Soft sunlight fell across the lightly tanned skin of a sleeping girl. The room she rested in was modest, the furniture and fabrics of high quality but used and threadbare. As the girl’s face scrunched up, irritated by the harsh sunlight she reached up a hand to block it, slowly opening sapphire blue eyes.

“Wha-” The girl murmured, her voice strange to her ears, lower and husky yet not unpleasant. It was foreign nonetheless and the girl sat up suddenly, chest heaving as she looked around the room, eyes full of confusion and fear.

“Where am I?” She asked the air, gleaning no information from the empty room. Her hands patted down her face, then her long black hair that shimmered with a blue tint in the light. Pulling a lock up the girl examined it in confusion before dropping it.

“They couldn’t have given me any more information? Where am I? Who’s body is this? I thought they’d have me be reborn as a baby not a….girl?” The girl murmured as her panic seemed to abate, memories of the meeting she had with Vita reemerging. The girl hesitantly climbed out of the large bed, wincing as her feet met the cold stone floor.

The girl wobbled, and almost fell as she stood, her balance unsteady. It had been at least a century, if Vita was to be believed, since she’d had a physical body and adjusting to a new one was odd. Though this one felt far more hale and healthy than her old one had been. Her bones didn’t feel like they were one tap from shattering, and the breaths she drew in were deep and full, not accompanied by wracking coughs.

Even her skin looked healthy, though her body felt a bit too skinny even if it was robust in comparison to the living skeleton she’d been before. Slowly with tentative steps that gained more confidence as the body's muscle memories reawoke the girl moved around the room. She explored her new and strange environment, trying to figure out what world she’d been thrust into. A mirror in a corner of the room stopped her and the girl moved towards it, admiring the tarnished metal that still held some luster before she froze seeing her reflection.

A girl no more than fourteen stared back, sharp sapphire blue eyes framed with thick dark lashes that gave them a shadowed look. Sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin framed her tanned skin, a single beauty mark sat under her left eye. Long thick blue-black hair cascaded in waves around her like a cloak. She was beautiful, in a way she’d never been able to know in her previous life. But that wasn’t what caught her attention, no it was the fact that she knew the girl staring back at her. Different though she looked in real life compared to being rendered as a character in a game. Her features were simply too distinct to be anyone else.

Liliana Rosengarde.

A character she knew sometimes better than herself because she’d visited this world many times before. The world she was apparently in. Realm Of Hope. An RPG she had loved for years, had played and sniffed out every last hidden secret the game held. She’d been brought into the world that was either based on the game or that the game had been inspired by. Yet she’d not come back as a baby, born anew, nor had she been brought back as one of the five heroes you could choose to play in the RPG. No, she’d been brought back as the Villainess in the game, the final boss. And even then she hadn’t been brought back when the Villainess was at the peak of her power, she’d been brought back four years before the villainess disappeared and eight years before she finally made her appearance in the game as the final boss.

“What the fuck,” The girl whispered, face twisting in anger and fear.

Her heart thumped painfully in her chest as she found her gaze trapped in the sapphire gaze that seemed to proclaim her deadly fate. She almost didn’t want to believe this was even real, that maybe she was still in the peaceful void and having some kind of dream. Yet the world around her was so unapologetically real, the ground hard and cold under her bare feet. A hand raised and delicate fingers pinched skin between them, sending a sharp lance of pain to her brain. A final nail in the coffin for her hope that this was fake. No, it was real, she was in her favorite game, taking on the mantle of this world's biggest known villain.

This wasn’t what she’d agreed upon with Vita! Was this what they meant by saying this life wouldn’t be easy? That was an understatement! Liliana’s life had been hell, ignored by her nobleman father, Frederick Rosengarde, because he’d been forced to marry her commoner mother after Frederick’s father found out about her mother’s pregnancy. Her mother had died when Liliana was five, and her father had thrust her rearing onto a maid.

Then when Liliana was ten her father had married another noble, a widow whose husband had died in a war, Imogen Thornebell-Rosengarde. Liliana’s stepmother had made the girl's life hell, assisted by Liliana’s stepbrother, Alistair Thornebell-Rosengarde, who was a playable character. He took every chance to belittle Liliana and played ‘pranks’ on her that often ended with Liliana hurt or sick. He’d been often accompanied by another playable character, Emyr Bealstal, who didn’t participate but treated Liliana as if she was a bug beneath his feet.

They’d all eventually gone to the Academy together where Liliana was further ostracized by her noble peers for having commoner blood. Despite the fact that a playable character who was a prodigy commoner, Diana Baker, had also been admitted. Yet Diana had managed to catch the eyes of most of the male nobles with her frankly ridiculously cute appearance. And her sweet nature had ensnared the others. Liliana had been rude to her, yet while most didn’t look deeper she’d always been able to see the Villainess had been lashing out in envy. Seeing someone who should have suffered her same fate be accepted and adored had to hurt.

Diana had always been her least favorite character to play, she’d seemed almost too good to be true in her opinion. Yet her behavior had managed to change Alistair towards the last year of their schooling, and the boy had apologized to Liliana. Yet at that point, the girl’s heart had been too hardened, and she left the Academy the night before the graduation ceremony. No one had even bothered to look for her and had forgotten she had even existed as they went on to fight threats to the kingdom. Threats it was later revealed were orchestrated by Liliana herself.

Liliana’s tale was a tragedy from start to end, a life of hardship and pain that ended in a bloody execution at a hero’s blade. One of the reasons she’d always loved the game was because of how much she sympathized with the villain. She’d seemed so real, and like all she’d needed was just one person to reach out to her in kindness. A perfect example of heroes making their own villains, for Liliana hadn’t been born evil. She’d been forged into a villainess, made in the fires of strife and hate until she was a blade that tore the kingdom apart.

Yet she had never wanted to be Liliana! Her life was awful!

Can I fight a god? Get a refund? I don’t want this subscription! Vita, you tricked me!

“Come on, just think….wait. My name! Why can’t I remember my name? Is this what Vita meant by forgetting memories? What else can’t I remember? I was sixteen, I died because of bone cancer, my mother was….my father was….I...I can’t...I can’t remember anyone’s name?” The girl gripped her face, falling to the floor as her legs gave out. The panic that hadn’t hit when she’d been with Vita slammed into her full force as the reality that an integral part of herself had been stripped away, her very name. Her nails dug into her skin but the pain was muted, her mind so consumed by the panic and despair filling her.

Her mind ran in circles, trying to find the holes in her memory, desperate to remember her name. Yet the only thing that came up when she thought of her name was...Liliana Rosengarde. Her parents' names were instead Frederick Rosengarde and Violet Smith, later Violet Rosengarde. She couldn’t even remember what her parents from her past life looked like, she couldn’t remember who anyone looked like. Friends, teachers, nurses, doctors, their faces were all blurred in her memory. Even her own face was gone. She couldn’t remember her hair color, eye color, or even her skin color from her previous life. The information was simply gone.

Vita dammit, give me my memories back! My name! Cursed gods and their monkey-paw deals! Liliana mentally raged against the god who had sentenced her to this life. She thought the god had said she had a substantial amount of karma! Shouldn’t that have earned her a better life? A better starting point? Was her previous life not awful enough as it was? Why was this the ‘reward’ she was offered after sixteen years of pain and hardship?

“Oh, Liliana dear! You’re finally up, but why are you out of bed? Oh, you poor thing let’s get you back into bed, dearie,” A voice interrupted the existential crisis the girl was suffering through. She was too distraught to really process that the voice was speaking in a language she didn’t recognize, yet understood perfectly.

Her head whipped up and red-rimmed blue eyes met warm grey ones. A woman in her mid-forties stood there, her maid. The woman who had become like a mother to Liliana when Violet had passed, she’d been friends with Liliana’s mother and had promised to look after Liliana when her mother passed. Astrid Tailor. Information rose unbidden in her mind as she cataloged the stranger. Despite the turmoil her mind was in it somehow still managed to spit out facts from the game without issue.

A warmth rose in Liliana’s chest and she felt her eyes water as more tears poured down her face. She didn’t understand why this woman made her feel loved and safe but she did. Most likely the body’s reaction to her, since it was originally Liliana’s body it seemed to remember the woman before her even if the girl who now inhabited it was a perfect stranger to her.

“Oh dear, it’s alright, “Astrid murmured, hurrying over to her and wrapping the girl in a hug. She smelled of freshly baked cookies and home. Liliana felt the sobs strengthen as the woman murmured softly into her hair and rubbed her back, and despite the fact that she didn’t really know this woman she found her sobs slowly dying off and her heart calming. Even her mind stopped running in frantic circles under the woman’s patient love.

“There we go,” Astrid said, giving her a smile that scrunched up the crow’s feet decorating her eyes, the smile lines deepening as she gently wiped the tears off Liliana’s face.

“Pretty as a painting you are, Lady Liliana,” Astrid complimented and Liliana couldn’t resist looking over at the mirror, at her reflection. Despite crying her eyes out her face remained unswollen, with just a bit of redness around her eyes and a pretty blush on her face. Even the remaining tears in her eyes made her eyes sparkle like gemstones.

Well, at least there are some perks to being a villain I suppose, Liliana mused wryly as she averted her gaze from the mirror. It was still odd to look at the mirror and to see a stranger staring back at her.

“Now let's get you to bed, you’ve been unconscious for three weeks. The doctors and priests were certain you wouldn’t make it. They thought it was some kind of soul sickness or curse!” Astrid gently helped her to her feet, her legs were wobbly and she leaned heavily on the woman as she guided her to the bed.

Ah. Then I arrived right after the first time Liliana was poisoned by her stepmother. She’d always hated Liliana, she brought shame to their name for having commoner blood. Yet Liliana’s father wouldn't disown her, because of an oath he made to his own father. So instead Imogen began to try other methods. Her first was an expensive and rare poison that ate into a person's soul. The information was brought to the forefront of her mind, the memories of the story clear and crisp as if she’d read about it a few minutes before. It caused an odd disconnect, the impartial way the information presented itself at odds with the fact that Liliana was now living through those very events.

Liliana was cured because a wandering priest stopped by and entreated the goddess of light and life to save her soul. She stepped in and cured her. I guess in this case the Goddess put my soul in her body instead. Which is still fucking bullshit. What happened to Liliana’s soul though? I hope the Goddess gave her a nicer life than this one. She deserves it. Wait. Is Vita the goddess of light? Fuck that makes sense.

Liliana let Astrid put her in the bed and cover her in an abundance of blankets, her mind still mostly focusing on the memories she had of the game, which were as crystal clear as she’d been promised. At least Vita had been honest about that.

“Now I’m going to go get you some broth, it’s a shame that the priest vanished. I would’ve liked to give him something for bringing my Lady back to me, but never mind that. You rest, Lady Liliana, I’ll bring you something to eat and then you can rest some more,” Astrid nodded, fussing over Liliana a moment more before she left the room.

“She’s nice,” Liliana mused as she picked at the blankets.

Her mind went back to the information she knew of the game, the game that was now her life apparently. She tried to wrangle her thoughts into some semblance of order, the absurdity of it all was making everything take on an almost dream-like quality and Liliana could feel herself flirting with panic. It was an effort of will to get her thoughts to quiet enough for her to review the pertinent information to her current situation, she didn’t care about the specific attack pattern of an end game boss monster, she needed to remember the information she had on Liliana’s early life before he Academy.

Well her life sucked basically, Liliana thought as she reviewed the information she had.

It wasn’t a lot, information on Liliana’s pre-academy life was sparse. She only knew that the three-week coma Liliana had been in was a result of soul-poison because if you played Alistair's story he uncovered that when he was twenty and brought his fiancée to meet his mother. And even then only if the fiancée was Diana because Imogen would try to use the same poison on her for being a commoner. When his mother’s machinations were revealed Alistair had another moment of regret when he realized the same poison was used on Liliana six years before.

Okay, so what we know about Liliana is that she has a father, Duke Frederick Rosengarde, a stepmother, Duchess Imogen Thornebell-Rosengarde. Then there’s her stepbrother, Alistair Thornebell-Rosengarde, and his best friend who is often with him, Emyr Bealstal, who is the son of a Marquess. She also has twin half-siblings, Blaine and Beatrice Rosengarde. Liliana groaned in her empty bedroom. It was pitifully little. She knew a good amount about Alistair and Emyr, as both were playable characters and they had their histories revealed in the game. But despite spending six years with Liliana before they went to the Academy she was mentioned only in passing or when Alistair was regaling them with his ‘clever’ pranks.

Yeah, putting snakes in her shoes isn’t clever, Alistair, you dolt. But whatever, what does one expect from a child? Liliana ignored the fact that she herself was also a child, she had died at sixteen and now she was at least a year or two younger.

She refocused on information, which she sorely needed and found herself lacking. It itched her gamer spirit, she had almost religiously read guides for any game she played, to ensure she didn’t miss a single thing and had as close to a perfect run as she could. The best gear, the best skills, the best classes. She had known it all when she played, and yet despite the plethora of knowledge she had on Realm Of Hope, she found herself floundering for the first time.

She had no idea what the ideal way of progressing was for her. And now a bad run didn’t mean she lost a few hours or days of progress, it meant she lost her life. That thought reignited the panic in her heart. She really could die here, and so easily. Liliana was far from beloved, she’d have little to no aid in this world. And though she had greeted death like an old friend in her past life this time she wanted to live. She had spent so many years sitting at death's door, barely living, she didn’t want to let the first chance she had to have a life worth living slip through her fingers.

That meant she needed information, power. Power that surpassed the previous Liliana’s, because that hadn’t been enough in the end to save her. No, she needed power that would eclipse anyone who would think to stand against her and rip this precious second chance from her hands. No matter how cursed this second chance was. The seeds of determination took hold in her heart, weak though they were at the moment. She would survive this life. This twisted fate.

Don’t forget you agreed to Vita’s request, Liliana’s mind spoke up and she groaned again. Right. She had agreed to ‘change this world's fate’. Whatever that meant. However, if a Goddess was asking for aid she’d need power to overcome whatever the Goddess couldn’t.

So not only do I need to avoid being murdered by my stepmother, my stepbrother, and the other heroes, I also have to avoid becoming the villainess Liliana was supposed to be. And change this world's fate. Whatever the hell it’s supposed to be. Liliana buried her face in her hands letting out a very unladylike whine. While her body protested such unbecoming behavior, habits ingrained into it from fourteen years of being raised as a noble lady, she felt it was an appropriate reaction to her circumstances.

Couldn’t Vita have at least told me what this big bad fate was? I’m walking around here blind! Liliana grumbled and she directed an annoyed look towards the ceiling, hoping the Goddess would feel her ire from wherever she was at. She was probably watching Liliana have an existential panic whilst drinking some kind of god beverage and giggling at the mortal’s despair.

Her mind went over the plot of the story, trying to find out where this awful fate was supposed to start. She couldn’t find anything, after Liliana was killed the storyline ended. There was still end-game content, high-level dungeons to run that were blocked by Liliana to play afterward, and even a few new countries were unlocked to visit with their own small-time quest lines and stronger dungeons and monsters. But there were no other big bad villains running around that could ruin an entire planet.

Maybe the sequel? Liliana mused, Realm Of Hope was supposed to have a sequel game where some new dark force was supposed to come in. It was even teased that more information about Liliana was going to be revealed, the story of whatever she’d done for the years she’d gone missing. Yet the sequel was trashed and the project was canceled despite a large amount of interest in it. If the sequel was supposed to hold the answer to the ‘darkness’ Liliana was supposed to fight she really was flying blind. No one knew what the sequel's plot was because it was never finished.

Well, if it is the sequel that holds the big bad darkness that freaked out a Goddess, I have time. I should focus on the now, rather than something that's not supposed to happen for another eight years. There's not even a guarantee I’ll make it that long. So let's set the goal to surviving the next eight years and getting strong enough that I can fight whatever the Big Bad Evil Guy is. And any heroes who might have a penchant for decapitation, Liliana decided and she shoved the Goddess’s request to the recess of her mind.

She had enough to stress about right now without adding that into the mix. And she was more than a little peeved about said Goddess sticking her soul in the body of a Villainess. Her request could gather dust until Liliana saw fit to address it, which would be whenever she stopped being pissed off at the Goddess.

Her focus readjusted, she once again tried to find some more information on Liliana, anything that could help her with her situation. Maybe a secret amulet gifted by her mother that would give her some kind of protection, or an ancient weapon of some kind. Maybe a super special spell that only Liliana knew. Her mind kept turning up blanks as she scoured the memories. Other than some hidden rooms in the manor she couldn’t think of anything specific to Liliana that would help her out, though she did mentally note the hidden areas she’d have to explore soon.

Ugh, I don’t even know what Liliana’s magic was, let alone what her stat...sheet…

“No, Liliana’s stat sheet was never released. She wasn’t a playable character, could she have one?” Liliana mused, ignoring the fact that she was in a way speaking in third person. Her mind was caught on an important fact. Stat Sheets. Realm Of Hope was an RPG, where players could allocate stats gained by leveling however they pleased. It diversified the playstyles on top of the possibility of being able to play five different characters with five completely different stories and choices.

Trembling in hope and fear Liliana closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening her eyes again.

Status.