Lady Rose Just Wants to Be a Commoner (Light Novel): Volume 1 (eBook)

Kooriame (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
250 Seiten
J-Novel Heart (Verlag)
978-1-7183-0570-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Felicia Schwarose has been reincarnated as the main character of her favorite otome game-Lady Rose. As Prince Seth's fiancée, she's spent her whole life preparing to be his queen, but behind the scenes...she's been laying the groundwork to get the whole thing called off! Now she's living out her dreams as 'Fii Crow,' a peasant working at a local bakery. Unfortunately, the game's pesky love interests won't leave her alone. Will Felicia be able to enjoy her new life as a commoner in peace, or will the love interests' meddling ruin all of her hard work?

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Felicia Schwarose has been reincarnated as the main character of her favorite otome game-Lady Rose. As Prince Seth's fiancee, she's spent her whole life preparing to be his queen, but behind the scenes...she's been laying the groundwork to get the whole thing called off! Now she's living out her dreams as "e;Fii Crow,"e; a peasant working at a local bakery. Unfortunately, the game's pesky love interests won't leave her alone. Will Felicia be able to enjoy her new life as a commoner in peace, or will the love interests' meddling ruin all of her hard work?

Textauszug

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I, Felicia Schwarose, hold two things as points of pride. The first is my acting prowess, which I owe mostly to the second thing, so I’ll refrain from going into detail just yet. Suffice to say that there aren’t many people who can pull one over on folks every day like I do, and I’m only sixteen.

The second is that I’ve retained memories of my past life. I know that sounds crazy, but just wait. It gets crazier. The world I call home now is the world of an otome game I played in my past life. Several people in my current life, myself included, were characters in the game. What’s more, I was the protagonist.

Now, some among you might be wondering what an otome game is in the first place; allow me to illuminate the matter. An otome game is a dating sim in which you, the player, direct a female protagonist through the game’s story and try to win the affection of several potential male love interests.

The name of this game—one of my old favorite pastimes—was Savior of Nations: Lady Rose (or Lady Rose, for short). Of course, when I was first reincarnated, I’d had no idea which game I’d been reborn into, much less that I was now its protagonist. After all, Lady Rose is the kind of game where you choose the protagonist’s name yourself. There isn’t even a default placeholder name that’s automatically prefilled for you to erase and overwrite with your own.

That being said, there were several things that struck me as strange about this world. It was weird enough that I’d been born into a foreign and incredibly wealthy family, but my surname, “Schwarose,” stood out as particularly unusual. My home country’s name was oddly familiar, but I wasn’t exactly a fan of the game for its world-building. Everyone around me had Western facial features and a wide variety of skin, hair, and eye colors...but they all spoke and wrote in Japanese.

Even the technology and fashions of my current world felt as if they were based on my old world’s recent history, but they were all just a little bit off in a way that seemed intentional. For instance, France didn’t exist here, and yet French bread was still a thing. I found myself wondering if this world was connected in some way to my previous world and the life I lived there, maybe as some sort of parallel universe.

Anyway, even at a young age, my memories of my past life had left me with some pretty conventional modern ethics. My memory of everything that happened right after I was reborn was pretty fuzzy, but I could remember realizing that my parents were power-hungry losers. Everything they did made it plain to me that they didn’t love me at all; I was just a tool to them. I couldn’t stand the way they showered me with luxuries I didn’t even want in exchange for fulfilling the aristocratic duties my birth had foisted on me. I already knew, even as a little kid, that I wanted to run away from home.

I was five years old when I finally realized the true nature of this world. It happened when I met the boy I’d been betrothed to against my will: the Pompous Prince, His Highness Seth Cabott. Even though I was a mere five years old, it was impossible to miss that his appearance and personality were a perfect match with Lady Rose’s main love interest.

In case you’re curious, my older brother from my past life is to blame for my vehement loathing for arrogant men. He was perfect in every way—a genius who took no time at all getting everyone around him on his side. You could say it left me with a bit of personal baggage.

Sure, it’s all in the past (you could even say it was a lifetime ago), but some mental scars define who you are for the rest of time. Even a literal world away, I was fighting with the ramifications. He was the whole reason I’d spent my past life getting a head start on my acting skills. Two lifetimes of lying like a rug to get by had turned me into a pretty world-class thespian.

When I’d played Lady Rose in my past life, I’d only played through each ending of Pompous Prince Seth’s route once. Maybe that doesn’t mean much to you, but let me put that into perspective: I’d played through the other characters’ routes and seen each of their endings multiple times. We’re talking double digits here. You’ve got to understand that I’d only read through Seth’s endings out of a sense of duty as a Lady Rose fan.

After my betrothal to the Pompous Prince and my Lady Rose revelation, I did everything I could to avoid my fiancé. Unfortunately, I couldn’t weasel out of it by insisting that our engagement was in name only. We were left alone together time after time and simply told to get along.

But as I said, my parents had no love for me. The last thing I wanted to do was slight the prince somehow and incur their disciplinary wrath. Worse yet, if I didn’t stick the landing getting the prince to call it quits, I could disgrace my family. They might lash out and force me into a political marriage to some creep twice my age that “likes ’em young.”

Of course, the Pompous Prince didn’t have a clue how I felt. He was too busy throwing his weight around and running images of his personal triumphs (real and imagined) through his head. “Be an adult about this,” I’d say to myself, putting on a placid smile. He had no idea how many times I’d nearly snapped. If we’d been of the same social standing, it would’ve been a whole labor of Hercules on my part not to beat him senseless three times a day. But the royal family held extraordinary power and influence in this world—and he had that to thank for the fact that he was still breathing.

It’s not like I had a hair-trigger temper or anything. It’s just that the only thing the prince had going for him was his looks, and my revulsion toward his arrogance completely nullified any effect that might have had. Even with all the most rigorous training in the world for it, how could I have been expected to put up with a job I couldn’t bear for the rest of my life?

There was no way I’d be able to support him emotionally. In fact, I was so stressed out myself that I felt like I might just collapse. I knew I couldn’t turn to my parents for help. How was I supposed to take in anything I was learning when I was so full of anxiety and loathing? My hateful thoughts played through my head on an infinite loop. I was possessed by them. So, I made up my mind: no matter what it took, I was going to run away from it all.

I was six at the time. It’s taken a decade of concerted effort to get myself here.

Once I made up my mind, the next issue at hand was how to annul the marriage peacefully, with as few negative consequences for myself as possible, and run away from my family to start a new life for myself.

Believe it or not, though, I’d had the answer to this pretty much right from the beginning. Shortly after my initial resolution, I’d run my mind in desperate circles trying to devise a way out, to the point of tears. Then it hit me:

If the protagonist of Lady Rose makes it all the way to a happy ending with the Pompous Prince, the villainess Liliana Inoce is disowned by her family and forced to live the life of a commoner. Her fate was the perfect ending for me.

But that’s not all! The stars were aligned perfectly, because Liliana absolutely despises the protagonist, thanks to the love she harbors for the Pompous Prince, and harasses her endlessly for it. Of course, the protagonist stands up for herself and denies Liliana’s slander, impressing the prince and gaining his trust. Liliana, on the other hand, takes a massive fall from grace when her bullying and lies are revealed.

Anyway, that’s the gist of the Pompous Prince’s happy ending. If the pattern from the game held, allll I had to do was “own up to” everything Liliana accused me of instead of denying it. That would give me the perfect opportunity to trade fates with her.

I was over the moon. All this time, I’d been gritting my teeth and bearing the Pompous Prince’s selfish shenanigans and the unbearable pressure (not to mention crushing boredom) of my rigorous training as queen-consort-to-be. After entering the academy and meeting my favorite villainess, the angelic Lily, I practically fell in love with her at first sight. Well, not really...but I was so happy I almost cried. After all these years of suffering, my savior had finally arrived.

Before we started school together we’d exchanged words here and there at the usual social gatherings, but it was a different matter altogether to meet her on the game’s turf. My heart brimmed with hope, and my eyes brimmed with tears. Even after all the years I’d spent putting up with the Pompous Prince’s BS, my acting was in fine form. But my mask—the automatic, hollow reproduction of a graceful smile I had perfected—threatened to crumble the moment we locked eyes.

In the days that followed, I considered her harassment a godsend. Each instance was a stepping stone toward my happy ending; I was thrilled to be the object of her torment. Lily would come up to me and proudly give me the play-by-play of each slanderous lie she’d told the prince about me. And every time she did, I had to stop myself from thanking her.

If I had any regrets, it would be that Lily probably still hates me and sees me as an obstacle even now, thanks to my status as the prince’s former...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.12.2024
• Reihe/Serie: Lady Rose Just Wants to Be a Commoner
• Illustrationen: Nami Hidaka
• Übersetzer: Caroline Winzenried
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Schlagworte: Comedy • Isekai • Light Novel • Nobility • Otome Game • Reincarnation • reverse Harem
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-0570-2 / 1718305702
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-0570-0 / 9781718305700