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.

The Benelli M4 kicked against my shoulder, spitting out a spent shell casing.


Ten meters away, an Orc Warrior stumbled back, its chest cavity ruined by a magnum slug. It gurgled, green blood frothing at its lips, before collapsing heavily onto the pavement.


"Alicia, right side! Hellhound!" I shouted, racking the bolt. Clack-clack.


Alicia spun, her wand tracing a complex glyph. A cone of searing flame erupted from the tip, engulfing a wolf-like demon that had been lunging for my neck. The beast yelped as it was turned to ash mid-air.


"We're clear!" she panted, wiping soot from her cheek.


"No," I said, checking my ammo count. "We're just moving to the next zone. Keep up."


We sprinted past the wreckage of the carousel. The park, once a vibrant paradise, was now a slaughterhouse. The smell of popcorn had been replaced by the stench of burning rubber, ozone, and iron.


Chapter 78 - Terror attack [2]