Chapter 6: It Seems I Reincarnate as a Minor Villain, 2
The laughter and music of the banquet still clung to the air like dying embers, but as the last nobles drifted from the hall, their parting whispers left behind a smoke far harder to banish.
"Lunar rats… always playing at nobility.""Cleared by the courts, yet filth never washes clean.""The Von O'Dimms think themselves clever hiding under Lunara's shadow. Justice will burn them yet."
The words weren't shouted, merely breathed — daggers slipped between ribs on their way out the gilded doors. Their owners bowed and smiled to Lord Cassian and Lady Selene as if nothing had been said, but their tones lingered like rot beneath perfume.
Vizimir sat still at the long table as servants cleared half-eaten platters of venison and honeyed pears. His goblet, untouched for the last hour, glimmered with cold wine, catching the gold-and-silver light of the twin candelabra. Serenya leaned against their mother, too young to notice the venom in the nobles' departing eyes. Cassian kept his smile carved, his back ramrod straight — the posture of a man who had learned long ago that dignity was the only shield left to a family starved of allies.
But Vizimir heard. He heard every word.
When he finally rose, he moved slowly, carefully. Every pair of servant's eyes dropped at once, respectful, cautious. The Von O'Dimm crest — a crescent moon bisected by an obsidian dagger — glimmered on the silk of his doublet. His footsteps on the marble rang too loud in the thinning hall.
He bowed briefly to his parents. "I'll retire."
Cassian inclined his head, face unreadable. Selene brushed Serenya's hair, murmuring something soothing. Vizimir turned and walked.
The manor's corridors stretched long and dim, lanterns set in iron sconces casting pale light across walls carved with moon phases and silver-threaded constellations. The Von O'Dimm estate had the quiet beauty of Lunar houses — elegant, restrained, not gaudy like the blazing Solar halls gilded in fire and gold. Yet here, even the quiet elegance felt like shadow, like half-light.
His boots whispered across rugs embroidered with night-blooming flowers. Servants bowed as he passed, their motions precise, muted. Behind some doors, faint strains of lute music or laughter from younger retainers flickered and died the moment he neared. Respect — or fear.
He noted it all. Catalogued it.
Every corridor bent into another, every sigil etched into the walls — he knew them. Not merely from memory of this life. From somewhere else. A place with the glow of a computer monitor in a dark room, the hum of a console fan, the click of a cheap controller in his hands.
The thought made him pause.
He turned down a side passage, empty, lanterns dim. A chill stirred along his spine. The familiarity pressed harder, a weight against his skull.
By the time he reached his chambers, his breath was uneven.
The room welcomed him with warmth and luxury — velvet drapes spilling down walls, shelves of tomes gilded and embossed with arcane sigils, a mirror taller than a man polished to flawless clarity. Moonlight spilled through high-arched windows, painting his desk in silver-white.
He closed the door. The click of the latch sounded too final.
Vizimir crossed the chamber, tugging at the stiff collar of his doublet. He caught his reflection in the mirror: a boy of fifteen, pale as moonlight, hair ash-white cascading in disarray to his shoulders, eyes mismatched — left dark green, right amber, both sharp enough to cut.
The sight was still strange. Still new. And yet—
A memory uncoiled.
Not from this life. Not even from the one before. From the first.
A bedroom lit only by a glowing monitor. Empty soda cans littering the desk. His own face, ordinary, caught in the faint reflection of black glass. A controller warm in his hands.
On the screen — a JRPG title screen: Radiant Blade Saga. The blazing sun crest. The swell of orchestral strings.
He remembered sinking into it for hours, for days. Grinding dungeons, chasing loot banners, cursing bad rolls, laughing at forum memes about broken builds.
And then the story cutscenes.
A girl with hair like sunlight, eyes like flame. Lyseris Dawnfell. The protagonist. Chosen by the Goddess of Creation, Aurelaya. Orphaned young, raised by fate to become the Sun's champion.
She stood in the center of burning villages, blade of light drawn, her every line voiced with unwavering justice. "I will cleanse this world of evil."
And the game obeyed her. Anyone who opposed her — no matter their reason — was cast as villain, obstacle, monster.
And then, one cutscene in particular.
The Von O'Dimm estate. Moonlit halls, silver banners. A trial where the nobles pleaded innocence. The court declared them not guilty — but Lyseris's voice thundered louder than law.
"They killed my family. Justice will not be mocked."
The player had no choice. The screen locked them into her decision. Her blade ignited, holy fire spilling into shadowed halls. The Von O'Dimm family screamed as their home collapsed in light.
Mission complete: Purge of the Traitors.
In forums, he had laughed at the edginess, the tragic beauty of it. "Damn, brutal, but hype!" he'd typed once. Other players cheered too — justice served, another boss down, Lyseris is so badass.
Now his knuckles whitened on the edge of his desk.
Because he was no longer watching a cutscene.
He was inside it.
Vizimir's breath came harsh. His mismatched eyes stared back from the mirror, but he saw something else layered over his face — the boy in that cutscene, the minor villain smirking arrogantly, fated to die.
The realization struck like ice water: he was the stepping stone.
In the game, his character appeared in the tournament arc. A cocky noble youth, mocking the heroine, inevitably defeated before the crowd. Later, slaughtered with his family in the purge.
That was his script. His destiny.
His stomach twisted. Images flooded — Cassian's stern warmth, Selene's quiet dignity, Serenya's laugh as she clung to his sleeve. NPCs. Disposable NPCs. Faces he had once dismissed in a cutscene now breathing, living. His family.
And the script demanded their deaths.
He staggered back from the mirror, breath shaking, chest heavy. His mind screamed denial.
"No… no, not them…"
The monitor glow of his first life mocked him, the cheer of faceless players, the inevitability of the heroine's justice. He had laughed once. Laughed at this family's annihilation.
Now he felt sick.
His hand clenched the edge of the desk until the wood creaked. His mismatched eyes blurred with heat.
For a moment, the weight of fate crushed him — heavier even than the blades of the righteous sects in his second life. At least then, he had been a god, dying in battle, not a child written as fodder.
Shock. Anger. Grief. It all burned through him, a storm with no outlet.
Slowly, the storm cooled.
A different fire remained.
Cunning. Cold. Razor-sharp.
His reflection steadied. The boy in the mirror no longer looked panicked. The mismatched eyes narrowed, focused.
"So this is the script," he whispered. His voice trembled, but not with fear. With promise.
A grin touched his lips, too sharp for a boy of fifteen. "Then I'll devour it."
The words hung in the chamber, low, final.
A knock at the door.
"Young Master," a servant's voice called, muffled but deferential. "A letter has arrived from the Adventurers' Guild. It concerns the upcoming tournament."
Silence stretched. The servant shifted nervously beyond the door.
Vizimir's hand tightened on the desk, then released. He turned to the mirror one last time, eyes gleaming predator-bright.
"So," he murmured, smile curling. "The script begins."