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Returning to my room, I wasn’t in a good mood at all. Having directly confirmed from his own mouth that the boy locked underground is indeed Cassis Pedelian, there was no way I could feel good.
Damn it. How am I supposed to overcome this crisis?
Why did I have to be born into this hopeless villain family of all places?
To explain why I’m so concerned about that boy, I have to first talk about the contents of that book. It’s the same book that detailed the Agriche family and my future.
Before I died in a car accident in my previous life, I had read a certain romance novel. It was right before I got busy with my graduation thesis, a friend from the same department recommended it, saying it was a hugely popular book these days.
I didn’t originally have a hobby of reading romance novels. But at that time, I was unusually free and bored, so I decided to give the book my friend lent me a try.
The title was Flower of the Abyss. Yeah, you can probably tell from the title, but this was a decadent romance novel. As I turned the pages, I felt like I just wanted to throw the book away.
Because this was a 19+ reverse harem novel where the heroine, Sylvia, engages in intense kidnapping and confinement romances with various male protagonists.
The background of this book was quite unique. Roughly, five families—Blue, White, Red, Yellow, and Black—dominate this world, and the family the heroine Sylvia belongs to is the ‘Blue Pedelian.’
The story starts from the heroine’s girlhood. Sylvia was a beautiful and lovely girl with mysterious silver hair tinged with blue and brilliant golden eyes like sunlight.
She was born into a wealthy and harmonious family, raised with overflowing love and without any lacks. She had one older brother above her, and the sibling bond between them was extremely close.
Usually, siblings don’t get along well most of the time, but the protagonist siblings in this novel were nothing like that. To put it exaggeratedly, these two loved and cherished each other so much that they could give up their livers and gallbladders if the other wanted.
Hmm, honestly, when I saw that, I scoffed, thinking, ‘As expected of fiction.’
Anyway, getting to the point.
The heroine’s tragedy begins when her precious older brother suddenly goes missing one day. At that time, the heroine was fifteen years old, and her brother was seventeen.
Yes. You probably already guessed it, but that kidnapped older brother of the heroine is none other than Cassis Pedelian, who’s currently locked in our house’s basement. As the heir of one of the ruling noble families, the Pedelians, he had long been called the ‘Blue Young Noble’ and participated in the family’s official duties.
That day, Cassis set out to investigate suspicious movements detected near the border and then vanished without a trace. Naturally, the heroine and her family went all out to search for Cassis.
They had a hunch about where he might be. It was the ‘Black Agriche,’ who had been at odds with the ‘Blue Pedelian’ for a long time.
No wonder they were pitch black inside no matter how much you scraped, their name is even Black Agriche. It couldn’t be a more fitting name for my family.
The justice-upholding Pedelians and the despicable Agriche, who committed all sorts of vile deeds, could never get along from the start. Moreover, around that time, the head of the Pedelians and the head of the Agriche had a major falling out. So, Sylvia’s family thought the Agriche must have taken Cassis.
That was correct. But they only had suspicions, no solid evidence. Since the Black Agriche held a position equal to the Blue Pedelian, they couldn’t act easily on mere suspicion.
Still, they couldn’t just sit idle, so they secretly infiltrated spies into the Agriche, but they always came back as corpses.
Like that, three years passed.
Of course, Sylvia hadn’t given up searching for her brother even by then. Now eighteen years old, Sylvia decides to personally track down her brother’s whereabouts.
But this novel isn’t called a 19+ decadent reverse harem for nothing…
The places Sylvia heads to for information are the other White, Red, and Yellow families, and the male leads there are all complete lunatics. In my view, none of them were in their right minds. They fall for the heroine and go on kidnapping and confinement romance sprees.
After I finished the book, I thought it was a gathering of total crazies. Even in the Black Agriche, a lunatic who falls for Sylvia appearance.
Sylvia gets kidnapped by this lunatic too. In a way, thanks to that, she easily infiltrates the enemy’s den that she’d been dying to enter without lifting a finger.
And there, she learns the fact that her brother Cassis died miserably in the Agriche. After that, Sylvia turns dark and joins hands with the other White, Red, and Yellow male leads who fell for her to destroy the Agriche.
Then they form a reverse harem and live happily ever after… If only that were the case, the decadent novel’s reputation wouldn’t hold. In the end, the heroine Sylvia becomes a plaything for the other male protagonists and lives locked in a birdcage—that’s the plot of this Flower of the Abyss.
Damn it.
Sylvia is one thing, but in this novel, the Agriche gets utterly destroyed. The Pedelians’ fury is immense, and they massacre the entire Agriche without leaving a single seed behind. The male leads from the other families also take the lead in exterminating the Agriche to help the Sylvia they adore.
One more thing, the Roxana Agriche I reincarnated into is also a villainess side character in this novel. Curious about her role? In a way, she’s a pretty cliched character…
She’s the character who tries to seduce the heroine Sylvia’s men on her father’s orders, fails, and then dies miserably along with the Agriche massacre.
“Ah, seriously. Can’t I just reincarnate again…”
I muttered my umpteenth lament. Truly, isn’t that just like a line from a villain character in a villain family?
Still, to go that far just for being a member of the Agriche. Now that I’m actually part of the Agriche, it feels like an unfair collective responsibility.
But honestly, this family deserves to be uprooted when the chance comes. Having lived here, I’ve seen that everyone in this house is at least somewhat abnormal in one way or another.
This damned family has a talent for driving even sane people mad. If you can’t adapt here, there’s only one end, disposal. Treated as defective goods and killed, just like my brother Asil. Suddenly, the events of the day Asil was executed came to mind.
I wasn’t without thoughts of just running away from this rotten dump either. But even as a promising talent of the Agriche, I had no confidence in completely evading the eyes of this family teeming with terrifying people and hiding away.
Knock knock.
At that moment, the sound of someone knocking on the door rang in my ears.
“Lady Roxana. It’s Emily.”
“Come in.”
Soon the door opened, and a woman with an expressionless face entered my room. She was my trusted subordinate, who came to find me at this time every day.
Emily held a tray in her hands. Inside it was a glass of water and a white paper folded twice.
“Report.”
“Netarium tolerance has entered stage 5, so starting today, the dosage has been increased by 0.2 ferron. At a level reaching the lethal dose of 4.7 ferron, side effects such as abdominal pain, temporary paralysis, and vomiting blood, which weren’t present in the previous stage, may occur.”
I indifferently picked up the packet of medicine and poured the white powder inside into the glass of water. To others’ ears, the explanation might sound a bit brutal, but this was nothing much.
Anyone from the Agriche starts ingesting poison little by little from childhood to build tolerance. They meticulously measure and consume only the amount their body can adapt to, so no one dies in this process. Therefore, even if the amount I’m taking now is the general lethal dose, I won’t actually die from it.
I had already finished the basic tolerance training long ago, but now I was ingesting poison for personal reasons.
“What is Jeremy doing right now?”
“He’s in his room.”
As I asked casually before Emily could leave with the tray again, an immediate answer came.
Jeremy was my half-brother who, along with Charlotte, had been eyeing Cassis Pedelian. I’d been keeping track of his whereabouts intermittently since yesterday, and in my opinion, it seemed about time for him to come looking for me.
“Sister!”
Speak of the devil.
As soon as Emily opened the door, a loud shout came from right in front of it. He pushed Emily aside and quickly entered the room. The pretty boy’s face with black hair and blue eyes came into view.
He was none other than Jeremy, the villainess sub-male lead in the novel who kidnaps the heroine to the Agriche and causes the family’s downfall.
“Sister, when did you come back to your room? I came looking for you earlier too…”
Jeremy whined as he walked over, then suddenly turned back as if realizing something.
“What are you doing, still standing there like an idiot? Get out already?”
It was a completely different cold glare and tone from how he treated me. Jeremy glared at Emily, who was still standing by the door. He had barged into my room without permission, yet he was treating her like an intruder. He seemed quite annoyed by her presence.
But Emily was my subordinate. Instead of leaving the room right away upon hearing Jeremy’s words, she looked at me. Her eyes were asking whether to chase out Jeremy, who had entered without permission, or just let him be.
“You can go, Emily.”
Only after I spoke did she quietly bow and exit the door. Jeremy’s chilling gaze landed on Emily’s retreating back. Of course, he wouldn’t touch my people without permission, but he seemed somewhat irritated by Emily’s attitude.
“Jeremy.”
Click. The door closed completely, and I called him with a slight annoyance.
“Come here.”
Of course, I didn’t show such emotions outwardly. After all, to this guy, I was the kind and affectionate older sister. At my call, Jeremy reluctantly tore his gaze from the door and approached me. I extended my hand to him.
“The room was empty when I came earlier. Where were you?”
Jeremy took that hand without hesitation and plopped down at my feet. Leaning his face against my leg, he looked just like a dog wagging its tail at its owner.
I understood why Jeremy had tried to shoo Emily out quickly. He couldn’t let anyone else see him like this. He must have been quite disappointed at striking out when he came looking for me earlier, as his face was a bit sulky.
I answered Jeremy’s question without flinching.
“The hatching room.”
“The poison butterfly hatching room?”
“Yeah.”
In truth, I had gone to see Cassis Pedelian in the underground prison, but I didn’t say that. Jeremy seemed to take my excuse at face value, furrowing his brows.
“Are you really going to hatch that?”
“Since it’s the last remaining egg, we have to succeed this time.”
“I wish it would just die like last time.”
“It’d be a shame if there’s no result after going through the trouble to get it.”
But Jeremy still looked dissatisfied. I knew he was worrying about me right now, so my heart softened a bit.
In the novel, Jeremy was a somewhat foolish villain character who gets enchanted by the heroine and spills all the family’s secrets and scandals. But since he’s still young, he had quite a cute side like this. His personality was a bit dirty, but it was standard for the Agriche, and he was docile toward me.
“You mean the toy Father brought this time.”
Jeremy, who had been acting spoiled with his head on my knee, suddenly brought up Cassis Pedelian as if it had just occurred to him.
“They won’t even let us approach it, so it doesn’t seem like an ordinary guy. Who the hell is it?”
“Who knows.”
I already knew, but as expected, he seemed quite interested in the new toy underground.
“It does seem like no ordinary bet.”
At my casual remark, Jeremy’s body twitched for a moment.
“What, Sister’s interested too?”
Soon, he lifted his face that had been buried in my leg. He must have keenly caught something from my reaction just now.
“Sister, you’ve never shown interest in toys before.”
Jeremy stared at me intently. His bright blue eyes were scrutinizing my face.
“Yeah, but this one seems a bit fun.”
I gladly responded to his reaction. Seeing my gently smiling face, Jeremy narrowed his eyes.
“Hmm, is that so?”
After pondering for a moment, he soon rested his chin on my leg again and looked up at me.
“Then I won’t take it from Sister.”
For Jeremy to yield a prey he’d set his sights on was a huge deal. But I already knew he would say this. In his eyes glancing up at me slyly, there was a faint sense of expectation.
This meant ‘Aren’t I nice? Praise me quick!’
I smiled brightly and stroked Jeremy’s head. Then, like a well-fed beast, he rubbed his head against my hand with a satisfied face. The purring sound he made was just like a cat’s.
I mustn’t forget that this guy is a beast. But seeing him cling to me and crave affection like this, no matter what, he was still just a fifteen-year-old kid. I’d known for a long time what Jeremy wanted, and I gladly fulfilled his wishes. Jeremy, receiving my touch, looked content.
I’m glad you’re moving according to my will too.
With my hand affectionately caressing him, my heart thought that somewhat dryly.
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