[Name: Scarlett Hartford]

[Skills:

[Minor Mana-control]

[Pyromancy]

[Minor Pyrokinesis]

[Minor Hydromancy]

[Lesser Hydrokinesis]]

[Traits:

[Dignified August]

[Supercilious]

[Cavalier]

[Callous]

[Overbearing]

[Conceited]

[Third-rate Mana Veins]]

[Mana: 967/967]

[Skill points: 0]

Scarlett stared at the floating window of text in front of her with wide eyes. She felt as if she was in a daze. Just a minute ago she had been...well, she wasn't sure what she had been doing. But she could vaguely recall being home in her apartment.

Now she was sitting in front of a very classy wooden desk at the end of a large office, with a bunch of text hovering in mid-air right before her eyes. The walls of the room were adorned with bookcases and several paintings, but those barely registered in her mind as she focused on the words in front of her.

"Scarlett Hartford..." she mumbled.

It couldn't be.

She glanced down at the desk itself, only now noticing the large oval mirror ladened with golden filigree that stood at one of its corners. The reflection shown in it was definitely not what she was expecting.

Distinct dark-red hair, straight and well-groomed, hung over a pair of lean shoulders to reveal a long, beautiful face. Piercing amber eyes met her gaze and a frown formed on the face. She brought her hand up to her chin, lightly touching the clear skin. The reflection mirrored her movement.

"Impossible..." Her voice carried across the room.

That was her. She was staring right at herself. But that wasn't her face. That was the kind of face you would see on tv — post-makeup and all.

But she recognized it. It was more detailed and life-like than then, but she'd seen it before. She glanced at the wall of text hovering in front of her once more.

The woman she was looking at in the mirror was Scarlett Hartford. The name was a bit on the nose, but that was about what one would expect. After all, Scarlett was a fictional character. A low-level villain from a game.

But that wasn't her. Her real name was Amy Bernal. She was just a small-time editor who liked reading and playing games in her free time. One particular game that she'd played a lot of recently was 'Chronicle of Realms'. An open-world fantasy role-playing game whose main draw was its promise of player freedom and its living, breathing, calendar-based world. She had already completed two playthroughs of the game and was in the middle of her third. Before logging off last time she'd just left the city of Freybrook where she had completed a questline to stop a corrupt noble from performing various misdeeds. In the end, she'd ended up having to kill them.

And that noble was Baroness Scarlett Hartford.

She took a deep breath and turned away from the mirror. She wanted to scream at her situation, to cry out at her general confusion, but there was something inside her that told her she couldn't. That it wasn't dignified.

She froze. Dignified? Since when had she cared about that? Her most used piece of clothing this last year—no matter if she was at home or outside—was a piece of worn sweatpants. But now every fiber of her body was screaming at her as if her dignity was the most important thing in existence.

This felt wrong. As if there was a voice telling her how to feel. But that voice was hers.

Normally she would—quite justifiably if you asked her—freak out over such an implication. But for some reason, she was completely calm. She looked back at the floating text.

[Traits:

[Dignified August]

[Supercilious]

[Cavalier]

[Callous]

[Overbearing]

[Conceited]

[Third-rate Mana Veins]]

Did it have something to do with these 'traits'?

She examined them closely. Most fit with what she knew of Scarlett Hartford's character. She was a ruthless woman who looked down on all around her, always upholding her image as a distinguished noble. She was, however, still a relatively low-level boss in the game so [Third-rate Mana Veins] wasn't too surprising.

Unlike her current situation. She had somehow transmigrated—was that the word?—into the body of Scarlett Hartford. And the personality traits attributed to Scarlett in the game were also affecting her right now somehow. This situation was, quite literally, 'unreal'.

"Amy Bernal. That's my name." she muttered to herself. It didn't matter what some lines of text said.

"Go away." she said to the window with said lines of text in it.

It didn't budge.

She glared at it. "Away."

With her attention fully focused on it, the window finally disappeared from view. She nodded her head and shifted her attention to the office that she was in. It was rather spacious. The bookshelves were—as one might expect—filled with books, both new and old, many of which were emblazoned with silver and gold trimmings. The paintings spread around the room looked similarly extravagant, no doubt far more expensive than they had any right to be if you asked her. At the other end of the room stood a short table with fine glasses, alcohol, and other refreshments on it. All in all, it was the kind of room one might expect from a noble in a late-medieval-esque game setting.

She thought through her options. She had no idea how she got here. She also had no idea how to get back. Or even if she could. Was she inside the game? Or was she just in a world like the game? Was this like that movie with Robin Williams in it where one got sucked into a game and had to beat it in order to return everything to normal again?

In the end she had no information about what her current situation was. In addition to that she was in the body of a minor boss from the game. For all she knew, a player could come barging in any minute now to try to kill her.

And what about her real body? Was she just...unconscious? Dead? She didn't go out much so it would take a while before someone noticed if she had disappeared. Her parents had died years ago so if someone was going to notice it would either be her sister or some of her old college friends. But she was pretty irregular in her contact with them. It might even take a week for any of them to start thinking something is wrong.

She massaged the bridge of her nose as several worst-case scenarios ran through her mind. She really didn't know where to go from here.

She spotted a bell made of gold next to the mirror on the desk. She hesitatingly grabbed it. Well, perhaps the first thing she could do was try and gather some basic information. She rang the bell a couple of times.

It didn't take long before she heard movement outside the door that led into the office itself. A moment after a short knock echoed across the room.

"Come in." she said, surprised by how cold her voice sounded.

A woman with short black hair entered the room and curtsied. She wore a dark outfit with a long wide skirt that reached down to her feet. "My Lady called." the woman said and raised her head.

"Wha—" Scarlett almost gagged as the words began leaving her mouth and she couldn't avoid frowning. "What day is it." she eventually said. She had tried not sounding as cold at first but that turned out to be harder than she expected. She'd thought she could ignore the original Scarlett's personality by merely charging through it. Like getting rid of a band-aid, or a particularly disgusting bug. But it was much worse than that. Even the mere thought of sounding nice to the servant almost made her feel like puking. Scarlett ground her teeth at the fact.

The servant seemed to mistake the anger as being directed at her as the woman visibly shook under Scarlett's gaze. "I-It is the third of August, my Lady."

Scarlett didn't mean to scare the woman so, but she couldn't get herself to apologize either so she simply ignored it for now. Instead, she focused on what the woman had said. "What year?"

The servant got a confused look. "W-What year, my Lady?"

"Yes. What year is it?"

The poor woman looked like she could start sweating like a pig any second now. "I-It is the year of 1143 in the imperial calendar."

Scarlett tapped her finger against the wooden desk. The third of August in 1143. She was lucky that the developers didn't bother with creating their own calendar system for the game and simply based it off of the Gregorian calendar. She was pretty sure that the game itself started on the first of August in 1143, which meant that she was close to the game's real start. If there were any players in this world it would still take a while for them to reach her. The game took place over a period of years, after all.

"What was the last order I gave you?" she asked the servant. She didn't want to arouse any needless suspicion without knowing anything, but right now she prioritized getting a hang of the situation over confusing this servant.

"M-My Lady...you asked me to bring you the revised ledgers for last month regarding the domain's finances."

"And then what did I do?"

The servant seemed unsure what to say. "My Lady...you've been inside your office since then."

Scarlett clicked her tongue.

The woman immediately bowed her head. "I'm terribly sorry if I've offended you my Lady. This lowly servant begs for forgiveness."

Scarlett frowned. This body's habits were incredibly hard to ignore. "That was not the answer I was searching for, but it does not matter. Stop begging."

The servant slowly raised her head. "I-Is there something else my lady needs?"

Scarlett thought about it. There were many questions she wanted to ask. But she already knew where she was chronologically in the game's time, and this servant probably couldn't answer most of her other questions. Not without Scarlett sounding even more suspicious, at least. She waved the servant away. "No, that is all. You may leave."

The servant seemed grateful and looked about to leave, but then hesitated. "My Lady..."

"Yes?"

The servant bowed their head again. "...Madame Evelyne arrived earlier today along with Seneschal Kinsey when he brought the ledger. She asked to meet with my Lady."

Scarlett raised an eyebrow. While she had no idea who Kinsey was she did recognize the name Evelyne. She was a quest giver in the games after all — as well as Scarlett's younger sister. Her questline was the one in which the player confronted Scarlett.

"Lead her here," Scarlett said after a moment's consideration. She would have to meet the woman eventually. And she was curious about meeting a character she'd interacted with inside the game.

The servant gave another curtsy. "Yes, my Lady." she said before hurriedly leaving the office.

Evelyne Hartford sat in the foyer of the family's mansion in Freybrook. She clenched her fists in anger as she waited along with Kinsey. They had arrived hours ago to deliver the revised accounts of the estates and she had explicitly asked to meet her sister then. Instead, she had been asked to wait in the foyer with nothing but some tea while her sister "read over" the accounts.

Evelyne shook her head. She was sure her sister had told the servants to treat her this way if she ever visited. They might not even have told her that she was here. Scarlett abused her power as the head far too often. Evelyne knew of the things her sister had done.

She was just about to reach her limit when a servant with short black hair arrived. Molly was her name if Evelyne remembered correctly.

The woman approached them and curtsied. "Madame Evelyne. Sir Kinsey." She greeted them both before turning her attention on Evelyne. "Madame Evelyne. Her Ladyship wishes to see you," the woman said with an odd expression on her face.

Evelyne's eyes widened. Scarlett wanted to see her? She doubted that. But she still gestured at her as she rose. "Lead the way," she said, before looking back at Kinsey. "I'll be back soon. Ready the carriage."

He lowered his graying head towards her. "As you wish, my Lady."

Evelyne then followed Molly through the building all the way to Scarlett's office that was situated in the left wing of the mansion. She paused for a moment when she saw the dark old mahogany door. It brought back memories of when she was young and this was still her father's office.

Shaking those thoughts away she gestured for Molly to open the door and entered the room. Inside sat Baroness Scarlett Hartford — current head of the Hartford family and Evelyne's older sister. Her red hair that she'd inherited from their father hung behind her, revealing part of her neck and half-bare shoulders. Evelyne hated to admit it but she had always been jealous of her sister's hair. It was much more beautiful than her own dull brown-red hair.

Scarlett herself sat behind a wide desk that was largely empty. The object that took up the most space on the desk was a lavish mirror. It wouldn't do for Scarlett to not be able to see herself for even a minute, after all.

As Evelyne took a few steps further into the room Scarlett's gaze turned from the mirror onto her and immediately formed into a glower.

In high society, Scarlett was known for both her grace and her composure, amongst other things. The grace part, Evelyne could understand. Scarlett had always been the embodiment of what most considered a true noble. She always wore the finest garments and had a stature that befitted royalty — never breaking decorum.

But composure was a stretch. Evelyne couldn't recall a single occasion where her sister hadn't looked at her as if she was disgusted by her mere existence. When she was younger that had hurt her more than anything. Now she couldn't care less.

"Did you have fun leaving me waiting for hours?" Evelyne asked her sister. Scarlett merely looked at her. After a while, her glower seemed to ease into a frown.

"...Not particularly, no," she eventually said.

Evelyne scoffed. Then she pointed at the only book present on the desk in front of Scarlett. "Did you read through the accounts?"

Her sister glanced down at the ledger for a moment before looking back at her. Scarlett slowly nodded her head.

"Anything you want to complain about. Or can I take it back?"

As expected, Scarlett shook her head. Now she was going to complain about some—

"You may take it."

Evelyne paused. "...What?"

"You may take it," Scarlett said, gesturing towards the ledger.

Evelyne stared at her sister for a moment, then quickly moved over to grab the book. She wasn't going to cry if Scarlett didn't cause any extra issues over the matter.

"Is that all?" Scarlett asked her, voice as cold as ice.

Evelyne glared at her. "No, it isn't," she said. "I heard you repealed the stipend for new mages given to the Brook Tower."

Scarlett cocked her head to the side slightly. "Is that so."

Evelyne's eyes grew wide. "Is that so?! Father himself arranged for that stipend! He gave his word we would continue issuing it as long as we had the means. What you're doing goes directly against his wishes. You're sullying both his name and our family's!"

Scarlett met her eyes, those amber eyes piercing into her. "Then return it."

This time Evelyne froze completely. "...Are you serious?"

Scarlett nodded her head ever-so-slightly. "Of course. You have my authorization to do so. Now, was that all?"

Evelyne stared at her sister. Scarlett looked at her as if she couldn't wait for her to leave, but Evelyne couldn't understand why she would just give up like that.

"Was that all?" Scarlett's voice caused shivers to go down Evelyne's spine.

"...Yes. That's all," Evelyne muttered.

"Good. You may leave." Her sister dismissed her without any further discussion.

She turned around and left the office. When the door closed behind her she let out a tired breath. This was probably the best result she'd ever gotten after a meeting with her sister. Yet it didn't feel completely right.

What is she planning?