Prince, Let's Just Walk On the Villain Path - Chapter 0

Prologue

There is a villain in every novel.

She wholeheartedly believed that if she made the villain turn over a new leaf, surely she would have a happy ending.

“…..Elphi. There’s a safe behind the frame. The way to open it…….”

Elphi Inard stared at the guy talking to her, looking at him in vain.

The beauty of his pale face was radiant despite it being apparent that he was at death’s door, traces of life slowly disappearing from his figure. Blood pooled underneath his body, soaking the floor and glistening like molten wax, staining the floor red.

According to the novel which she had read, he was not a character who would die in vain, especially in such a place.

“Prince, please do not talk anymore. It will aggravate the wound! I will…I will call the wizard, so…!”

“It’s not the wound that is killing me; it’s the curse. Calling the wizard and trying to use healing magic is a futile attempt. It’s useless.” 

“Th… then I will call a sorcerer and have them undo your curse.. ..!”

“Don’t do that, Elphi. I have to die for you to live.”

Now, it seemed even more difficult for him to talk, as he broke the words into smaller, more manageable syllables and pronounced them one by one, chest heaving with the exertion. However, despite the amount of pain he was clearly in, he still managed to smile brightly as if to reassure Elphi, who was on the verge of tears.

She trembled as she knelt down at the prince’s side, who was already drenched in scarlet blood.

Tron Threadenium.

The third prince of the Kingdom of Threadenium, who grew up as a commoner and was reinstated as a prince later.

“Prince….No, I don’t like it. I don’t want any of that!”

“Elphi, you have to stay alive. It’s what I…” The phrase ‘I want’ was never spoken. His final words died upon his lips and were carried away by the wind.

‘Where did it go wrong? She asked herself.

‘Raising the prince to be a nice person? The fact that I didn’t throw him away? …or it’s because I was reincarnated as the character of this novel?’

She recalled that the protagonist in numerous novels that had transmigrated into a fictional world, they helped the villain change into a good person and achieve a happy ending. So thinking along those lines, she had believed that there would be no problems if Tron, the antagonist of the novel, grew up to become a good person.

‘…with no grounds, no basis, I naively believed that.’

Tears blurred her vision.

In fragmented sentences, Tron described the route that would safely lead her out of the castle but Elphi couldn’t focus on listening properly and committing the information to her memory.

Her mind was flooded by only regret. It caused her unbearable pain to him, who she  had considered as a brother, and family for six years, in such a state.

“…Elphi….lastly….”

The whisper nearly faded away into the wind.

“…Can I kiss you?”

She leaned over him, tears still streaming down her face. The droplets rolled down the planes of her cheeks and fell onto his face. They lightly touched their lips together in a gossamer, slightly wet kiss. As soon as their lips parted, Tron sighed in relief.

Simultaneously, all the life he had been clinging to seemed to flee his body with that last exhale. There was no point in grasping him by shoulders and shaking his body back and forth or putting pressure on his heart.

Tron Threadenium had died.

“Aaaaaahhhh!!”

She squeezed her chest in remorse as she was flooded with guilt, blaming herself.

‘It’s all because of me. Because I did something useless.’

All sorts of regrets flowed into the form of tears.

‘God, if you’re here, please hear my prayer. Please save Tron, the Prince. I will not let him die in vain.’

She reminisced about days past, a particular memory kept playing in her head- the day she met him six years ago.