I was particularly tired that day. That day, I blew another interview, and the sky was full of dark clouds as if they represented the miserable feeling in my heart. The traffic light turned green. I tried taking a heavy step forward.

Then, there came a roar from far away.

Looking back, a boy in a yellow kindergarten uniform was stumbling and crying.

BEEEEEP.

The horn was so loud that I couldn't even hear the child crying. From down the street, a large dump truck was rushing towards us like crazy, without slowing down even a bit.

Were the brakes broken? I didn’t know. The dump truck kept beeping like crazy.

Huh? This is dangerous! As soon as I realized what was happening, I tried jumping out of the way, as if moved by instinct.

When I came to myself, I was lying down. The dark clouds, which had been thick all day long, finally dropped raindrops one by one. I slowly lifted myself up, feeling the raindrops falling on my face. But my body somehow remained in the same place. It felt strange.

Am I dead?

I didn't want to die like this. . .

When I woke up and turned my head, my body was bleeding there, right next to me.

The child in kindergarten uniform stood next to it, and was crying as people crowded around my body. The sound of an ambulance siren was echoing throughout my ears.

I don't even have a family, so who's going to hold the funeral? I looked at my body shamefully, and suddenly a strange window appeared before me.

<You are dead.>

Option 1. Move on to get a judgement for either heaven or hell.

Option 2. Reincarnate into another world.

* You will be given an additional option and buff item because you have saved one life.

*Precaution: The world you will reincarnate into is random.

* Undisclosed item (1)

What, have the angels of death lost their jobs? In line with the IT era, the afterlife seemed to be mechanized. I was reading the explanation to myself, but suddenly another window came up.

10, 9, 8, 7. . .

<If nothing is selected, Option 1 shall be selected.>

The judgment of heaven and hell. . .honestly, I wasn’t confident in that.

I didn’t live a sinful life, but it doesn’t mean that I’ve lived a life of purity. Of course, I just did save someone’s life. . .

However, that precaution on Option 2 looked annoying, could I really select Option 2 without hesitation?

If a new life is given randomly, I could be reincarnated as a strange criminal or a monster, right?

*The system is proceeding. . .

5, 4, 3, 2. . .

But nevertheless, I chose Option 2.

I hoped that my next life would be full of bliss.

***

A week passed since I was reincarnated into a new life, apparently with a “buff” or something.

I'm not happy at all. She was not happy at all.

Elody McClaire.

The daughter of Count McClaire, who was destined to die decades later. That was me.

Yeah, I've never been lucky at “picking” games. . .

Why does it have to be her out of all the others. . .

Elody McClaire was a villain in the novel. Of course, I did not realize that I was in a novel upon my reincarnation. At first, I thought it was just a normal magical fantasy world. Thanks to her husband, Caville Cernoir, I realized that this place was a novel. Caville was the male lead in a romance novel. He was a good-looking, fit, nice, and talented character with all the buffs.

Why. . .

Unfortunately, however, the female lead was not Elody. The female lead was the princess of the Kingdom of Dayev, which collapsed a few years later when the war broke out. There wasn't a great reason why I felt affection for Caville's character in the novel. It was just that his fate was considered similar to mine. Caville, an illegitimate child of the Duke of Cernoir, was abandoned in an orphanage as a newborn. In the orphanage, he was severely harassed by adults. And after the death of both his father and mother, the duke and duchess, he was found to be the successor to the duchy and came to the duke’s family.

But his real misfortune began here.

As soon as he came to the Cernoir family, he married his wife, who was six years older than he was, and then he was mistreated by her.

That wife was Elody McClaire. Elody reigned over the Castle of the Dukes, controlling all her servants with a domineering attitude. Newcomers ignored Caville, and instead followed her.

It's bad writing. . .

This kind of content made me feel so heavy.

A few years later, Caville was given an imperial order and assigned to lead the knights into the battlefield at an early age. The war turned Caville from a boy to a young man. He met his fateful love before the war ended.

That was the female lead.

I wish I were the female lead. . .

Unfortunately, I couldn't help it. After all, Caville, who made great contributions in the war, returned to the Cernoir family with the female lead. And Caville's wife, Elody, changed her attitude when the husband she ignored before returned as a man. She was talking nonsense about how much she had missed him, and how she had been waiting for his return for a long time.

Caville asked for a divorce, but as expected, she didn't accept it easily. Elody not only rejected Caville's demand but also persecuted and tormented the female lead, a princess who stayed in the mansion after Caville returned from the war. And then Elody did something really irreversible. . .

Was it a poison that hardens the whole body. . .?

She used the poison.

Surprisingly, Elody, a genius in magic concoctions, developed a terrible poison to kill the princess. Fortunately, however, Caville found out about her plan and kicked Elody out of the Cernoir family. Still, a lukewarm ending. . .

The villain faced a typical end.

After being kicked out of the Cernoir family, Elody contracted an incurable disease, suffering with all the symptoms of the poison she developed. And she died lonely in the slums.

Yes, that's me.

And here she was. Elody smiled bitterly and looked at her sleeping husband.

Right now, Caville was only seven years old. However, due to all the years of abuse, he was malnourished and seemed to be about five or six years old. I felt sorry for the dry pear skin of his belly. The child's belly and cheeks should be plump. Elody decided: it was a priceless life given to me, so I shouldn’t get sick and die.

There was no rule saying that I couldn’t change the flow of fate when I came to this world. . .

I had no intention of abusing Caville like the original Elody had. He's so lovely. How can I mistreat him?

I was going to live a long life. To do so, I had to raise Caville well. I would develop a cure for the incurable disease I’d get later in life, and get a good divorce at the end, too!

My goals were crystal-clear.

“Caville, get up. let's eat.”

“Yeah. . .”

Elody shook Caville, who was snuggling down under the bedclothes. At this point in time when Caville was seven, Elody was only thirteen years old.

“I’ll read you a book about fairy tales after you eat.”

“A fairy tale?”

Only then did Caville open his eyes wide when he heard the word fairy tale. Caville was left unattended for a long time, so his development was quite slow. Because of that, he still couldn't read and write. In the original book, he only learned writing when he was on the battlefield. But Elody was thinking of teaching Caville to write before then. I Don't want to let my little one get discouraged! I wanted to make him someone that no one would look down on.

***

The Cernoir family was once a Duke’s family with outstanding power. The first Duke of Cernoir was a war hero, who conquered large lands himself. However, Caville was currently suffering from financial difficulties because his father had been failing at managing the territory he owned.

Elody McClaire’s family was not very wealthy either. Her father, Count McClaire, who married his daughter to the heir of a poor duke’s family, was also well known. In the blurred memories of young Elody, whose being I now inhabited, Count McClaire was a very greedy father. Having been impatient to sell his children, he sold Elody to the Duke’s butler who was willing to give him a large sum of money.

Norman, the butler and a duke loyalist, raised a considerable dowry for Caville. This is because Caville, who came back from the orphanage, had trouble adapting to new things and was still afraid of adults. The butler thought that it would be a good idea to have a wife who was a little more mature than Caville. A wife who could protect and care for him.

However, the butler's choice was the beginning of the problem. It was such a waste of money. Of course, the butler would not have known that his wife would abuse him. At first, none of the servants in the mansion knew that Elody was abusing Caville. It started with subtle harassment. In the original story, Elody kicked out the butler and grew more powerful as the marriage continued.

Over time, all the loyal workers of the Cernoir family had been replaced. She must have been quite a smart person to get away with all her wrongdoing. In fact, she showed off her genius in the field of magic concoctions.

“Oh, by the way, I have to study magic drugs,” Elody muttered as she looked at Caville rubbing his eyes.

“What's the magic drug?”

“You don't have to know yet. Let's wash your face first.”

“I don't feel like it”

“I said you’d be ugly if you’re dirty, didn’t I?”

Caville pouted his lips and nodded gently. A week ago, he was wary like a brute, but fortunately, he opened the door to his heart quickly. Anyway, it was natural that he got attached to me since we were sleeping in the same bed every day. I felt sorry for Caville, who must have missed human affection and body temperature. The maid brought warm water, and Elody rolled up her sleeves.

“Madam, I'll do it.” At the maid's words, Caville hid behind Elody's back with his wary eyes.

“It's okay for me to do it, you can go out.”

“Yes, Madam.”

The maid looked at Elody and felt her heart melt. Marie was a young maid, but like the butler, her family had been dutiful servants of the duke.

Finally, I get to serve a great master, she thought. Marie was excited by hope. How can she be that mature? Marie really felt the butler was right. In fact, she was opposed to the butler at first. She couldn’t believe that a child who had just been adopted from the orphanage would have to get married immediately. However, contrary to her concern, the young lord quickly adapted to the duke's family after his marriage.

It was a good thing.

***

When the maid left, Caville relaxed his guard and looked up. Perhaps because of the brutal beatings at the orphanage, adults still seemed scary to him.

“Come on, let's wash your face.”

Elody put a towel around Caville 's neck and washed him slowly with warm water.

“Come on, blow your nose!”

“Uhh. . .Nooo!”

“With a honk! Do it!”

“Honk!”

What a feeling of blowing the nose of a child-looking male lead. . .