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.

Alicia let out a breathy exclamation of awe, her eyes wide as she took in the horizon.


Before us lay a vast, shimmering expanse. The ground wasn't made of dirt or grass, but of millions of translucent, jagged crystals. They reflected the artificial sunlight of the floor's sky, refracting it into a blinding, magnificent spectrum of rainbows.


We were standing outside The Prismatic Plains. The 18th floor of Celestial Spire.


It looked like a paradise forged from diamonds.


'Of course,' I thought, adjusting my sunglasses to block the glare. 'Its appearance is the only thing that's flashy. Underneath that shine is a death trap.'


After acquiring the [Rune of Vitality], I needed a testing ground. Slashing my own arm in a bedroom was one thing; taking a hit from a monster in a life-or-death struggle was another. I needed to know if my body could handle the trauma of combat while simultaneously repairing itself.


Chapter 107 - Prismatic Plains [1]