Chapter 1. Reborn as the Female Protagonist’s Twin Sister
Dong- dong-.
The church bells rang gloomily, announcing the end of the last funeral.
As crows flying across the red-tinged sky perched on the treetops, only silence flowed through the empty cemetery.
It was a shabby and lonely funeral that ended without mourners due to the sudden news.
‘Grandmother.’
Cynthia stared blankly at the tombstone with a haggard face. Her swollen and dried eyes could no longer produce tears.
That day, she shouldn’t have left her grandmother alone to go to the market. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have passed away so lonely.
Cynthia felt like her heart was being torn apart, as if everything was her fault.
She already missed her grandmother’s face, smiling as they shared hugs and said they loved each other.
“Get up now. How long do you plan to stay here?”
Cynthia’s mother, Viscountess Ena Blewitt, fanned herself with an expression of fatigue.
Her father, Viscount Roheim Blewitt, was also by her side.
Cynthia faced her parents, whom she was seeing after 12 years, with emotionless eyes.
A worthless and deficient daughter.
That was always what she had been to them.
The Blewitt couple only showered affection on Iris, Cynthia’s fraternal twin sister.
Studies, etiquette. No matter what she did, all that came back to her were contempt-filled gazes.
……She had tried to forget.
Seeing her parents’ faces again felt like reopening a wound that had already festered.
At eight years old, during her girlhood.
Cynthia frowned as she recalled the day she first accompanied her family on a picnic.
It was a family gathering she wouldn’t have been able to attend if not for Iris acting cute.
Not knowing her fear of water, Cynthia followed Iris onto the boat, but had an accident when the boat tilted.
While everyone was taking care of Iris, no one saved Cynthia who had fallen into the water.
The young Cynthia, who was dying, was barely able to save her life thanks to a boatman.
Afterward, Cynthia thought her parents would worry about her at least a little.
However, the Blewitt couple instead blamed her for ruining the picnic. They forbade her from going out, confined her to her room, and didn’t look in on her.
It was her grandmother who found Cynthia when her heart was dying.
“Would you like to come with me?”
It was the first time someone had treated her kindly. Cynthia desperately grasped her grandmother’s hand.
“I’ll eat a little, and I’ll work hard at whatever you tell me to do.”
Her grandmother smiled somewhat sadly.
After that, many things changed for Cynthia as she lived with her grandmother.
She was able to learn what it meant to exchange hearts through her.
She was never a useless person.
‘I wanted to become an apothecary recognized by grandmother……’
The one person who had been on her side was gone, and she was alone in the world again. Cynthia clutched the hem of her dress and erased her pained expression.
“I’m not going.”
Viscountess Blewitt, who was dumbfounded, breathed heavily.
“How heartless. Is that what you say to your mother whom you haven’t seen in years?”
Cynthia was truly tired. She didn’t even have the strength to engage in an emotional battle with these unwelcome people.
“Stop this miserable display and get up now. You must return to the main house with us.”
At the cold voice of her mother, Cynthia finally turned her head. After not looking at her for so long, they’re suddenly telling her to come back. Wariness filled her green eyes.
“What are you scheming?”
“Be happy. A marriage proposal has come for you. Though he’s in his 70s, he’s a splendid person with a baron title and wealth.”
Viscountess Blewitt couldn’t hide her sneer as she threw the portrait on the ground.
Despite being a wedding portrait that should have been drawn more handsomely than the actual person, the clearly visible bald spot, graying beard, and deep wrinkles……
Above all, Cynthia’s expression hardened at the name stamped at the bottom.
‘Baron Reka……?’
He was a wicked merchant guild master who exploited slaves so badly that herb merchants clicked their tongues in disgust. Moreover, he was known as a lecher with three dead wives and countless mistresses.
It felt like someone had struck her head and poured cold water over her.
“No! Please just remove my name from the family. I want to give up the Blewitt name!”
As long as she was bound to the family, her life could never be free, let alone an unwanted marriage. It would be a hundred times better to live as a beggar.
“You truly are insane! Say it again. What? Give up the family?”
Viscount Blewitt spewed curses without restraint. The Viscountess burst into laughter as if she had heard an amusing story.
“The manners you learned from your grandmother are quite impressive.”
The viscountess tapped Cynthia’s shoulder with her fan. At the snide remark toward her grandmother, Cynthia’s gaze grew cold.
“That’s rich coming from parents who sell their child.”
With her artificial smile gone, Viscountess Blewitt instantly grabbed Cynthia by the hair.
“Ugh.”
“What could you do without being a Blewitt? Well, you were like that when you were young too. Like a beggar, without a single likable aspect, like a vulgar wench.”
The vicious voice piercing her ears choked Cynthia’s breath.
“Your only value is your intact body. You should repay us for giving birth to you and raising you. Who knows? If you happen to bear Baron Reka’s child, we might see you differently.”
Viscountess Blewitt roughly let go of the hair she had grabbed, apparently finding it amusing even upon further reflection, her eyes glistening with tears.
‘I don’t need any of this. Just leave.’
Cynthia quickly rose from her seat to escape from them. Though her stomach churned from overexertion over the past few days, she gritted her teeth and endured.
At the same time, Viscountess Blewitt gave a signal to the knights. It was an order to capture Cynthia.
Moving nimbly, they grabbed her slender arms with rough hands.
“What are you doing?! Let go of me right now!”
Cynthia resisted by kicking the knight’s leg with eyes full of anger, but it was futile.
Crack.
A scream filled with pain escaped as the fierce grip threatened to break her arm.
“Ah!”
As Viscount Blewitt approached and raised his hand, the knights who had been holding her arms let go and stepped aside.
Cynthia looked up at the man who had been her father with a face filled with despair.
A gaze containing terrible coldness.
Why did he hate her so much?
“Insolent wench.”
Slap!
At the sudden slap, a flash of light burst before her eyes. Her powerless body collapsed, unable to support itself.
Cynthia unconsciously reached out to Viscount Blewitt. It was an instinct that emerged wanting to live, like an eight-year-old child.
But this time too, he did not take her hand.
‘Ah, as expected.’
Her trampled heart sank endlessly. Staggering, Cynthia fell backward and hit her head on the tombstone.
Thud!
At the sound that broke the silence, crows noisily flew up into the sky.
Pain that couldn’t even elicit a scream spread, and red blood flowed down Cynthia’s face.
At that moment, an unknown vision flowed into her mind. And she realized. That this place was the world inside a novel she had read in her previous life.
“I’ll…… never…… for-……”
Cynthia couldn’t finish her last words and slowly closed her eyes. Soon, the world went dark.
❀❀❀
Yoon Seonha’s life, raised in a cathedral orphanage, was relatively ordinary.
She grew up close to the herb garden tended by the nuns, and as an adult, she ran the cathedral’s tea house while reading web novels in her spare time.
Her last memory was of being hit by a reversing truck while helping an elderly person collecting waste paper.
❀❀❀
Gasp!
Cynthia opened her eyes wide in surprise.
As she slowly surveyed her surroundings, a faint breeze leaked through the gap in the old window.
The lamp swayed dimly, and the brown-painted shelf was tilted to one side.
A familiar space filled with the scent of herbs. It was that attic room where her parents had confined Cynthia as a child.
The dark, narrow interior, piles of herbs as tall as her height, potion bottles—everything was the same.
It seems they had brought her to the main house while she was unconscious.
Cynthia slowly raised her upper body.
Gasping, she felt a dull pain in her head and her entire body ached as if it had been beaten.
“To think I’d be reborn as the female protagonist’s sister.”
The absurd situation only made her laugh hollowly.
Her insides churned at the realization that she had craved affection from these non-recyclable pieces of trash just because she wanted attention.
‘I won’t expect anything from them anymore.’
Suppressing her anger, Cynthia got off the bed, causing clumps of dirt to fall.
Had it gotten on her when she hit the tombstone? She absentmindedly dusted off the dirt and headed to the bathroom.
After washing her face, Cynthia silently stared at the mirror with its broken corner.
“I look like a complete mess.”
Her pink hair with gauze attached was limp and lifeless. She had lost quite a bit of weight from not eating properly for days.
Translator
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Xesene
Why in the Original story would the author have the twin sister be neglected and unloved? Wouldn’t that show the og protagonist in a bad light? I’d say the neglected twin sister side character is somthing you only see in isekai stories. Never have I ever seen that in a real story. “I was loved but my twin sister wasn’t. We’re selling her off. With that money, I was able to keep living the good life. Oh, I heard my sister died under ab*se. This affects me”. Writing that out, seems like a protagonist a lot of people wouldn’t like at all. Or maybe that’s why I’ve never seen that before, I wouldn’t sit through a story with a protagonist like that.