Chapter 1:
The Duke’s Daughter Reverses Fate
OW!
The first thing I felt was pain. I had been lightly resting, but the pain woke me, and I regained “myself.”
If only I had awoken earlier.
I think most women, not just me, would think such a thing if they were on the floor, being held down by one strong man and surrounded by more. If this were a kidnapping, perhaps I could have allowed myself the sweet delusion that a prince on a white horse might soon appear to save me. Unfortunately, I was not currently being kidnapped—I was being convicted. Since I was the perpetrator of the crime rather than the victim, there would be no salvation for me.
I needed a bit of time to process what was happening, so I quickly reviewed what I knew of myself.
My name was Iris. Iris Lana Armelia, first daughter of Duke Armelia, a leader of the kingdom of Tasmeria; a flower in her prime at sixteen years old, if I did say so myself. My father was the head of state, while my mother was the daughter of a general. Their place in the upper echelons of Tasmeria’s nobility meant our family was second only to the royal line.
But if I were to be more accurate, the current “me” was a mixture of Iris and another personality. My other half was from a country called Japan, and I had been an everyday working woman until I died in my thirties.
I had been a workaholic, and I was on my way home from a late night at the office when I died in an accident. The pain I felt just now in this world had suddenly awakened my past personality and memories. It was more or less exactly like that common trope wherein a character is overcome with fever and then awakens to their previous lives. That was how “I” and “I” combined.
Although now was probably not the time to come down with a fever.
To wit, after this fusion, I scanned my memories and had one thought: This place was exactly like the world of that game I was playing! I had no time for love in my previous life, yet I had still possessed the heart of a maiden that yearned for those sweet palpitations. Thus, I’d become hopelessly addicted to dating sims. I recalled spending all my breaks and evenings basking in their healing powers…
Ah, my bad. This wasn’t the time to reminisce.
My current world was exactly identical to the one in a game I’d recently played: You Are My Princess, or YAMP for short. The story took place in a pseudo-medieval European setting, and you took the role of a low-class baron’s daughter in a sort of Cinderella story where you met the top-ranking young nobles of an elite academy. It was a terribly common setup.
Your romance options were the haughty second prince, the athletic knight captain’s son, the aloof prime minister’s son, and the mysterious son of the Darryl pope. They were all pretty generic character types for the sort of story they were in.
Of course, there was also the cliché rival character as well: the person who interfered with the protagonist’s romances and bullied them. In this case, that was the duke’s daughter, fiancée to Second Prince Edward Tone Tasmeria. In other words, me—Iris.
If the protagonist, the lowly baron’s daughter, tried to romance Edward, Iris came crashing in and did her best to disrupt her dates, even bullying her. But even a duke’s daughter is just a girl unto herself. Without her father’s power, the most Iris could ever do was say nasty things.
When I played YAMP, I remembered hating Iris. She ended the story confined to her home, disowned, and ultimately banished to a Darryl nunnery. At present, I couldn’t help but pity her and think her punishment shouldn’t have gone so far. After all, if you think about it, the protagonist approached an engaged man and initiated an illicit love affair. Normally, you’d consider that sort of person a villain, right? Anyone would hate them.
That said, no one in my current situation was willing to listen to my side of the story. I was all alone without any allies.
We were currently in the academy dining hall. Since all the students lived in campus dormitories, they all ate here. Being a dining hall used by children of nobility, it was of course a grand building. The ceiling rose high above us, and large windows spaced at regular intervals captured the light above. Chandeliers dangled from multiple ceiling arches, illuminating perfectly aligned long tables. It was in this location, where every member of the academy congregated, that the game’s ending took place.
Before me stood the heroine and three of her romance targets. We were surrounded by a gaggle of fools—I mean, academy students—watching us. As for me, I was restrained by the fourth romance target, forced onto my knees.
The wood flooring felt strangely cold.
Seriously, shouldn’t my previous life’s memories have awakened when I was still a young child? Why had they waited so long to return? At this point, the deck was completely stacked against me.
“If you have an excuse for your repeated transgressions against Yuri, now is the time to explain, Iris.” Prince Edward’s stern tone echoed. He looked down his nose at me, his gaze the epitome of contempt. That was the prince of a nation and a romance target for you. If I weren’t on trial, I’d have loved to study his beautiful face for hours.
That flaming, crimson hair, those lambent black eyes… The features that normally made him so attractive only instilled fear in me now, amplifying his overpowering presence.
Yet I tore my eyes away.
“Would you kindly unhand me?” I asked the man restraining me.
The knight captain’s son, Dorssen Kataberia, was powerful, and my arm was in serious pain. He ignored me, tightening his grip instead. He was always the silent type, so I hadn’t exactly expected a response. It was just that it hurt quite badly, and I really wished he’d let go.
“You’re hurting me. Please, release me. Don’t you see the absurdity in you, the son of Knight Captain Doruna, a man sworn to protect the weak, forcefully restraining a frail girl like me?”