“Welcome, Raven Vidier, to the Isekai Punishment Project.”

“No.” The word tore out of me, raw and breathless. My fingers gouged into the cold stone rim of the fountain as I dragged in air that refused to fill my lungs. “No, no, no... I didn’t—”

The voice didn’t care.

“Designation: v4.008. Conviction: Double homicide.”

I froze, the pain in my chest tightening. “No…” The word left my mouth as barely a whisper. “I didn’t kill—”

“Victims: David Jennings. Alisha Jennings.”

My vision lurched sideways. The courtyard spun. My pulse hammered so violently it felt like the ground trembled beneath me—or maybe that was just my shaking body. My throat burned, thick with a scream that wouldn’t come out. Tears prickled hot at the corners of my eyes, but I squeezed them back.

The voice droned on, perfectly mechanical and heartless. “Sentence: Full-term immersion in the Isekai Punishment Project. You will serve your penal duration inhabiting the role of Raven Vidier, noble villainess.”

My heartbeat kicked into a frantic, crushing rhythm. I pressed my palm against my chest like I could hold myself together by force.

“Now,” the voice said, “please enjoy the prepared induction video.”

A blinding white flash swallowed my vision. When it faded, a sugary jingle burst into my ears—children singing in high, too-happy voices:

“With NeuroNet, we’re here to help!”

I jerked my head away. The video followed.
I shut my eyes. It stayed there, burned across my inner vision like a brand.

An animated girl skipped into view—blonde pigtails, big smile, fake sunshine energy. She knocked on a door. The second it opened, the smile twisted into a snarl, and she yanked a knife from behind her back, stabbing the homeowners again and again until the screen splashed with red.

I flinched. Hard.

The scene snapped to a courtroom. The same girl sobbed on the stand while the crowd shouted, pointing, spitting insults.
GUILTY flashed across her face in thick, crimson letters.

Then darkness.

A pod slid open, swallowing her whole.
Another flash and suddenly she was in a fantasy world, fighting a sparkly hero boy and a girl who looked like she had bathed in holy water. The villain girl lunged, missed, and got run through by the hero’s sword. The cheering that followed was loud enough to punch through my skull.

“Welcome to NeuroNet Simulations!” a chipper narrator announced. “Where justice meets entertainment!”

I wanted to throw up.

More slogans slammed into my vision:

EXPERIENCE THE WORLD!
ENTERTAIN THE CROWD!
LET THEM CHOOSE YOUR FATE!

The animation washed away—and suddenly a man appeared, wearing a wrinkled lab coat and wireframe glasses that slid halfway down his nose. Dark hair stuck up in messy spikes like he’d been up all night. Like he always had.

My breath seized.

“Dad…” It came out in a rasp.

He stared straight ahead, not seeing me. Not really him. Just a projection.

“Welcome to the NeuroNet Simulations,” he said calmly. “You have been deemed a critical offender and placed in the vital role of the villain. Please entertain the audience. The more you entertain, the higher your chance of survival.”

“Dad, please—” I reached out, my hand trembling, but my fingers passed right through him. The image glitched, warping like static on water.

He kept talking. “Let the audience decide your fate. Will you rise? Or are you fated to fall?”

“Dad!” My voice cracked. “Please—look at me—”

The image stuttered. “I now bid you… I now bid you… I now bid you…”

He froze mid-sentence.

Then shattered.

Light burst outward in a thousand pieces. I screamed as the fragments of him exploded, but as they scattered, something else pulled them together. The shards swirled, coiling, condensing.

A shape formed from the chaos.

A small, white fox hovered in the air for a heartbeat. Light clung to its fur in thin, glowing veins.

Then it dropped gracefully to the edge of the fountain and sat, tail curling neatly around its paws.

I froze, drenched and shaking, staring at the tiny snow-white fox perched inches from my face. Water dripped from my hair. My heartbeat thundered in my ears. The fox calmly raised one dainty paw, licked it, then gave me a flat look.

“Honestly,” it said, tone dripping with amusement, “haven’t you ever seen a talking fox before?”

My brain stalled for a full second. Then anger surged, and I lunged.

My hands wrapped around its throat, finding it solidly real. I yanked it right up to my eyes, snarling, “What did you do to my dad?”

The fox blinked at me, startled—not scared—then actually had the audacity to laugh. A small paw pressed against my forehead like it was soothing a panicked toddler.

“That wasn’t your father,” it said, voice annoyingly gentle. “Just an induction recording. Filmed ages ago.”

I knew it was true. I knew it. But I’d just watched my father explode in front of me. My body didn’t care about logic.

“Mind putting me down now?” the fox asked, completely unbothered.

I set him back on the fountain rim, hands trembling. The second my fingers left his fur, everything inside me burst its dam.

“What are you? Who are you? Where am I? What happened to my family? Why did they say I killed—”

The fox slapped a paw against my lips.

“Breathe.”

I snapped my mouth shut. Air dragged in through my nose, and the scents of flowers, wet grass and fresh water tickled my nostrils, but did little to calm me down.

Gold eyes studied me, too intelligent to be an animal’s.

“For your first two questions,” he said, “all you need to know is that I’m here to help you.”

Suspicion curdled in my gut. But then his expression softened—and that terrified me more than anything.

“As for the rest…” His gaze dropped. “They all have the same answer as your last question.”

A cold weight slid into my stomach. “My… last…?”

His voice was small. “You killed your family.”

“No.” It ripped out of me like a feral sound. “No, that’s not... no—”

Pain erupted in my skull. The world snapped away.

A hiss of doors sliding open. Dad’s lab—dark. No lights. No hum of machines. Just silence. My phone’s flashlight flicked on, the beam shaking in my hand as I swept it across the chaos.

Tables overturned. Consoles smashed. Papers shredded. Glass glittered everywhere.

“Dad?” My voice trembled.

I stepped forward, and my foot caught on something, and I nearly tripped. Righting myself, I aimed the light downward.

Dad lay sprawled on the floor, his shirt soaked in a dark, spreading pool. His head tilted at an impossible angle. His eyes—

My phone slipped from my hand and hit the ground with a clatter, the light flipping away and plunging me into black.

I dropped to my knees blindly, hands scrambling, finding his shoulders. “Dad? Dad!” I shook him. Nothing. My hands came back wet and sticky.

My breath tore itself apart. “Alisha!” I screamed into the dark. “Alisha, answer me!”

No reply.

Then the door crashed open. Boots pounded inside. Flashlights blinded me, turning the whole room into white chaos.

“Riley Jennings,” a voice shouted, sharp and accusatory, “you are under arrest for the murder of David Jennings.”

“No!” I lurched upward. “Where’s Alisha? Let me—”

“You have no right to move.”

“I have to find—”

A stun blast cracked through the air. Electricity ripped down my spine. My knees buckled, and I collapsed on top of Dad’s cooling body, limbs jerking helplessly.

“We’ve got another one,” someone called.

I clawed at the ground, throat raw. “A… li… sha…”

“You were told not to move,” another voice snapped, and then a baton smashed into the side of my head.

Everything went black.

When I came back to myself, I was kneeling in the fountain—soaked, shaking violently. My stomach lurched, and I bent forward, retching into the water.

I barely registered the splash. Barely registered anything except the burning in my throat and the sick weight of everything I’d just remembered.

God, someone was going to have to clean this fountain. Lucky them.

A soft brush traced between my shoulder blades. The fox’s tail moved in small, comforting circles.

“Well,” he murmured, voice low near my ear, “now you know the truth. Are you going to lie down and die?”

I wiped my mouth with a shaky hand and forced myself upright. My legs wobbled, but I refused to fall.

“That wasn’t the truth.” My voice shook—not from sadness or fear... but anger. “And I’m not dying.”

I met the fox’s eyes. “I’m going to kill whoever murdered my father.”

The fox’s mouth curled into a sharp little smirk. “Bold talk. But tell me... how exactly do you plan on getting out of the simulation?”

A shiver crawled down my spine. My teeth sank into my bottom lip. “Is… is there even a way out?”

“Maybe.” He hopped off the fountain with a soft plink of claws on stone. “If you listen. But first you need to prove you can survive long enough to make it matter.”

My breath hitched. “Okay. How?”

He stretched—very dramatically, might I add—and said, “Step one: say ‘open status.’”

I stared. “You’re joking.”

His smirk deepened. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

“Yes,” I muttered, dragging a dripping hand down my face. “Constantly.” But at this point, what the hell else did I have? I sighed. “Fine. Whatever. Open status.”

A sharp chime rang in my ears.

Letters and numbers erupted across my vision, glowing like someone slapped a screen onto my retinas.

“Shit—!” I stumbled backward, windmilling my arms to avoid falling into the fountain again.

When the interface finished assembling, I blinked at it.

It was… a game. A literal game HUD.

Name: Raven Vidier
Age: 17
Level: 1
VP (Villain Points): 0
HP: 25
MP: 10
STR: 5
DEF: 3
MAG: 2
INT: 7
AGI: 6
CHA: 9

Three icons hovered below the stats—a sword, a bag, and a letter.

I snorted. “They turned my life sentence into a JRPG. Fantastic.”

The fox gave a smug little laugh. “They designed it this way. Helps villains stay committed to the role. Villains try harder when they think it’s a game. Makes for better entertainment when they inevitably fall.”

“Cute.” I folded my arms. “So I have to level up?”

“Obviously.”

“And that means…?”

“Oh,” he said, almost cheerfully, “you kill things.”

A very particular face flashed into my head. Red hair. Big hands. Nearly ripped my shoulder out of its socket. Yeah. Him. A slow, feral smile curved across my mouth. “Great. I already have a target.”

I pushed off the fountain and strode toward the path leading back to the ballroom.

The fox practically yelped as he darted in front of me. “Are you bloody insane?”

I lifted a brow. “I need to get stronger. Seems like a good place to start.”

“And walking straight back into a room full of armed nobles who want your head will accomplish that, how?”

I paused. Okay. Fine. He wasn’t wrong.

I exhaled sharply. “So what do you suggest?”

“If you want strength,” he said, tail flicking with irritating confidence, “then just follow me.”

Suspicion twisted in my gut, but honestly? What choice did I have? “How?”

His grin turned fox-sharp. “This way.” He spun and bounded down one of the shadowed paths—toward the dark, looming forest at the edge of the grounds.

I glanced back at the ballroom one last time, heat simmering in my chest.

“God,” I muttered. “I'd better not regret this.”

Then I took off after the fox and ran straight into the waiting dark.