Chapter 2: 02: The Villainess’s Daily Life

Ecclesia gulps down a glass of cold milk with great enjoyment. Another glorious day for being the best villainess!

Her mother grabs her by the collar of her dress when she tries to scamper off. “Ecclesia,” she says, in that soft, sweet voice of hers. “What did your etiquette teacher have to say about what to do when you’ve finished your meal?”

“Oh,” hanging by the scruff of her neck like a kitten, Ecclesia thinks. Very hard. “Um, gochisousama deshita?”

Her mother barely blinks. “Try again.”

Ecclesia makes desperate eye contact with her lord father, who is smiling into his plate as he eats his breakfast. He sticks his tongue out and makes a derpy face. Gosh she loves him so much but he’s such a dork.

Then he notices the expression on his wife’s face, and winces.

“It may not mean much to you, peerless lady Ecclesia,” he says, “but your mother and I are kind of important, you know. So before you leave our presence, you…?”

A lightbulb goes over Ecclesia’s head. “Right! Excuse me, lord father, lady mother!”

“Honestly,” says her mother before she lets her go. “Where are your book smarts when it comes to basic manners?”

Ecclesia knows better than to say, but it’s all so pointless.

When she tried to write down details about her past life, she always ends up drawing a dimly-lit box: a little room that she was always stuffed in, held in place by needing to speak and act and look exactly right. The only joy in her life had been a poorly-written otome game. Sometimes, she feels like the suffocating weight of living like that could still choke her, in this happy new life.

She had been so spineless in her past life. She wants to shake that person by the shoulders.

Ecclesia balls her fists. “I’m just bad at it,” she says sweetly. “Aren’t growing children allowed to be bad at things, Mother?”

“Of course,” her father says, sounding moved.

Her mother simply raises an eyebrow. “Don’t play around too much. Remember that you still have two extra hours of etiquette lessons.”

Ecclesia says, “Blehhhh.”

Her protests go unacknowledged, except for another dorky face from her father. It’s so difficult to be the great prodigy of her time.

*

Out in the training field, she goes up to every knight in her father’s employ and rock-paper-scissors them for a duel. The knights have become very good at rock-paper-scissors as a result: she’s aware that she’s a nightmare to duel with, because she’s small and important but she hisses at them like a wildcat if they dare to go easy on her.

“How is it even possible to lose every match of rock paper scissors!” she says, stomping her foot.

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“We just don’t want to duel with you, my lady,” says one of the knights.

She throws up her hands. “I’m telling my father on you! When you’re on the guillotine—then you’ll see!”

They laugh at her.

Finally, the Captain of the Guard, Horatius, flubs his last throw of paper and defeatedly picks up his training sword.

“Proper form, Lady Ecclesia,” he says, as they take their places.

Ecclesia privately thinks that her own posture of leaning forward works best for her, but she’s here to learn. She straightens.

The bout is short, and brutal. Ecclesia is good, but it comes with caveats: she’s good for her a girl, she’s good for her age. But she tries to remember. She tries to internalize the way Horatius moves, tries to move her own small body in the same ways. Even if she can’t match the strength behind his sword—maybe she can mimic his expertise.

By the end of it she’s panting, her knees planted on the ground. Her mouth tastes of dirt.

“Well fought,” Horatius says, offering her a hand. When she looks up, fondness is written large on his face. He’s young, for a Captain: if he had a daughter, he’d be Ecclesia’s age.

“You are always a miracle to behold, my lady,” he says. “You fight as if it’s in your very bones. Don’t listen to the knights, they’re just teasing. It’s a delight to cross blades with you every time.”

“But I never win.”

“But you keep challenging us anyway.”

She nods. “When I win—you’ll see. You’ll all see!”

He looks even fonder. “I wait impatiently for the day, my lady.”

His faith in her is hard to understand. As she trudges back to the house to terrorize the chefs into making her sweets, Ecclesia thinks very hard about the villainess from the otome game Love Love Revolution. She had been gifted, peerless, but she had fallen in love: it had been her love for the second prince that had caused her downfall.

She had plotted and plotted to put him on the throne, but her love was never requited, and she had been discarded as soon as she outstayed her usefulness.

Why would someone as talented as she was ever gamble everything she was for something so uncertain? Especially when there was so much of the world out there to be conquered, so many people to worship her.

“Your dress is ugly,” she tells one of the maids as she passes. She takes off her earrings. “It’s making me annoyed to look at you. Wear these.”

It’s decided: she’s never going to fall in love with the prince. Any of them.

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