Ofilienne Binna Moretti.
A villainess who would stop at nothing — not even wickedness — to seize power.
The living embodiment of a rose in full thorn.
On the surface, she seemed warm enough to embrace the whole world, yet beneath that warmth she concealed a poisoned barb capable of destroying anyone.
Her end is a hollow one.
Every last sin she has committed is laid bare, and she loses her head to the guillotine.
She had been quite the memorable villain — the kind that lingers in the mind long after the story ends.
"There you are, Mati."
And I —
I never could have imagined, not even in a dream, that I would become her little brother.
* * *
The Moretti — foremost house of mage-lords in the empire.
My family was a branch line of the Moretti.
Among them, I was something of an anomaly: I had been born with the ashen hair and ashen eyes that were said to be the Moretti's very emblem.
But around the time I turned four, my father — a minor bureaucrat — was arrested on charges of embezzling public funds, and our household collapsed overnight.
My mother handed me over to the main family.
It was no different from selling me for coin.
"From this day forward, you are a Moretti. Conduct yourself accordingly."
The reason was simple enough.
Their son had died, and they needed an heir to carry on the family name.
And so I — a mere branch-line nobody — was placed in the seat of successor to a great house.
My sixteenth birthday.
The memories of my past life came flooding back.
Over the self I had built in this world, the memories and common sense of a previous existence poured in like a tide.
I spent nearly a week in confusion, but I had since found my footing.
And I realized: this world was the very game I had played in my past life. Along with that realization came a Status Window.
Matyos Binna Moretti.
I had become the little brother of a villainess who didn't even appear in the main story.
For the past twelve years, I hadn't the faintest clue. To think that the woman I had lived under the same roof with all that time was a villainess of the highest order.
All those years, I had been foolishly guileless around her.
I had believed we could become a real family, and on that belief alone I had smiled and reached out to her.
The longing to be loved had always pushed me one step further forward.
I had believed, without a shred of evidence, that the cold hardness in her heart would thaw someday.
'No need for that anymore.'
Because I now understood her wicked nature.
And I understood, too, that no amount of effort would ever win her heart.
After turning sixteen, I kept my distance from her.
No more throwing tantrums to sleep beside her, no more wheedling her to play with me.
I maintained the same indifference I would show a stranger.
'In the original story, I didn't exist.'
'Matyos Binna Moretti' was a character absent from the source material.
But it seemed my reincarnation had inserted me into it. That was no small change.
'In the original, without me, Ofilienne simply became the successor.'
Servan, the Family Head, had been unable to find a male candidate even among the branch families, and so he had reluctantly named Ofilienne as Young Lady of the house.
'But… since I was adopted, I've become the single greatest obstacle in her path.'
Just thinking about how much that power-obsessed madwoman must resent my existence sent a chill crawling down my spine.
One day, my adoptive father summoned me to his study.
"…Is that truly the limit of your ability? I am disappointed. She is your sister — two years your senior, no more. So tell me: in what single thing do you surpass her? Refinement, etiquette, magic, swordsmanship, economics, bearing. You have none of it."
"I apologize."
"I will not confer upon you the title of Young Lord."
By custom, a male heir was recognized as Young Lord in the year he turned seventeen — and he was saying he would withhold that recognition.
Servan tapped the armrest of his chair, a cigarette burning between his fingers.
Tap. Tap.
"Prove yourself. Prove through your ability that you are worthy of this seat. Next month is the academy enrollment. Your sister claimed the top rank through sheer excellence."
At seventeen, one enrolled in the academy.
It was an unspoken rule woven into the fabric of noble society.
"I do not expect you to take the top rank. Second, at minimum. Do not bring home marks so wretched that others mock you."
"…"
"Now get out."
And just like that, I was stripped of my place as Young Lord.
Was I heartbroken?
'Couldn't be happier.'
Even before I had recovered my past-life memories, I had never been particularly fond of the Young Lord title.
Young Lord — the power that came with it would be immense, certainly.
'And what good would that do me? It's tedious, and it's exhausting.'
I was a noble.
The son of a distinguished house. Money and influence — I had enough of both.
Life is short, and I was already busy enough enjoying it. Why should I spend it crushed beneath the weight of duty?
'If anything, this works out better. If I bow out of the succession race now, Sister won't need to bother with me.'
I felt sorry for the retainers who had thrown their support behind me, but my mind was made up.
I would not shoulder any great responsibility. I had no desire to. I simply wanted to live out my days in comfortable leisure.
After the scolding from my father, I threw myself into idleness with even greater enthusiasm.
Sleeping in was the baseline; I indulged in every pastime available to a man of my station.
'This is what it means to enjoy pleasure without responsibility.'
I was leaning against a tree, reading a novel at my leisure, when it happened.
A scent of roses drifted in on the breeze.
Before I had even registered it, someone drew close and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
"There you are. Mati."
"…Sister."
Ashen hair spilled into the edge of my vision.
I turned my head, and there she was — her face resting against my shoulder, smiling.
The smile was soft, but whatever lay behind it was not something easily read.
Ofilienne Binna Moretti.
The woman who would one day be called the worst villainess of her age.
She looked down at me with the same ashen eyes as mine, as though she had been sitting there since long before I arrived.
"…What is it?"
"You're always out here reading by yourself. I thought I'd come see."
She dropped down beside me, settling herself onto the ground. The scent of roses grew richer.
"I miss the old days. When you were little, you'd come to my bed every night saying you were too scared to sleep alone."
"…I suppose I've grown past the age for that."
"Even so, I can't help feeling a little put out."
"Sister."
"Yes, little brother?"
"What if I didn't go to the academy at all?"
Ofilienne didn't answer.
She simply stared at me for a moment, then tilted her head slightly.
Her ashen hair slid over her shoulder and caught the sunlight.
"And what would that mean?"
"…I don't particularly want to become Family Head, and I don't have the ability for it either. It would be miserable. And I hate miserable things."
Her gaze moved slowly across my face.
As though searching for the traces of a lie.
"So? You, a noble, are saying you won't go to Porca?"
For a noble, the academy was not optional.
If you carried blue blood in your veins, it was a rite of passage you simply had to undergo.
"I just… I like painting. Rather than going there to study, I'd rather stay here and draw flowers and animals to my heart's content."
I kept my expression as guileless as I could manage.
So she wouldn't see me as a threat.
But this much, at least, was no lie.
I genuinely loved those things. Painting, novels, watching the scenery. I adored them.
"Hmm."
The corner of Sister's mouth curved upward, just slightly.
The expression of someone who had found something interesting.
"So I need you to help me convince Father. If I go alone, I'll just get scolded again."
I looked up at her.
Ofilienne pressed a slender index finger to her lips, tapping them lightly as though deliberating.
That single gesture stretched the moment out.
A little while later —
"Well… all right. Mati."
She opened her arms and drew me into a gentle embrace, stroking my hair.
"If that's what my little brother wants."
She smiled brightly.
* * *
The following day, I went with Sister to Father's study.
We stopped before the door of dark wood and knocked.
"Come in."
There was no question of who it was.
His voice carried the certainty of a man who had already known we were coming.
The senses of Servan, high mage, extended far beyond the bounds of ordinary human perception.
'…In the game, he died a meaningless death for Sister's sake.'
Near the end of the story.
Just before Ofilienne's crimes were exposed and she fell from grace, Servan had poured every last scrap of his power into protecting his daughter.
But his daughter was imprisoned, left to await execution.
Servan went so far as to commit treason against the imperial house in his attempt to save her, and in the end he died at the Sword Saint's hand.
He looked like the sort of man from whom you couldn't draw a single drop of blood even if you stabbed him — and yet he had been utterly, hopelessly devoted to his daughter.
Hardly the same as how he regarded an adopted child like me.
'On my own I might not manage it, but if Sister asks alongside me, he'll listen.'
"What is it. Both of you."
Servan glanced at me and Sister, then returned to his work.
I looked at Sister.
She stood with her hands clasped behind her back and gave a small jerk of her chin — a signal to speak.
Was I supposed to start?
"Um, Father—"
I opened my mouth, hesitant.
"Family Head."
The correction came immediately.
His gaze never once left the documents.
"…Family Head."
"Speak."
Only then did his eyes come to me.
Servan dislikes unnecessary words and unnecessary emotion. Keep it clean. Say only what needs to be said.
"I will not be attending the academy."
Thud.
The fountain pen was set down on the desk.
He removed his square-framed spectacles with a gloved hand.
Then he raised eyes the color of frost — grey and cold enough to cut.
"Again."
The moment our gazes met, my heart lurched into a frantic rhythm.
He was so far beyond me in every way that the mere act of him showing emotion pressed down on me like a physical weight.
"Ah, ah… th-that, hic! I don't want to go to the academyyy…"
My throat seized.
My pronunciation fell apart entirely.
"Pfft—"
Ofilienne pressed her fist to her mouth.
Then she caught Father's eye and smoothed her expression.
His gaze swung back toward me.
"Why? You said just yesterday that you would go."
He was genuinely curious.
"Th-that is — I simply cannot do it. I might manage to graduate somehow, but I will never surpass Sister."
"Who asked you to surpass your sister? You need only follow in her footsteps."
"…I cannot. Sister is so exceptional that trying to follow her would only leave me humiliated."
"You are giving up before you have even tried? Is that how I raised you?"
"…"
"So what you are saying is that you intend to renounce your claim to the Family Head's seat?"
That was what it amounted to.
Saying he wouldn't go to the academy meant saying he was stepping away from politics entirely.
"Yes."
I swallowed and pressed on.
"…I am fond of painting. But the seat you occupy, Family Head, stands at a height I could never hope to reach. Sister would be far more suited to it than I."
I delivered the words I had prepared, smooth and unhesitating.
Father leaned forward and folded his hands together.
He studied me with those searching grey eyes and continued.
"Even a year ago, you showed promise. I thought you might one day succeed me. What has changed you so?"
I glanced sideways at Sister.
"…Sister."
"Ofilienne?"
"Yes. She's the reason I changed."
In that instant, a faint blue vein rose at Sister's elegant temple.
She seemed to think I was mocking her.
But I wasn't.
"I fall far short of Sister in every regard. Even if I were to become Family Head, I have no confidence I could lead this house. I am soft, and I am weak."
"…"
"…But Sister is different. She has presence in abundance, and her abilities surpass anyone her age. Family Head — this decision was not made on impulse. I thought it through the entire night before arriving at it. Please, consider what I have said carefully."
I bowed at a full ninety degrees.
I stole a glance at Sister's expression.
I had praised her so thoroughly my tongue should have worn down to nothing. Surely even she would be satisfied with—
Cold.
'…?'
A pair of frost-grey eyes looked down at me.
It was not a warm gaze.
What was that?
…What had I done wrong?
"Tch. Thin as it may run, you carry Moretti blood — and you haven't a shred of perseverance to show for it."
Family Head Servan clicked his tongue.
"Very well. So you intend to spend your days eating and idling, just as you do now?"
"I intend to leave the domain."
At that, for some reason, the hands clasped behind Sister's back gave a faint tremor. It lasted only a moment, but I saw it clearly.
Father's eyes widened.
"Leave?"
"Yes. So as not to stand in the way of Sister's succession, I will take up residence in the capital — permanently."
A person with political influence exerts that influence whether they intend to or not.
Even against my wishes, people would gather around me.
So the solution was simple: go to the capital, far removed from the family.
'And honestly, the capital is livelier anyway.'
I would spend the rest of my days in the capital, living in comfortable excess. Sweet food and pleasant diversions awaited me.
"Father~"
Just as I was about to secure an easy approval, Sister's voice cut in.
She drew my arm toward her with practiced ease and said:
"I'd like Mati to come to the academy with me."
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Excuse me?