Today's the day of the White Tiger Masquerade Ball meaning that it's the beginning of Helen and the princes' love story.

I can't help feeling a bit nervous about this all. After all, things have not been going according to plan and have been staying pretty loyal to the plot thus far much to my chagrin.

Firstly, here I am at the academy in the elite class, which already wasn't supposed to happen. Moreover, the princes are still courting me due to my high position practically making me a shoo-in for becoming the crown princess. Whether I want it or not, I'd be a love rival.

It's not like Eve in the original actually loved any of these fools. Just wanted the crown princess title.

However, I did get secretly engaged to Daemion, the crown prince of the Menda Empire all those years ago.

Still, there are issues with that. One, Daemion is actually Hal, which makes the whole thing questionable because nothing with him involved ever goes my way. I wouldn't be surprised if "Daemion" just conveniently died when I need him or some other inconvenient thing. Two, nobody even knows about it, still making me the love rival to Hellen currently! Plus I can't tell anyone about it or the whole family will be executed for treason!

Lastly, Helen definitely has all the reason to kill off the Callistos based on the fact our family framed hers for treason, causing them to fall into ruin. This all happened before I got transmigrated into this stupid world so there was no preventing that.

Anyway, I don't really have a plan to prevent Hellen and the princes from falling in love. I don't think I have the capability to out seduce the princes to get them to my side. Further, something silly like trying to prevent them from meeting today won't be effective since they are almost sure to meet at some point since they are all in the elite class. If I thwart it today it won't really have any effect.

Therefore, the current plan for the ball is just going to have to be staying out of the way as much as possible.

However, right now I'm working on a different plan. Something that could help with my third issue, the whole Callisto family framing Hellen's family thing.

Basically, in the otome game, the Callistos hired spies from the Bramble Club, an assassins and information guild, to plant evidence in the Hale estate of treason. They also staged a failed assassination attempt on the king and when the Hale estate was searched the fake evidence pointed to the Hale family having paid those assassins to kill the king.

All of the Callisto family's deeds were discovered later though when Fox, the best assassin of the Bramble Club and a male lead, revealed the Bramble Club records of what the Callisto family had done to Hellen's family.

This all brings me to today when I've finally found out where the Bramble Club's records are located. The organization is spread in multiple countries and is quite large. This causes them to have to keep records of their dealings so things remain organized.

My plan is to destroy those records of what the Callisto family has done. If I can get that solved, I'll be in much better shape toward avoiding my demise.

I step into what looks like a pretty unpopular and unkempt temple for Hal. According to my sources, the basement of this place is where the Bramble Club keeps their records.

It's empty which either means I've got the wrong place or they're all in the basement. After searching the place, I'm not seeing any stairs that go down to a basement of any kind.

There might be some kind of trap door or hidden hatch on the ground I haven't located yet that leads to the basement.

It's too boring to go looking for that though.

Instead I decide I'll just smash the ground and see if there's a floor below. With that idea, I punch the ground, the floor to caves in, causing a hole the size of a car.

Well look at that, there is a basement after all.

I jump down into the hole, and into the basement. The basement looks empty of people as well and filled with tall bookshelves. It is lit with lights on the ceiling filled with candles. The candles are all lit though, which means someone was either here recently or is still here.

I'm betting on the second one.

I clutch the black gemstone on my necklace and it turns into a modern handgun. That's when a knife whizzes toward me. I dodge on reflex. It was coming on my left.

I aim the gun toward that direction and shoot. All my training makes my reaction time incredibly fast so the bullet hits the target before they can move positions after throwing a knife at me.

That's when someone tackles me after dropping down from the bookshelf above me. They seem to be a blonde girl around my age a few inches taller than me. Unfortunately, while being tackled, my gun has slid away from me and reverted back to the necklace.

Whatever, I'm great at hand to hand combat too. The girl has a knife pressed to my throat.

"Why are you here?" she hisses. I grab the knife, the blade slicing my hand, and rip it from her, tossing it to the side, while kneeing her in the stomach, and then flipping her over.

Another person is creeping up behind me, so I quickly jump off of her and step back a little. This person is a rather large, muscular man that's around seven feet tall. In their hands is a big axe.

They swing this axe at me, and I quickly duck it. I pull out a dagger and advance toward him. He swings his axe again but I block the hit with the dagger. Luckily my strength is greater than him, so I'm able to block his hit with just my knife.

Blocking his hit momentarily sends his arm outward, leaving him open for attack. I kick him in square in the stomach, and he goes flying to the other side of the room. His head hits the hard stone wall and he's knocked out.

I turn towards the girl who has got up and has picked her now bloody knife up from the ground. I send my dagger flying toward her but she ducks.

In return, she throws her knife at me. I also dodge easily out of the way and rush toward her, aiming to punch her in the face. Unfortunately, she ducks out of the way and jabs at my leg in a spot a little above my knee. Suddenly, downwards of that area, my leg feels like lead.

So she's targeting pressure points. Impressive.

She's fast too, but not faster than me. Before she can react I have her in a chokehold.

I keep pressure on her neck till she passes out, and toss her to the side.

Time to find those records.

I get up and walk toward the bookcases.

That's when something grabs ahold of my leg. I look behind me and see some kind of long dark shadow grabbing onto my leg.

I try tearing away from it, but more shadows grab onto my arms and around my midriff.

It knocks me onto the ground and one of shadows envelops my mouth and nose.

I can't breathe and as soon as I tear free from some of these shadows, more take their place.

I'm started to see dark spots in my vision and I can't breathe!

Everything fades to darkness.

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Eventually I wake up to a sharp pain in my stomach. I scream.

"Well that also didn't work, and now you're awake!" shouts someone, now cursing. My vision is blurry, but I can tell I'm sitting in a chair and I seem to be tied up.

Finally, my vision clears and in front of me is a boy around my age with red hair and green eyes.

Great. This is probably the male lead, Fox. It would be just my luck that out of all the hideouts he would be here today.

"Ugh, why are you so hard to kill?!?!" asks Fox.

"Are you actually throwing a tantrum because you can't kill me? What, am I supposed to feel bad for you?" I ask.

"Well I am an assassin so I have to kill you!" fires back Fox.

"Apparently not a very good one if you can't even kill an unconscious person," I reply.

"Shut up!" says Fox, "That's because you're weird! I tried suffocation, burning you, stabbing you, poisoning you, stabbing you again with poison and you're still not dead!"

"Sounds like excuses to me," I chuckle, "basically all you've amounted to is giving me a long nap."

"Ugh shut up!" he shouts, and whips out a crossbow. He shoots me three times up my torso.

It hurts like a b*tch.

I grit my teeth to prevent from screaming, and cough up some blood.

"You done playing darts?" I say. I break free from my ropes which really isn't hard at all considering my strength. "I certainly am."

He shoots me again in the chest, and I rip it out. He tries summoning his shadows again, but I grab him by the collar and point the arrowhead at his neck.

"Don't even try it. If I even feel one of your creepy shadow things touch me, I'll jam this arrow so far down your throat it will come out of you ass," I tell him, "Now, get me the Callisto family records."

I throw him on the ground.

"And don't even think of pulling something stupid right now! It's not like you can kill me anyway," I say.

"Fine," he grumbles fixing his collar. He comes back a bit later with a worn leather book. On its spine it has the word Callisto.

I leaf through out, seeing if it has what I'm looking for. After reading through pages of atrocities committed by the family, I see it.

Perfect.

I also know they don't keep copies for security reasons.

"What did you use to burn me?" I ask.

"Um... I doused you in oil then used mana to create a small flame," he replies.

"No wonder I'm smelling so great right now," I grumble, "Ok, that will work. Make a flame like you did before."

"Why? Can't you do it?" he demands.

"Do you really think you're in the position to be asking questions," I snap.

"Whatever," he says, and from one of his fingers sprouts a flame. I set the book on fire and then wait for it to be completely burned up.

Then I take the arrow and I send it toward Fox's chest, where it lodges into from just the force of me throwing it.

He falls back into the ground, coughing up blood.

"Why?" he asks.

"Nothing personal. But I can't have any loose ends," tell him.

I jump out of basement through the hole in the ceiling, leaving him to bleed out and die.

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