The Demon Queen's Contract - Chapter 4: Reflection and Cleansing

Murong Jiu, the Ninth Young Miss of the Marquis Mansion, was ugly and talentless, and her fate was to harm her relatives. She was raised in the countryside from a young age. Due to her exceptional medical skills, she was used by the Crown Prince, who drained her of all her value and then threw her into a deep well to drown.Only before her death did she realize she had been switched at birth. Others were rightfully enjoying everything that should have been hers; later, all her family died for her, becoming stepping stones for the Crown Prince!Reincarnated, she returned like a vengeful ghost from hell, making her enemies tremble with fear, ready to seek revenge for each grievance.Unexpectedly, she unintentionally became the darling of her biological family, which made her retract her sharp edges.As the substitute Princess Consort of Prince Ling, she and Prince Ling were a fake couple, intent only on finding the real father of the child in her womb, yet unaware that the man from that night was right in front of her…

...[Inside an underground basement]“You are going to die for nothing, hahahaha,” the old man's voice thundered through the room, sending chills down my spine.Step.With a swift and ruthless motion, he lunged forward, his sword slicing through the air and slashing my throat, crimson droplets staining the darkness.“We'll see,” I whispered defiantly, my final words escaping as a mere breath against the impending darkness.Slowly, inexorably, my consciousness slipped away, and I descended into a deep, unfathomable slumber.“Huh!?” My eyes fluttered open, and I found myself seated in a bustling tavern, the air thick with laughter and the clinking of glasses.In front of me stood a captivating lady, her beauty juxtaposed with an angry furrow upon her brow, threatening to shatter the harmony of the jovial scene.“Don't follow me around!” Her words pierced the air like shards of ice, the intensity of her emotions palpable as she cast a resentful glare in my direction, before swiftly departing from the tavern....Am I trapped within the confines of a game? The fragments of my shattered common sense scattered before me, leaving me to question the very fabric of my reality.

This is a prequel to the anime movie To Aru Majutsu no Kinsho Mokuroku – Endymion no Kiseki.

Just before the completion of the Academy City space elevator “Endymion”, the main characters Kamijou Touma and Index encounter a level 0 girl named Arisa. The Magicians are after Arisa, and they attack Academy City. A female leader named Shattoaura leads a unit from Academy City against the attack. Kamijou and Index learn from Stiyl that Arisa is key to a brewing war between the sides of Magic and Science. When science and magic cross paths, the story begins with Endymion as its stage!

I thought I had seen bad endings before—but nothing prepared me for the garbage conclusion of The Hero’s Path.Years of investment, countless struggles, and for what? The protagonist failed. The villain won. Everyone else? Dead. Furious, I sent a message to the author, only to get a chilling response:[Do you think you could do better?]Before I could even blink, my phone exploded in a blinding light, and the next thing I knew—I was waking up in a completely different body.Now, I’m Merlin Everhart, a fourteen-year-old with a 12-star talent, the kind of gift only the strongest should have.But here’s the problem: I have no idea who I am supposed to be.With nothing but a system and a first-day-of-school alarm ringing in my ears, I’m thrown into the world of The Hero’s Path.Am I just another side character in a world that already ended once?…Either way, I refuse to let this story beat me too.