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.

I stopped in the middle of the hallway and spun around, facing the Protagonist Party head-on.


They halted immediately, watching me cautiously. They knew they had stirred up a hornet's nest.


"What are you guys?" I snapped, letting the polite, distant facade drop completely. "No, forget the cadet titles—what is this? A joke? A prank?"


I slipped entirely into informal speech. I needed to calm down. Getting angry in the middle of the corridor would only draw more attention. But my harsh tone was enough to make the Protagonist Party tense up, their hands twitching toward their respective weapons out of sheer habit.


"You know I avoid you," I hissed, stepping closer. "You know we don't get along. Yet you still hijack my club application? Why?"


Mid-sentence, my eyes caught a flash of trembling blue. Mariella was shrinking behind Bordon, her face pale and frightened, clutching her staff like a lifeline.


I stopped. I clenched my teeth, the anger deflating slightly.


Chapter 156 - Ambiguous reaction