Second Female Leads' Playbook

With a confused mind, I walk out of my room. When I walk down to the place where we usually have breakfast, an angry looking girl is staring at me.

"Who are you?" she demands while crossing her arms over her ċhėst. 

It should be me asking you, I retort in my mind. But who knows, maybe she is someone who I cannot afford to offend. 

"I am Lord Valentine's ȧssistant." 

She glances me over with distaste. "Lord Valentine's ȧssistant? You?"

I have had enough. "Who are you?"

"I am the maid of Lady Olivia, Jessica!"

"Lady Olivia?" I have never heard of the name and I believe she is not a character in the novel.

"Lady Olivia is going to be the future mistress of this tower. And she told me to clean up this place, as you know my future lord shows no interest in such matter."

"I see. Nice to meet you." I offer her a friendly smile.

Why do I feel upset all of a sudden? Why does my heart seems to ache?

She replies with a sneer. "I have no idea Lord Valentine's ȧssistant is a girl. You are dismissed. We will hire a male ȧssistant."

So I am fired just like that? Maybe that's the reason why I become the ladies' maid of Princess Cordelia. Finally it's the beginning of the novel. 

And I thought I could avoid my inevitable death by staying with Lord Valentine. So is this the end of my time here? My only home in this world. The place that provides me with warmth and security.

Who is she to dismiss me with just a word? If someone has a right to dismiss me, then that's Lord Valentine. He is the one who saved me. He is the one who named me. He is the one who appointed me as his ȧssistant. He is the one who taught me magic. 

"I am hired by Lord Valentine, and should be dismissed only by him." I walk past her, to the tiny kitchen table. My usual tray of breakfast isn't even there. I have always found my breakfast tray together with Lord Valentine's on the kitchen table when I woke up in the past. Every single day for five  years. But there is nothing on the table. 

Pretending as if I do not notice such things, I pick up two tea cups and snap my finger. Hot tea fills the cups. I place them on an empty tray . 

"Jessica, would you like some tea?" I offer her another polite smile.

Even if I have to be dismissed, I want that to be said to me directly by Lord Valentine. .

------------------

Lord Valentine does not return. 

I wait for three whole days.

My head is aching, maybe my heart too. I don't understand what I am aching for. The fact that Lord Valentine did not have dinner with me the first day I returned? The fact that Lord Valentine was nowhere to be seen for three whole days without even a single word? The fact that a maid came to dismiss me for her future mistress and lord? 

I should stop thinking like that. I am just a maid. An ȧssistant. What gave me the courage to think like that? I should stop this train of thought. I should put a stop to this treacherous feeling sprouting inside my heart before it is too late. 

My head has been aching since three days ago, after waking up from that dream. It's getting more and more severe. A drill seems to be drilling into my head. 

I slowly drift into sleep. 

It's the same setting as that dream. The woman with red high heel shoes once again sits opposite to me. Once again I cannot see her face. 

"Don't disregard my advice, you'll regret it," she says harshly.

She is threatening. Is this really a dream, or is this not?

"I don't know who you're referring to." I tell her the truth. I have had enough of people ordering me around. 

"Stop fooling around, young lady. You might have died, but your family is still living here." She motions me to look at a computer on the table. My parents' faces appear on the screen. They look older. In the photo, they are having dinner in the restaurant near our house. It's a typical Sunday afternoon. Just without me. 

"Dad... Mom..." Tears begin to slide down my face. 

"You don't want them to die too, young lady. So do as I said, leave where you are. Leave without a trace. Leave."

I wake up with a start and see Princess Cordelia in the process of sneaking past me. 

Leave. Leave without a trace...

"Princess, are you searching for something?"

"Ahhhhh," Princess Cordelia screams. "You should make a sound when you wake up! That's common courtesy."

"I am sorry, your highness. Are you searching for something?" 

"No. No. I am just on my way to my room and pass through here. Thought I should just drop a... Why do I need to tell you?" 

"I can help you, your highness." I give her a smile. "I know where the potion is stored. I can give you what you want, but just with a tiny favor in return. Do we have a deal?" 

---------------------------

"Princess Cordelia, sit down!" I hush rapidly. "We don't want to get attention to ourselves!" I try to grab Princess Cordelia's arm to keep her from jumping up.

"That's wrong! I have to help them!" Cordelia replies immediately and gets out of my hold. I cannot hold her down. She walks towards the fighting mess, grabs a chair beside her and throws it at the table next to the fight. 

The sound of the exploding chair rings through the inn we are staying. The two burly men stop fighting, the woman who was previously sobbing on the ground stops crying, the angry villagers surrounding them stop shouting. Everyone gapes at Princess Cordelia. 

Princess Cordelia, magnet for troubles, a princess with inhuman strength. 

"You," Princess Cordelia points her finger at the crying woman sitting on the floor, "you love this young man here and wish to marry him, is that right?"

"Yes..." she sobs. 

"But your family forbids that. So you two decided to elope."

"Yes." Her lover comes forward to comfort her as the angry villagers tries to separate them.

"You," the princess then points her finger at the girl's lover, "do you love this girl?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then what's the matter? Why can't they get married? They love each other!"

"She has a fiance! And we won't allow her to marry such a poor guy. It's all his fault! He must have tricked my girl and planned to get all her money!"

"Edward won't do that!" the girl comes to her lover's defense. 

"That's a false accusation! I love Anita!"

"They love each other, how can you separate them?" 

The farce continues. Princess Cordelia has been 'saving' people left and right since we left the deep sea. I began to regret as soon as I left the sea. What if I mess up with the timing? What if it's one hundred years earlier than the fated meeting between Princess Cordelia and her Prince? What if the prince is still a sobbing baby under the care of his nursemaid?

How can I act so rashly? That's not like me at all. Adding to the fact that I am stealing Lord Valentine's potion. That means I'm betraying his trust. I didn't even leave a note explaining my disappearance.

But every single doubts vanished when we encountered our first trouble. We saw a gang of thieves trying to steal something from a carriage. Princess Cordelia of course immediately pulled out a tree, roots and all, by her side and threw it at the gang. They tried to fight back but all were being punched back by Princess. The thieves ran away. The ladies on the carriage were so grateful that they offered us a ride to the town. 

That's when I remembered, that's the start of the novel, 'Conquer the World-Mermaid Princess & Narcissistic Prince'. Don't ask me why I read this novel back when I was a university student. Probably because of the word mermaid. 

Saving those old ladies who turned out to be nobles of the country, Zehan, from a gang of thieves was the first scene of the novel. The old ladies will then offer Princess Cordelia a ride to the nearest town. Things turned out exactly the same as written in the novel. Seems like I did not mess up the timing. This made me slightly less guilty, at least I did not sabotage Princess Cordelia's love life. 

But that does not make my betrayal to Lord Valentine any less real. The potion was locked in a secret safe under layers of magical protection. Lord Valentine said he revealed the location and ways to unlock the safe because he trusted me. He said he believed that I would not betray him as there were many precious and dangerous potions inside the safe. He gave me the key to the safe because he was worried I would need something from the safe, like a life saving potion, in case something urgent happened. I betrayed his trust. For my own selfish use.

I do not regret following Cordelia and escaped from the undersea kingdom. I have to leave Lord Valentine. I have grown too attached to him. I am just an ȧssistant, nothing more. I need to stop this weird feeling I have before things get out of control. 

And maybe this is my fate, I am destined to become Cordelia's travelling partner in her story. However, I have to think of a way to avoid meeting my death. If what the woman in red high heels in my dream said was true, then I must have already died in my original world. This is the only life I have left. There is no longer any slim chance that I can get back to my original world. I will do everything I can to avoid death. 

Unfortunately, everything appears to be exactly the same as the novel. What if I try to change it? Can I change it? 

This scene unfolding in front of me occurs after the old ladies drop us off in town. What happens next? It has been five years, and the story is just a silly one to begin with, not particularly memorable. 

What happens next in the novel?