Chapter 1
We all know the stories: if you're a girl, you'll be reincarnated as the "villainess" who'll fall in love with the world's strongest man and if you're a boy, you'll be the "fallen hero" who loses ever ything and still somehow ends up stronger than anyone else with half the world's women in love with You. I was at least expecting to land somewhere along those lines. But apparently, seeing as God hates me, I'm a glorified concubine to an edgy dark-haired teenager.
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I wake up with an aching pain beneath my rib cage. I groan when I sit up.
The voice that escapes me isn't my own.
Do I have a cold?
I don't recognize my surroundings. I'm in a dank, dingy dungeon of sorts, I believe. It smells of feces and must.
When I try to stand, the hand that places itself against the moist stone is not one I recognize. It doesn't belong to me.
I jump, frightened, and the hand recoils reflexively back to my person.
What is this?
My side shoots a burning sensation into my stomach as a warning against any other sudden movements I might make.
I don't need to lift the top I'm wearing to examine the wound. There's a gaping ripped hole in a gray jumpsuit I've never seen before and a fat bruise on an unknown abdomen.
What's going on?
Against all objections from the body I could control, I force myself to stand and limp to a bucket in the corner of the cell I found myself in.
Places like this wouldn't have mirrors, but distant torch light and toilet water would give me some idea of my reflection.
I keel over in front of the bucket when I make it to the other side of the room. I squint to see the portrait the still rippling water tried to paint above the human waste.
I gasp.
This isn't me. This body, it's beautiful, to be sure, but it isn't mine!
Dark eyes, an unnatural hair color, flawless skin, and an iconic mole on the upper lip. There's also another bruise on the cheek on this face. I lightly poke it and wince when it stings.
No! What's happening?! I don't understand!
I ignore the rest of the body's pangs as I scramble to the cell's bars.
"Help! Help, please!” I call out.
Someone, anyone.
I hear approaching footsteps and use them to console myself.
Two polished shoes stop in front of me. I look up at the man from my nearly fetal position on the floor. He's dressed officially in unwrinkled fabrics and a sparkling sigil I don't know is engraved over his breast. His facial expression is one unbeknownst to me, but I don't care.
He can help me.
"Please, sir! I don't know where I am and this body is-“
He punches me. I fly a few feet back and am thrown against the nearest wall.
Blood drips from the body's nose while my mind is still trying to make sense of anything.
"Be quiet, Regane, if I hear you screaming again past 'lights out', you're going in the Box," he says with an emotionlessness that terrifies me.
The man leaves without another word but I'm unable to hear him over my wheezes.
It hurts!
I clasp the body's hands over the nose that continued to gush.
I'm trapped! I don't know anything! Regane? I'm not her! Who is- Wait.
I stagger to the shit bucket once more.
Dark eyes, an unnatural hair color, flawless skin, and an iconic mole on the upper lip. Their last name is Regane. Looking like this and being in a dungeon, all of this reminds me of the strangely similar character Backstory in that novel I read.
What was it called? "The Strongest Lowest Rank Hero," right?
Don't tell me... I became a part of that overused trope?! I was reborn?!
I proceed to vomit into the bucket and my gags resonate throughout the dungeon.
I don't exactly remember the plot since it was about the same as any other novel of the same genre, but this novel I think I'm in is about your average teenage boy who starts off weak then becomes overpowered with a gaggle of women following him everywhere.
I only remember this character because of her outlandish looks and phenomenal backstory.
Her name is Artina Regane. Her life's purpose was trying to get revenge on her uncle for her father's murder. Her uncle, who coveted her father's position as baron, was outraged when he named his daughter his successor and had him poisoned. Artina, not being of age nor the socially acceptable gender to inherit the barony, was forced to yie When her uncle destroyed the document that named her the heir. She couldn't do anything about it because not only did no one believe her, but she had no evidence; Her uncle kicked her and her mother out when he seized the barony so that he could change the narrat Ive into whatever he wanted. Artina and her mother went to live with her mother's family where she secretly honed her magic over the years and finally managed to storm her uncle's estate and kill him. Of course, her crime could not be overlooked even if the killing allowed her to inherit the barony. All of Artina's assets were seized and her title was stripped by the royal court. She was sentenced to life imprisonment and resided in this dungeon until the protagonist freed her.
It was a sad tale; Artina's mother even came to see her every week when the dungeon allowed visitors . When I read that, it seemed to me that Artina had already lived an eventful life. She was actually the only reason I read the story; that is, until she fell in love with the main character. The author destroyed her character completely!
And now... I'm that very much the same Artina?! This is bullshit!
I start hyperventilating and accidentally smear some of the now dried blood against my cheek.
What am I supposed to do now?!
