* * *

I paced the room for a while, then checked my face in the mirror again.

After turning my face at various angles, I let out a deep sigh.

“Pretty, annoyingly pretty… How can someone look good from every angle?”

It was hard to believe that this face belonged to a man.

It wasn’t just pretty. The face had a mysterious charm, skillfully balancing handsomeness and beauty.

The flawless, transparent skin and the anxious violet eyes held a certain captivating power.

In the original story, many young nobles admired Jeanne because of her looks.

But anyone who actually met him described it like this: “I’d rather live with a monster than with Jeanne.”

“But at least there’s one good thing…”

I opened the jewelry box in front of the mirror.

It was filled with priceless gems and ornate accessories.

I closed it with a nonchalant expression.

“For now, they’re still treating me like a noble lady. Giving me such a luxurious room and all.”

As the author, I knew this kindness was just a fleeting mirage. Duke Carlotte, who had adopted Jeanne, wasn’t really a villain but an incredibly calculating man.

Whether a child was his own or adopted, he would reward them accordingly if they proved useful.

Jeanne was mistreated not because she was an adopted child but because she was a useless parasite.

This meant that if I showed some remarkable talent, I could win Duke Carlotte’s favor.

“Does a pumpkin turn into a watermelon just because it looks in the mirror?”

As I stared at my reflection, lost in thought, a man’s voice came from behind me. I jumped up and turned around.

The moment I saw his sly face, a red alert went off in my mind.

‘It’s Cedrick.’

Cedrick, the eldest son of the Efilia family and the future head of the house.

Jeanne clashed with him more often than with Duke Carlotte.

Cedrick openly disliked Jeanne, or rather, he despised her violet eyes.

Cedrick grabbed my wrist with strong force, pulling me forward.

“Ugh…”

Even though we were both men, Jeanne and Cedrick had a considerable size difference.

There was no way I could overpower him.

I gritted my teeth and glared at Cedrick as the pain in my wrist felt like it would break my bones.

“Why don’t you just leave on your own? If you have any shame, that is. Given that your prophecies keep failing, it seems like you’re lying about being a saintess too.”

I stared silently at Cedrick, who was mocking me.

Even though he was one of the main targets for Luke, the story’s protagonist, Cedrick was still quite handsome despite his annoying personality.

Some readers even called Cedrick “Baby Snake” because of his red eyes and silver hair, seeing him as moe.

But whether Cedrick was handsome or not didn’t matter to me, so I responded in a detached voice.

“Who said that? That I’m lying.”

“Ha, you’re shameless. Your prophecies have all been wrong, and yet you still have the nerve to say that? Father no longer trusts you. He’s only holding off on sending you to a convent out of pity.”

“Okay, okay, stop squeaking and get out. You’re giving me a headache.”

The term “squeaking” was something readers used whenever Cedrick was throwing a tantrum at Luke.

I slapped away Cedrick’s hand and turned my back on him, only for him to grab my hair and pull my head back.

I stared at him defiantly.

“You filthy fake, lying to avoid becoming a slave. Do you think you’re the only woman to do that? It’s obvious you’ll fail the saintess test too.”

“…Wait a moment. Let me ask the Maya god if I’ll really fail the saintess test.”

I clasped my hands together as if in prayer. Cedrick let out an exasperated sigh, and just as he did, I opened my eyes wide and spoke brazenly.

“They say they’re not sure.”

“See, I told you, you were never a true saintess…”

“But just now, the Maya god also told me something else.”

Cedrick could only bicker around because his fiancée was the youngest princess, beloved by the imperial family. But that was also Cedrick’s weakness.

“You have a woman you truly love other than the princess, don’t you?”

Cedrick, the notorious playboy. In the story, Luke uses Cedrick’s promiscuity to threaten him as he was a main antagonist.

“You have a woman other than the princess you truly love, don’t you?”

Of course, Luke had only asked on a whim.

Cedrick was a playboy with women stashed everywhere. But as it turned out, Luke was right.

Despite his cynical appearance, Cedrick was actually quite cowardly.

Luke knew this and used it to subtly pry information out of him, which Cedrick readily gave up out of fear.

I could feel the grip on my hair loosen as Cedrick’s strength faded. I quickly studied his face.

Contrary to the expectation that he would get angry, Cedrick wore a strange expression.

It wasn’t pure rage, nor was it an indifferent look.

It was an expression too ambiguous to describe.

‘…Was Cedrick even capable of making such a face? This feels like he’s somehow stolen Luke’s tactics. But there’s nothing I can do; I’m in a tight spot right now.’

If the imperial family found out he liked another woman instead of the princess, he would be executed at the very least.

After a long silence, Cedrick, with a frown and a trembling voice, finally spoke.

“What nonsense are you spouting? Are you insane? Do you have any proof?”

“You said it yourself, didn’t you? That the people from Sacre are deceitful. Do you know what deceitful means? It means they can fabricate evidence that never existed. And if the one who said it happens to be a saint whose words become prophecies, even more so.”

“…”

“So stop making this harder than it needs to be and get out. I don’t care who you like as long as you stay away from me.”

Cedrick’s expression turned icy again as he pushed me away.

I glared up at him from where I landed on the floor with a thud.

“Ouch, my mistake.”

“…”

“I’ll make sure to mention your fate to my father soon. You’re not the only one who can fabricate stories, you know.”

As soon as Cedrick finished speaking and left the room, I flipped him off behind the closed door.

I knew from the start that getting on his bad side was a foolish move.

But Cedrick was a character who went beyond despising Jeanne to outright loathing her.

And I had no intention of being sweet to a guy who reacted so violently just because he didn’t like Jeanne.

Because Ji Eunsoo wasn’t like that.

When I lived as Ji Eunsoo, I’d apologize first no matter what anyone said, whether it was my fault or not.

I thought that as someone with no money and no family, I’d be hated if I asserted myself too much.

That’s why I accepted the publisher’s offer for daily serialization, even though I knew it was too much.

I was convinced that if I refused, the publisher would despise me.

But the result was my death from overwork.

So at the very least, here, I didn’t want to pretend to be foolishly kind.

‘When I was Ji Eunsoo, I was always timid. But after being reincarnated, I refuse to grovel. I’ll take care of myself.’

I’d scared him enough that he wouldn’t bother me for a while.

After dusting off my rear and standing up, I muttered to myself.

“The real issue is that Jeanne is a ‘fake saint.’ And it’s not just that he’s not a saintess; he’s not even a girl, for crying out loud.”

The Saintess of Maya was a famous figure even within the Empire. Among the girls born on this land, some possessed the powers of the Maya god.

They could predict the future that hadn’t come to pass and communicate with divine beasts or monsters alike—an enigmatic existence known as the Saintess of Maya.

‘But Jeanne never had any prophetic abilities. He was just pretending to be her younger sister, who was the ‘real saint.’’

In the original story, Jeanne never managed to prove that she was the Saint of Maya.

Because of this, she was cast out by Duke Carlotte and eventually… tormented to death by that damned Cedrick.

“With that bastard’s insane drive, she ends up locked in an asylum.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Failing to prove that she was the saint would mean being sent to the asylum.

One might think that hiding out in an asylum would be better than getting caught up in the original plot, but asylums in this era were closer to prisons than treatment centers.

Their so-called treatments included bleeding out the ‘bad blood,’ eating roasted rats, and deliberately breaking bones—acts that were more torture than therapy.

After a year of such torture, Jeanne, already twisted, gradually lost her mind. As a result, he ended up limping.

With his heart and body broken, Jeanne became a character consumed by a desire to bring down the Efilia family.

I sighed deeply, arms crossed.

If things continued like this, I’d be dead before I even met the crown prince, the cause of the guillotine ending.

“I don’t want to please Duke Carlotte, but… I can’t afford to be sent to the asylum just because I wasn’t useful enough. Of course, if Jeanne being a man is exposed first, it’s game over.”

It wasn’t something to be happy about, just because I’d been reincarnated. Unlike the main character, Luke, Jeanne, the villain, had too many enemies around him.

“Even if I want to curse the author, that’s like spitting on my own face.”

Every character’s actions need a motive. To justify Jeanne’s role as an atrocious villain, the story needed to create a situation where Jeanne had no choice but to be enraged.

In a way, Jeanne was both the most wicked and the most pitiable character in my novel.

That’s why readers found it hard to hate Jeanne completely.

Suddenly, I recalled some of the readers’ comments.

---

SeonggolINFP (dslvmvl99): But honestly, I think I would’ve gone crazy too if I were Jeanne. His homeland was destroyed by a civil war, his mom sacrificed herself as a hostage to save his younger sister, he was adopted by a duke’s family only to be mistreated as a fake saint, and because he’s never been loved, he doesn’t even know how to express it, so even Carlisle, the one person she liked, abandoned him… He’s evil but also pitiful.

⤷ [Username]: IKR? That’s why I secretly hoped Jeanne and Jerome would end up together, but man, Jerome, why did you have to be such a jerk too…

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“Jerome, right. There was Jerome.”

Sure, there were various reasons for Jeanne’s downfall, but the biggest cause was ‘Jerome.’ Clenching my fist, I muttered in a determined voice.

“No matter what happens, I must never meet Jerome.”

Dark thoughts swirled around me like ominous clouds.

I shook my head vigorously, trying to dispel the bad energy, when suddenly—

Knock, knock.

The sound of knocking made my shoulders jump. A terrified voice came from behind the door.

“Milady, please open the door. The head maid has insisted that I help you bathe today.”

Since Jeanne was still a noble lady, he needed maids to assist him with bathing or dressing. But if that happened, it would be like announcing to the world, ‘I’m actually a man.’

Scratching my cheek awkwardly, I made up my mind.

And what did that mean?

“…It means I have to throw a fit whether I like it or not.”

* * *