Flirting With the Villain’s Dad

Chapter 4

Pretty. So, so pretty.

I’d spent twenty-five years thinking my face wasn’t too bad to look at, but compared to this face, I might as well have been a sucker on a squid’s tentacle.

I stroked the mirror for long enough that I almost started drooling. Seeing as the reflection moved according to my will, it was definitely my body, but I couldn’t believe it.

The light pink hair floating down to my waist looked as though it would melt if I touched it. It was the same for both cheeks, as round and soft as rice cakes. No matter how long I stared at the reflection, I determined that I looked somewhere between seventeen and nineteen.

I grinned like a fool and mumbled, “I was so sure I died.”

Even this girl’s voice was beautiful and as sweet as honey.

Oh man, oh man. A little older, and she would drive the men crazy. But she was me, right? I had it made for sure. Yep.

I couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth from rising. This face could easily be a celebrity.

They say, if you’re incredibly pretty, your face alone can feed you. With a face like this, I would never have to do any of those exhausting late-night convenience store shifts, nor would I have to worry about how I’d pay rent every month.

Just that alone made me so happy.

Oh my god, I can’t believe this just fell into my lap!

“Ehehe…”

Just being alive was already enough to thank the heavens for, but then to wake up this beautiful too? I’d even gotten younger! I must have saved the world in a past life.

It was too soon to be surprised, though. I was pressed close enough to the mirror to lick it when fifteen maids filed into the room, one after another.

The maid at the very front lit up as she approached.

“You’re awake, Your Highness!”

“Um, pardon?” I stared blankly up at her.

Her outfit seemed too realistic to be cosplay. Her neat black dress reached down to her ankles and had a frilly apron. A headscarf covered her hair bun. But the most surprising part was when she said, “Your Highness.”

“‘Y-Your Highness’…? Eh?” I stuttered like an idiot.

I was surprised again by the words I said aloud. I wasn’t speaking Korean, and it definitely wasn’t English. What language was this?

What the heck?!

“It’s been a week since you collapsed. You have no idea how worried everyone has been. Are you feeling all right?” the maid continued, whether she was aware of my shock or not.

“Y-yes, miss…?”

“Oh my. Why is our princess suddenly addressing me so formally?”

The brown-haired maid let out a laugh and helped me to my feet, and then I was moved from the mirror to the bed, still dumbfounded.

Seriously, what was happening?

Everything after that passed in a blur. I washed my face, arms, and legs in what looked like it had to be a fancy washbasin, and I brushed my teeth with a small, stiff brush.

I didn’t use my hands for a single bit of it. I accepted all of their tending with a dumb look on my face, lying in bed.

“Uhh…”

“What is it, Your Highness? Is something the matter?”

“Nooo…”

Princess? Your Highness? I was already more than grateful to be brought back to life in a stunning beauty’s body, but a princess?!

That was when a question came to me. I started to cautiously ask the maid, who was brushing my hair, “Um, but where is th—”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew something was wrong. The maid’s eyes grew as round as saucers, and then—

“Your Majestyyyyy!”

“Hurry, call for His Maj— No, the physician first!”

My surroundings suddenly turned upside-down. I stared blankly at the maids running around chaotically and…

“The youngest princess lost her memory!”

I had to hear that mournful cry all day long. All the while, a giant question mark was hanging over my head.

* * *

Anyway, to get to the point, the body I possessed was named Yereninovika Sofya Livovny. She was the youngest princess of the Livovny Kingdom, located in the center of the continent of Rhyger.

The king and queen who were calling themselves my parents, and the redheaded beauty I saw as soon as I woke up, cried over me all day long. Literally. All. Day. Long.

“Yerenika, my beloved Yenny. You really don’t remember your mom?” the queen asked with tears streaming down her face.

“No…”

I didn’t have a mother. I basically didn’t have a father, either. When I looked at her as though she was a stranger, the queen burst into tears of sorrow.

I ended up following suit.

Wah. It’s great to have survived and become a beauty, but where in the world am I?

It was about two weeks after I woke up in Yerenika’s body that I realized something was strange.

I stared blankly at the knight kneeling before me. He was my personal guard.

“Um, what did you say your name is?”

“Fernando Cardona, Your Highness.”

Cardona!

A flash of recognition crossed my mind. My brain, which had been solidified like a hunk of scrap metal for two weeks, finally began to move again.

Cardona. I knew that word from somewhere…

The conclusion I landed on was positively ridiculous. I burst into laughter.

“Oh, man. There’s no way.”

“Pardon?”

“Of course, that’s impossible. Cardona. Honestly, I’m too creative for my own good.”

Even as I rambled, my brain dutifully did its job. I definitely had seen that word somewhere, but where? It was from the novel I’d been clutching right up until my death. How did that make any sense?

I grabbed on tight to my fading consciousness and asked again, “So, you said your name is Fernando Cardona?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Do you happen to have a son? Or, perhaps, a sibling?” My voice trembled as I spoke.

There was only one Cardona I knew of: the male lead of the novel I was reading right before my death. He was the incredibly beautiful knight who had made me clutch my heart, Alexio Lazaro Cardona.

How could I ever forget that name? I’d practically had my heart besieged by the male lead, Lexy, so many times!

Fernando’s head tilted, still kneeling.

“A son? Your Highness, I’m afraid I’m not yet married.”

“Ah.”

“And I am an only child.”

I finally got my head back on straight at those words. Right. It had to be a coincidence. There was no way I actually entered a book or anything…

“Ugh.” I pressed a hand to my forehead at the memories that suddenly began springing to mind.

I had been obsessed with the novel Brigitte Wants to Be Happy. It was so captivating that once you picked it up, you couldn’t put it down.

The memories continued to flow like a burst dam.

Livovny, the continent of Rhyger, the Empire of Bellecourt beyond the Sezanne Mountains—I remembered all of the names I had been hearing.

Now that I was thinking about it, it was strange that I hadn’t before. The name of my older sister, the red-haired beauty, was Theresia. That was the same name as the female lead’s mother. The novel began with Theresia’s kidnapping!

I couldn’t believe I only just realized it…

I clutched at my head and barely organized the novel details that came to mind.

The Kingdom of Livovny was where the female lead, Brigitte, lived. The country was the size of a pinky nail, but it was located between the eastern and western parts of the continent, so the empires in power were constantly eyeing it.

Brigitte was the daughter of Theresia, the first princess of Livovny. The male lead, Alexio, was Brigitte’s personal guard.

It was a passionate and spicy love story between a princess and her guard. You could say those were the hashtags for Brigitte Wants to Be Happy.

However, there was one more main character in the novel.

The tyrannical emperor of the undisputed dominant power of Western Rhyger, the Empire of Bellecourt, Dekalb de Bellecourt, the foremost antagonist of Brigitte Wants to Be Happy.

I chewed on my lip. An unwelcome assumption kept popping into my head. Nah, come on.

“If this is really a novel…”

“Pardon?”

“You really don’t have a son?”

“Correct. That is so, but… Why do you ask all of a sudden, Your Highness?”

My head ached painfully. So, the most likely conclusion I could come to was this: I had entered the world of the novel before the main characters were born.

When I realized that, I felt like passing out. I think I even swore right in front of Fernando.

Well, that shouldn’t be surprising, right? I had entered a novel. Who would believe that right away?!

“This is ridiculous!”

It was ridiculous. It should have been ridiculous, but…

If I acknowledged that I was in a book, everything else would fall right into place.

And at some point, strangely enough, it did. What the heck?!

It was a whirlwind of confusion for the next couple of months after I’d done whatever this was—something between possession and reincarnation.

Perhaps this was all a dream? Maybe the accident had never happened, and when I opened my eyes, I’d be back in my cramped but homely rental.

But, as if to laugh at my bewilderment, time continued to pass just fine. A month passed, and then two. Before I knew it, eight months had passed, and it was a new season.

* * *

Now, back to the present. I was struggling to make Plan B work after Plan A had completely fallen apart.

I was in front of my sister Theresia again. We were meeting in the garden of House Levan instead of the royal gardens today.

Theresia was as beautiful as a pure red, thornless rose once again. It seemed as though my sister’s belly, where the heroine of this world—my niece Brigitte—was growing, had gotten bigger in the span of a few days.

“It can’t be…”

There was no way that her belly would have grown bigger in just five days. Yes, it had to be a feeling.

Brigitte, won’t you please wait until June to be born instead of arriving a month early? Please don’t follow that damn novel, dear.

I guess I’d been staring at Theresia’s belly with an expression of yearning, so my sister called for me with a puzzled voice. “Yerenika?”

“Huh? Oh, uh huh.”

“What are you staring for? You’re making me feel a bit shy.”

My sister smiled softly as her cheeks flushed. I forced myself to look away from my sister’s belly and awkwardly laughed, too.

“It’s fascinating. I can’t believe Brigitte will be born soon.”

It was a one hundred percent honest statement. I chuckled.