Cinderella is... the Male Lead? - Chapter 1
“This must be a dream…”
Rona, leaning against the headboard of the bed, was messing up her hair in frustration. She was in such a severe state that her hands were trembling even when she stayed still. She couldn’t believe the situation she was in right now.
‘It’s absurd enough to have transmigrated into a novel. But to transmigrate as the wicked stepsister who torments Cinderella and meets a miserable end!’
Moreover, this novel is not for general audiences.
Rona transmigrated into the cruel R-rated fairy tale rewrite <Cinderella With Neither Blood Nor Tears> that she had read in her previous life.
She realized she had transmigrated just yesterday when she was happily tormenting Cinderella and tripped, falling hard onto the floor. After passing out from a concussion and waking up in bed, she regained her memories from her past life.
Unwillingly, the information flowed into her mind, making her perfectly aware of the novel’s plot.
‘Of all things, why did it have to be this novel and not another…!’
Unlike the typical fairy tale <Cinderella>, <Cinderella With Neither Blood Nor Tears> was designed to thrill readers’ nerves. Instead of focusing on Cinderella’s happiness, this novel centered on her revenge.
Cinderella, the only daughter of a rural noble family. The term ‘Cinderella’ originally means ‘little ash girl,’ a derogatory term. However, to emphasize that the novel was inspired by the fairy tale, the author named the protagonist Cinderella.
Cinderella’s father, who lost his wife early, cherished her dearly. One day, a great war broke out across the continent. As a knight, he left for the battlefield, leaving young Cinderella behind. With the war dragging on longer than expected and the country’s situation in chaos, it became unclear whether her father was alive or dead. At this point, a woman claiming to be her father’s wife appeared with her daughter.
‘But, in fact, she didn’t marry dad. It was a marriage scam.’
The cunning stepmother, who had swindled naive Cinderella with her eloquent words, settled into the house. She, along with her daughter, tormented Cinderella every day.
In a typical fairy tale, Cinderella would endure the loneliness and sadness, perhaps dancing with mice and dogs to get through each day. But <Cinderella With Neither Blood Nor Tears> was different.
Cinderella, enduring their torment, dreamed of a relentless revenge. On the day of the final showdown, Cinderella, having awakened her magical powers, attended the ball. Until that moment, the foolish stepmother and stepsister didn’t notice Cinderella’s chilling gaze. At the ball, Cinderella captured prince charming’s heart. Since the story primarily focused on revenge, there were very few romantic scenes with the prince.
Anyway, having gained the prince’s backing, Cinderella began her bloody revenge on the stepmother and stepsister.
The details of her revenge are too horrific to describe fully, but as befitting an R-rated story, it was a bloody festival filled with violence. Cinderella, using her awakened magic, repeatedly tormented the fleeing stepmother and stepsister, driving them to the brink of death and back, feeling an insatiable hunger for revenge. Even after long-awaited revenge, it was never enough and left a void.
Eventually, driven by revenge, she killed everyone who sided with the stepmother and stepsister, even the baker who had made a sarcastic remark for fun, turning the village into ruins. The prince, now on Cinderella’s side, was indifferent to the destruction of the remote village.
Cinderella repeatedly tormented the stepmother and stepsister, healing them with recovery magic each time, before finally hurling them into the air, causing them to explode in midair, and then reviving them using necromancer skills. Thus, the mother and daughter, who had attempted to deceive once, faced a fate worse than death for a month.
In the grand finale, Cinderella turned the two, now zombies, into soldiers of her necromancer army, finally completing her bloody revenge. She acknowledged them as her subordinates, their souls completely erased.
Despite the revenge-centered plot, the novel ends with Cinderella gaining a high-ranking position as a sorcerer in the kingdom, as if to forcibly create a happy ending.
***
As Rona recalled the novel’s plot, her face turned pale. It wasn’t just about dying; becoming part of the necromancer’s army and suffering after death was a fate too cruel to bear. How could she have ended up transmigrating as a villain meeting such a tragic end in this horrific novel?
When the memories of her past life flowed in perfectly, her past memories became hazy. The only clear memory was of her tormenting the poor Cinderella. Fortunately, her mother was the main tormentor while Rona only played childish pranks.
However, from Cinderella’s perspective, any form of torment was the same. That’s probably why she turned Rona into part of the necromancer army too.
‘Ugh, seeing as how pulling my hair and slapping my cheeks hasn’t woken me up for hours, this must not be a dream. I can’t stay like this. What part of the novel am I in right now?’
Rona, her hair now a tangled mess, silently despaired. Just then, there was a knock, followed by the voice of a middle-aged woman.
It was a familiar voice—Rona’s mother.
