Chapter 1: Reincarnated as the Fallen Villainess
I just reincarnated into a game I once called corny—only to become the villainess everyone will loathe. But this time, I'll shield the one character who always deserved better.
The scent of damp stone and aged parchment reached me before my eyes could fully adjust. Five-year-old hands—small, slender, and roughened from scrubbing floors—clutched the hem of a tattered black dress trimmed with fraying white lace. Sophia Don Lewis. The name rang in my mind, alien yet seared into my memory like ink on paper.
I'd died in my cramped Tokyo apartment, a half-empty coffee mug at my side and my gaming console screen glowing with Crazy Lovers' final moments: Max von Kingwell, the blind prince, framed for treason by his half-brother—the story's so-called hero—plummeting from the castle tower to his end. Back then, I'd hurled my controller at the wall, cursed every character but Max as shallow and hollow.
Now I was Sophia—the future main villainess, a disgraced noble destined to torment the female lead and enable Max's destruction. But here, in this drafty tower corridor, the main storyline was still years away.
"Is… is someone there?"
A soft voice drifted from around the corner—high, tentative, and far younger than any version I'd known in the game. I crept forward, my small feet silent on cold flagstones, and peered into a circular room bathed only in moonlight streaming through arched windows.
There he was: Max von Kingwell, aged five, with messy silver hair that caught the light like scattered stardust. A delicate white blindfold covered his eyes, and he huddled on a wooden bench, running his fingers over the carved stone of a chess piece he'd been tracing. He flinched at the sound of my steps, pulling the piece close to his chest as if it were a shield.
In the game, I'd only ever seen him as an adult—charming, polished, forced to wear the mask of a "beloved prince" to hide his brother's cruelty. But this Max was timid, gentle, and utterly alone.
"Hello," I said, my voice smaller than I'd expected. "I'm Sophia. I work here now."
His head tilted, and a faint smile touched his lips. "You don't sound scared of me."
"Scared?" I stepped closer, pausing just out of arm's reach. "Why would I be?"
"Everyone says… my eyes are cursed. That I bring bad luck." His fingers tightened around the stone piece. "Even Father avoids me. Only the head maid speaks to me sometimes."
I thought of the game's lore—the villainess who'd mock his blindness, the male lead who'd twist it to paint him as weak, a world that'd let him perish for a crime he never committed. My chest tightened with a sharp, unfamiliar ache.
"Well," I said, reaching out slowly to tap the carved stone, "I think your hands are good at finding things others miss. Want me to help you make a full chess set out of stone? I'm not much of a carver, but I'm pretty good at finding sharp tools."
His smile widened, warm and unguarded, and he lifted his hand—palm up, waiting. "Really?"
This is where it changes, I thought, placing my hand in his. Not as the villainess the game had scripted, but as the one who'd keep him safe. Before the story began, before lies and betrayal stained the castle walls, we'd build something real.