Before the Villains’ Ending - Chapter 1

1. Margaret Eilish

Florencia Jay Eilish was a wicked woman. A truly evil woman.

The victim of unrequited love, she was jealous of the heroine’s relationship with the male lead.
‘I’, Margaret Colin Eilish, was the younger sister of such a villainess.

A thorough bystander who contributed nothing to the villainess’s defeat, unworthy of her position as a younger sister.

That’s exactly what I’ve become since I entered her body.

From beginning to end, time seemed to fly. I didn’t want to associate with anyone if I could avoid it and nor be slandered, so I faked an illness.

It was a pretty good job. When the villainess’s tyranny was revealed to the world, Margaret Eilish was given a simple fine as a sickly third party.

Furthermore, our family evaded destruction when my good deeds were revealed, such as my secret donation to an orphanage in the name of a marquis.

The only thing left was Florencia, who was hated for being a rare villainess.

“Ah, Mel. My cheeky little sister.”

My sister kept going until the bitter end. On the day of her arrest for attempted regicide among other various crimes, she smiled with contentment, saying, “I did everything I could for my love.”

That attitude hasn’t changed, even in the dungeon.

“… I’m not cheeky. I came to pay respects and take care of you. Besides, it’s also the right thing to do.”

The wicked woman whose execution date had been set was pitiful but arrogant. It wasn’t the Florencia that I remembered, who sobbed and regretted at the end of the novel.

This is the consideration of a loving younger sister.

“You can do that?”

My sister nodded. Her appearance after torture was quite horrific, so I would often visit her with painkillers in tow. This was mercy from my side, and also an apology from a sister who couldn’t stop her execution.

“Margaret Eilish. Leave, now. “

“I’m tired.”

These partings were familiar.

I woke up with a sigh of relief, knowing the execution was arranged to be two months later. There was still time left.

Florencia loved Margaret.

In the original, she treated Margaret as both accomplice and beloved sister. However, since the time I started pretending sickness, she began to show a more devoted side.

Enough to share with me what she had.

My sister was a wicked woman who was too passionately in love. Perhaps, if I were a little more benevolent, I would have actively tried to stop her misdeeds.

“Sister.”

I called her name softly. Outside the novel, I never had to use this word.

The wicked woman didn’t answer. She was tired, now.

Florencia thought that Margaret was a delicate child. So she never showed me her criminal behavior. Not even once.

I remember you smiling as a child, urging me to remain pure.

But you, you lost your innocence. A good sister. You didn’t want me to get dirty.

“Dream of me.”

After the farewell that I threw as a joke, Finzan returned, asking if I didn’t have such a dream. We exchanged faint laughter. The visit was over. I left my sister’s room and walked down the darkened hallway.

***

The concept of the original novel was a reverse harem, in which several men attached themselves to a single woman. However, the author, whose creative limit is monogamy, eventually had to discard the male leads except for one.

The method was horrifyingly simple and neat.

It was something like my sister’s ending.

It was death.

The novel treated the remaining male protagonists as ‘villains’.

And they were imprisoned in the same dungeon as Florencia.

Just like this guy.

“Hello.”

“Did you come again today? How kind of you.”

“… This isn’t kindness, at all.”

“What?” Asked a sly voice.

Despite his unkempt black hair, he possessed a very handsome appearance. He was set to be executed a day earlier than my sister, having committed various crimes. Because he was obsessed with the heroine, he had an unspoken alliance with my sister.

‘A typical blackened second male lead’ was the general opinion I held of the man.

“Look.”

So I had some sympathy for him, too. It was one kind of sympathy, considering he often corresponded with my sister when he kept the crown prince in check over the heroine.

He failed, anyway.

For a moment, he looked up at me. I placed some of the usual medicine on the table, and he smiled sadly.

“Damn it. I should have met you before Beatrice.”

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment…”

At one point, I had tried to persuade him to turn from this path. It didn’t work.

Having felt the heroine’s warmth, however, he refused me very firmly. And so I didn’t say it more than twice. The pity that I gave him was so faint.

It was that kind of thing.

The guard contemptuously looked down on the traitor, who had once been the only Grand Duke of the Empire. I waved my hand to deter that gaze.

I stared at the drugs lined up in the man’s reach, all on a table in front of a cage.

It was an unspoken suggestion to check them out. Excluding certain hemostatic agents and a few pain relievers, they were generous enough to supplement them if needed.

The man twisted his shackled body a few times, then shook his head and leaned forward to see the medicine. The shadow he cast because of his height covered me in an instant.

“… I don’t know.”

He grinned. Then he giggled as if he wanted to stroke my head.

It seemed that nothing else was needed. I didn’t move.

Restrained hands are not a threat. Putting down the medicine and accepting his jokes with an innocent blank face was for my own safety, in a way.

I suddenly wondered. Is this person the same as my sister? Was he satisfied, knowing that he did everything he could for his love, even in the face of death?

“That’s a compliment. Beatrice didn’t come to see me.”

Of course it is.

“Think of what you did to her.”

What are you talking about? He smiled innocently and added, looking at me.

“I didn’t touch her fingertips. No matter what anyone says, I mean it.”

“You’re still a murderer. There’s still a traitor here.”

The decisive reason for the man’s execution was treason.

The heroine had nothing to do with the villain’s execution. Therefore, Beatrice never spoke to the sinner, up until the moment he was executed.

She had to be in a position of indisputable virtue.

Yes, treason. His situation was quite different from the crown prince’s, who is the male protagonist.

I had mixed thoughts, and Calix grunted at me in a sullen tone.

“You still come, unafraid of me. To be honest, I don’t know why you keep coming. Your eyes are too good to look upon a traitor–”

“You look sleepy.”

This last word was unexpected, so I tilted my head and stared at him. What do you mean I look sleepy?

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe it’s because you have the same blood as your sister. You’re unimpressed because you’re directly related to a killer.”

What kind of bullshit is this?

I laughed nervously.

There was no problem with my blood. The same went for my sister’s blood. I gave a half-hearted answer.

“There’s nothing wrong with the marquis bloodline itself. Florencia Eilish is just pitiful. You just… don’t know.”

As for him…

The man was tied across the table. I didn’t think such a man would look like this in front of me.

If it weren’t for Beatrice, he’d be at the center of society in all his finery, by now.

Alas, he could have sat on the throne.

The bars in the visitation room were relatively spread apart. I patted the prisoner’s head half-heartedly and suddenly informed him.

“I can’t come to see you for a while.”

“… What?”

Rattle.

If I heard a banging sound from the restraints that held him for a moment, I must have been mistaken.

***

Calix Fernand de Hamel was the Grand Duke.

He was notorious for being the strongest man in the empire. In fact, he was so strong that it was ridiculous to keep him in a dungeon.

To the best of my knowledge, he was easily able to overwhelm the crown prince with his most basic abilities, barely even trying.

The crown prince, who fought Calix directly, had shown a strange attitude; he acted like it was a matter of course, for him to be arrested. It was questionable, how the execution was not immediately enacted.

This was also a warning to some of the nobles. The man himself was so calm that it went without a hitch.

But apart from that, anyone who had fought on the frontlines when the rebels stormed the palace knew that these men were out of the league of normal human beings.

So, the guard was apprehensive.

Calix slowly shook his head.

“Why?”

The duke’s voice seemed to tremble at the end. I looked down at the floor, thinking of silly things.

The reason?

Beatrice and the crown prince have already confirmed their love, so the only thing that’s left is for the villainess to die. Yeah, on the day they exchange their engagement rings, my sister is going to die.

Two months remained. There are about sixty days until the end.

So there was only one reason why I couldn’t come back, until then.

‘I have to do something.’

I rolled the sentence in my mouth before I spit it out.

Whatever, I really had to do something.

The ending of the novel is as follows:

The duke, who was obsessed with Beatrice, the heroine, eventually committed treason.

My elder sister did not join this treason but took advantage of the confusion to try kidnapping the heroine. When this was thwarted by another secondary male lead, the knight, the villains whose hostages escaped were arrested.

In the meantime, the heroine and the prince confirmed their feelings for each other, gathered their power, and executed Florencia and Kalix. At the same time, they reached their happy ending by exchanging engagement rings.

Isn’t that unfair?

I was genuinely angry about this ending.

My father, the Marquis of Eilish, had truly, casually, abandoned my sister. Margaret’s behavior had changed because of me; it spared him from downfall. He could remove his eldest daughter from the family registry.

‘Forget about your sister.’

‘She’s crazy.’

‘Only you, only you are my daughter, my dear Mel.’

He spoke nonsense and tried to pressure me, just like that. The nobility of this world had always crossed the boundaries of common sense.

It was impressive. And what else did the crown prince say?

‘Your sister just paid for her crime.’

She just loved you. But you would use her death to commemorate your marriage with another woman.

It’s not fair. It’s not.

A nice and clean ending where every loose end is tied up? I didn’t care about that. It doesn’t matter to me if Beatrice, the heroine, is unhappy. I’d twist the ending everyone wanted if the villainess is to be punished.

Florencia Jay Eilish was my sister before she was a villainess.

‘Furthermore…’

A truly evil person wouldn’t do this for her younger sister. There is no way to smile and pretend that you’re okay even when your toenails were just torn out.

She never hurt anyone, in front of me. I don’t know what it was like, in the original, but now my sister…

I blinked a couple of times as I considered another villain among my countless thoughts.

If I think about it, it was strange that Florencia Eilish had merely one reason for her execution, which was an attempted assassination of the Emperor. This was unlike the narrative in the novel, which mentioned that the crimes of Florencia Eilish were countless.

In addition, it was Beatrice who was being targeted by Calix and the other villains, and not Damon, who was part of the royal family.

There were rumors among the people that it was a trap designed by the Crown Prince; for revenge against the villainess, who had tried to harm the woman he loved.

As I pondered this point, I shook my head a few times to clear a mind that was quickly growing complicated, and slowly opened my lips.

“I have work to do.”

The answer trickled out, in a quiet, quiet voice that seemed powerless, as I realized that there wasn’t much I could do.

I was a supporting character in a story that was already reaching its end, so I couldn’t afford to change anything. A feeling of helplessness covered my whole body.

It was then that it happened.

“You.”

There was a loud crunching sound as something burst.

I breathed in and raised my head. The sound of iron shackles breaking apart was impossibly loud in this dungeon.

Translator’s Note : Hello this is Bree this is my first time translating a novel hope you enjoy <3…

Editor’s Note: Hi, this is rainshower! I’m editing this novel’s translation, and I have to say I really enjoyed this first chapter. Margaret has such an interesting perspective. Her relationship with her sister is complicated, but you can feel the sisterly love so clearly in some of her thoughts. Tell us what you think in the comments!