She looked at me, and I looked at her.
The little girl standing in front of me in the doorway was destined to become the main villain in a game I downloaded shortly before my death.
"Fluttering Hearts 2" was a romantic otome novel and, as the title suggests, a sequel to the first part. It was one of the most popular apps of its genre, and I noticed it because it was constantly featured at the top of the main page.
The plots of the first and second parts unfolded in the same fantasy medieval world, with the only difference being that they had different main characters.
The heroine of the part I played was a young aristocrat named Angela Stone. She was the only daughter of the reigning emperor. However, she did not know this until she was eighteen, as she had been kidnapped by enemies of the empire when she was a baby.
As a result, Angela grew up as an ordinary commoner, found and sheltered by a kind village forester. She lived peacefully and was happy until the day before she came of age, when her adoptive father was killed by mercenaries.
Angela had to flee, as she was the only heir to the throne and was being hunted. Fortunately, the heroine met a young and sympathetic aristocrat who recognized her as his relative and took her to the palace. This young man turned out to be the emperor's nephew, who had been searching for her all these years.
In fact, the game began when the heroine arrived at the palace. Having become the heir to the throne, Angela decided to take revenge on those who had kidnapped and killed her adoptive father many years ago. Four love interests helped her investigate the case.
The emperor's good-natured nephew and the heroine's cousin, who brought her to the palace.
The heroine's charming teacher, whom all the girls in the empire were crazy about.
The brave and noble captain of the guard, whose affection took the longest to win.
And finally, perhaps the most exotic contender — a powerful magician in the body of a thirteen-year-old boy.
This foursome included the characters with whom it was possible to build relationships in the game. Although they seemed quite diverse, they complemented each other in a surprising way on the general poster.
Overall, the mechanics of this game were no different from a typical otome novel. Depending on whose favor the player chose, the main heroine's pairing at the end was determined.
Dialogue options and main actions were both paid and free. If you played the game without spending any money, many interesting scenes remained inaccessible, as did the exclusive endings with the characters.
I'm ashamed to admit it, but I couldn't resist and invested a certain amount of my own money in the game — all for the sake of seeing the ending with the captain of the guard, whom I chose as my partner.
The secret episode featured an extra dose of rose-colored sentimentality and the heroes' wedding itself. But what caught my attention the most was the final plot twist: the execution of the main villain, Rubiella Weinstein.
If there was a heroine in the game, there had to be her opposite. Rubiella played the role of just such a character.
The main villain was the heiress to a powerful family of villains, the daughter of the current Duchess Magritte Weinstein. Rubiella's father, the duchess's first husband, died shortly after the birth of their daughter, leaving his wife alone with a small child.
Having become a widow at such a young age, it was very difficult for the woman to remarry. As a result, she blamed Rubiella for all her problems, saying that she was the reason her personal life was not working out.
The daughter became a thorn in her mother's side, whose birth had brought her nothing but trouble.
Moreover, these problems only got worse.
Soon, the Duchy of Weinstein suffered significant financial difficulties, and the duchess urgently needed to find a profitable partner to improve their situation. A few years later, Magritte finally managed to meet an aristocrat who was ready to marry her.
However, he set one condition: Rubiella had to leave the house, as the man wanted to have only his own children.
In fact, the duchess did not think twice. At the age of ten, she sent her to live with her younger sister under the pretext that she would teach her. In reality, it was just a way to get rid of an unwanted child until she came of age.
After Rubiella went to live with her aunt Grace, her life turned into a living hell. This woman led an extremely dissolute lifestyle: almost every day she brought lovers home and forced the little girl to watch it all.
She mocked and beat her in every way possible, completely depriving her of normal care. Grace did not want to spend money on her niece, and as a result, the heiress to an influential family spent several years wearing rags and worn-out old dresses. The same applied to her place of residence — Grace gave her the most miserable room in the estate so that she would not take up extra space for her night visitors.
Eight years of living in such conditions finally broke Rubiella, who was already despised by her mother, and she became the main villain.
On the day of her coming-of-age ceremony, she killed her aunt and remained the only member of the Weinstein family. The previous duchess and her new husband had died in an accident six months before these events.
Rubiella became the next head of the family and wanted to take revenge on the whole world for her suffering.
Upon learning that it was her grandfather who had been involved in the kidnapping of the crown princess as a child, she decided to continue his work. Rubiella hired assassins to find Angela and deal with her. Then she could pretend to be her and destroy the imperial palace from within through deception.
Rubiella wanted to bring about the collapse of the entire empire.
But in the end, the heroine and her love interests stopped her, sentencing her to the most severe punishment.
While the regular ending left it unclear whether the villain was executed or sentenced to life imprisonment, the exclusive episode revealed this point quite clearly.
Rubiella Weinstein was publicly beheaded for all her sins.
I purchased several more exclusive endings, but in all of them, the villain's fate remained quite prosaic. One way or another, she always died.
A rather sad ending for a girl who, in essence, was just a victim of circumstances.
Unlike the positive main character, who got everything easily and simply, I was much more impressed by Rubiella. To some extent, I even compared her to myself: our childhoods were equally unsuccessful, and as adults we were forced to achieve everything through hard work.
We even ended up in a similar way, as I died relatively young.
This was due to cardiac arrest, which was a consequence of my old illness. The defect was a congenital feature of my body, and another attack happened just as I finished playing the game and fell asleep.
When I opened my eyes, I found myself in the body of a young woman living in a large but impoverished estate. She had chestnut hair and generally pleasant features — a fairly standard set of physical attributes, but I wasn't complaining, considering that I had been reborn in the body of a background character.
You could even say I was lucky that I didn't reincarnate as some ugly old hag, which could have been quite likely. After all, that's how minor relatives of the main characters were usually portrayed, making their childhoods so tragic.
It didn't take me long to figure out that I was in a historical fantasy game.
I became Grace Weinstein — the aunt of the main villain, who bullied her as a child and ultimately led her to such a terrible future. Needless to say, Grace herself suffered at the hands of her niece when she was killed at her coming-of-age ceremony!
Now that I was here, I didn't know what to do.
In the mirror in front of me stood an indecently dressed woman who looked more like a brothel worker than a member of the ducal family.
I sighed. It seemed that I would really have to work hard to repair my reputation in this place.
First, I put my hair up in a bun and put on a more modest dress. Then, I kicked all the gentlemen out of my bedroom, who had made themselves at home on my bed.
From that moment on, Grace Weinstein's depraved lifestyle was over!
I decided to put this house in order before the main villain arrived.
I thought I had enough time to get everything ready and welcome her properly.
But as it turned out, Rubiella Weinstein was brought to me just a month after I first woke up here.
A little girl stood at the threshold of the estate, looking at me with big blue eyes.
So this is the child I'm supposed to turn into a villain...?