1. Everyone Has Secrets
Slap!
Yunseo opened her eyes to a burning pain across her left cheek.
“I am severing all ties with you, Rodi Evant.”
Before her stood a stern middle-aged man, glaring down with murderous eyes.
Slumped on the floor, Yunseo stared up at him in utter bewilderment.
‘Who are you?’
No one had ever slapped her cheek before, aside from her parents.
Though dying to ask why, she kept her mouth shut.
She could tell one wrong move would get her killed on the spot.
“I will give you exactly ten minutes. Go to your room and pack your things at once.”
The middle-aged man wheeled around.
She blinked blankly at his back before slowly starting to move.
‘What on earth happened…?’
She could not make sense of the situation at all.
She remembered working overtime at the office, heading home, and playing a little bit of the game Utopia.
Yet when she came to her senses, some stranger was slapping her across the face.
Yunseo pushed herself up, her mind a daze.
‘Ah.’
A monstrous headache crashed over her like a wave, and a jumble of scenes flashed through her mind.
Most of them featured a pretty woman with pink hair, always from a perspective that regarded her with hostility.
‘Every single one looks familiar.’
In that instant, one truth dawned on her.
The scenes whirling inside her head were identical to the game she had been playing moments ago.
‘Wait, didn’t that man just call me Rodi Evant? No way…?’
Yunseo stepped out into the hallway.
Fortunately, the memories surfacing in her mind provided an exact layout of the mansion.
Yunseo hastily pulled open the door to Rodi’s room.
To the right of the door, next to the vanity, stood a large full-length mirror.
Yunseo slowly approached it.
Reflected in the glass was a woman with pale skin and long, wavy purple hair.
Her feline eyes tilted slightly upward, framed by long lashes, their irises the soft light green of fresh sprouts.
‘Unbelievable.’
The reality sank in immediately.
She had possessed the body of Rodi Evant, the villainess of the otome game Utopia.
✦ ✦ ✦
Jeong Yunseo’s original life had been utterly mundane.
‘Everything we do is out of love for you.’
Her parents wanted their only daughter to gain admission to a prestigious pre-med program and seize success.
‘Why can’t you solve a single problem like this?!’
Yunseo had strived relentlessly to fulfill her parents’ wishes, but effort does not always yield a reward.
In her final year of high school, Yunseo failed her college entrance exams.
‘To think my daughter is a failure!’
Failing to enter medical school turned the nineteen-year-old girl into a loser overnight.
Even though Yunseo attended a respectable program at a fairly top-tier university, in her parents’ eyes, she had been demoted from ‘good daughter’ to ‘failed daughter.’
‘Do you have any idea how much we sacrificed for your future?’
‘You’re the most ungrateful child on earth.’
Her parents hurled verbal abuse at her throughout her college years. For failing to get into medical school, Yunseo was always a sinner.
When she reached her senior year and began seeking employment, her parents spoke once more.
‘You must get hired by a major corporation.’
Yunseo realized this was an opportunity.
Her final chance to earn her parents’ approval.
From that day on, Yunseo worked day and night.
Her days became an endless cycle of polishing cover letters, bolstering her résumé, and practicing for interviews.
This time, her efforts did not betray her.
She landed a job at a major conglomerate.
A flicker of hope rose that, this time, her parents would finally acknowledge her.
‘Mom, Dad. I got accepted!’
Yet the response she received was cold.
‘You’re making a fuss over something to be expected.’
‘Oh…’
‘Had you failed this time, I would have struck you from the family registry.’
Her father fixed her with a chilly gaze.
‘Don’t settle for mere acceptance. You must climb higher, faster than anyone else.’
‘Yes…’
A sudden question crossed Yunseo’s mind.
‘When will they ever acknowledge me?’
It was a pointless question. She had never been allowed to do anything other than meekly obey her parents.
Afterward, Yunseo strove hard at the company, determined to get ahead of the rest.
Her days were an endless repetition of overtime.
While walking through the subway station to catch the last train as usual, she spotted a game advertisement flashing on an electronic billboard.
—We invite you to a beautiful world: Utopia.
Yunseo gazed up at the advertisement through eyes steeped in exhaustion.
‘A beautiful world, huh.’
…It would be wonderful if one truly existed.
The cliché phrase lingered in her mind.
Two days later, Yunseo was installing Utopia on her smartphone.
Getting caught playing games would have earned her a slap from her parents, without a doubt.
So she secretly played Utopia only while lying in bed before drifting off to sleep.
‘…This is fun!’
Her very first gaming experience was sweet.
Yunseo was quickly absorbed into the world of Utopia.
Utopia was an otome game whose story unfolded around four male protagonists and the female protagonist, Simone Gretia.
Yet out of all the charming characters, the one that captivated Yunseo’s heart above all was the game’s villainess, Rodi Evant.
‘I envy her.’
As the daughter of a ducal house, Rodi was always confident, arrogant, and true to her desires.
Whenever someone displeased her, she humiliated them, spread scandals, and ultimately manufactured weaknesses until they begged on their knees in submission before her.
In a way, she was a dreadfully shameless woman.
In contrast, the female protagonist, Simone, was flawless. Kind, righteous, and possessed of exceptional talent in swordsmanship.
Moreover, as the story progressed, she gradually monopolized the affections of four distinctly charming male leads.
The master of one of the continent’s top three merchant guilds.
The strongest knight in the empire.
The successor to the Magic Tower Master.
And finally, the crown prince of the empire.
Revered by these four splendid men, Simone was the center of attention wherever she went.
It was precisely that which stoked Rodi’s jealousy.
Naturally, the spotless Simone never took the attacks lying down.
‘The one who suffered defeat was always Rodi.’
To Yunseo, Simone’s picture-perfect life felt strangely repulsive.
So much so that she preferred the villainess, who remained faithful to her own desires and acted solely to achieve them.
Despite feeling no affection for the heroine, Yunseo had one reason for enjoying Utopia.
To see an ending where Rodi Evant found happiness.
Yet regardless of the route, Rodi met only wretched ends—dying in an accident, succumbing to illness, or being exiled to the fringes.
‘What a trash game!’
Having reached the conclusion of the final True Ending, Yunseo threw her smartphone onto the bed.
‘…In the end, Rodi didn’t find happiness in a single route.’
Ding!
Right then, a notification sounded on her smartphone.
Yunseo picked up the phone sprawled across the bed.
[New Update!]
It was an alert from Utopia’s official community.
[An additional story for our charming villainess, ‘Rodi Evant,’ has been unlocked!]
“…!”
Yunseo let out a quiet cheer at the fresh announcement.
An update concerning Rodi—this was an absolute first!
[Requirements to unlock the extra story: 100% completion of each individual character route and clearing the True Ending…]
Scrolling down rapidly, Yunseo tapped the ‘Download’ button for the new version with a racing heart.
At that exact instant, her world turned upside down.
✦ ✦ ✦
Which brought her to the present.
Yunseo—no, Rodi—looked around the room.
‘He said ten minutes.’
There was no time to ponder whether this was real or not. She had to hurry and pack what she needed.
‘In the game, Rodi couldn’t accept the reality of being cast out and did nothing but scream in fury, leaving without a single thing.’
She had no intention of following the same path.
Picking up a bag lying on the floor, Rodi first secured the jewels from her jewelry box.
She stuffed in everything else that looked expensive as well.
‘Five minutes left!’
Checking the time, Rodi rushed toward the room situated halfway down the hallway.
“What’s this? Weren’t you thrown out?!”
The moment she swung the door open, the room’s owner, a woman with dark blonde hair, shrieked.
Ignoring her, Rodi walked over to the vanity.
Resting on top was a jewelry box three times larger than the one in Rodi’s room.
Rodi began sweeping every single jewel from the box into her bag.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!”
The woman screeching beside her grabbed a handful of Rodi’s long purple hair.
“Have you finally lost your mind, you vulgar bastard?!”
A sharp pain ripped through her scalp as if her hair were being torn out by the roots.
Her face twisting in rage, Rodi swung her hand and struck the woman across the cheek with all her might.
Smack!
“Eeeek!”
Having never been slapped in her life, the woman let out a scream and let go of Rodi’s hair.
“Ugh… y-you, I’m telling Father right this second…!”
Rodi looked down coldly at the woman sobbing on the floor and muttered impassively,
“Shut your mouth and behave, Nila.”
She knew all too well who this noisily sniffling blonde woman was.
Nila Evant.
None other than Rodi’s older half-sister.
