Lucien Ashborne was supposed to be a nobody — an early-game villain who existed only to be crushed by the protagonist. After provoking the wrong person, he vanished from the story without even a dramatic death scene.

When a player named James dies and wakes up in Lucien’s body, he inherits every bit of the villain’s broken reputation and zero of his privileges. Bullied, scorned, and abandoned by his own noble family, Lucien now stands at the bottom of the academy hierarchy.

To make matters worse, the world he knew as a game has no guaranteed happy ending… and the protagonist’s party treats him like a criminal.

But James isn’t the Lucien they think he is.

With fragments of meta-knowledge, a half-broken system that barely works, and a determination to avoid becoming cannon fodder, he chooses a different path.

He doesn’t seek glory.
He just refuses to disappear.

This is the story of a former villain trying to rewrite his role — not as a hero, but as someone who survives on his own terms.

Two weeks later, the Grand Hall was chaotic.


A massive magical hologram hovered in the center of the hall, displaying the rankings for the First Year Mid-Semester Assessments. A crowd of hundreds pushed and shoved to get a glimpse.


I stood at the back of the crowd, leaning against a pillar with a bored expression, while Ariana stood beside me, clutching my sleeve nervously.


"We definitely passed," I assured her. "The question is, where did we land?"


The crowd parted as Kael walked through. He looked confident. He had won the duel tournament. In his mind, and in the minds of everyone else, he was the undisputed Number One.


Lucien Ashborne – [Total Score: 985/1000]


Celestia Aurelian – [Total Score: 940/1000]


Elisha Ravenscroft – [Total Score: 910/1000]


Chapter 103 - Results