I Became the Female Lead Ruined by Others - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Prologue

My grip was failing.

“Ugh!”

My spindly forearms trembled as though seized by a cramp.
This female protagonist’s body couldn’t even hang in place for a moment without screaming in protest.
Contrary to what one might expect from a member of the Duke’s house—a noblewoman supposedly trained in swordplay—this frame was small, fragile, utterly useless!

‘Do I even have muscles?’

I glanced downward with bloodshot eyes and nearly forgot how to breathe.

“Haah……”

Nominally the second floor, but the drop felt like four stories. High enough that concrete would shatter my bones.
And as if that weren’t enough, the ground below bristled with twisted, thick barbed wire laid out densely like flower beds. Clearly a trap meant for intruders at the Illegal Auction House.
A fall meant instant death—or crippling injuries if I was lucky.

“Damn it!”

I’m currently dangling from the second-floor railing of the Illegal Auction House.
I thought, for once, that things were proceeding smoothly toward the auction’s close. But of course this body couldn’t manage even that. Nothing comes easily. Tears threatened to spill.
Having undergone a second transmigration, I know for certain: there is no God.

‘What did I do to deserve this?’

If God did exist, He clearly despised me with a passion.
There’d be no other explanation.
Not this pitiful body, not dying while cleaning up someone else’s mess……

“Why, why must I die?”

I gritted my teeth and squeezed out every ounce of strength I had left.
But then my hand slipped.
Sweat had been seeping from my body since I’d fled clutching the copy of the Ledger I’d won at auction.
The barbed wire below seemed to reach up with invisible hands and drag at my ankles.

“Ah!”

I fall.
In the moment my eyes snap shut.
Snap.
A firm grip seized my forearm.
My body, which had been about to be driven into the ground, dangled again in empty air.

“That was close, Miss.”

The mellow voice I’d grown accustomed to sounded from above my head.
Even just hanging here, this fragile body is straining past its limit. Lifting my head felt like an ordeal.
I managed to look up, and there on the man’s face hung his characteristic loose smile.

“What are you doing here? For someone admiring the moon, your posture is rather dynamic.”

The man speaking thus was the one who truly suited a moonlit night.
Moonlight melted like powder over pale golden hair…… No. Did this man not understand what was happening?

“Did you really just say that?!”
“What? If you strain yourself like that, you’ll lose your grip.”

The man clicked his tongue softly. Despite the worried tone in his voice, his expression was infuriatingly serene.
He was always like this.
Blood rushed backwards through my veins, but I gave up arguing.

‘If he actually lets go now…….’

With this paper-thin body of mine, instant death was far more likely.
And there was every chance this man—who wore an innocent face while doing only harmful things—would simply drop me.

“Should I pull you up, or not…… I’m truly torn.”

Since it was possible, after all.

‘This mad bastard!’

I stretched my left hand—which had been bracing my softened waist—upward and grabbed his wrist. Now I was hanging from him like a lifeline, utterly dependent on his mercy.
But he merely glanced at my desperate movements.

“Is that really something worth deliberating over?”
“You said it yourself—don’t judge things on your own or act rashly. So I’m being very careful in my consideration.”
“Are you seriously saying that right now?”
“I’m always sincere in front of you—I didn’t know you’d forgotten. That hurts.”

With that shameless reply, he let the strength in his grip ease slightly.
Not enough to actually let go of my wrist, but enough to make my body—dangling from him—tilt precariously.

“No!”

My heart plummeted.
I swallowed a scream and desperately seized his arm.

“Oh dear, you’re slipping.”
“I’m not slipping!”
“What do I do—my hand’s so slippery.”
“It’s not slippery at all!”
“Got caught, did I?”
“Just pull me up!”

Looking down at me as I fumed, the man finally broke into genuine laughter.
That face whose thoughts I could never read seemed truly delighted today.
His fingers traced slowly over the tender skin of my inner arm.

“You know, I have a wish.”

A wish? In this situation?
Did this man truly have no sense of timing?

His eyes, mirroring my contorted expression, sparkled more beautifully than any jewel.

“You’ll hear me out, won’t you?”

But the moment I met those eyes, all the sorrow I’d been holding back surged up to my throat.
Why. Why on earth.
Why did I have to end up entangled with this man, in a body destroyed by someone else?
Episode 1

It was a lavish party befitting the Bardencia family’s renown.
For this celebration, the Duke had indulged in extravagance for the first time in his life.
Once, in his days commanding the battlefield, corpses stacked in his wake had earned him a grim epithet: The Butcher of Karzen.
There was only one reason this man had adorned the Duke’s Residence garden with such magnificence.

“My eternal treasure, I celebrate your birthday.”

It was for his daughter alone—Bianca Bardencia.

The garden, steeped in ancient history, had been transformed into a scene from a fairy tale.
Exotic flowers bloomed in profusion along the carpet leading into the garden, and silk ribbons tied to the branches of old trees rippled in the breeze.

“What’s the name of that flower?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“What? Don’t tell me you don’t know the one beside it either?”

The Young Duke, greeting an old friend, gave a small shrug.

“They were brought in haphazardly. But Bibi loves flowers so much, what can I do?”
“You’re absolutely devoted to your sister.”

At this, the Young Duke laughed and guided his companion deeper into the garden.

“She’s my only sister—I have no choice in the matter.”

At the center of the garden, vast as a flowerbed, stood an ornate fountain.
Though its form was an ordinary circle, adorned as it was with jewels and gold, it was far from a simple fountain.
A cluster of young noblewomen gathered before it, their heads bent close as they whispered excitedly.

“So you’re saying this fountain was a gift from the Crown Prince to the Duke’s daughter?”

One young woman gazed at the gold-filigree vine motif as if entranced.

“They say he’s remained intimate with her even after the betrothal was called off.”
“Could the rumors actually be true?”
“Rumors?”
“The rumors about the Crown Prince and the Duke’s daughter!”

At this, all eyes snapped toward a single point.
Five pairs of glittering eyes fixed upon the empire’s Crown Prince—Baron Karzen.
His hair, dark as pitch and bearing the imperial seal, fell flawlessly into place. Beneath his exposed forehead, features carved in bold lines possessed such overwhelming dimension that even the word “perfect” seemed insufficient.
A frame honed by swordplay rendered even the simple gesture of lifting a champagne flute graceful.
Yet it was not this that held their attention.
His eyes, ordinarily so serene, burned with an unexpected mischief—a glimmer rarely seen in that crimson gaze.

A soft gasp escaped them.

As his lips curved upward, the young women held their breath.

“To think His Highness could smile like that…”
“They say he always wears such an expression in the Duke’s daughter’s presence?”

Their gaze drifted naturally to the Duke’s daughter, now standing beside the Crown Prince.

“How does she have it all?”

Wine-dark hair fell in waves to her waist, and her feline eyes, slightly upturned, gleamed with amber irises beneath long lashes that made them all the more luminous.
Her beauty was the sort that commanded attention at first glance.
Because of it, the Young Duke seemed like a figure beyond jealousy or resentment—untouchable.

“And to think she has such kindness of heart too. The world really is terribly unfair, isn’t it?”
“That’s surely why she took in that wretched young lady.”

Then Maria Solenit interjected abruptly, and the other young ladies’ faces went pale.

“That filthy little thing from Baron Mersh’s household—Roselina Mersh!”
“S-Solenit!”
“No money, no honor. Raised without parents, so naturally she has no breeding whatsoever.”

It was true—the Mersh barony was utterly unremarkable. One could hardly call them aristocrats without embarrassment.
Their only claim to distinction was their bloodline, and among the uninformed young ladies of this society, tearing her down had long since become a pastime.

“Solenit, surely such words are uncalled for…”

This reaction had not been what Maria expected.
Her face crumpled as she realized the other young ladies would not echo her mockery.

“What’s wrong with all of you? Did I say something untrue?!”

Then, just then.

“I doubt even boiled train smoke could ring out so loud.”

A voice as warm and gentle as a spring breeze drifted from behind her.
Roselina Mersh had arrived.
Save for Maria, who had frozen in place, the other young ladies broke into awkward smiles and moved toward Roselina.

“Your dress is absolutely beautiful!”
“Did you have it tailored at Miss Merry’s atelier?”
“I was given it, so I’m not entirely sure.”

Before long, the young ladies had clustered around Roselina like a protective detail and drifted away.
Left alone, Maria ground her teeth.

‘Those wretches…! When did they ever say her only merit was that pretty face, that they’d like to grind it beneath their heels?’

She had to admit it.
Roselina Mersh was quite beautiful, though in an entirely different register from the Young Duke.
Her rose-tinted hair fell in soft waves and exuded a lovely warmth even unpinned, while her delicate features and emerald-bright eyes contained nothing unlovely.
The problem was her behavior—utterly at odds with her appearance.

‘I used to think she couldn’t speak, how silent she was.’

Back then, dressed in those filthy rags, one might have mistaken her for a slave put up for auction.

‘Now the girl acts as though she’s someone important, flaunting herself.’

Roselina usually expressed herself with nods of her head, but whenever she did speak, she displayed a distinctive flippancy in her manner.
Maria despised the vulgar, unrefined tone that seemed to truncate her words—as if someone had only just learned to speak.
When she glanced away, the Young Duke was visibly delighted, greeting Roselina warmly.
As expected, Roselina merely tilted her head with that usual indifferent expression.

‘Always so arrogant! As if she’s anyone but what the Young Duke made her!’

As Maria glared at Roselina, a question formed in her mind.
Why is the Young Duke protecting that arrogant woman?

* * *

“No one could have known she would leave us so suddenly. But today, let us all partake in a beautiful tribute to her memory.”

Rain fell in a steady drizzle, and the weather was bleak.
Drenched without an umbrella, I felt the chill creeping in.
But I was not the only one standing unshielded from the downpour, so there was no escape from it.

“Now, please pay your respects.”

After waiting in a long line for what felt like an eternity, my turn finally came.
I lowered my head slightly.
The unfamiliar hand holding a single chrysanthemum trembled visibly.

“My lady?”

I lifted my gaze at the Priest’s call and looked down at the corpse in the coffin.
Deep wine-red hair dense as aged wine, long lashes—everything was identical save for the colorless lips drained of all blood and the pallid, ashen skin.
It was no different from what I had seen in the mirror before falling asleep last night.

“You should hurry.”

The woman adorned with an icy, cold beauty was this world’s fated villainess.

“My lady, offer your respects so that the path of Bianca Bardencia, our princess, may be peaceful.”

Bianca Bardencia.
That was the name of the woman now lying in this coffin.
As I gazed down at her corpse, my hands began to tremble once more.
The trembling grew beyond my control, and the chrysanthemum slipped from my weakened grip.
And in that moment, my heart plummeted far deeper than the soil where the flower had fallen.

‘It’s me.’

Yes.
The princess lying in that coffin was me.
It was the face I had seen in the mirror every day since arriving in this place.
It was the body I had been living in for the past five years.

‘Am I dead?’

I began to look around frantically, my unfocused eyes darting in all directions.
People whose faces twisted as they looked at me, people who turned away as if wishing they hadn’t seen something, people weeping with their faces buried in their hands.

‘No. This can’t be real.’

Then my gaze was caught by a broken mirror carelessly leaned against a pillar behind the Priest.
The mirror, fractured and fragmented in places, seemed to have long since outlived its usefulness.
Rain poured down over it, yet it was still functioning well enough to serve its purpose.
My trembling eyes fixed on it.
I found myself confronted with the reflection it cast back.

“Are you all right, Miss Mersh?”

The broken mirror and my dripping wet form were both a complete mess, but in that moment, it was enough.
I could recognize it.
The flowing rose-pink curls, the round, large eyes and jade-colored irises, the slightly parted red, plump lips.
No matter how thoroughly soaked and bedraggled I was, I could recognize it.

“Roselina Mersh…?”

I had become Roselina Mersh.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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