Dylan de Beaumon, the adopted daughter of a Duke, recalls the memories of her past-life after hitting her head. Upon realizing she was a villainess character in a novel, she decides to use her intellectual giftedness to get a good career and run awa...
Dylan's heart was beating loud enough for the entire auditorium to hear.
"Now, please welcome the first-year student representative," The headmaster said from the stage. "Dylan de Beaumon."
"I, I have to..." She turned, unable to meet his gaze. "Excuse me."
'This is bad. I really need to stay away from the main characters.'
***
Dylan threw herself over the green grass with a short groan. At the Duke's mansion, she was forced to act with perfect etiquette. From the way she talked to the way she ate—her actions had to be perfect and polished.
As a light breeze blew pleasantly through the grass, Dylan closed her eyes and gave a genuine smile. The feeling of her curls fluttering in the wind was liberating. Only then did she realize how badly she had been suffocating at the Duke's residence.
Her speech went smoothly, but it was hard to ignore the hostile eyes of the other students. She was a commoner turned noble and was granted a Red Coat. It was only natural for them to look at her like that.
Laying in a patch of grass, hiding away from everyone else, was something she wanted to make a pastime. From the gentle kiss of the sun to the whispering cool breeze, everything was perfect. No. It had been perfect.
'If only he didn't follow me here from the auditorium.'
"Ha, you really are vulgar."
A young man stared at Dylan's appearance with a displeased look. She knew, just from his expression, that he hated her.
The brunette, young-looking man's sharp appearance and handsome features definitely stood out from the other students.
'As expected of a second male lead.'
"Hello, brother."
Axil's shoulders tensed at her calling him brother. Dylan turned her head away from him, biting her lips in an attempt to control a rising fit of laughter. Now was truly not the time to laugh.
"You don't like me, do you?" asked Dylan.
The young man was silent for a while. Dylan waited patiently until he spoke, not asking anymore.
He sighed, finally opening his mouth to speak: "Of course I don't like you. Your blood is dirty."
Dylan's expression ran through a series of emotions: angry, sad, confused and angry again. Noble blood or not, at the end of the day, we all bleed red.
"Blood in the human body is red regardless of where it came from," she said, rising to her feet with an expression of annoyance. "If you don't like me, then leave me alone."
Axil's eyes widened with shock. "Just now, what did you say with that dirty mouth of yours?"
"I said leave me alone," she repeated, louder. "You don't like me and I don't like you. There's no reason for us to cross paths, so stop following me around. It's honestly annoying."
"What?" Axil asked in bewilderment, but then snapped his mouth shut.
'Ha, you didn't think I would just stand here and let you talk down to me, did you?'
Sweeping his brown hair away, he said: "It's your fault for coveting a position that's not yours so openly. You'll never be a Beaumon. You're just a filthy girl playing dress-up with my father's money. I'm the one who was wronged here, so don't act innocent."
"Ha, you were wronged?"
"Yes," he said, "since a filthy nobody came into my house and started leeching off my family's fortune."
Dylan lowered her head, pretending to be affected by his words. Her long golden hair flowed down like a waterfall, covering her cheeks stained with crocodile tears.
"Ha, are you crying?"
"I'm sorry," she replied in barely just a whisper. "Your father, he just... he came when I had nowhere to go but my mother's grave. I didn't know taking his hand would make you so angry. I should've just died with my mother."
Axil's eyes softened with an indescribable series of emotions. Whether he hated her or was obsessed with her, he was blind to the fact that her tears made him both angry and sad.
'If you want to play victim, then I will too. In the novel, you were weak against Grisa's tears. Let's see if you can still say the same things to me now.'
Confused, he tried to gently brush the hair covering her face to the side but quickly withdrew his hand as if his fingers had touched something dirty.
"Stop, someone might see and get the wrong idea. I didn't mean to—"
"How pathetic." Dylan wiped her tears, her pitiful face contorting with a smirk.
'Unfortunately for you, I'm no heroine.'
"Wh-what!? You, just now, were you pretending!?"
Dylan's eyes flashed with hostility. "Tell me, brother. Since I'm so vulgar, it's only right that I act like it, right? If you're so obsessed with me being a bad person, then should I satisfy your obsession?"
Slap!Axil's calloused palm against her cheek stung.
"Watch what you say," he said with clenched teeth. "You're disgusting."
As expected, Dylan's predicaments were right, once again. In the novel, Axil de Beaumon's behaviour was characterized by aggression. He often lashed out and abused the maids, but pointed fingers at Dylan when she did it too. He had some sort of twisted mindset where he believed that he was the only one allowed to hurt his people.
'I only wanted to rile you up to see what I was dealing with. This, however, couldn't have turned out better for me...'
"Just what is happening here?" A soft, but stern voice called out from behind him.
Dylan glanced up, eyes welling over with fake tears. A single one escaped, running down her cheek as she blinked her big brown eyes innocently.
"Just now," the girl said with an irritated expression. "Did you just slap the student representative?"
'Finally... I get to meet the heroine.'
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
What did you guys think about the Crown Prince?
Also, in chapter eleven, you get to see Dylan's personality show for the first time. Isn't our main character badass?
