She was Eleanor Crafiel, daughter of the esteemed Grand Duke Crafiel of the Grevania Empire.
But she was also Eleanor Keishara, a young woman from another world who had died from illness and reincarnated into this one, a world strikingly similar to the game she used to play during her time in the hospital.
Dimension Break.
A fairly popular action-fantasy RPG with gacha mechanics.
In the game, Eleanor had originally been raised as the heir to the Crafiel family, having once been the only child of Grand Duke Razel.
She was born to Razel's concubine, a woman he'd been more or less pressured into taking after five years of marriage to the Grand Duchess had failed to produce a child.
Some of the vassals and councillors had begun clamouring for Razel to either take another wife or concubine, or adopt the child of a cousin or some distant relative. In the end, the Grand Duke chose the former.
A mid-ranking noble family, buried under the weight of heavy debt, had their daughter taken off their hands in exchange for their dues being cleared.
That daughter became Razel's concubine, and Eleanor was the result.
Unfortunately, her mother died during childbirth. And while Razel didn't harbour any particular affection for either the woman or the child she bore him, he still chose to raise Eleanor as his heir, preferring her over the idea of passing his title on to the children of his extended relatives.
Fortunately for Eleanor, she was born with considerable talent, possessing both a Unique Trait and a Skill. Because of that, Razel invested heavily in her education, ensuring she received all the training required of the Grand Duchy's future successor.
Eleanor's usefulness to Razel was the only thing that kept her from being outright abused by the Grand Duchess, who loathed her very existence. Still, that didn't mean she was ever truly treated like she belonged to the Crafiel family.
Even so, Eleanor had been on track to eventually become the next head of the family, or at least, that was the plan until the Grand Duchess finally conceived and gave birth to a child.
A son, no less.
All of Eleanor's training to become the heir was rendered meaningless in an instant, as Razel didn't hesitate to name his newborn son the new successor, ignoring the objections of several councillors.
This world—Datov—was one plagued by monsters and dimensional rifts, the result of a weakened spatial barrier brought about by past invasions from multiple other worlds. With the barrier still unstable, it would periodically tear open, allowing creatures from beyond to pour in.
Eleanor, who had undergone intense combat training from a young age and had grown remarkably strong for her age, still held value to the Crafiel family.
What's more, Razel had no intention of letting her go, especially because of her unique trait, which was highly effective in combat.
So, he ordered her to repay the family by serving as a member of its combat forces tasked with raiding rifts, entering them and eliminating the monsters inside before the weakening spatial barrier gave way and unleashed those creatures upon the world.
It was during one of these missions that the Grand Duchess, who could no longer bear Eleanor's existence, not just because she posed a threat to her son's position, but also because she had earned the favour of many councillors thanks to her talent and achievements, finally decided to eliminate her.
She had been subtly working against Eleanor for a while, ensuring she was assigned to different squads for every rift raid so she wouldn't have the chance to form any loyal allies among the family's combatants.
And this time, she went a step further, filling Eleanor's squad entirely with her own loyal minions.
Just as Eleanor was about to call for a rest before taking on the rift's boss, one of them literally backstabbed her.
Eleanor did fight back and managed to take down a few of them, but the cliff they were battling on gave way, and she plummeted to the ground below, where she now lay, slowly dying.
◇ ◇ ◇
'That was the story of Eleanor in the game, and that was also the story of the life I had lived up until just a few moments ago, when the soul-piercing pain I felt from being quite literally backstabbed awakened the memories from my previous life.'
Such a thought passed through Eleanor's mind as she lay silently, eyes fixed on the sky above.
Now, slowly dying at the bottom of this ravine, she had arrived at a turning point in the life of the Dimension Break character, Eleanor Crafiel.
The moment where Eleanor began her descent into becoming the game's final villain.
Among the many invaders from other worlds in the past, there existed one particularly dangerous lot from multiple infernal dimensions, known as the Devil Rulers.
Each of them was an immensely powerful higher existence, and Datov's own higher existences of old had only managed to defeat them at the cost of their lives.
They tore the souls of these Devils from their bodies, sealed the bodies away, and then shattered the souls before sealing those fragments as well.
However, during a later invasion, several of the locations where the soul fragments were stored were destroyed, causing the fragments to scatter across the world.
If the scattered soul fragments of a Devil were brought together within a single host, and if certain conditions were met, that Devil could potentially achieve a form of resurrection.
For over a thousand years, these soul fragments had been leaping from host to host.
Eleanor, who had already been targeted as a potential vessel for one of the Devils, inherited the soul fragment her mother once possessed, making her the host of two out of the five fragments belonging to the strongest of all Devil Rulers.
This Ruler had been betrayed by the other Devils after they had pressured her into unwillingly joining the invasion of this world.
With two fragments, the Devil's consciousness could briefly awaken at intervals, and in the game, the dying Eleanor ultimately accepts the Devil's offer, choosing to fuse her soul with the entity she had long known she'd been hosting, resulting in the birth of the being who would go on to become the game's final boss.
'That means the Devil should be showing up any time now…'
[I'm already here, though.]
'!'
Eleanor's body flinched at the sudden voice that echoed in her mind, and just as she blinked, she saw someone crouched over her, watching her with calm eyes.
She was an inhumanly beautiful young woman, her facial features, from her well-defined nose to her finely shaped lips, emphasising her otherworldly grace, as if Eleanor were gazing at a porcelain doll brought to life.
She had long, white hair and eyes with black sclera and white irises. Further down, the contours of her curvaceous body, perfectly proportioned, were clearly visible beneath the white dress she wore.
[You've been thinking some amusing things this whole time. Why are you acting like it's your first time seeing this face? It's the same one you look at in the mirror every day.]
The woman's mouth never moved, yet her voice echoed clearly in Eleanor's head, and just like she said, it was indeed the same face Eleanor saw every day.
She, the Devil Ruler Eleanor had been hosting, had merely taken on Eleanor's own appearance, with the only difference being the inverted colours of her hair and eyes.
'Amith…'
Her name surfaced in Eleanor's mind, and the Devil, Amith, responded immediately to her thoughts.
[You remembered my name? After calling me 'Devil' for so long, I figured you'd forgotten it entirely.
But since you've decided to use my name now, I suppose calling you 'Human' no longer seems appropriate, Eleanor.]
As she spoke, Amith rested her elbows on her knees, cupping her chin in her palms.
[This whole situation reminds me of the first time we spoke. Your thoughts were absolutely hilarious.
First, you thought I was a hallucination, then you were convinced you were going crazy, and after that, what was it? Oh right, you even thought I was some kind of split personality.]
'Can you not bring up such memories when I'm on the brink of death?'
[Relax, you're not dying anymore. At least, not for now. I've placed your body in suspended animation.
But, like I said, it's only temporary.
You've been poisoned, cursed, and taken a brutal fall while already weakened. Without either divine or devilish intervention, you wouldn't survive.]
After a short pause, Amith added.
[Unfortunately, there's no divine here to save you. Only a devil. And the worst of them all, at that.]