Saving The Unfortunate Villainess: Chapter 1

Atlas

Some of my favorite stories are the ones where the MC either gets transmigrated into a story or reincarnated. Most of the time, it’s a villainess who is usually just misunderstood and gets taken advantage of to the extreme.

Of course, there are also those crazy characters that absolutely deserve what’s coming, but most of the time their upbringing heavily influences the way they act towards others.

They were either beaten by their stepmother or imprisoned in their room, and the stepdaughter takes their place in the father’s eyes. Almost always the mother dies in these scenarios, and the father makes it so easy for some snake of a woman to weasel in and take over the household.

The stepdaughter is almost always a sadist and completely destroys the life of the MC during her childhood. Then, when she finally meets the male lead, she becomes obsessed and goes over the line to get their favor. It usually ends up in their eventual execution or excommunication from the country altogether.

It’s easy to love the reincarnated female leads, whose characters used to be villains in these types of stories, because they always act as if they're angels sent from God. Never doing anything wrong and getting every male character in that world to love them for no other reason than just existing. They all have one thing in common, and that’s being overly obsessed with the original story.

I understand the idea of following it to a certain extent to understand what’s going to happen in the future. But they always take it too far, and they're also the most oblivious girls to have ever existed. The male lead could literally say, “I love you,” and they would be like, Yes, I also like you too.

All the readers know the female lead is just taking it as a joke and thinks there’s no way he would actually feel this way about her. It’s so annoying, but I always keep reading those types of stories for some reason.

But what would happen if you got summoned into that type of world and didn’t realize it until after the whole main story concluded? Would you want to interact with the main cast or possibly save a character you really liked who had received a bad hand?

That brings me to the beginning of my story, which is the ending of the original story called “The Blessed Child Takes Her Place.” It was quite an interesting title in my last life, and I read it all the way through. The female lead was a literal demon that was given the role of a saintess. She did every underhanded trick in the book to get what she wanted.

There was a lot of collateral damage, but she didn’t care as long as her goal was achieved. I thought it was an interesting read because it was a lot different than most female leads. She was literally a serpent in human skin. The better way to describe her would be a fallen Saintess because she literally ruined everyone around her besides the prince.

The most notable victim was the villainess of the story, Chloe Aspen Hawthorne, who was the daughter of a marquis household. She was the prince’s fiancée. They were promised to each other by their parents at a young age.

For everyone but the royal family, you’re not allowed to have a fiancée until the age of sixteen. But, of course, because of their standing, they can break those types of rules. They have it this way so anyone of royal descent can always have their pick of any woman or man of their choosing before anyone else.

Chloe was absolutely victimized by the Saintess because of this fact, and somehow she was always to blame for anything that would happen around her. For example, the Saintess had most girls in high society as mortal enemies, and they all knew what type of girl she was. But, with her title, she could easily blame any of her actions on someone else, and no one would complain.

So if an individual started talking down to her, she would always find a scapegoat after retaliation to take the fall for her actions. These events led to most people avoiding her like the plague. At the same time, she still had such an amazing image in front of the royal family. Her main target for these types of actions was always Chloe because of her engagement to the prince.

Chloe just took everything on the chin and accepted her fate because of her antisocial personality. She was called the ice princess. Being engaged to the prince and the fact she was hard to interact with gave birth to this name. But, deep inside, she really cared about others; it was just hard for her to express herself. She was the definition of a Kundere with low self-esteem.

She was a victim of her household constantly being belittled and always being called ugly, even though she was beautiful. Her stepsister made sure to destroy any possible enthusiasm on a daily basis and was reinforced by her stepmother. The father was always out of the picture, completely oblivious to what was happening to his daughter, but at the same time always scolded Chloe for her sister’s wrongdoing.

It all came to a cataclysmic ending when the bitch of a Saintess set Chloe up with an attempted assassination of the prince. This, of course, broke off the engagement and set her up for a possible execution.

On the day of her sentencing, after receiving the verdict of the death penalty, the Saintess jumped up as if in Chloe’s defense and asked for another type of punishment. She asked, “If it was not too easy of a punishment for attempting to assassinate a royal.” Her demeanor was always that of the perfect good-hearted person in front of royalty.

“There’s a much better way; how about sentencing her to life as a slave?" She looked at Chloe devilishly. What no one knew at the time was the Saintess found a despicable man and gave him an enormous amount of money to buy Chloe and then use her to his heart's content. The king gave it to the prince’s digression because he was the target, and then he gave the final decision to the Saintess.

This was by far the saddest part of the whole story because we got Chloe’s inner monologue. She talked about how unfair this world was and why everyone hated her when she did nothing wrong. She cursed the Saintess to hell for making her life a wreck.

My heart hurt for her, and I actually shed some tears when I was reading that part. It’s not easy to get me to cry at something in a story or at all really, but eventually something does get to me. This one for sure hurt because she was a completely innocent victim. Also, for some reason, she felt more real to me than I could understand.

While the Prince and Saintess live happily ever after, we find out about Chloe's fate in the epilogue. The man who bought Chloe had raped and brutally assaulted her for months before she couldn’t take it anymore, passing away.

Reading those words, I actually felt pure hatred for the people that did this to Chloe and wished I had a chance to love her the way she deserved. I know it was just a fictional story, but it still impacted me. The idea of getting revenge for Chloe was a driving force in my mind that night before going to bed.

I always tended to have a lot more feelings for stories I read in books than in my real life. My talent for finding a romantic partner is nonexistent, and I have pretty much given up. So, seeing a girl I can think of as mine as I read a book can really impact my feelings, at least for a few days to a week.

That day would be my last time in that life. When I awoke, I was literally being born to a very beautiful mother. I don’t have any idea how I was reincarnated, but once I found out how much of a golden spoon I had received, I was ecstatic. I was given the name Atlas Ignis Langston.

My family had over fifty percent of the wealth of the entire country because of our monopoly on mines. We also have many jewelry stores throughout the kingdom that brought in Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth.

I had no complaints whatsoever with a great mom and dad. On top of it all, I got a cute little sister that I always wanted in my past life. We’re about five years apart. She’s my literal shadow wherever I go, but I have no complaints because I showered her with affection as soon as she was born.

I always wondered if I was inside of a story as I was growing up, but nothing ever rang any bells, so I kept living my life of lavishness, not thinking about it.

There was only one problem with my new life, and it was my body temperature. For some reason, I ran a lot hotter than everyone around me. My parents got in touch with the very best of the medical field to fix my issue. But after many tests and a lot of money, I was found to be perfectly healthy. After that whole debacle and the fact it didn't seem to have any negative effect on my life, I stopped thinking about it.

Before I knew it, I hit the age of sixteen. As I’ve said before, that is the age where most people start looking for significant others. There were many girls who tried to become friends with me as I grew up, but none of them really clicked. My family wasn’t a normal one because of the fact they didn’t really run the household strictly as a noble one.

We weren’t forced to learn etiquette and avoided going to parties. My parents didn’t want us to live in a world of conniving people, so they tried to keep us away from it all while growing up. If we wanted to go to a party, we would just have one. I really loved my parents of this life with how amazing and perfect they were for my particular personality.

I despised most nobles in any story I have ever read and tried to avoid them like the plague. That’s probably why I hadn’t noticed what book I was currently in and who I really needed to save. Until the morning I turned sixteen and happened to look at the newspaper my father was reading.

'Chloe Aspen Hawthorne is to be sold to the highest bidder at tonight’s auction for her crimes against the throne and is expected to bring in a lot of gold. Don’t miss your chance to buy this evil virgin girl and use her for any of your desires.'

“What disgusting people.” My father commented as I stood behind him with a dumbfounded face as I read the article. What in the world is going on?

Could I really be in that world, and is this Chloe the one I wanted to protect from that stupid story? I wondered deeply as I kept looking at the article with a frown. There was no other option than to go there and check it out. After reading it all the way through, there was no doubt this was that person.

Are you serious? How could I end up not finding out anything until it was almost too late? She’s literally going to be taken from my grasp tonight if I don’t act now. I have to do something!

“Good morning, happy sixteenth birthday, Atlas.” My dad turned to me with a smile.

“Thanks, Dad; I know what I want for my birthday.” I said with conviction at his raised eyebrow as he looked at me intently.

“Oh really? I thought you had nothing you wished for. Those were your words the other day.” He looked at me with a smirk.

"Well, that was then, and this is now.”

“Hmm, well, you know your mother; she always gets you and your sister whatever you want. If you’re dead set on something, I don’t have any problem.” I felt his hand on my head as he ruffled my hair.

"Thanks! I wish to go to that auction." I pointed to the picture of Chloe on the front page of the newspaper.

“So… You’re thinking of buying something at that auction? Are you talking about this girl right here?” He asked curiously while pointing.

“If I were to say yes, what would be your response?” To any normal observer, this incident makes her look very guilty and a threat. He might deny my request.

“Hmm, are you looking to free her as a slave, or do you have another idea? I personally despise slavery, but all of them are criminals. What can you really do about it when such a sentence is given? Honestly, it could be very dangerous. Are you sure about it?” He looked at me with a solemn face.

If I told him I wished to marry her, I wonder how he would react. That will hopefully be my future, but getting her to accept me in that way is my first step. I should just ease my family into the idea by bringing her as my attendant for now and getting them used to her. Chloe's true personality will shine through without some cruel witch around her, I have no doubt.

“Think about this: she’s having the worst day of her life right now, looking for someone to save her. What do you think most of those disgusting nobles will do with a girl like that? Just look at how beautiful she is, and I bet there’s more to the story than what we even know. Every story I’ve ever read predicts royalty as someone not to be trusted.” I really hope this works!