The girl in the mirror is exceptionally pretty. Her platinum blonde locks cascade down her back in soft curls and waves, while her purple eyes are the same color as amethysts. She's tall and slender for a girl of twelve, and will no doubt grow into such a fine beauty when she finally hits her teenage years. Stoic and elegant, with a calm demeanor not befitting a normal twelve year old, she looks like someone's porcelain doll.
I trace my reflection with my fingertips. It's surreal. I truly have become the villainess, Devina Valerian, now...
The game is set in a fantasy world, so dragons, dungeons, and magic are relatively common. As the villainess, Devina possesses a tremendous amount of mana–but lacks the knowledge to control it. This will inevitably come to bite her ass later on in the game, as her own mana ends up consuming every last vestiges of her sanity.
As any other romance fantasy game, the story begins when the heroine enters Drakon Academy. It's the typical cliche storyline of a commoner girl attending a prestigious academy made for nobles. With her high level light magic, as well as her bright, shining personality, she earns the ire of noble girls and admiration of noble boys, navigates through three years of academy life with flying colors, becomes the Saintess herself, and ends up with at least one capture target.
As for Devina, she only ever appears at the end of each storyline as the Final Boss they need to defeat. She's the terrifying Demon Queen who reigns all over the bad endings in every route, and the bane of every player's existence. In Normal Mode, she appears difficult to defeat, but in Hard Mode, and most especially Hell Mode, she completely decimates the heroine and her capture targets. To kill the Demon Queen and her legion of demons and monsters, the player must be rich enough to buy new sets of armor and weapons, as well as magical artefacts to boost the level of the heroine to the maximum. With the combined efforts of both the heroine and her chosen capture target, they will bring forth the demise of the Demon Queen and her cohorts, and with her death, everyone in the heroine's party gets their happily ever after.
Something pops out from the corner of my eye. I glance at it, my eyes widening when I realize what it was. A status window?
Status
Name: Devina Valerian
Age: 12
Title: None
Elemental Affinity: [ Fire Lvl 2 ]
Personal Skills: None
Overall Stats:
Strength: 3
Health: 4
Agility: 2
MP: 9
My eyes rove through my personal profile. Wow, my stats are pretty low, huh... But then again, the infamous Last Boss is currently still a child, so it shouldn't be surprising.
The status window blinks out of existence, leaving me staring blankly at air. If I still have remaining doubts before, they have all completely vanished at the appearance of the status window. That basically confirms it. I really am inside a game. A game that will end in my death if I don't play my cards right.
I most certainly do not want to die again.
I rummage through the dresser to find something to write on. What can I recall from the plot? I ponder as I gnaw at my bottom lip. The game developers never specified what led to Devina's descent to madness; her backstory was glossed over in a mere couple of sentences, after all. It was something along the lines of, 'The fake daughter betrayed the ducal household who adopted her and welcomed her into their family by committing a grave offense that should be punishable by death–however, instead of having her executed, the Duke, as his one last act of kindness towards this traitorous daughter of his, merely banished her to live in exile in one of his territories. She was never seen and heard of again...'
Well, until she appeared as the Final Boss, that is.
Judging by the timeline, Devina must have been pretty young when she was banished from the duchy. The game never specified her age either, but I reckon she must be the same age as the heroine, maybe even younger. She was merely about twenty when she appeared as the Demon Queen. God knows what hell she went through to achieve that supreme rank in only a few years.
But I have no intention of reliving all her experiences. Not just because it would surely result to my death, but also because I just want to live a peaceful life this time around. Devina in the game returned for revenge, but only ended up getting slain by the heroine and her capture targets. Meanwhile, I died in what is now essentially my past life before I even have the chance to execute my revenge which I spent my entire lifetime obsessing over.
Maybe... maybe that's why I transmigrated in this world. So I can finally let go of the past, of the grudges and regrets that haunted me throughout my twenty four years of existence, and start anew.
But first, I should remove myself from the plot as early as possible...
The door opens in the middle of my musing, and a maid strides in as if she owns the place. "The Duke demands your presence, Young Mistress." She spits out my title with as much disdain as she can muster, as if the mockery in her eyes isn't glaringly apparent enough. This maid looks down on me like I'm nothing but a mere bug under her shoe.
I don't want to stir trouble so I refrain from commenting.
"Tell him I'll be there," I say, meeting the maid's eyes with a firm gaze of my own. She noticeably squirms under my scrutiny. Good. As you should be. I may be the hated fake daughter of this household, but between the two of us, I'm still superior. I turn away, a clear indication of her dismissal, but she stays rooted at her spot, watching me warily. "You are dismissed."
When she finally left, with obvious reluctance, I pick up the quill and parchment I found earlier.
The first thing I'm going to do, in order to completely reverse Devina's fate (which is now mine as well), is to get the hell out of this estate.