[Ding!]
[Welcome, my dear host! I am System, your lovely guide in this new world! You have one minute to complete your task or you'll die!]
[Task number 1: throw a fruit at your servant Bella. Goodluck!]
Anna blinked, her lids weighing a ton. The annoying dings echoing in her head made her brain vibrate.
"Ten more minutes," she mumbled, thinking she was still asleep.
[Ding! You have exactly fifty seconds left! Remember, the penalty is death!]
At the mention of death, Anna's eyes flew open. The scene before her was unfamiliar. Instead of her cluttered desk at work, it was a lush garden. She looked around, her brows scrunched in worry.
Where am i?
"P-Princess? Is anything the matter?"
Anna looked up to see a girl with…
"Dog ears?"
The girl went down on her knees, trembling from head to toe. "I'm so sorry Princess! I didn't—"
[Host, you have thirty seconds left.]
Anna's gaze scanned the room twice in two seconds. She didn't understand what was going on, but a voice in her head counting down to her death was the kind of thing that happened only in movies and books.
And it never ended well.
She grabbed what looked like a bad, gray rock that might have been cosplaying as an apple, and threw it at Bella.
The fruit bounced off Bella's head with a dull thud. Bella screamed. Her body went limp, her scream cut off abruptly. She fell to the ground with a loud thud, motionless.
Anna rose to her feet, her heart pounding out of her chest. The tip of her nose itched, the way it did when she was frightened. "Hey," she nudged Bella with her foot. The servant didn't stir. Anna scratched her nose, her hand trembling. "Hey. You're not dead, are you? Oh, my goodness did I kill someone?!"
[She's not dead, host. But damn, that was a good throw! Were you an athlete in your past life?]
"I was an office—wait, did you just say 'past life'? What does that mean?"
[You are correct. You died and transmigrated to a fictional world! Your goal is simple, remain the villainess and you'll get the chance to go home to a perfect life!]
Anna's jaw dropped. The words registered but didn't make any sense.
Death? Transmigration? Villainess?
"This sounds like a story," she whispered. But when she ran her fingers through her hair, she found that it was silky and smooth and black, unlike hers that was brown and dry, caked with dry shampoo from how long she had gone without washing it,
She grabbed the closest reflective surface, which happened to be a glass of water, and stared into it.
The face that stared back wasn't hers.
Anna wasn't the most beautiful girl in any sense, but she had a gentle appearance and a kind smile. The kind that made people treat her like a doormat.
The face she had now was that of a supermodel, or billionaire actress. Long black hair not a strand out of place. Pink eyes like gems. And two fluffy cat ears peeing from her head. The woman in the water looked bold, confident, everything Anna wasn't.
A bitter laugh escaped Anna. She touched her cat ears, feeling the warm fur and thin underneath.
Real. Without a doubt, they were real. They twitched as she touched them. She tried to make them move on command and they obeyed, flattening over her head.
She laughed again, disbelieved. "Which book am I in now?"
[Hostie, you're calm about this. Most hosts would be freaking out now.]
Anna shrugged. In her life, she had seen and faced a lot of shocking situations from before she could walk. This easily took the cake, but she wasn't surprised. Years of working under irritable bosses and aggravating colleagues primed her to remain calm under pressure.
Calm as a lake.
"I'll figure it out," she said.
[I'm not allowed to give out information for free. But yes, you were reading this book last night.]
That shocked Anna.
"The one with that evil Princess and her beasthusbands?! The one where she tortured them and terrorized an entire kingdom?"
[Yes! I trust you enjoyed the story?]
"I didn't finish it."
[…]
[What?]
"I don't have much time, whatever you are. There's always work to be done and I'm always available. I didn't finish the book. I stopped at chapter 20, but that was more than enough for me to know that the Princess deserves to die."
[I chose the wrong host.]
Anna's left eye twitched. "Send me back then."
[I wish I could. But until you complete your tasks, I cannot do that.]
Anna nodded and sat down. It sounded like a threat, but she wasn't scared of a bodyless voice in her head. For all she knew, she could be hallucinating. Even though the only addictive substance she had tried was coffee.
She quickly did a mental rundown of everything she had learned.
The last thing she remembered, she was at her desk at midnight trying to finish the extra work piled on her, when everything went silent. Then she woke up here.
Inside a book.
Now she has to remain the Villainess. As if by cruel coincidence, the Princess' name was Anna too. Princess Anna DeMarchess, also known as Princess Orchid, thanks to her beastkin type.
Current Anna had zero knowledge about this book. All she knew was how doomed she was.
[are you done thinking?]
She jumped to her feet with a determined smile. "Yes! How do I get more information about this world?"
[Your next task is up. Seduce your husband, Leon, and hurt him with your spores.]