So You've Become a Villainess: an (Otome) Isekai Raising Project

Continued to be sick over the week, post coming now.


You fly like a monkey or a twin-tailed fox, and lock on to your target. It's Tanya, looking uncomfortably comfortable in a rust-and-gold dress clearly inspired by you. It's not quite as poofy as yours, but in the arms race to be the world's cutest land jellyfish, nobody can really match you.

<Flashy>: "Just one more thing we're the best at, dahling~"

<Sensible>: "We can't let ourselves get too big a head, here."

<Sporty>: "Iunno, Sense; a bigger head would mean more space for your beer."

<Sensible>: "..."

Ignoring the urge for beer (man it's been awhile since you drank), you lock on to your target. You notice her tiny top hat and much more voluminous hair, tied up in a drill-tastic Asuka Langley two-up. You cut the spin on your twin tails and dive-bomb Tanya with a diving body attack.

"TANYAAAAAAAA!"

Tanya stops happily fiddling with a forelock and turns to watch you fall with a look of bemused horror. She braces herself and you tackle-hug her to the ground.

She looks up at you, her medical eyepatch now rust-colored and frilled with gold. "Just as the weatherman predicted; sunny with a chance of monkey."

You grin. "I like that I've graduated from 'idiot' to 'force of nature' with you."

She chuckles. "The two aren't mutually exclusive. Now get off of me, this dress cost most of my stipend."

You do so and offer a hand. "You're on our retainer; we could've just made you one."

Tanya takes the hand and dusts herself off. "Anything worthwhile is worth getting by your own hands." She gives you a wry smile. "Not like you nobles would understand the plight of the proletariat or anything."

"You're a noble too, miss prole~" You say, playfully nudging her. "You're even wearing the Claudius house colors, in your own way. How's it feel?"

She frets at you noticing her choice of color scheme, before calming herself. "Like a betrayal of everything I was and the culmination of everything I worked for," she says. "I have so much money and quality material to work with, it's almost sickening. Look at this dress! The money put into this dress could feed my family for a month! It feels like I'm being caressed by angels!"

"Your family's being taken care of, right?"

"We want for nothing," Tanya says. "And with the money I make selling my wares, my village wants for nothing, either. In a few short months, the Schwartzwald name has become synonymous with success."

"...So I did good?"

"I would name my first born after you if the thought of child-rearing didn't make me ill," she says, taking your hands in hers.

You blush at that; doing good always gave you the warm fuzzies. As close as she is, you notice she looks much healthier than last time you saw her; her cheeks are rosy and her hair glistens like yours. The deep bag under her eye is still there, but you can't win them all.

You space out for a minute before asking, "Did you do something with your hair?"

"I was wondering when you'd notice," she says, puffing up her curls. "I managed to manufacture a reasonable facsimile of the brew you used. It isn't animate, thank Sophia, but the luster, thickness, and tensile strength are similar."

Your hair roils at a new challenger, you calm it down with gentle patting.

"Whoa," you cry, "That's amazing!"

She chuckles. "That's nothing. Show me how you decadent nobles throw a birthday party and I'll tell you the work I'm really proud of."

You oblige, leading her by the hand to the carnival gates. The trumpeters from your procession play you in, women dressed in your style gawk and clamor around you as much as their station allows.

The peasant girls, dressed in colorful sackcloth and hand-me-downs, reach out to touch your trim. You twirl for them and dance with them, gently redirecting the ones who try to snatch a piece off your dress.

"Hoh?" A ribald nobleman who looks like the Monopoly guy says. "You dance with them like you dance with the Prince, Miss Claudius?"

"Of course, dear sir," you say with a bow and a cheeky smile. "It's my birthday, and as such I reserve to right to do what I want, how I want, and with who I want." You take his hand and spin him around with your awesome monkey strength, before leading your new entourage (and Tanya) into the carnival proper.

It's a visual high greater than any arcade or movie theater you've ever been to.

A phantasmal parade of animals, real and fantastic, strides across a rainbow in the sky. Noble children float happily in man-sized balloons, eating cake and drinking from fluted crystal glasses. Adults and children flit from stand to bustling stand, all of which are familiar from a past life. A cake taller than you are by half is the centerpiece of a smorgasbord under a gossamer tent. Crystal horses canter around a prismatic maypole in a merry-go-round across the way.

There's a rollercoaster! An honest-to-God rollercoaster, made out of what looks like a grove of chalk-white trees. And a Ferris Wheel spun by a giant wearing an old-fashioned carny outfit! Your higher thought processes shut down as the other yous pick up the slack.

<Brainy>: "...What am I looking at here?"

<Artsy>: "The intersection of art, magic, and engineering! We have got to learn how they do this stuff!"

<Sporty>: "Shouldn't nerding out be Brainy's thing?"

<Brainy>: "None of this is practical, so why should I care?"

Tanya gently tugs on your dress, as if she's handling hazardous materials. "Do you normally vibrate when you're excited, or are you having a seizure?"

You let out a high-pitched squeal. Your hair restrains you before you start flailing. The entourage of peasants and petty nobles you picked up are looking at you like you're possessed. Some of the nobles use peasants as meatshields.

"I'm so excited I can't feel my face," you tell Tanya. "You're gonna have to do the thinky stuff until I calm down."

"Wha-" she gasps, the nobles gasping with her. "You trust me to be your aide?" You hear the nobles gossip about status and Tanya's meteoric rise; there's some envy and some spite you rely on the Sensible you to keep track of for later.

<Sensible>: "Right, right."

Chiaki ninja-teleports beside you, startling Tanya and your entourage. "Did someone call for an aide, Young Mistress?"

Tanya recoils. "Where in the Nine Hells did you come from?"

"The Young Mistress's shadow, of course," Chiaki says with a curtsy. She nudges Camille forward, "And I brought a friend."

Camille comes bearing cake and in military dress. "Your maid had a feeling your brain would overheat with all the stuff going on, so I brought some cake to focus on."

You hyperfixate, drooling, on the cake.

"Please remember to chew, Young Mistress," Chiaki says before you start inhaling the strawberry topped slice of decadence offered to you.

You look to the crowd about to watch you commit a vulgar display of hunger, and wiggle your hand free from your restraining hair. "Go ahead and indulge yourselves," you say, pointing to the big cake from earlier. "Your birthday princess implores you."

The other girls disperse for cake, the peasants moving faster than the petty nobles. Maybe Marie Antoinette had a point.

With them gone, you eat the cake with no hands, making sure to chew properly for Chiaki. She sighs with relief.

"Ah, there's a dollop of cream on my nose," you say, wiggling your nose. "I can't get it..." You try and lick your own nose, drawing an incredulous look from Tanya and a heavy blush from Camille.

Chiaki swipes the cream off your nose and tastes it. "Minotaur cream. They really went all-out for this one." She nods and hums.

"Minotaurs are a thing?" You ask.

"We have to fight one as a rank test," Camille says, shyly looking away from you. "The girls are way more aggressive towards me than the guys."

Tanya clears her throat. "The Young Mistress here was going to show me how nobles do things, and I was going to assist her with that since her brain shut down from overstimulation."

"This is my first time at a party like this..." Camille mumbles, before jutting out his chest and pounding it with a fist. "I mean, the Asuka Family is too disciplined to spend time with such frivolous activity," he says loudly. "You'll have to make the decision for me, too."

You wave your free hand. "My brain's working again, so I can pick the thing for all of us now."


[Where do you go first?]
[ ] The smorgasbord
[ ] The stalls
[ ] The merry-go-round
[ ] The rollercoaster
[ ] The Ferris Wheel