"Damien, you're really famous now, huh!"
A furious female voice blew up from the far end of the hallway, like a gust of wind carrying sparks, and tore straight into the room.
The door slammed open.
A young woman with short blonde hair strode in fast. Her noble gown was sharply tailored, but the way she moved had zero concern for proper decorum.
A newspaper was clenched in her hand, its edges crushed into wrinkles.
Smack.
A copy of The Arcane Gazette was whipped right into the man's face.
"Are you trying to nail the name 'Thornevale' to a public shame post for good?"
Damien Thornevale didn't flinch.
He lifted a hand and peeled the newspaper off his face.
Sapphire-blue eyes swept the front page.
It was a moving magical photograph.
The man in the image had deep-set features and clean, defined lines. Even in black-and-white, you couldn't hide that natural, born-noble handsomeness.
He smiled, extending a hand to a young lady—his posture so flawlessly elegant it looked like he was simply inviting her to a dance.
And the girl—a noblewoman in an elaborate formal dress—returned a polite smile, then gently shook her head, her gaze carrying a hint of undisguised distance.
The image froze on the next beat.
The headline, though, was so glaring it was almost comical:
[SHOCKING! Viscount Thornevale Publicly Confesses His Love at a Duke's Daughter's Birthday Banquet!]
"Do you even know who she is?!"
A hard slap against the desk yanked him out of the paper and back into the room.
"She's a duke's daughter! And she's not even of age!"
The one standing in front of him was Selene Thornevale.
His younger sister.
"I sent you to represent the family at that banquet," she said through clenched teeth, "not to manufacture a scandal!"
Damien looked down at the headline, and yet—strangely—his mind was calm.
If he were still just an outside observer, he might've done exactly what the Gazette wanted: spend a few silver coins on a copy, sit by a window with a cup of tea, and enjoy the spectacle.
Too bad the spectacle's main character was him.
—More accurately, the person he used to be.
Damien lifted his head and looked toward the mirror by the desk.
The man in the mirror had the exact same face as the one in the paper.
Handsome. Elegant. So perfectly "noble" it was like he'd been printed straight out of an aristocrat's etiquette textbook.
But Damien knew the truth.
The original owner of this body was gone.
The one standing here now was a stranger's soul, freshly shoved into someone else's skin.
No memories from the original. No warning. No prep. He didn't even know what this body had actually done last night—he could only confirm it through a newspaper.
The only thing he was certain of was this world's name:
The Kingdom of Valemont.
And the rules that ran everything here.
Because in another world, he'd stepped into this place countless times.
This was the MMORPG he'd been obsessed with.
Top ten on the leaderboard.
To be exact, the top ten characters were all his—every single one leveled by his own hands.
And now he'd transmigrated into one of them.
Damien Thornevale.
The Kingdom of Valemont was a nation that ran on noble hierarchy.
And Damien's status was: viscount.
It sounded respectable. It wasn't safe.
A patch of land and a title—when it came to real power games, that made you, at best, a piece sitting near the edge of the board.
And worse—
this particular piece had just publicly provoked a duke's daughter.
The gap between a viscount and a duke was like a cat that'd mistakenly decided it was a lion.
"…Yeah. Figures I'd land in the villain boss," Damien sighed to himself.
"Starting on hell difficulty."
"What are you muttering about?"
Selene narrowed her eyes, clearly even more annoyed by how detached he looked.
Damien raised his gaze to her.
Selene Thornevale.
In the game, she was his little sister.
And she'd been one of the most popular female characters with players.
Not just because her face was so refined it barely felt real—but because she always stood on the "justice" side: calm, sharp, decisive. Even in noble society, she never attached herself to anyone.
And the reason she'd gotten that kind of popularity, to some degree…
was thanks to her "villain brother."
Damien Thornevale.
A core villain boss through the early and mid game.
Schemes. Manipulation. Ambition.
In the end, he threw the kingdom into chaos. The queen herself issued a royal subjugation order and put a bounty on his head.
Players swarmed in, all for the same reason—to kill him for the EXP and loot.
And that was how he'd earned those widely-circulated titles that, no matter how you looked at them, weren't exactly compliments:
[Glass Cannon Boss]
[Ridiculously Handsome]
[Heartbreaker Mage]
Waking up inside the game world he knew better than his own apartment should have been thrilling.
Damien couldn't even fake a smile.
Because he knew one thing better than anyone:
the hatred this character had racked up was high enough that any "newbie" piloting him would get dogpiled the moment the game started.
And now he was standing dead center in that hate meter.
He didn't bother trying to explain.
Because he understood perfectly: Selene's anger wasn't really aimed at him—not the him who'd just arrived.
It was aimed at the one who no longer existed, but had left behind a mountain of messes:
the original Damien Thornevale.
Selene's temper was clearly at the breaking point.
"Enough, Damien!"
Her voice jumped an octave. "Do you have any idea how bad your situation is right now?!"
She yanked a thick roll of parchment out of her handbag. The seal wax was still fresh, and the edges were creased like it had been folded and unfolded a dozen times.
Smack—!
She slammed it onto the desk hard enough to make the inkwell at the corner wobble.
"If I hadn't used every last connection I still have and contacted Arcanis Royal Academy," she said, biting down on each word, "the duke's private soldiers would've had your estate surrounded so tight even a rat couldn't squeeze out!"
Selene drew in a breath, clearly forcing herself to rein it in.
"What I got you is a temporary instructor position."
"Not an honor. Not a reward. A piece of paper—" her eyes were icy, "a legal shield."
She let out a sharp, humorless laugh.
"As long as you're wearing the Academy's name, the duke can't lay hands on you out in the open."
"And you?"
She stabbed a finger toward him. "You're still sitting here drinking coffee, reading, acting like nothing happened."
"Not even willing to say a single 'thank you'?"
"Thank you," Damien said.