Chap 2-Lady Bennett’s Safety Guidelines

 

When the decision was made to imprison me in the Bastille, I couldn’t help but feel a strange mix of emotions.

The Bastille was near where I first transmigrated into this game.

As a young girl, I was adopted by Duke Bennett and became the notorious Yeon Bennett, known for her wicked behavior.

Eventually, Duke Bennett decided to correct her habits.

He left Yeon confined in an empty mansion with only a few servants and guards.

That mansion was where I first opened my eyes in this world.

Now, instead of the burned-down mansion, only well-maintained graves stood.

I plucked the pretty white wildflowers blooming nearby and placed them one by one in front of the graves.

“It’s been too long, hasn’t it? Sorry. I’ve been a bit busy myself.”

The servants and guards I befriended in this world, the day they were murdered by monsters and the mansion burned down.

The Duke rescued me, the only survivor, and told me the truth, making a deal.

One of the things I asked for in return was for him to take care of their graves.

‘So, the Duke kept his promise.’

In front of Annie’s grave, who was my closest friend, lay a thick book with a strange title, preserved by magic.

It was a book she cherished, even casting preservation magic on it with her meager salary, saying it had to be passed on to her successor.

Thanks to that, I was barely able to salvage one of Annie’s belongings from the fire and place it in front of her grave.

I quietly closed my eyes and began to recall the day I possessed Yeon Bennett, and the day I first met Annie.

…

When I opened my eyes, I was lying in an unfamiliar room.

Unfamiliar patterns on the ceiling, the soft texture of the bed, and a subtle fragrance filling the room.

All of this made me uneasy.

“Ugh… my head…”

As I clutched my throbbing forehead and tried to sit up, I felt something strange.

My body felt light, and my movements were smooth.

A mirror next to the bed caught my eye.

I slowly approached it.

In the mirror, instead of myself, stood a beautiful girl who looked about to enter high school.

Jet-black hair flowed down her shoulders, and clear, large eyes sparkled with bewilderment.

I raised my hand and touched my face.

The girl in the mirror did the same.

As soft, slender fingers brushed against my face, I realized that all of this was real.

Slap

I slapped my cheek with my smaller hand to clear my head.

“Heuk”

The slight pain cleared my mind, and at the same time, a strange sensation ran through my body. Enough to make me groan involuntarily.

But that wasn’t important to me right now. I quickly gathered my senses, somewhat awakened by the pain, and began to recall the night before I fell asleep.

‘Last night, I definitely…’

…

Tales of Etheraysha (TOE).

The game I’m currently obsessed with.

A game where you complete each character’s story by making them the protagonist.

The player must save the world called ‘Terra’ from an evil god with the protagonist character they choose.

The structure itself may be a common RPG setup, but it was gaining popularity with its high-quality story.

The problem was that it still hadn’t updated the final chapter under the guise of Early Access for a whopping three years.

Thanks to that, it was getting a lot of flak from users, and many users were leaving…

But for me, there was a reason to keep playing this game.

“Oh! It’s here!!!”

A dazzling light unlike the usual gacha effects.

I finally got a legendary skin after breaking through the extremely low probability of 0.3 percent.

I’d have to live on ramen until my part-time job money came in two weeks, but I didn’t care.

I lost my parents to a gate when I was young and lived alone for 20 years.

A game character came to me, a single person who had no family like everyone else.

It was ‘Lina’, one of the playable characters in TOE and a saintess candidate.

“It’s okay! I’ll definitely protect you.”

“Wow, crazy…”

An exclamation that automatically popped out the moment I went to the character selection window and put the skin on her.

This is really epic…

Pink hair and a cute face as usual, but that wasn’t important now.

The current season is summer.

That’s right.

Lina’s new legendary skin this time was a ‘swimsuit’.

A dark fantasy world that blocks evil gods, and a swimsuit for a saintess candidate?

So what.

Gamers who care about such minor setting errors in a swimsuit skin of a female character in the game are not qualified to be gamers.

Of course, a bikini is the standard for a swimsuit skin of a female character in the game.

Thanks to that, the huge mass of flesh that even the basic skin, the academy uniform, couldn’t handle, was now revealed even more explicitly.

I poured half of my part-time job money into the skin gacha, but I have no regrets.

No, I’m rather proud.

I was grateful to the TOE developers for creating such an incredible skin.

‘But I still have to do what I have to do, right?’

As it is a world where my favorite character lives and breathes, I am confident that my affection for this game is greater than anyone else’s.

So, what I’m doing now is purely an expression of affectionate opinion towards the game.

Title: I don’t think anyone will be curious about that bitch’s story, so why are you updating it?

Nickname: Lina Stan

Instead of updating the final chapter, you’re releasing that bitch as a playable character?

I don’t know how the story will turn out, but is it even possible to redeem that bitch?

I think it’s barely possible if she becomes so miserable that it’s better to die.

Considering her past actions, she really needs to be abandoned like trash, treated worse than a human being, eat worse than slop, and then kneel and beg for forgiveness.

-Considering the characters that have come out so far, she will be redeemed, but honestly, it’s lame.

-Who cares? Her face is pretty, so she’ll redeem herself and come in lol.

-Honestly, I don’t know what they’re thinking. The design is elaborate, so I knew she would come out, but all she did in the story was harass people around her and troll.

-But this guy has been writing the same post all day. Are you unemployed?

“There’s no way she’ll be redeemed.”

Unlike my favorite character ‘Lina’, who was kind and friendly to everyone, ‘Yeon Bennett’ was the main culprit who made the story bleak by harassing those around her and trolling.

The character I hate the most.

Fortunately, Yeon Bennett was always punished and met a miserable end within the first three acts, no matter which route you chose.

Until now…

A month ago, the game company announced that she would be added as a playable character, and thanks to that, the TOE community was on fire for a while.

Now that some time has passed since the announcement, the heat has subsided a bit.

The game company had previously updated an evil character as the protagonist.

Showing the circumstances of the villain can be met with resistance if done wrong, but if the plausibility is sufficient, it can make people enthusiastic.

And I hate to admit it, but the reason why TOE’s story is praised is because of this redemption.

Honestly… well written.

To the point where the public opinion of the character who was criticized all day in the community was reversed in an instant.

That’s why it’s even more unacceptable.

They must have prepared a great story.

I can’t stand to see praise pouring out on the bitch who harassed my favorite character and other characters every day.

I have to keep adding fuel to the fire to show the developers the will of the users.

‘121 posts, it’s about time it became obvious.’

I immediately pressed the logout button and logged into my 31st throwaway account.

‘I’ll use this account and go to sleep.’

…

‘I thought her face looked familiar.’

All I did yesterday was express the customer’s legitimate opinion in the community with only 31 accounts…

Yeon Bennett.

The villainess of the Bennett Duchy.

The bleak and dark TOE world where you have to constantly prevent the invasion of evil god followers and monsters.

I possessed the worst villain who harassed my favorite character there.

Knock knock

“It’s time for you to wake up, Miss.”

Immediately after the sudden knock, a maid with brown hair and a pretty face opened the door and entered the room.

“Eek.”

The maid screamed with a pale face when she saw me and knelt down.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were awake.”

What?

I didn’t do anything…?

“Haa… it’s okay, get up.”

I got her up for now.

“Y-yes! Are you going to wash? I’ll help you bathe.”

She still looked at me anxiously. I don’t know why she was so flustered, but I decided to send her out first because I thought it would cause unnecessary misunderstandings.

“It’s okay, just go out for now.”

Then she became even paler, and this time she lay down on the ground and almost buried her head in the floor.

“I’m sorry! Please, just spare me this once!”

…What?

‘What is this situation?’

I was shocked inside.

‘What the hell has this crazy bitch been doing!’

…

After barely calming her down and sending her out of the room, I began to calmly sort out the current situation again.

If this is inside the TOE world, there is one thing I can experiment with.

“Appraisal”

When I touched the white cloth placed on the drawer and shouted, a translucent window reappeared in front of my eyes.

[SYSTEM]

“Item appraisal successful.”

Oh! It works!

 

-Premium sanitary pad released by the continent’s best merchant association, Lapelasia.

Effect: You will hardly feel it when worn. It is enchanted with Clean magic, so it will never get dirty.

‘Ah… that’s information I didn’t want to know at all.’

One of the elements that TOE is praised for is that it utilizes game elements as settings in the world, allowing users to accept them with as little sense of incongruity as possible.

The ‘Akashic Record’ contains all the records of the world.

And the ‘System Management Bureau’ edits the information there and provides it to people in various forms through the system.

Providing basic information about items is also one of the functions of the system.

I ignored the embarrassing item information window and checked the next function.

“Status Window”

A translucent screen appeared in front of my eyes.

“As expected.”

The status window is also one of the functions provided by the system, and it serves as a kind of ID card for people in this world.

 

Name: Yeon Bennett

Level: 2

Age: 18

Gender: Female

Affiliation: Bennett Duchy

Ability: None

Unique Ability: Masochist

Only the most basic information is written, so it can only be used for identification, just like the status window in the game.

‘Wow, she acted like that in the story with just this level?’

The starting level was the lowest of all the characters I’ve played so far.

Still, it’s fortunate that she has level 2, which is the level limit for entering the academy…

If she wasn’t a duchess but a minor aristocrat in the countryside, she would have been eliminated without anyone knowing.

But…

Hmm…

“Haa…”

I really wanted to ignore it with gritted teeth, but I couldn’t help but look at it.

“What is this perverted ability?”

How can the ability name be Masochist?

…

After confirming that the system works in this world just like in the game, I immediately turned my attention to Yeon’s unique ability.

Unique ability.

An innate ability that can only exist in one person.

The types and performance vary greatly depending on the person, but most characters who possess it belong to the strong.

In other words, Yeon, who was known as just an incompetent third-rate villain, had a pretty good talent than I thought.

No one in the game knew that Yeon had a unique ability, so she must have been hiding it…

Well, yeah.

If the ability name is like this, it’s right not to say it even if you die.

‘Let’s check what kind of ability it is exactly?’

Masochist (Unique Ability)

[Mental and physical pain makes you stronger. All forms of pain turn into pleasure.]

It was a fairly intuitive ability.

True to the name Masochist, she gets stronger with pain.

The strange sensation when I slapped my cheek to clear my head right after possessing her, I couldn’t pay attention to it because I was out of my mind at the time…

Could that be the manifestation of the unique ability?

With this ability, Yeon’s actions in the game make some sense.

If you get stronger by being criticized by those around you, befitting the word masochist?

In fact, have you been doing those things to use your ability???

‘Hmm… thinking about it that way, she’s even more trashy?’

…

Annie, the exclusive maid of the Bennett Duchess, was trembling in her room with a thick book open.

This book, so thick that it seemed impossible for her slender arms to hold it, was the ‘Bennett Duchess Safety Rules’.

Only dozens of maids were severely beaten and kicked out of the family for being caught on minor faults by Yeon Bennett, and the safety rules were written in their blood.

It contained every detail of how to respond to the duchess’s wickedness, which ordinary people could not understand, and as a result of memorizing this thick book, she was recorded in history as the woman who lasted the longest as Yeon’s exclusive maid.

But she was intuitively aware that even the legendary record was coming to an end.

53.The Duchess will never be awake first in the morning. If you hear an answer when you go to wake her up in the morning and knock, leave immediately and come back in an hour.

Clearly, according to Rule 53, she didn’t hear an answer, so she went into the room to wake up the young lady as usual.

And that complacency brought the worst results.

She was already awake on her own.

Annie began to read the last rule, which was emphasized in very thick letters among the many rules in the manual, with trembling eyes.

10852.If the Duchess wakes up on her own in the morning and does not get angry at you or find any fault with you, leave the duke’s mansion immediately.

The safety rule that she laughed at and passed over when she first read it, saying that there was no way this would happen, was happening now.

She had faithfully followed the rules written in the manual until now, but Annie couldn’t follow the manual this time.

After her father passed away, she needed money for her sick mother’s medicine and living expenses for her two younger siblings.

Tears welled up.

I’ve managed to endure until now, but am I going to die like this?

Ding ding

At that moment, the sound of a bell calling the maid rang in her ears like thunder.

Annie closed her eyes tightly.

My family will survive if I endure here.

She steeled her heart, went outside, and moved her steps to the lady’s room.

Knock knock

“Come in”

When she entered the room, the master, who looked slightly different from usual, caught her eye.

She, who always had a scary and venomous expression, was looking at her with a more gentle look than usual.

There was no mention in the manual that she could make such an expression?

This was not good.

It seemed that the next rule in the manual would be written in her blood.

At that moment, the lady’s mouth opened.

“That… I think I’ve been too harsh on you guys. I’m sorry. I really want to apologize.”

What…?

Annie’s mind stopped at the unbelievable situation.

Thud

And soon her head became dizzy, and she collapsed to the floor as it was.

Author’s Note

I’ve been thinking about it… The protagonist is going to suffer a lot, but I thought it was okay because she’s a masochist, so I put a tag on it as “mild abuse”… But thinking about the future developments, I think it’s more like full-on abuse, so I changed the tag to abuse.

Tag changed back to “abuse”!

Thank you for reading!!!