I Thought I Tamed The Villain - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

‘How did I end up like this?’

I rolled my eyes slowly. I was dazzled by the light shining through the clear water.

‘Jess was about to fall into the lake… I followed him and jumped in to save him…’

At that moment, I instinctively moved my limbs because of my choked breath.

However, my body was already sinking to the bottom of the water with tension and bewilderment.

It seemed that there was no use in moving my body any longer. I reached out towards the light, but it felt like I was already too far away.

I closed my eyes so slowly.

~*~

“Iris, Iris!”

I heard through my ears, someone…

There was a voice calling for someone.

“Ugh…”

“Are you awake?”

When I lifted my heavy eyelids, I could see Serena’s face, the oldest in the orphanage.

She was soaked just like me as if she had saved me from drowning.

“Iris…!”

Jess, the reason I jumped fearlessly into the lake, came into my arms.

His face was covered with tears as if he was worried that something would go wrong.

“…”

Normally, I would have wiped away Jess’ tears and laughed saying it was okay, but unfortunately, I didn’t have time for that now.

“Iris, are you sure you’re okay?”

Even with Serena’s hand on my shoulder, I couldn’t move.

What caught my eye was a person hiding behind a tree far away.

I was looking at it.

Theo. The child’s red eyes.

“I don’t think there’s a big problem, so if you rest well, you’ll be fine.”

“Thank you.”

Mr. Haley, who is in charge of the orphanage, looked at me while smiling helplessly.

“I know you wanted to save your little brother in front of you, Iris, but it’s not a good thing for you to jump into the water yourself. I don’t think I’ll even give you a bed if you come to me like this in the future.”

He was trying to intimidate me, but there was still a deep concern behind those words.

“Hehe. I’ll be careful.”

“Somehow every time, you only get hurt trying to help others. You have to think about your body and health too.”

Listening to Mr. Haley’s bruised nagging, I couldn’t help but laugh.

What do you mean, sir? I may have to risk my life as collateral to help this time…

Iris. A child who has been raised since birth in an orphanage established under the auspices of the Goddess Hylia Temple.

Even though her birth is unknown, a bright and beautiful ten-year-old child with golden hair like the goddess who saved the world in the beginning and blue eyes shining like crystals…

Until I jumped into the lake to rescue Jess from drowning.

It was good until I pulled Jess up and sent him ashore. The problem was that, on the contrary, I fell back into the water as my body lost strength there.

And I, who lost consciousness like that, remembered my previous life on the brink of death. Besides, the world I live in now is in a book I read in my previous life.

“Yeah, everything is fine. In an instant, I went from an 18-year-old to a conscious child, but I also realized that my hard-working life was just a book! Am I mentally strong? I can accept it all. However…”

Why is it that the place of my rebirth is a devastating novel with no dreams or hopes?

I screamed silently and buried my face in the pillow.

If no one was listening, I felt like screaming.

I wish I was born into a romance novel where petals fell like others, but this novel that I was born in was just a crime thriller novel that depicts the process of a person becoming a villain.

Collaboration with the original female protagonist? Romance with a male protagonist?

“Dream big. In this novel, there are only the main characters and the person who dies at the hands of the main character. I just have to worry about surviving.”

I smiled and burst into tears.

Theo was the main character and the villain of this novel.

He was called a child with demon blood because he had both dark hair and blood-red eyes, known as the symbol of the devil.

And as time passed and he grew up, he gradually built up animosity towards the world…

After he becomes an adult, he goes to the orphanage to find all the people he grew up with and commit a murder that horribly kills them all.

It was because of the memory of being despised and pointed at as a devil in the orphanage.

Of course, not everyone despised and pointed at him. Some of the children who grew up in the orphanage did not even know Theo’s existence.

Hylia Orphanage was that large.

But he didn’t care about it at all.

The murder he committed was sole to satisfy his vengeance.

And I was also one of those who died in his hands in the future.

“That’s unfair. I didn’t know anything about him either.”

Moreover, unfortunately, I couldn’t remember the contents of the book perfectly.

I only knew fragments of the content and the fact that I died from him.

No matter how much I tried to come up with other details, my mind went blank like an empty page, as if something was blocking me.

After all, I decided to focus on the facts I learned, and I came up with the most essential point.

“The way to survive is…”

To stop Theo who will later become a villain. That was all.

Even if I remembered my past life, the most important thing to me was also this life which I live in now.

Whoever I was in my previous life, I’m living as Iris now.

Therefore, it was a natural step to find a way to live safely in this novel.

“I have to change him.”

It seemed impossible, but it was something I could try.

Even if he later grew up to be a murderer, he’s still a child now.

We already knew how much someone’s childhood can affect a person’s personality.

‘Can I do it?’

Anxiety suddenly rose, but I shook my head.

Now that this happened, I had to get my head straight.

“I have to do it even if it doesn’t work. Let’s think of saving a man.”

I can’t say exactly whether the “person to save” is me or him.

And from the very next day, my villain rehabilitation project began.

I first headed to the library in the orphanage.

And I started reading carefully by choosing things that I could use among the few books.

Evelyn, who accidentally passed by, looked at me and spoke to me wondering.

“My son has changed. Animals are amazing. There are no bad children in the world… Iris, why are you reading these all of a sudden?”

“There’s no such thing as bad knowledge in the world. It’s preparing for the future.”

I wrinkled my nose and smiled at Evelyn, then moved my gaze back to the letters in the book.

“I see… But, it seems that they are all strangely mixed…”

Evelyn looked at me and tilted her head, but soon left my side since she didn’t want to interrupt my reading time anymore.

Being alone, I nodded as I read the important sentences over and over again.

“Always show consistency…”

Be consistent. Probably no one has ever shown Theo anything like that.

From what I remember In the book, he was always alone, and none of the usual conversation scenes with him came out well.

It was clearly what Theo lacked the most.

No one becomes a devil in the first place. You can’t have malice from the moment you first open your eyes after being born into this world.

Everything has a cause.

Given that Theo’s first murder spree had something to do with the orphanage, it was thought that the cause may have originated here.

Perhaps being rejected by children my age played a big role…

Children are pure and the cruelty that comes from that innocence is indescribably heinous.

Discrimination from differences would have crushed and hurt Theo relentlessly.

Having concluded, I closed the books and stood up.

Perhaps this moment was the only key to stopping Theo from the future.

~*~

“Oh, why is it so hard to meet you?”

I leaned on my weary legs and took a deep breath.

I eagerly set out to find Theo, but it was difficult to see his face.

“I didn’t even know some places here existed. We’re in the same building, how can we not run into each other?”

It was true that the Hylia orphanage was large, but this was somehow strange. Unless he’s deliberately hiding…!

“Hiding…?”

My body tingled as if I had been hit in the back of the head.

Why didn’t I think of that?

There was no way a child who was teased because of the color of his hair and eyes would be in a place where others could easily find him.

I had to turn my eyes towards a more shady, gloomy place.

“There…!”

And after five hours of wandering, I finally found him.