"Back to the plot... According to my assessment and deductions, the villainess, Alicia wasn't evil at all. She was just termed villainess because of a misunderstanding between herself and Aristia, and because Aristia felt she was trying to make fun of her and embarrass her."
Since Alicia didn't know how to express herself properly, her actions and words didn't come out the way she wanted and caused Aristia and the people close to her to misunderstand her.
[Pitiful little girl. She was just like those people who didn't have ill intentions and actually meant no harm when they spoke but didn't know how to express themselves clearly and thus, their words come out the wrong way.]
She wasn't really sure though as she had doubts about the villain and even the female lead as in the novels her houseworkers usually talked about, after entering the novel world, the protagonist would notice that the original female lead actually wasn't the kind person she was portrayed to be and that the villain was actually innocent.
"Books, books..." She shook her head.
"Nothing dire happened to Alicia though which was also part of the reason I didn't drop the book halfway through. She wasn't talked about anymore since Aristia avoided her throughout the novel till the end. But I feel like the author just didn't want Aristia to experience hardship, which is why he or she just tagged any random character as Villainess. The author must have a serious case of 'My-character-must-be-invincible-and-well-liked' Syndrome."
She rolled her eyes even more when she thought of the novel's abrupt end. She didn't know anything about the author as there was no information about the author, not even a name, only the novel plot.
There were lots of events in the book but Aristia, the heroine, barely played any role in the book.
"Strange. It was like her role was a blank spot left for someone else to fill up. The whole plot was confusing and I could have dropped it had I not remembered mum's insistence. Now that I think about it, why was she so desperate?" Her brows knitted in suspicion, but she shook her head in denial.
It wasn't like her mother was aware that reading that book would throw her into some book world.
"Aristia didn't even play any major role in the novel, just being pampered by her family— no kind of contribution to society and stuff like that...blah, blah, blah. Maybe that was her 'success'. Such a poorly written novel. And what was up with the end? It just stated the words 'So Aristia was loved by all and sundry. She was successful'. The end." She sneered disdainfully and decided to stop thinking about the senseless and intangible novel.
What she didn't expect was that when she woke up the next morning, she would become the female lead in the novel.
She just became the main character in a freaking book!
"Calm down Ari. It's probably not what you think. You're better than this. There's probably some logical explanation for this." She tried to comfort herself.
"Sh*t! Who am I kidding, what kind of logical explanation could there be for this?! Don't tell me I seriously got into a story I just read the night before? That's just crazy and unrealistic! Damn, I knew I shouldn't have read it." She rarely cursed and this situation had caused her to curse more than once in the span of an hour.
She punched the soft pillow she had been holding in her hand for some reason, feeling frustrated.
"It's probably book magic." She muttered. She didn't even remember holding the pillow all along.
"I don't even read novels and the one novel I read, this happens?! You see, this is why I don't read novels. It's boring, unrealistic and makes literally no sense." She buried her face in the pillow, her voice coming out muffled. "I'm more of a movies and anime person."
She just couldn't help sharing her opinion to the air.
She didn't know what to feel and was still in disbelief. She calmed down, her chest still heaving as she proceeded to pinch herself again. Not very gently.
"Ouch!" ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs, ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴠɪsɪᴛ Nove1Fire.net
"I really shouldn't pinch myself again. Gosh! Even a little pinch is painful." Aristia sighed softly.
"Alright, at least I got the Premium Knowledge, which is the plot information, even though it's a jumbled up mess. So I can still come off as the Grand Duke's daughter. This is unfamiliar territory. I don't want to come off as suspicious. I don't know how or when I'll return to the real world."
Her trail of thoughts still revolved around the novel. [Worse still, I didn't wake up in any ordinary modern novel world but in the medieval era or should I say the ancient times of ball gowns, commoners, stuck-up nobles and the likes. That explains this room's decor. That means I wasn't kidnapped and the family in the portrait is book Aristia's family.]
"I've always wanted know what it feels like living in the medieval times." She snickered excitedly with a mischievous smirk on her lips.
Her ability to adapt to unexpected situations was astounding. She had good resilience. It was just that...
"I miss my family already." She sighed. "But I'm sure they'll be fine for today. I'll probably be back in my world tomorrow or wake up soon if this really is just a crazy dream. It better be." She shrugged, but she knew that her overprotective family would panic even if she was just gone for two hours without knowing where she went.
She looked at the time shown on the old grandfather clock on the wall again and sighed.
"It's already been an hour since I woke up." She couldn't believe this all took only an hour, added to the fact that she'd been standing in front of the mirror lost in thought for a whole hour. Time really was passing quickly!
Just as she was contemplating her next course of action, she heard faint sound of footsteps outside of the room that probably would have gone unnoticed if it wasn't so silent.