"Goodness! The wound from last time has healed so cleanly already, hasn't it?"
That was the beginning. I thought I'd been born as just an ordinary beggar in a romance fantasy world, but one day, healing abilities suddenly manifested.
From my peculiar pink hair, I'd felt I wasn't ordinary, but after gaining abilities, my heart swelled with anticipation for the future.
It felt like a life completely different from my previous one—where I'd died lonely without money or family—was about to unfold. And that expectation didn't betray me.
"Thank you. Thanks to you, I can use my arm again."
Moreover, this cheating ability could also be used on others. Thanks to that, even living on the streets alone without a mother, I never starved to death.
Of course, if this was all there was to it, I wouldn't call it a flower-lined path. The real luck was just beginning.
Because luck would have it, the boy I'd coincidentally found and healed in a back alley turned out to be none other than the empire's prince.
"An unbelievable ability. If it weren't for you, I would have died. Will you come with me?"
Fortunately, I wasn't foolish enough to refuse such heaven-sent fortune.
I left for the palace with the prince that very day, and overnight, I went from a poor commoner wandering the streets to a senior maid residing in the prince's palace.
Having saved the only prince, I was treated with utmost care—that was an added bonus.
And that wasn't all. My luck didn't stop there.
The prince kept me hidden and only had me use my abilities on a few high-ranking nobles, among whom Duke Cheshire—the empire's only duke—took a special interest in me.
He kept looking at me with strange eyes, so I was wary, thinking he might be some kind of pervert. But to my surprise, the duke said something unexpected.
"With that pink hair and pale blue eyes, just like when you were little. You're Lydia, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember me?"
"...No?"
"Of course. You might not remember since you were so young. I understand."
"Who are you?"
"I'm your father. I wondered where you'd been hiding... I've been searching for you all this time."
The duke embraced me with a bewildered expression and took me to his home, announcing me as his 'long-lost hidden daughter.'
So this was a rise in status achieved in less than a month.
From a street commoner to a maid in the prince's palace. From a maid in the prince's palace to the empire's only duke's daughter.
The story felt vaguely familiar, but at the time, I didn't think much of it. With so much gained overnight, I was too focused on that to pay attention to the 'something strange' parts.
I gained a cold and stingy but living mother, a father who gave me trust if not love, and the boy I'd saved as a child—now twenty years old this year—was engaged to me, with his appointment as Crown Prince imminent.
What a sweet life this was. I simply gave thanks each day, prayed that all of this wasn't a dream, and as my smooth-sailing life continued, that strange sense of familiarity naturally faded.
But as they say, all luck comes to an end. It didn't take much time for my flower-like life to turn into something else entirely.
"This child is my real daughter! The only daughter of Cheshire is here—Daphne!"
It all started the day the Duchess brought home her 'real daughter'—the one she'd lost in childhood.
Only then did I realize what that sense of familiarity had been.
'...No wonder I was so lucky.'
All of this fortune was merely buildup for my villainous narrative. The moment I realized that, my luck ended.
It was like the so-called 'give and take away' technique—making a villain more bitter. No different from a protagonist trial version.
Yes, the world I'd reincarnated into was inside a novel, and I was now a villainess with nothing ahead but downfall.
A third-rate villainess who, blinded by jealousy after the return of this household's noble daughter Daphne, commits evil deeds, gets her engagement broken off, and uses every filthy method to torment Daphne while trying to catch the prince's eye.
It was such a cliché plotline that I wondered how I hadn't realized it sooner. With luck this good, I should have at least suspected, 'Oh, could it be...?'
All that wonderful luck was merely a narrative designed to make my fall more dramatic.
Meeting the prince, catching the duke's eye to enter this household, even getting engaged to the prince—all of it.
But if I'd known the truth in advance, would I have left the young prince to bleed to death in the street? Would I have rejected the duke's outstretched arms inviting me home with a kind smile?
"Absolutely not."
At that time, I was just a child who wanted a family, who craved love. Real or fake, there was no chance I would have refused that outstretched hand.
So the outcome would have been the same anyway. And things had already happened. But nothing had happened yet. Moreover, I knew the original story, which meant I had plenty of opportunities to change my own ending, at least.
From now on, everything I'd had would gradually return to Daphne, but...
"...Well, since it was originally Daphne's anyway, it doesn't really matter, does it? Honestly, I feel more sorry for Daphne, who's suffered all this time."
I decided to think positively anyway. I'd originally lived thinking I was just a beggar in a romance fantasy. Being a villainess noble might actually be better than being a beggar.
It might sound pathetic, but the fact that the duke was my father didn't change, I'd saved up a fair amount of wealth, built connections with various people, and the prince wasn't really my type anyway.
I decided not to covet what belonged to Daphne, to endure quietly, and just protect whatever remained for myself.
At least then, I could avoid the miserable ending of the original Lydia.
Come to think of it, quite a lot had already deviated from the original story.
The ability I possessed, the fact that I'd saved the prince and entered the palace, even the timing of my adoption into the duke's household—it all came earlier.
In other words, perhaps the original story was already changing.
So the conclusion was one thing.
'Absolutely no meddling. As long as I don't do anything bad, it'll be fine.'
I resolved to quietly accept whatever happened from now on and strategized my survival.
But as always, inevitably, this resolve was broken before long.
There's a limit to what a person can endure. My mistake was not realizing this obvious fact sooner.
