique that is suited for his style of martial arts and saves her because he needs a successor.
I pick a random direction and walk forward until I come across a river. As expected of you plot! The water rushes forward in waves and splashes at the riverbank. I slowly inch towards the edge and peer at the lit fire on the other side. Damn it.
My Gu Master probably went to hunt for food. How am I supposed to get across the river in this five-year old body?