I Don’t Want to be a Villainess

The sound of my pathetic scream bursting from my throat was so loud that it made my eardrums buzz. But I had no time to think about anything.

Why was I suddenly on a big bed when I had clearly been on the bus heading home? Why was the voice coming out of my mouth a female voice? And why was the young woman who rushed in wearing a maid outfit?—I had no time to consider any of that.

Because my entire body hurt like hell.

The lights in the dark room turned on, and the maid shouted something. Then I was suddenly lifted and moved by the people who rushed in—

When I came to my senses, I found myself in a hospital.

As soon as my mind cleared, the first thing I thought was how extremely painful my throat was. Looking at the white ceiling of the hospital, I turned my gaze slightly and saw an IV bag connected to my left arm. I stared at the medicine dripping down, trying to take in the situation.

I tried to sit up.

But even the slightest movement sent sharp pains through my back and waist. No, it wasn’t just my back and waist. My shoulders, elbows, hips, knees—all the joints we use to get up from a bed hurt like hell. It felt like I was forcing long-stiffened joints to move.

“Ugh.”

As I couldn’t hold back, I groaned, and the curtain that had surrounded me was pulled back.

“Patient, are you awake?”

The person who came in was a doctor in a white coat.

Because I had just screamed so loudly, my voice didn’t come out properly. Instead of answering, I made a groan, and the doctor nodded as if he understood.

Then he said, “Don’t worry; the police have been called.”

Police?

……Why?

I looked up at the doctor, still not grasping the situation, but the doctor, who seemed to have just stepped into middle age, shook his head slightly while looking at me with a very serious expression.

No, I mean, I would really like to know why.

Of course, that thought didn’t come out as words, but more of a ugh sound.

Anyway, true to the doctor’s word, it didn’t take long for the police to arrive.

There were about four police officers at the hospital. Two were in police uniforms, looking like the kind you might see on the streets, but the other two were in casual clothes. They wore leather jackets and looked like those tough detectives you often see in dramas.

After the doctor showed them my condition, the police immediately took the smartphone handed over by the doctor. Then their faces fell.

“Is the patient able to communicate right now?”

“Conscious, but it doesn’t seem like she can have a proper conversation. She can’t speak…”

The doctor said with a serious look.

Meanwhile, I was desperately trying to assess the situation, but no matter how I turned my head, all I could see were the faces of the patients. There were no family or friends in sight.

……Was it a car accident?

My head was a mess.

I had clearly been on my way home. Tomorrow was Saturday, and I was finally relieved thinking I could sleep in and escape the unbearable weekdays. My last memory was dozing off on the warm bus, sitting in the back row, with the heater blowing gently. Then suddenly, I had a dream involving a maid, screamed wildly, and ended up here.

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about the people you were with. They’re far away.”

If the people I was with were far away, wouldn’t that be even more worrying?

Setting family or friends aside, if the person who brought me here could at least explain, I would feel a bit more at ease. Of course, if the bus had been in an accident, they might have just gone home. How many people would stick around in a hospital waiting for someone they didn’t even know to wake up?

Oh, is that it?

So, I was in such pain because of a car accident?

Slowly, my brain started to piece together the situation I was in.

While I couldn’t see much due to dozing off, it seemed I had been on the bus when I experienced a traffic accident. That’s why my body hurt so much and why those police officers were present.

“Student, you don’t need to worry anymore.”

One of the older cops, looking a bit tough but strangely handsome, leaned down to look at me. He looked like a successful middle-aged actor from a crime film.

……I wasn’t young enough to be called a student anymore, but well, since he thought so, I wasn’t going to argue.

“Just relax. You can answer our questions… no, you can just nod your head.”

The younger officer beside him, who didn’t seem much older than me, added to what he said.

The middle-aged officer handed the smartphone he was holding back to the doctor and walked over to me. Realizing the height difference was too much, he knelt down on one knee.

In a small voice, as if trying not to be heard by the adjacent bed, he asked me, “Have you been exposed to domestic violence?”

“……?”

What are you talking about?

I thought I somewhat understood the situation until a moment ago, but that didn’t seem to fit. Was there a connection between a car accident and domestic violence? Was I being suspected of being involved in the accident or something?

I blinked a few times, staring at the officer’s face, but there was no sign of suspicion in his expression. On the contrary, he seemed to be keeping a distance, as though trying not to scare me, so I figured he meant exactly what he said.

But domestic violence?

I would never experience domestic violence. I lived alone. In my room, there was no one to hit me. It’s not like I had ever been abused during my childhood living with family.

When I shook my head, the officer spoke seriously.

“I already know. I saw the bruises on your back. They are marks that wouldn’t appear without violence.”

No, this guy is asking questions as if he already has the answers set in his mind.

And if I had bruises on my back, it was obviously due to the car accident, not domestic violence. I’ve not even been unlucky enough to get hit by anyone on the street, so why was he making this sound? As I shook my head again, the officer’s brow furrowed.

“But, student—”

“Let’s stop here.”

The officer was about to persuade me again when a sharp female voice rang out.

Looking toward the sound, I saw a young woman in a black coat entering the emergency room. She had a bob haircut that looked like it had been cut with a knife, making her a beauty, although her face was a bit sharp.

……Hey, I think I’ve seen that face before.

She definitely looked like someone from earlier in my dream.

“She said it wasn’t true.”

She said “miss?”

Before I could ponder that expression, a group of men in black suits started pouring through the emergency room door.

“Ah, you can’t—!”

The doctor shouted at the people rushing into the emergency room, but the woman looking at me didn’t turn her gaze.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing in the hospital?”

The detective questioning me also frowned and stood up.

“More importantly, we should answer the call first.”

To such a detective, the young woman unexpectedly said something.

“Call? What do you mean by call—”

The expression on the detective’s face hardened before he even finished that sentence. His phone in his pocket had started ringing.

“…….”

Taking the phone from his pocket and seeing the screen, the detective shot an intimidating glance at the young woman before answering the call.

“Yes, Chief.”

The call didn’t take long. The detective muttered short responses like “yes, yes, understood, I’m sorry,” and then hung up the phone.

He looked down at me, glanced at the young woman, let out a big sigh, and messed up the back of his head roughly.

Then he spoke to the other officers with him.

“Let’s go.”

“Excuse me?”

The younger detective asked back.

“But—”

“Just for now.”

But before the older detective finished speaking, he started walking away. The flustered fellow officers had no choice but to follow him.

“……Student.”

After taking a few steps, the older detective turned back as if he had just remembered something.

“If anything happens, just call the police right away.”

“There shouldn’t be anything happening.”

While the young woman said that, the detective continued to stare at me.

When I nodded, he let out another resigned sigh and turned back.

The young woman watching all the police leave quickly turned to the doctor who had brought the police in.

“I’ll be discharged.”

“Excuse me?”

The doctor looked at her, bewildered.

“The patient’s recovery is still….”

“Yujin Group.”

The young woman interrupted the doctor’s words. “How much do you think the donations from Yujin Group will be for this hospital?”

“…….”

The doctor’s mouth dropped open.

……Is a company like Yujin Group going to step in just to discharge me? Isn’t that a bit strange?

Is there any relation between the bus accident and any company?

Or more importantly, I had never even heard of this Yujin Group. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were Samsung or LG, but could any company act so arrogantly in a hospital and still get away with it?

I turned my gaze. Black suits were already gathering around my bed, their broad shoulders making it look like a swarm of bodybuilders had surrounded me. There seemed to be nearly ten of them. With so many surrounding me, it felt like a black aura was slowly rising above their heads.

“I will be discharged.”

The young woman emphasized the word discharged again, and the doctor could only nod in agreement.

The young woman turned swiftly and walked over to me. The black suits surrounding me immediately parted, allowing her to see me directly.

Facing me straight on, the woman held her hands politely above her belly button and bent down in a perfect 90-degree bow, saying, “Miss, I’m sorry for making you wait.”

…….

Only then did I remember that this woman had called me “miss” before.

……Miss?

*

“Miss, are you feeling a bit better?”

Before I could even respond, the maid outfit-clad woman who had just come in prepared everything for me and asked. Of course, I had nothing to say in response to her question. For one, my voice still wasn’t coming out properly.

More importantly, I still hadn’t comprehended the situation.

I felt around my body within my reach inside the car I had come in. This body was definitely not mine. I wasn’t brave enough to touch the more embarrassing areas, so I just checked the more accessible ones… and regardless of whether this body was just youthful or poorly developed, it certainly didn’t seem to be the kind that evoked admiration at first glance.

When one of the big black-suited men picked me up like a princess, I felt quite embarrassed, but given that I wasn’t able to walk, I decided to go along with what they were doing. After all, if I had indeed ended up in someone else’s body, I needed to grasp the minimum of what was happening.

So, I nodded at the young woman.

Having taken off her coat and now in her maid outfit, she looked at my nod and bowed gracefully, then backed out of the room.

When the large double doors closed softly, I finally found a moment of silence to organize my thoughts.

So, does this mean that…… this is the current situation?

Countless light novels and web novels that I had read up until now swirled in my head. Numerous stories that I had thought could never happen to me. Falling into the world of a novel I read, being transported to a game or an isekai, or becoming one of the characters in it—a flood of thoughts rushed in.

The rational part of my mind rejected that possibility. Honestly, it was much more plausible to think that I had hit my head hard and gone crazy rather than become a character in some story.

But at the same time, a part of me wondered if the kind of things that only happened in fantasies was actually happening. After all, the events taking place right in front of my eyes suggested so.

I attempted to raise my arm but gave up. It still hurt too much. I was in less pain than when I twisted my body while screaming earlier, but I still couldn’t manage to get up and wander all around this wide room.

I turned my head to look around the room, but once again, I found no helpful information.

The modern sensibility of the minimally decorated room looked like something straight out of a drama featuring a rich chaebol’s daughter, but I had never seen such a background before. To be honest, I read web novels far more than manga, so even if I was aware of the scene, it was natural that I couldn’t easily recall it unless there were fairly distinctive features since descriptions can vary greatly depending on the reader.

……Let’s leave it here for today.

Earlier, when I came out of the hospital… I think I saw the sky completely dark during the process of getting into a black emergency car that looked like it might be run by this family. The wall clock in the distance pointed to 1 a.m., signaling it was time to sleep.

I presume I woke up while screaming in my sleep.

My whole body still ached, and my throat felt scratchy. I briefly blinked while lying down and sighed deeply.

Yeah, it’s time to sleep.

Let’s think after I wake up.

If this is just a dream or a figment of my imagination, by the time I wake up, it should all be over. But if what I’m thinking about, this ridiculous situation, is actually happening… then I need to at least recover somewhat to figure out what’s going on and whose body I’ve ended up in.

I closed my eyes momentarily to fall asleep and then opened them again.

No, well, it’s not that there’s some big reason for it.

……How do you turn off the light?

*

In the end, during the early morning of that day, I had to cover my face with the blanket and force myself to sleep under the bright light.

“Miss……?”

Waking up to a somewhat flustered voice calling me, I gently lowered the blanket that I had pulled up over my head. It was the young woman I had seen yesterday, in her maid outfit. The bewilderment felt in her voice was very clear on her face too. This was far different from her expressionless demeanor when she partially threatened the police and doctors before.

She checked back and forth between the blanket that was draped over me and the brightly lit ceiling, then slowly walked over to the bedside table and picked up the small remote control that was resting on it.

Beep.

As she pressed the button on the remote, with a small sound, the lights in the room went out immediately.

……So that’s how you turn it off.
I had never experienced living in a place with such modern conveniences before, so I hadn’t thought of that at all.

Now that I think about it, I might have seen a similar feature at a friend’s apartment when I went to visit.

Feeling embarrassed, I turned red as the maid placed her cold hand on my forehead. Her hand was very chilly. Or maybe I was just overly hot. Honestly, it would be more accurate to say I had blushed in embarrassment rather than had a fever.

“You still have a bit of a fever. It’s best to cancel today’s schedule.”

I had no idea what today’s schedule was, but I was relieved she had mentioned that. I didn’t remember a thing. No, to say I didn’t remember would be inaccurate. To be precise, that information had never entered my head in the first place. I had never been this rich heiress from the start.

“Just lie here and rest. You can start moving around once you recover your condition.”

I nodded obediently.

The maid smiled at me graciously, then bowed politely, saying, “I will prepare breakfast shortly.”

She then backed out of the room and quietly closed the door.

After about ten seconds of silence following the closing of the door, I got up.

“Ugh…….”

Still, my back and waist ached, and my limbs felt weak, but I was much better than I had been the day before, when I couldn’t move at all.

I raised my hand. The hand in front of me was smaller and more delicate than the hand I had. Indeed, it was a hand that certainly matched the expression “miss.” A hand that had never known hardship.

My fingers were sore, but I could clench and unclench my fist.

“Ah, ah.”

When I opened my mouth to speak, what came out was a somewhat high-pitched, childish voice.

The moment I heard that voice, I felt a cold sweat trickle down my back. It felt much more real than when I had touched my body or looked at my hands.

“……One, two, three.”

I mumbled softly, testing like a microphone, but the voice coming from me still sounded like a sweet, delicate girl. Perhaps due to the aftereffects of my screams yesterday, it was a little hoarse, but objectively speaking, it was the kind of voice that wouldn’t sound out of place if someone complimented it as “pretty.”

“Phew……”

I swept my face with my hand.

I could clearly feel the front strands of hair were much longer than they had been when I had been male. When I put my hands back behind me, I could feel the hair flowing down my back.

It was hair that was extremely well-maintained.

“……Alright.”

After sitting for a while in a daze, I nodded and murmured.

For now, it was important to grasp the situation.

I needed to know what kind of world I was in, who I was. At the very least, whether I was a character from any works that I knew or not.

First, I needed to confirm that.

While thinking this, an idea suddenly sparked in my mind.

When transitioning to another world, one usually receives at least one convenient ability. Even if it’s not a superpower, there’s a common trope where an author clearly and neatly showcases a character’s abilities to readers.

I thought it might be good to try that first. Whether it works or not, if it really does work, it would be a tremendous help.

Taking a deep breath, I steeled my mind, and with a clear voice, I said, “Status window.”

Nothing appeared.

“Uh…… Status?”

But still, nothing showed up.

“……”

Did my pronunciation lack clarity? Maybe it was because my voice was hoarse.

“Ahem, ahem.”

I placed a hand on my throat, cleared my voice, and then once more, I shouted with a clearer voice than before.

“Status window!”

“……Miss?”

“……”

I froze as a voice suddenly called to me.

Slowly turning my head, I saw the maid holding a luxurious brass tray with a bewildered expression on her face.

On the tray was a dish filled with white porridge.

Ah, I remember now. She said she was going to prepare breakfast.

“……”

I slowly raised my hand to cover my face.

No, why didn’t I hear any sounds when the door opened!

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