Chapter 1. A Surprisingly Easy-to-Handle Villain Brother
Episode 1
I was used to being ignored by my family.
In my previous life, I was treated like the shame of the family, or at best like an afterthought, since I had nothing outstanding compared to my siblings.
In this life, I was abandoned for not being born with the power of the Sun.
As Annissa Lagrange, I couldn’t even joke about being blessed with family luck. At least in my previous life, my family had raised me.
With a small sigh, I pursed my lips and muttered softly.
“Why’s the baby sighing already?”
At present, I was the youngest child, with no connections or support, and the servant in charge of looking after me—Ransel—always showed clear dislike, no matter what I did.
“Ugh, why do I have to take care of this troublesome little lady?”
He said it thinking I wouldn’t understand.
But what fault could a newborn baby possibly have!
Had I possessed her? Or… was this reincarnation?
Hmm. Since I was born as a character from a novel, maybe possession is the right word.
Anyway, the world I was living in now was almost identical to the fantasy war novel I had read in my past life, The War of Roses Between Men.
‘No, it’s not “almost.” It’s exactly the same.’
Even with my barely developed brain, I looked around carefully to confirm.
The house I was born into, the Euclide family, had a long and bitter history of war with the Lagrange dukedom.
If Euclide was the sun, then Lagrange was the shadow. Just by hearing that, one might think Euclide held the advantage, but that wasn’t the case.
“Poor Lady Camille, to bear a child only to die right after!”
Ransel wrinkled his face as he changed my soaked diaper, grumbling endlessly.
“Damn it, if only Lady Camille had lived!”
“That Camille, Camille again.”
Camille had been one of the many wives of the Duke of Lagrange, and she was the biological mother of Dietrich—the villain of The War of Roses Between Men and the sworn enemy of the protagonist.
“If she’d lived, I wouldn’t be stuck with this miserable task. Why’d she have to die giving birth to such an ugly baby?”
‘What’s with this guy’s obsession with my looks?’
I grumbled inwardly while recalling the novel’s story. Publicly, it was said Camille had died giving birth to me, but in truth, I wasn’t her child.
To strengthen her position in the Lagrange family, Camille had kidnapped me—the daughter of the rival Duke of Euclide.
“Is this baby really a Euclide?” I could still clearly recall Camille’s face as she lifted me up, inspecting me.
She had been a rare beauty. Even though my memory was blurred like a watercolor soaked in water, her face was unforgettable—she was far more beautiful than Annissa’s birth mother had ever been.
‘Well, that explains why her son Dietrich inherited such looks.’
But heavily pregnant as she was, she recklessly took part in the abduction and was caught by Euclide knights—killed in the process.
“Kill them all!”
“What about the baby?”
“Kill it too. We can’t let it be known that a Euclide child without any ability exists.”
The ironic part was that the knights hadn’t even been trying to save me. They’d been hunting Camille to eliminate me completely. She died, and so did her unborn child, but somehow, I alone survived.
Why I was being raised in the Lagrange household as Camille’s daughter, I didn’t know. The book never explained. I had fainted in shock when the knights struck her down.
Unlike Annissa’s birth mother—who had tried to smother her newborn with a pillow—no one in Lagrange had gone that far. But life here wasn’t exactly kind either.
“Ugh, what an ugly baby!”
For example, Ransel, who now scratched my delicate newborn arm with his fingernails, certainly wasn’t normal.
“Waaah! Waaaah!”
A baby’s skin was soft like kneaded dough; just a little pressure left it flushed red. Of course it hurt when he scratched me!
“Yes, cry louder! Louder!”
He pinched and tormented me as if my crying entertained him.
I had never harmed him, so why did he hate me so much?
I narrowed my eyes at the pitch-black smoke spreading over his chest—his aura.
That dense, dark aura revealed his “hatred.”
‘Why does he hate me this much?’
I had the ability to see people’s emotions through their aura.
It was thanks to this power that I realized I was truly a character inside the novel.
The first aura I’d seen had been my birth mother’s—far darker and more suffocating than Ransel’s.
The hatred was so strong that even as a newborn, it was overwhelming, almost reeking with a foul stench.
‘To hate your own child just because she lacks the Sun’s power…’
Even though I had become Annissa, I couldn’t help but feel some pity for her.
At least my previous parents hadn’t hated me.
Or… maybe they had, and I just hadn’t been able to see it without the ability to perceive aura.
‘No, no. Stop thinking about that.’
I shook my tiny head, refusing to dwell on the miserable circumstances of my death in my past life.
The last book I’d read before dying—The War of Roses Between Men—had been written from an unusual observer’s perspective.
Not the protagonist’s, but Annissa Euclide’s.
She hadn’t inherited the Sun’s power, but instead had the ability of a seer, able to perceive auras and even glimpse the future.
‘Though not all-powerful—Dietrich only used her as a tool, after all.’
She knew the characters’ hearts better than anyone, but lacked the strength to protect herself.
Once Dietrich, the so-called Demon Duke, realized she was the protagonist Hermann Euclide’s younger sister, he ensnared her, bound her like a shadow, and forced her powers into service—using her against Hermann.
‘That was one reason Hermann never forgave him.’
I had thought of Annissa as a narrative device, used to highlight the depths of Dietrich’s cruelty.
Even I, who had no expectations from my family, found the way he treated her—using his own adoptive sister like a disposable tool—horrifying.
‘This family is terrifying!’
If I could move, I would have run away instantly. Instead, I could only flail inside while glaring up at Ransel.
‘Hm? His aura isn’t entirely black after all.’
The aura around him wavered, trembling faintly.
Though everyone had a unique aura, the colors of emotions were similar and easy to read.
“Sniff… Lady Camille, why did you have to die?”
His aura shifted to blue—the color of sorrow.
‘So he really did love Camille.’
Though I couldn’t shed tears, I could still feel his grief through the trembling aura.
He must’ve thought Camille died because of me, and that’s why he hated me so bitterly.
‘But that’s not my fault.’
I never asked her to kidnap me.
After dabbing at his eyes, Ransel slammed the door and left.
‘Hey! Aren’t you supposed to feed me first?’
I was starving!
Ignored by the ducal household, very few servants ever entered my room. Until Ransel came back, I would have to endure hunger again.
In a world like this, with infant mortality rates so high, would I really survive?
I looked around desperately, but no one was bringing food.
Ransel only ever gave me the bare minimum care to keep me alive. Bitter as it was, I could understand.
After all, though I was a young lady of the household, there were simply too many children.
The current Duke of Lagrange, Derrick Lagrange, was infamous for his excessive virility. He had over twenty legitimate children—and countless others.
‘Whenever he found a woman deemed worthy of bearing heirs, he simply took her as a concubine.’
Dietrich Lagrange might have been the greatest villain of the world, but in my opinion, the real trash was Derrick Lagrange.
Dietrich was cruel, but at least he was devoted to the heroine, Charlotte, in a twistedly romantic way.
With so many children, it was inevitable that some would be neglected, even in a ducal household.
‘Bastard.’
Derrick didn’t care about his children at all. He only raised those who survived his brutal “tests,” acknowledging them as potential heirs.
And those tests weren’t simple physical or academic exams. They were unimaginably cruel—beyond common sense—and often put me in danger.
Like right now.
“Is it her? Do I have to kill her?”
Among the many trials, fratricide was one.
‘To see if we’re cruel enough to lead the North,’ they said.
That’s why, despite so many wives giving birth, less than half the children survived.
Newborns were the easiest targets.
“There’s no one around. Hurry, kill her.”
The child who stared at me breathed excitedly and spoke coldly.
Flustered, I stretched out my tiny hand, trying to persuade him.
“Uuehh…”
But only meaningless babble came out. Tears welled in frustration.
“Sorry, but I don’t have a choice. I’ve got my own position to protect.”
A cold blade pressed against my neck. The metallic chill hadn’t even fully touched me yet, but goosebumps erupted all over my body.
No, wait. Couldn’t they at least hear the baby’s side of the story first?
