Henry grew up with his grandmother ever since he could remember.
As he heard from his grandmother, Henry's father hated Henry because Henry's mother died giving birth to him. Yet because of Henry's mother's last wish, he took care of him. But he never loved him. Even though Henry was the output of their love, he believed Henry was cursed and that's why he lost his love.
When Henry's father finally got tired of Henry, he didn't care about his love's last wish. He abandoned Henry. After that, Henry's grandmother took pity on Henry and decided to raise him on her own.
As Henry remembered, his grandmother brought him when he was only 3 years old. From then on, Henry's father never cared about him. But he sent some money every month to his grandmother as compensation. His father treated it as a business. Henry's grandmother was greatly offended but she still collected all his money for Henry, to use one day.
Then when Henry was around 8 years old, Henry got to know his father married another woman. And after a year, that woman gave birth to a baby girl. She was the sister that hated Henry, for being the son of her father's true love.
When Henry lived with his grandmother, she often told him a bedtime story. Among them, there was a favourite of Henry.
In that story, there was magic. That's why he liked it very much.
In that story, there was a boy who was so arrogant. But his grandmother never said the name of that boy. He did a lot of evil and bullied everyone. Then he was kidnapped and beaten up by a group of bad people until death.
That was his favourite part. He liked to hear evil getting punished for what it did. Because of that, he never let his grandmother continue the story. Every day she would start the story from the beginning because Henry wanted to listen to the death of the bad boy. But before she started a new part, Henry would fall asleep.
So he never knew what happened in the future. He didn't know what happened next.
Recalling how he urged his grandmother to start from the beginning, he regretted it very much at that moment.
If he was right, he had transmigrated into his favourite childhood bedtime story which he never got to listen to completely.
But in that story, that boy died after suffering a huge blood loss from a wound on his head. That must be it. But he didn't die. Instead, he survived. But without knowing the story, how could he suppose to move on?
Other than the death of the boy at that time, he didn't know what happened.
But his grandmother said it was not the end.
'Does it mean I am not the main character? My death was not the end. There was more of the story. But- Wait! I didn't die. So even if the original plot continued it would change. If I play a big part in the story, the story will have a huge change. Because I still exist in the story. The story will change since I didn't die. So it doesn't matter if I don't know the story. I can just live as I want. I don't need to follow a plot. I will live as Henry, not as just a character. But I don't want to die, please!'
He talked with himself, thinking about every matter in detail.
After he confirmed it was the same story, he tried to recall if there was something important left. But his grandmother didn't explain much other than just telling the story. And that foolish child forced his grandmother to repeat that same part every day.
'I was very foolish, wasn't I?'
Accepting the truth he, himself was a troublesome child, he sighed in his heart.
...
"Henry, did it work? Do you remember?"
To cover one lie, he would have to tell countless lies. So he just told the truth. Not the truth he got transmigrated, but the truth he got his memories. He did get it.
That memory was also not that pleasant. It was horrible. And he realised this character was really evil. He deserved to die.
He saw everything the real Henry did and what happened to him. It was as if watching a movie after reading the novel. And that movie had a lot of things in detail while the story he read had rarely any information.
The story he heard was the same as those memories, but not very detailed. His grandma only said he was bullied but didn't say what he did. She said died from a wound by getting beaten but never explained things clearly.
'Grandma, you didn't lie, right?'
As Henry asked looking up, he confirmed she didn't lie. The story was right. It was the same.
Most especially, her grandmother never said he was originally not a bad child. But his surroundings made him like that. At the beginning, Henry felt this original owner deserved to die. But it was not that child's fault. Because he found out the hidden truth through those memories.
From the beginning, he was a good child. He was obedient, innocent, and kind. But no one loved him, no one paid attention and no one ever cared for him. Even that guy who called himself a father.
Henry felt he and this Henry looked a lot more alike. Not only by appearance but also by experiences. His mother also had died while she was giving birth to him. So the duke didn't love him and called him a murderer. Despite his father's and everyone else's rude insults, he still behaved like a good child, so at least one person would love him and believe him one day.
But no one did. At least Henry had his grandmother. But this little Henry had no one. In order to survive, he started to get back at those who talked badly about him. He hit them, bullied them, insulted them, and humiliated them.
No one dared to say anything anymore. So he chose to stay like that. Even though his heart was not really evil, it started to turn evil.
His heart started to turn evil slowly until he saw the girl named Ricarda appear in their castle. As soon as he heard the mansion's maidens gossip about her, his heart turned evil instantly. The process of turning evil was done really fast when he heard she was his father's illegitimate child.
More than that, what hurt him most was his father, the duke cared about her a lot. Henry saw him holding her hand and talking kindly to her. He would have tea time with her. He would buy clothes for her. He would even tell bedtime stories for her personally.
Watching them together full of laughter, the only thing on Henry's mind was to kill Ricarda. Not to bully, not to throw her away, but to kill her.
He was completely blackened.
But any of his attempts to kill her didn't work. Something protected her all the time. Henry tried to poison her, but she didn't get poisoned. Henry tried to starve her to death, but the duke found out and he even punished Henry. Then again, he tried to kill her by hiring assassins. But the next day, all of the assassins were dead in Ricarda's room. Then he caused a fire and tried to kill her. But it turned out she was not in her room at all.
Henry was confused and angry at the same time. None of these worked. But he still didn't want to give up. His complex got even worse. Even his sight was scary for others. He didn't look like a child at all. He looked like a bloodthirsty soul finding peace by killing its enemies.
Then he was suddenly kidnapped by a group of thieves. They were just casual thieves. But Henry couldn't fight them back to escape, because he had already been poisoned. He never knew how he got poisoned. In the end, he ended up getting beaten up by the thieves after biting them. One of them hit his head with an iron stick. That was the cause of that wound. The original owner died that day and Henry transmigrated there.
'This is not gonna be easy. Many people want me dead!'
As Henry thought, suddenly the duke, his father grabbed him and looked at him intentionally with a scary look. Henry felt goosebumps and tried to escape from his grip. But he was weak.
"Tell me! What happened that day? You heard what duke Siloksan said, right? Tell me what you heard!"