Harper is a typical high school girl with an annoying younger sister that is obsessed with otome games. Unfortunately, she dies as she saves her sister from getting hit by a truck, and gets reincarnated into her sister's favorite cringey romance gam...
I wake up feeling as though the world were of its axis. I feel disorientated and try to regain my bearings. Finally, the room feels like it's stopped spinning, but I still feel a sense of dizziness. I also feel like I'm burning up, and am drenched in a cold sweat.
I seem to be in a concrete cell, which looks similar to a standard prison cell. On the other side of the room is the black haired boy I saved earlier in shackles. Weirdly, he looks mostly recovered, with most of bruises and cuts gone as if they were never there in the first place.
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It suddenly strikes me how cute he looks. I don't remember any character that fit his description in the game. How was he not one of the capture targets?
I also seem to be in chains, which I attempt to break, but it seems they are either nullifying my power, or I'm too weak right now. Someone must have covered my wounds in bandages. The wounds still hurt like hell. I have no idea what that weapon they used was, but I can't seem to quickly heal from it.
In fact, the wounds seem to hurt more than they normal ones do. It feels as though it's on fire or as if acid were dumped on it. I lift up my shirt to look at the knife wound on my stomach, and gasp.
I can't see the full wound since it's covered in bandages, but the area surrounding the wound has strange bright red streaks shaped like lightning around the wound. Suddenly, the streaks spread till my whole stomach is covered in the streaks.
As it spreads, I feel even weaker than before. My eyelids feel heavy and my muscles ache. The dizziness hasn't gone away either, and feels even stronger than before. I close my eyes, drifting off into sleep in hopes of escaping the pain, if only for a moment.
I wake up again, and look at my wounds. The scary red streaks same to have spread about an inch more than before I fell asleep.
"Where are we?" I ask, my voice coming out weakly.
The boy perks up, surprised I've finally spoken, "The men who attacked us took us to this cell. It was about a two day journey, but you were passed out during that time. They're probably going to sell us. They keep babbling about some sort of auction," he says with an angry look on his face.
"Two days?" I reply, "Why would they go that far just to capture you?"
"How should I know? Humans have always been pretty stupid," he answers. So he's not human. I try to get up to look at him again, but that just intensifies my dizziness, so I just go back down.
"You talk as if you aren't human," I say.
He lets out a scoff, "Of course I'm not. That would be disgusting. I'm a demon," he tells me proudly.
Hmm... I thought demons didn't exist on this continent? In the original game, they were just there to add world building, but they stayed in the underworld the whole time. Although, that does make sense why those guys would go so far to capture him.
It seems that part beasts and beasts in this world are frequently enslaved. Perhaps that was why my mother was only a maid due to their low status. Beasts, despite having human intelligence, are regarded as little better than animals. I imagine they thought a demon was a really powerful beast they could sell and get a lot of money.
"What's your name?" I just realize that I don't his name. Maybe he was in the original game but I don't remember what he looks like.
"Nyx," he answers. I don't remember a Nyx being in the game. It dawns on me that perhaps he died while those kidnappers tried to capture him, and that's why he wasn't in the story. I shudder at the thought.
"My name is Eve Callisto," I tell him. For a moment I considered giving him my real name, Harper, because I'm probably going to die at this rate, since my wounds are rapidly worsening, but I've already committed myself to living this life as Eve, so I might as well go through with it till the end.
I suddenly start coughing up blood, which drips onto the cold concrete floor. That's probably a bad sign. The boy stares at me with a concerned expression. He looks as if he wants to say something to me, and sits there nervously pressing his thumbs together.
"Why did you try to save me?" he finally asks.
"I don't know. Wouldn't anyone do that kind of thing if they saw a kid getting beat up or possibly kidnapped?" I respond, "It hardly matters anyway since we're both stuck here now, and I'm certainly not in any condition to break us free."
He pauses, seemingly mulling over my answer, "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me," he says, staring at his shoes.
I don't think I did anything overwhelmingly kind. I'm not some kind of hero. In fact, last I checked I'm definitely the villainess of this story.
"Then you should find better people in your life," I reply. He looks at me with wide eyes, as if I had said something profound. Honestly, if the people he's with would do nothing when they see a child getting beat up, then he really should find better people.
Then again, the people I've got in this life are pretty crappy, so maybe I should take my own advice. The kindest person I've got right now is probably my dad, but he would sacrifice me in a heartbeat if it meant bettering the family reputation or increasing his power.
Suddenly, I hear the loud clacking of heels approaching the cell.
"GET UP!" screams a woman, "Ugh, I can't believe those nasty wounds aren't healed even though it's been days! That will definitely lower your price!"
Her shrill voice is just intensifying my headache. She opens the cell and pulls the chains connected to the Nyx, causing him to almost fall over. She also grabs my chains with surprising strength, because she seems to be only human. I'm convinced these chains are blocking our powers at this point, since if Nyx is a demon, he should overpower her.
Somehow I manage to walk behind her as she leads us down a hallway of other cells. Most of them are empty by now but one or two of them have scared looking children in them.
At the end of the hallway, she opens a door, and it leads to the wings of a stage. I can see a man in a tuxedo talking to a crowd while a poor girl who can't be older than five is next him. She has blue hair and tearful eyes that look like blue sapphires.
The woman who came to our cell starts unlocking our chains, but keeps the metal collar we have on, which seems to be what's nullifying our powers.
"You're next," she says to me, but I'm too distracted by what's happening on stage to pay attention to her.
"This girl is half-water nymph so she is a rarity! Witness her powers which you can control with our state of the art collars," claims the announcer. A ring he's wearing on his glove starts glowing a bluish hue, and the girl's collar does as well.
The girl has a shocked expression on her face, as her arm lifts and water shoots out of her hand. The water morphs into a rabbit and begins hopping around the stage as the audience applauses. The girl looks frightened and tears fall from her eyes.
The audience then begins bidding on the girl, and she is eventually bought. Another person takes her off the stage, and the audience applauds.
The announcer clears his throat, "And now for the next slave up for auction today, we have a vampire with something else too since she has all kinds of other extraordinary abilities! She is one of the most exceptional items we have today, killing two of our capturers and injuring several others!"
The woman pushes me onto the stage, and I walk in the spotlight toward the announcer.
