The last thing Nina Williams remembered was trying to meet the impossible deadline her boss had set, then a sharp pain exploding her chest. Her head hit the table, and her cup of coffee spilled over. Everything went blank…and for the first time in her 29 miserable years, she felt peace.
Which is why, when she opened her eyes to a bright and unfamiliar environment, she had no idea how she had gotten there.
"What?" She whispered, blinking with shock. Except, the voice that came out of her lips wasn't her voice. She normally had a husky and somewhat deep voice, but this voice was light and sweet. Like that of an opera singer.
"Princess! Princess please come down! You'll hurt yourself!"
Nina looked down.
And immediately regretted it. She was high up in a tree! As someone who had a very terrible fear of heights, she screamed, her foot nearly slipping as she grabbed tighter into the tree branch.
"Help me!" She cried, holding onto the tree branch like it was her lifeline. Her legs trembled and her heart started to pound. "Get me down! Please!"
"Princess! Jump! I'll catch you! Jump!" A voice shouted.
Princess?
Nina had been called a lot of things in her life; doormat, slave, bitch, whore, but never princess.
Trembling, with tears gathering in her eyes, she peered down.
The tree was massive, several hundreds of feet into the sky. It was so tall that the people yelling for her to jump down looked like mere ants.
Nina couldn't understand what was going on.
Where am I?! My clothes…when did I change into this?! Is my skin glowing pink right now?!
She stares at her hand holding a tree branch. Her skin was fair and smooth, with delicate pink orchid tattoos. Tattoos?!
[Ding!] a mechanical voice sounded in her head, nearly throwing her off the tree.
"Who is that?!"
[Hello, hostie~] the voice came again, soft and sultry, like a seductress. [Congratulations! You have successfully made it into this world! Lucky~]
"Huh?! What world?! How are you in my head?! What am I doing here?!"
[Yes yes, so many questions you have. But here's your first task! Throw a fruit at your servant, Amy. Make it hurt. Reward: 1 time agility boost. Deadline: 1 minute. Penalty: death. Good luck hostie~]
"Huh?!" Nina yelled on top of her lungs. What was that?! Task?! Reward?! Penalties?!
Death?!
"Can somebody explain what's going on?!"
[Fifty five seconds left.]
Nina looked down. Amy…which one was Amy! And why should she throw a fruit at the poor girl?! But if she didn't then she was going to die!
How was that possible?
Her mind raced to try and understand what was going on. The voice in her head continued the countdown. Nina looked around, careful not to slip and plummet to her death. As if by magic, a fruit was right in front of her.
It looked like it was made of pure rock. Gray and ugly with holes full of worms.
Nina gagged.
[Ten seconds left, hostie~]
"I'm sorry!"
Nina grabbed the fruit, eyes closed, and threw it down. She heard a sharp cry of pain, the same time the voice in her head counted down to [one]
Then there was silence.
[Ding! Congratulations on completing your first task, hostie~ You have been granted a 1 time agility boost. Kindly check your space. Thank you~]
"What does that even mean?" Nina wailed, tears streaming down her eyes.
[It means you can jump off this tree and land perfectly fine without turning into strawberry puree. Try it out, unless of course you'd rather live forever in this tree~]
"Where is it?"
The voice in her head sighed. Then a glowing blue screen appeared in front of Nina.
Huh? She thought. This looks like those system interfaces in comics!
"Are you a system?"
[Bingo! Took you long enough, hostie~]
Nina's eyes widened. "I transmigrated?!"
[You are correct!]
"That means I died?"
[Dead as a door nail!]
Nina grabbed her chest. That means I had a heart attack! I thought it was just a chest pain and—
Her foot slipped, causing her to fall. She screamed, frantically grabbing onto anything to prevent her ultimate fall to death. A second death.
[Use your agility boost!]
"I don't know how!" Nina cried, swiping her hands all over the interface screen. By a stroke of luck, she was able to tap the agility boost. A bright light flashed around her, and she landed on the very balls of her feet.
For ten seconds, she stayed that way, too shocked and dumbfounded to move or say anything. She stared at her hands, at the delicate hands with perfectly manicured nails and soft swirling tattoos that couldn't possibly belong to her.
Oh no. Oh no no no.
This wasn't her body! She truly transmigrated!
"Princess?"
Nina looked up.
Every single face that stared up at her looked petrified. Like they had just seen a giant lava monster.
Nina quickly noticed Amy, the servant girl had a bump the size of a fist on her head.
"I'm sorry—" she started to apologize when that ding echoed in her head.
[hostie~ no apologies. Might I suggest you take on a disgusted expression?]
"Why?!" Nina asked in her head.
[you haven't figured it out yet? You are the villainess in this story~]
"Princess," Amy stepped forward, her knees shaking so hard that Nina heard them knocking together. "You're going to be late for the dinner."
Nina looked at them again. All three of them, Amy included, had some sort of animal characteristic. Amy had bunny ears, the other servant looked like a field mouse, while the other hand short ram horns on his head.
It was then it hit Nina. Not in full pictures, but tiny fragments.
"Beastmen…" she whispered.
Just like the book she had been binging in the thirty minutes of free time she had! She hadn't even reached the middle of the book yet, but the little she'd read, she enjoyed it very much.
Wait, if she was in that book…then that meant…
Nina gasped. It made sense now. Her hands, the pink glowing tattoos, the terrified servants. "I'm Princess Orchid?!"
Princess Orchid?! The heartless woman that caused terror throughout the kingdom?!
[ten points for you, hostie!~]
That was too much for her to bear. Before she knew what had happened, her body gave up and hit the ground.
The last thought on her mind was "I'm fucked. I should have finished the story..."
When next she opened her eyes, she was in a room more beautiful than any princess room in a magazine.
Nina sat up, groaning and rubbing her aching head. The memories trickled back like a leaky faucet. The system, Amy and her bump, Princess Orchid.
Princess Orchid!
Nina jumped to her feet and ran over to the full length mirror. The face that stared back at her was the definition of "goddess beauty."
Long silver hair that was softer than silk. Large, soft pink eyes framed with delicate somber lashes. A face that was a plastic surgeon's wet dream, soft features, a full and rosy mouth, and two fluffy white Maine coon ears on top of her head.
And her body…
"Wow," Nina gasped, turnign and twirling, admiring the work of art that was Princess Orchid.
Her skin was fair like milk, with curling pink tendrils and orchid marks adorning her arms and legs, up to her neck. The mark glowed and emitted a soft, sweet scent. In the book, this was the Princess's orchid spores, which had a calming effect on anyone that inhaled it.
Princess Ordhid was a cat type beastwoman, and also an orchid type beastbloom. Nina didn't know exactly what those words meant, as she never got to the part of the book where it was explained.
She guessed it had some importance to the plot somehow.
"At least I have a beautiful body in this life," Nina muttered bitterly. "If only this person was good too."
[and that is exactly what you're here to fix, hostie~]
Nina wasn't scared anymore. She had grasped the basic idea of everything. So she calmly replied the system.
"What do you mean?"
[you have been chosen to inhabit this body for the meantime! Simply put, you will continue her acts of villainy and become the greatest villianess this beast world has ever seen!]
"What? You want me to remain the villainess?!"
[yes! Until the female lead, Princess Lotus, awakes from her coma!]
Princess Lotus was Princess Orchid's older sister, the rightful female lead of this story, the epitome of grace and kindness, who had fallen into a mysterious coma at the beginning of the book.
"And when is that going to happen?"
[didn't you read the book?]
Nina blushed. Her spore flared, thickening in the air. "I um….I was too busy with work."
Silence.
[how much of the book did you read?]
"Till chapter…15?"
Silence.
Silence again.
The system sighed. A heavy sigh that sounded eerily human.
[I chose the wrong host.]
"What do you mean by that?!"
[this is terrible! How could my calculations be wrong?]
Nina's left eye twitched. "Fine. Send me back then and choose your perfect host!"
[it doesn't work that way. And if I send you back now, you'll still be dead.]
"That sucks."
[I know. Now I have to work with….what I have.]
"Hey show me some respect here! I'm a princess now! I could have you executed!"
[ha! I am an AI, you cannot kill me!]
Right.
Nina walked back to the massive bed that could contain ten people with enough room to spare, and plopped down on it. This was all too much for her head to handle. She wished she had some pen and paper, or a word document so she could sort her thoughts out.
[in the meantime, your mission is to remain the villainess! Your goal, acquire 5million villain points. Once that goal is reached, you'll be able to return to a perfect version of your real life. One where you're not dead.]
Remain the villainess.
It shouldn't have been hard. The original Princess Orchid was painted as a wicked woman from the first chapter. Her introduction was her whipping a servant half to death for looking at her wrong.
"How does this story end?"
[it's against the rules to tell you that, hostie~ you must figure it out for yourself.]
"You mean you don't know or you won't tell me?"
[…]
"What of the rest of the story? I don't know what will happen! There's so many questions I have!"
[figure it out for yourself. Your first main task is ready! Seduce your husband, Lev, but use your orchid spores to harm him instead.]
"Lev?!" Nina sprang to her feet. "You mean the lion beastman that hates this woman?! The one that vowed to rip her head off in chapter two?!"
[exactly~ you have an hour to complete the task! Reward: +1000 villain points! Penalty: one hour blindness! Good luck hostie~]
"Wait! What do you mean blindness?! Hey!" Nina screamed, but it was too late.
Seduce Lev?!
The system should have just told her to die! That would be easier than walking up to that furious Lion!
And 1000 measly villain points?! For a task that could cost her life? That sadistic AI!
Nina screamed in frustration, wishing she could strangle the system herself.