After a hard knock to the head, Catarina Claes regains all of her memories from her previous life as a modern-day high schooler and realizes that she is now the selfish, haughty villainess character from an otome game that she was obsessed with. She immediately takes action in hopes of avoiding the destruction flags that doomed her character in the game: exile in the best case scenario and death in the worst.

One day, as Catarina is hard at work trying to avoid her own destruction flags, she's invited to a tea party hosted by the daughters of the marquis, the youngest of whom is Mary Hunt. While talking to Mary about her farming troubles, she finds out that Mary excels at gardening and quickly befriends her. Then Mary's betrothed, Alan Stuart, the fourth prince, suddenly shows up and demands a showdown with Catarina.

Catarina is immersed in a romance novel when she finds out she's been invited to a tea party hosted by Geordo and Alan at the palace. She's determined to find some fellow romance novel fans there to talk to. When she gets there, she meets Sophia, a beautiful girl scorned by others as a "cursed child" due to her unusual looks, and her brother Nicol, whose otherworldly beauty charms men and women alike.

Catarina finally meets Maria Campbell, the heroine of the otome game, and redoubles her efforts to avoid triggering her destruction flags. Maria's charming appeal leads Catarina to mistakenly believe that she's already conquered Geordo and Keith, so she calls for another of her now-habitual "mental meetings" to work out a strategy.

Catarina has completely fallen for Maria's charm, and she advances their friendship by coming to the rescue when some overbearing noble girls have Maria cornered in the school courtyard. Later, when Catarina visits a large farm for some pointers on a day off, she learns that Maria's family's house is close by and decides to pay a quick visit.

Catarina has successfully(?) avoided triggering her own doom thus far, and now she's enjoying a summer vacation spent doing all kinds of preparations to avoid any future destruction flags, from practicing throwing toy snakes to working the fields to climbing trees. Then Geordo arrives and invites her to visit the lake, hoping to spend some time alone with her...