Chapter 22 Someone From My Backstory Shows Up Uninvited
Returning home from the Rewrite Dimension should've been a relief.
Instead, we were greeted by:
Confetti that rained from the sky.
A loading screen that wouldn't stop blinking.
And a giant glowing banner across the palace gates that read:
"WELCOME TO: LOVE LEGACY — A VILLAINESS DATING SIM"
I stopped dead in my heels. "Who authorized this?!"
Liora, still riding Foreshadonna (now wearing sunglasses), casually checked her notes. "Apparently while we were off saving the fabric of fiction, the fandom crowdfunded a spin-off."
Ashrin blinked. "We have a fandom?"
Liora tossed him a glossy pamphlet titled Choose Your Villainess. He caught it. Opened it.
Went pale.
"I have five romance routes," he said weakly. "One of them is me with amnesia."
"And I," Liora added smugly, "have three. Two involve world domination. One is just... a slow-burn friends-to-enemies-to-lovers with the duck."
The duck flew by in a rose petal explosion. It winked at me. I did not wink back.
Ashrin groaned. "What about you?"
I flipped open the pamphlet.
Seven romance routes.
Two were me. One was Evil Me from Chapter 0. One was Time-Travel Me. One was... a broom?
"I don't know whether to be flattered or deeply concerned," I said.
That's when the ground shook.
Not from danger.
From drama.
A portal opened in the middle of the courtyard, swirling with aesthetic backstory mist. From it stepped—
A tall figure in a velvet cloak. Silver eyes. Smirk like a plot twist. And a voice I knew from old lines buried in obsolete scripts.
"Verenia," he said, with the gravity of a prequel. "We were promised."
Ashrin was instantly on alert. "Who is that?!"
I stepped back. "He's from my rewritten backstory. I didn't... I didn't mean to save him."
The mysterious stranger bowed deeply. "I am Lucien. Exiled Prince of the Sealed Kingdom. Cursed by narrative loss. Reclaimed by you."
Ashrin: "Lucien?"
Liora: "Oh he's hot. This is gonna be a problem."
Lucien held out a glowing artifact—my old villainess crest, broken and pieced back together. "You rewrote the world, and you rewrote me. I am here to honor our forgotten pact... and reclaim what was ours."
Everyone looked at me.
I looked at Ashrin.
He looked like he was already preparing to punch fate.
"...I swear I didn't write him in on purpose," I muttered.
Lucien smiled wider.
And in the distance, the dating sim menu dinged.
[New Route Unlocked: Lucien — The Lost Prince]
Ashrin groaned. "WHY DO WE KEEP UNLOCKING NEW MEN?!"