Her name was Elodie — the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Pedia, and the only daughter of the Ducal House. She was also, without the slightest doubt, the villainess of this other world.
She carried two sets of memories at the same time, one from the modern world and one from this other world, because she had transmigrated into a novel she had read before. And the young lady whose body she now occupied was precisely the villainess who had committed countless evils and was destined to die in the end.
She could not help complaining about the mechanics of this transmigration. Couldn't I have had my memories from birth? Why does it have to be now? Up until this moment, Elodie had habitually exploited the servants and indulged in utterly unrestrained luxury.
If she went on following the original plot, death would be her inevitable ending.
First, she had to sort out the storyline. Her biggest trouble at the moment was her father, the Duke of Pedia, because he was a world-class arch-villain. When his daughter Elodie died, the Duke of Pedia stood by and did nothing.
And the reason he was indifferent to his daughter's death was Estelle Pedia, because she was the true heroine of this novel. The one who was originally engaged to the first prince had been Elodie, but she was willful and unruly with a terrible reputation, so the engagement was annulled. In order for the Duke of Pedia to secure his power by relying on the first prince, he had no choice but to adopt Estelle and have her become engaged to the prince in Elodie's place.
Elodie decided to become independent and leave this family before Estelle was adopted. So she wrote the letter breaking off the engagement in advance. Although the first prince is handsome, staying alive is more important. May you be happy. The villainess Elodie will no longer bother you.
When the first prince received the letter of dissolution, he was utterly furious.
When the Duke of Pedia learned of this, he immediately came to question her. Elodie could not seem to work out why exactly her father had come to see her, and in a panic she spilled out all the bad things she had done in recent days, apologizing over and over, frantically saying she was sorry.
Her father asked coldly, "A few days ago, did you send out a letter breaking off the engagement?"
Elodie replied righteously, "This is the one thing I did not do wrong."
Her father was even more puzzled. "Wasn't the engagement something you wanted of your own free will?"
"Back then, you were against our engagement, weren't you?" Elodie explained. "So I thought it would be fine."
Her father only said one sentence. "The situation has changed."
She had originally thought the first prince would sign without hesitation. She had not expected him to refuse.
Her father said nothing more, only told her to go back to her room and reflect properly.
Breaking off an engagement is way too hard, Elodie exclaimed inwardly. But this also proved that the Duke of Pedia's intent to support the first prince was not something she could overturn on her own.
The House of Pedia could be traced back to a very, very long time ago.
The goddess of the underworld, Icar, coveted the sky and the earth, so the seven deadly sins wrought destruction upon the continent for her. Just as the continent was on the verge of annihilation, Icar's younger sister, the goddess of sky and earth, Ishtar, appeared. She distributed her divine authority among seven humans, allowing the seven deadly sins to be sealed away.
Those who triumphed were revered as heroes admired by all, and they established seven great families. This was the founding myth of Walentia. Today, among the seven great families including the royal family, only five remained. One of them was the House of Pedia, which had been granted the authority of destruction.
The heir of the House of Pedia was Ashen Pedia. Carlott Pedia was the second son of the House of Pedia.
When her elder brother Ashen heard about his little sister's situation and knew she must have been scolded by their father, he came to comfort her. Elodie knew that as a direct descendant of the Pedia line he had inherited a deeply potent bloodline, and his authority was erasure.
What was more, he calculated people's hearts down to the bone and would trample others into the mud whenever necessary. He was the textbook definition of someone whose outward appearance did not match his true nature. Looking at that harmless, gentle face, Elodie almost believed him.
By contrast, the second brother, Carl, was blunt and outspoken, dared to say anything, and was always teasing her. The moment Elodie heard him speak, she was instantly filled with anger.
Ashen hypocritically told Carl not to be so unrestrained with his words, saying that in the end they were all one family. But Carl thought that being in the same family as Elodie was itself a highly debatable matter. Yet Ashen told Carl and Elodie, "You two are both my adorable little siblings."
Elodie only found the words so eerie that they made her shiver.
After that, she said she was very busy and hastily left. The two of them, however, both happened to feel the same thing at the same time. Elodie seemed to have changed.
Ashen and Carl were unfriendly toward Elodie because she was considered the Duke of Pedia's illegitimate daughter. But in fact there was another unknown secret, namely that Elodie was not even an illegitimate daughter. She and the Duke of Pedia shared absolutely no blood relation.
So she thought that before the truth came to light, she had to become independent and move out first.
Thus Elodie had inherited another power from her biological parents, and that was none other than the purification authority of the House of Severe.
However, the moment she used this authority, she might expose the fact that she was not of the Pedia family, and she would still end up walking toward death. What was worse, her biological father, Richard Severe, the head of House Severe, was still in a coma.
So Elodie decided she had to use that ability to its fullest and secure her footing before she was discovered.
The first step was to seek out the Duchess of Pedia. Theisi Pedia, the Duchess of Pedia, was the biological mother of Ashen and Carlott, and the strongest poison maker on the continent. She had developed a highly effective pesticide for the farmers, but a recall order was soon issued. The reason for the recall was that the pesticide was just as poisonous to humans.
So Elodie decided to give her a hand.
The Duchess scoffed. "What can a snot-nosed child like you possibly help me with?"
Elodie took out a vial of potion and said to the Duchess, "This is the antidote that can solve your problem."
So, for the sake of becoming independent, her second step was to find a way to make money and leave this household.
Of course, the Duchess could not possibly believe her on the strength of a few words. So Elodie proposed, "We can run an experiment to prove this potion is real."
The Duchess then brought out her experimental apparatus, and the pests were knocked unconscious by her poison. Next, Elodie's secret antidote was added.
Whether she could obtain her freedom now depended entirely on this little pest.