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Chapter 3

My name is Ootori Reiko.
I am the eldest daughter and heir of the Ootori count family.

However, the Ootori family isn’t just any noble house. They also lead the Ootori Zaibatsu, a powerful financial conglomerate.

And yet… something about this doesn’t quite match the family I knew from the game.

The noble daughter who corresponds to me in the game was named Hououin Reika.
The Hououin family had also inherited a noble house name that had been closed off after a certain royalty figure had renounced their royal status. That made them a ducal family.

In other words, Hououin Reika was a ducal daughter in the game.

At least within the game’s narrative, she was the daughter of the head of the house and a high-ranking noblewoman.
She was also a villainess—the archetypal “ojou-sama antagonist” that frequently appears in these kinds of games, manga, and anime.

She tormented the protagonist, Yamanashi Himeno, and even brought ruin to her own family.

But in this world—no, in this reality—my name is Reiko, not Reika.
My family name, Ootori, is similar but noticeably less extravagant than Hououin.

Furthermore, my family is two ranks lower, only holding a count’s title instead of a duke’s.

Right now, as a mere child, my current position is simply that of the daughter of a count’s family, not even the heiress to the title itself.
It’s possible that between now and the game’s starting point, the Ootori family might somehow inherit the Hououin name and ascend to a duke’s rank.

But even if that happens, my name is still different.
In the chaos of the earthquake, I misheard “Reiko” as “Reika”—but the truth remains: I am Reiko, and the game’s villainess was Reika.

Having a name that ends in “-ko” is actually a historical trend.

It became popular during the Taisho era and continued through much of the Showa period, inspired by the imperial tradition of princesses being given names ending in “-ko”.

That’s why the name ‘Reika’ doesn’t really fit the era.
And more importantly, the Hououin family name doesn’t even exist in Japanese history.

Even if it did exist, it was likely just as fictional as it was in the game.

Come to think of it, I remember a time-loop visual novel where the protagonist’s ‘soul name’ had this surname.
But what about my past life? Who was I before reincarnating into this world?

Honestly… I don’t really want to remember.

In my previous life, I was just an ordinary person. No—probably even less than ordinary, below average in every way.

By the time I died, I was almost in my forties.

I barely made it through university thanks to scholarships, but I had no remarkable achievements.
I can say with absolute certainty that I was just a background character in life—a plain, forgettable woman, both in personality and appearance.

Of course, I had my share of worries and dissatisfactions, but I wasn’t in dire straits.

But thanks to the small inheritance left by my deceased parents, I managed to pay off my student loans. I had no other debts, either.
I wasn’t exactly a NEET, so I managed to support myself, even if it wasn’t anything impressive.

Before getting hit by that truck, my hobbies and interests were… Well, let’s just say I fit the ‘fujoshi’(girls that like BL) and ‘female otaku’ labels.
More specifically, I was obsessed with historical figures, especially from the Bakumatsu (late Edo period) to wartime Japan—though the Sengoku period was a close second.

Because of that, I technically fell under the ‘rekijo’ category (history-loving women).

If someone outside the otaku world asked about my hobbies, saying “I’m a rekijo” made it sound a little more socially acceptable.

Still, my hobbies weren’t the reason I never got married.
It was my personality—and, well, my looks.

I had zero love life worth bragging about.

And since my parents passed away of natural causes, I was left completely alone in the world.
No siblings, no extended family to rely on—just a solitary, single existence.

Thanks to that, even though I’ve been reincarnated with memories of my past life, I don’t have any lingering attachments to my previous world or era.

If there is something I regret, well, it would be not being able to see the rest of the manga and anime I was in the middle of.
Saying that out loud is incredibly embarrassing.

But more importantly, my current self.

I was born in Taisho 9, the year 1920.
My birthday is April 4th—this matches the game.

The original character I seem to have replaced, Hououin Reika, was quite literally a thoroughbred.
I may be prestigious in my own right, but in the game, her status was on another level.

After all, she had a quarter of that distinguished “Blue Blood” flowing through her veins.
A genuine duke’s daughter.

At sixteen in the game, she had ultra-long, silky black hair with straight-cut bangs. Her sharp features made her strikingly beautiful.
No matter her age—child, teenager, or adult—she always remained a stunning beauty. 

Her figure is enough to make top fashion models turn pale with envy.

The difference between my past self and her is beyond night and day. It’s like the moon and a mudskipper—no, it’s not even worth comparing.
Her beauty was overwhelming.

That’s only natural, as she was depicted as a femme fatale capable of bringing ruin to a nation.

Her personality, on the other hand, was the textbook definition of arrogance and selfishness.
On top of that, she was a spendthrift.

She was highly capable, but since she is the villainess, she would always fail spectacularly at critical moments.

She was also on the taller side, but that was a common trait within her family.
The game developers likely designed the entire Hououin family to be tall so that the male love interests—who were meant to be desirable for the heroine, could also be tall.

The Hououin family had a tradition: during times of upheaval, a ‘miko’ would guide the clan.

But Reika, filled with intense jealousy toward Himeno—who was cherished and favored by the family—succumbed to darkness and awakened as the “Miko of Darkness”.

On the other hand, Himeno, who was chosen as the “Miko of Light”, along with the love interests, defeated her, leading to her exile from the homeland.

The reason for her exile was simple: keeping the “Miko of Darkness” within the country would inevitably bring great disaster.
Naturally, returning home was out of the question, and even in exile, she was under strict surveillance.

Even if she willingly accepted her exile, there was no peaceful slow life waiting for her.
There were no handsome men swooping in to save her either.

To put it bluntly, she was in a “What the hell am I supposed to do?!” kind of position.

To make matters worse, in the game’s ending, her miserable fate was often mocked in the post-game character epilogues.
If she was lucky, she ended up addicted to opium in a brothel. More often than not, she was met with a variety of gruesome death endings.

Starvation, freezing, drowning, assassination, poisoning, execution by firing squad—there was even one where she became a subject of human experimentation.

It was like the game developers were offering up a “pick your favorite demise” selection.
In some routes, she was even assassinated before the game ended.

But all of that was something that happened sixteen years from now.
And besides, that was just the fate of a game character.

It wasn’t my fate.

I am Ootori Reiko.

Well, maybe in the future, I’ll end up in a similar position to Hououin Reika, but that’s something I’ll worry about later.

Right now, I’m nothing more than a three-year-old girl.

(Wait, why am I three years old?)

That was my next big question.
Normally, in a standard reincarnation, you’d start life over from birth. That’s what Buddhist teachings suggest, and it’s what you’d logically expect if you strip away the game or story elements.

And yet, I woke up at the age of three.

And on top of that, it was the day of the Great Kanto Earthquake, one of the worst disasters in Japanese history.
I can’t help but suspect that there’s some awful hidden truth behind all this.

(No, let’s think positively. This is still outside the game’s timeline, so I should be free to do whatever I want, right? 

Besides, no matter how I look at it, this is reality, and the situation just happens to resemble the game. The proof is there—some details don’t quite match the original setting.)

Trying to be as optimistic as possible, I steeled myself and began thinking about how I would live my life from here on out.

And yet, one question still lingered.

(This body… It has memories from before I became aware of myself as ‘me’.)

Yes, I could recall familiar faces and places—knowledge that my past self had never possessed. That meant that before my consciousness awakened, this body had been living a normal life in this world.

At least, up until September 1st, at the age of three.

That led to another question: What happened to the consciousness, or rather, the personality or soul, that had been here before me?
I had no way of knowing. There was no trace of it left in my memories.

Did I do something to it?

Or did some unknown ‘someone’ or ‘something’ throw me into this body and erase whatever had been here before?
Either way, I had no means of finding out.

Right now, I am just an ordinary little girl.

And this world had no magic or supernatural abilities to uncover such mysteries.

On top of that, this was the early 20th century—long before the time I was originally from.

(So many unanswered questions… Still, if this really were an otome game, couldn’t I have reincarnated as a proper sixteen-year-old who could actually enjoy romance? I remember the entire game’s storyline by heart, so I could easily manipulate events however I wanted.)

But with no answers in sight, it seemed I had no choice but to restart my life from the age of three.

Riding in a luxurious automobile—still a rare sight in Japan at this time—I left the ruins of Yokohama, devastated by the Great Kanto Earthquake, and headed toward the Yamanote district of Tokyo, where I was meant to live.

(Now then, let my game begin.)