I was a fan of revenge-fantasy web novels.

The world of web novels I discovered amidst my irritating daily life was fantastic.

“Sister, dump that jerk and get yourself a new Mercedes!”

Every time the female lead dumped her cheating loser and upgraded to a handsome man, my wallet would open without fail.

The female leads would dump the losers, bankrupt them, get revenge on backstabbing friends, and multiply their own wealth.

Shedding tears over hardships was not something a revenge-fantasy heroine would do.

For me, living in a frustrating reality, the protagonists of web novels offered vicarious satisfaction.

How refreshing it was to see revenge-fantasy heroines neatly bury all sorts of scumbags in the ground.

Each time, I expressed my gratitude to the author with generous payments and comments.

“Author, please continue the series!”

After reading so many revenge-fantasy novels, I sometimes imagined myself transported into one. I’d be the only daughter of an ancient noble family with money and prestige, but due to false rumors of me being a villain, my fiancé would demand to break off our engagement.

“Is that so? I understand. If you dislike me, I don’t want this marriage either. However, since you’re the one breaking off the engagement, I’ll have to receive a substantial compensation for damage to my reputation.”

Then I’d coolly accept the broken engagement and attend a party to hunt for a new man. People would be unable to take their eyes off the jewels I wore, cursing me while envying me, and I’d revel in their jealousy as I navigated high society!

‘The Black Rose of House Ignes’ – that kind of nickname would be perfect.

I’d be ready to secretly run a mercenary group, take on the protagonist’s requests, enjoy festivals, and even raid slave markets.

Not some extra who gets a brief mention in the original before being erased.

Not some extra who dies an untimely death.

Not some mistreated extra with an unhappy life!

“But to be the extra wife who briefly marries the male lead only to be assassinated soon after? Are you kidding me? Is my life on a time limit? I want a refund!”

One day, as I was fighting with my nasty step-siblings, I died in an accident.

When I opened my eyes, I was in the world of a novel. Fine, nowadays readers of transmigration stories are all prepared to be transported into their favorite novels if they die while reading.

The problem was…

“Lady Anette!”

“Wait, is that… me?”

The name of the body I’d transmigrated into was Anette Porche. The insignificant, mistreated eldest daughter of Viscount Porche, the male lead’s wife in name only who gets a one-line mention of marrying him before immediately dying!

That was who I had become.

“Alright, let’s spin the reincarnation roulette again.”

As an avid reader of revenge-fantasy novels, after quickly assessing the current situation, this was my conclusion. Since I’d already taken the revenge-fantasy route, I needed to discard this body. There was no hope for it.

The fact that I had transmigrated into a novel was an impossible situation to begin with. Since I was already dead, I should spin the reincarnation roulette once more and hope to win a story like ‘I Was the Tyrant Emperor’s Youngest Daughter’ in my next life.

I can do the whole “Papa papa” thing too. If a tyrant emperor showers me with gold bars, I can certainly act cute and lovable.

I admit, I was a bit crazy at that time.

‘The courage you show now will determine your entire life as a transmigrator.’

“Lady Anette, what on earth are you doing!”

“Let go of me, I need to enter a different story!”

“Has this young lady truly gone mad?”

My attempt to restart quickly by banging my head against the wall was, unfortunately, thwarted.

The servants who usually paid Anette no mind were unusually quick-witted at this moment.

I ended up being tied up and confined to my room.

“No! I should have at least tried to cheat at the start of the story! I’m not Anette, I tell you!”

“Do you want to keep talking nonsense after eating such expensive food? No matter how much you dislike getting married, is this how you should act? Calm yourself down in there!”

And so, my attempt to deny reality was foiled.

‘God, please! Even being a villainess who got her engagement broken off would be better, at least she has money and honor!’

But Anette had nothing. Not even a long life span.

Locked in Anette’s room, starving for a day, I thought to myself. Isn’t God being too cruel?

In my previous life, I was a child from a remarried family. My mother had passed away, and my father remarried almost immediately, as if he had been waiting for her to die.

And this body I had transmigrated into, Anette, was in the exact same situation.

‘Don’t tell me you gave me this role because she and I are the same, with no mother and a remarried father?’

I couldn’t find any other connection between Anette and myself.

In my previous life, I was the daughter of an ordinary family, but Anette was the daughter of a great noble family.

In my previous life, my stepmother made an effort to care for me outwardly, not wanting to be accused of discriminating against her stepdaughter, but Anette didn’t even have that. Despite being the daughter of a viscount, her room was old and cold, and even the servants disrespected her.

“And to make matters worse, the marriage to the male lead is already set.”

Didn’t the maid say it earlier? Asking if I was putting on a show because I didn’t want to get married. Those words felt like a death sentence, telling me I didn’t have much time left.

The male lead was meant for the female protagonist. To get involved with such a man?

‘That’s why you end up dead at the hands of an assassin!’

This novel, ‘The Abandoned Saint Goes to the Northern Duke,’ was the first revenge-fantasy novel I had ever read.

As the title suggests, it features a saint and a duke as the main characters, who join forces to defeat the Demon King.

Anette Porche was an extra who didn’t even qualify as a villain in this story.

The male lead was an excellent lord who loved the North, but the North was always a poor land.

At this point, the wealthy southern Porche viscounty, which had poor relations with the North, proposes a marriage along with a dowry, and the male lead accepts a loveless marriage.

Having married Anette without love, the male lead intentionally neglects her by sending her to a separate palace, and Anette lives a lonely life of neglect until she suddenly dies at the hands of an assassin.

Upon hearing of Anette’s death, the male lead shows little reaction.

‘How unfortunate.’

The male lead expresses mild condolences, then finally meets the female lead, his true love, and they live happily ever after – that was the story of ‘The Abandoned Saint Goes to the Northern Duke.’

It was interesting as a reader, but now that I think about it, if the real Anette had seen this ending, she might have returned as a ghost out of sheer resentment.

‘If I had transmigrated into Evangeline, I would have been proudly thinking that the lonely Northern Duke Darius would soon be my man.’

Knowing what was going to happen in the novel would have left me without worries.

But Anette was an extra whose lifeline was nearly at its end, regardless of the events to come in the novel.

‘Wait a minute. Even if I’m Anette, I still know what’s going to happen, don’t I?’

Wasn’t Anette’s problem that she was sent to a separate palace right after marriage, meeting an assassin and dying before she could live a different life?

So what if I try to change that route?

For example, if I use my knowledge of the original story to tell Darius about the things that will happen to him, proving that I can be useful to him?

Then Darius wouldn’t necessarily send me away, right? And if that happens, I wouldn’t meet the assassin, would I?

If I stay by Darius’s side, helping him, watching him meet the female lead, and behaving myself, maybe I could start a second life different from the original story?

‘That’s right, an extra who helps the protagonist has an incredibly high chance of survival!’

I clenched my fist and made my decision.

After the first day’s commotion passed, I quietly assessed the situation. If I had to continue living in Anette’s body anyway, the longer I remained confined, the more disadvantageous it would be for me.

When I kept my mouth shut and stopped shouting, the servants untied the ropes binding me with sharp glares.

“The Duke will be here shortly, so stop acting up and change your clothes!”

The maid leading the way in oppressing me was none other than Anette’s nanny.

When I first woke up in Anette’s body, the first voice I heard was also the nanny’s.

Based on the statistics I’ve gathered as a long-time reader of revenge-fantasy novels, when a fainted female lead just wakes up, the person who says “The young lady has awakened!” is 51% likely to be the female lead’s loyal maid. The other 49% are cases of people testing the waters, trying to bully or take advantage of the female lead.

This nanny, sadly, did not belong to the loyal maid category.

She, who should have been closest to Anette and protected her, was the one most enthusiastically mistreating Anette.

How did I know?

Flip.

The pages of a book tightly bound with leather straps turned.

What I held in my hand was Anette’s diary. When I first discovered this, I was a bit overwhelmed. It was dozens of volumes thick.

‘Does she have this much to say?’

That’s what I thought at first, but…

“‘After my stepmother scolded me, my nanny called me aside and advised me. She said I have a habit of speaking in an unlikeable manner even when saying the same things as others, so it would be better not to speak in front of others as much as possible.'”

‘Wow. This house is really good at crushing a child’s spirit.’

Each page of the diary was a record of how Anette gradually lost herself and became timid.

‘Thanks to this, I can understand what kind of place this mansion is and how Anette has been living, as if I’ve experienced it myself…’

Pfft. Recalling the conversations that were always exchanged at home, I couldn’t help but laugh.

To be honest, this was a familiar situation for me too. The difference was that Anette couldn’t talk back, while I would raise my chin and talk back until my neck broke.