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 had been capturing the annoying mosquitoes one by one and putting them in this pouch," Lucien explained casually, shaking the bag. A faint, angry buzzing sound emanated from within.


I knew he won't be saying anything easily. And assassins are mostly trained for physical torture. They can endure pain.


So generic torture won't work on him either. So I came up with an unconventional annoying idea.


Lucien stepped closer and placed the opening of the pouch against the man's ear.


The assassin's eyes widened in horror. "W-what are you trying to do?!"


Alicia stepped out from the shadows, grabbed the frantic man's head with an iron grip, and held it still so he couldn't move an inch.


That high-pitched, vibrating whine that instinctively repulses even the least sensitive person.


Not one, not two, but dozens of them buzzing inside the pouch, angry and hungry.


Chapter 67 - Torture