Chapter 1: I'm a villain?

A dull, throbbing pain echoed through my body as my consciousness stirred.

My breath came shallow, each inhale scraping against my throat like sandpaper. My limbs refused to move—heavy, numb, lifeless.

My vision remained unfocused, but I recognized the familiar weight of silk sheets and the faint scent of medicinal herbs. My bedroom. I was still alive.

I was alive. Why?

"So...You're awake." A black, purple intangible orb manifested right in front of my eyes, I got up in the bed and put my guard up.

"What are you?!"

"Calm down. I am an ancient spirit… Umbra."

"Umbra? An ancient spirit? You're not a ghost? And where did you come from?"

"I came from that necklace kaen."

Umbra manifested a tiny hand and point at the necklace I am wearing...this beautiful black pearl necklace came from my mother and she said she'd buy this necklace at the auction house.

" And No, Kaen, I am not ghost. But If I had awakened any later, you would have died—long before I could bring you back."

Right, I had been poisoned. On my thirteenth birthday. I remembered the clinking of glasses, the faint bitterness in the wine meant to celebrate my coming of age as a noble heir. Then, the agony—the burning in my veins, the collapse, the helplessness. I should be dead.

A sharp pulse of pain shot through my skull, so intense that a strangled gasp escaped my lips. I pressed my hands against my temple, trying to ground myself, but the pain was unlike any normal headache. It felt like something was forcing its way into my mind.

Then, the flood began.

Foreign images and unfamiliar memories surged through me, crashing into my consciousness with relentless force. My breathing quickened, ragged and uneven, as I struggled to make sense of what I was seeing.

"Umbra ...What did you do to me!?"

"Calm down, focus on what you have seen, and realize something that you have forgotten!"

I fell down on the floor, the pain in my head feels like someone is stabbing my head with a unsharpened sword. I clutch my head, clecnhing my teeth. Then, I saw it.

Hands—steady and practiced—making precise incisions under bright white lights. The sterile scent of disinfectants filled my lungs. A reflection in the glass—a man in surgical attire, cold and focused, his skills honed through years of relentless training.

Not a stranger.

Me.

I sucked in a sharp breath.

No, that couldn't be right. I was Kaen Vaelmount, the son of House Vaelmount. A noble heir. A magic prodigy.

"Umbra, what did I see just now? Are these really my memories?"

"Maybe, it's been eons since the last time I saw transmigrator right on front of my eyes"

Transmigrator?...me?

But these memories... they weren't random. They weren't some illusion.

Meaning that I had lived before

A genius surgeon, coldly dissecting life and death with my scalpel. Years of medical training, of working in the sterile glow of operating rooms, of holding life in my hands with every incision.

Now, I was here. Trapped in the body of a child destined for ruin.

A villain.

The realization hit me like a blade to the chest.

This world—this life—belonged to a famous game. A story where Kaen Vaelmount was fated to become the final antagonist, a villain consumed by rage and despair, driven to destruction.

And in the end, I would fall. Erased from existence by the story's hero.

I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms.

"But seriously... a villain? Me?"

The words slipped from my lips in disbelief.

I had spent my entire life mastering magic. Training endlessly to perfect my craft. And now, I was supposed to just accept that I was doomed to die as a villain? That everything I had worked for meant nothing?

My head was boiling, my veins popped in my head....My rage reach to the point that I want to destroy.

Destroy! Kill! I wanna kill those bastards who toyed my life and my fate because they needed a plot for some games!

"KAEN!!!!"

Then, umbra voice reached me...Then I notice that Black crimson aura surrounding in my body but for a moment. It disappeared.

"what??..What was that?"

"kaen, It's seems like you are cursed."

"A Curse?"

"Do you know something called the seven deadly desires?"

"what....?"

Umbra sigh.

"The seven deadly desires....These are the insatiable cravings that drive humanity to the edge of ruin, tempting even the strongest of wills into the depths of obsession and self-destruction. These things are not mere sins but living curses, lurking in the hearts of mortals and kings alike, waiting for the moment to twist fate and drown souls in their own ruin. sloth, envy, greed, pride, gluttony, lust and wrath. And you, kaen, have the strongest sin of all of them, the sin of wrath and it is labeled a Catastrophic sin back when I was alive.which means, You have the potential to become a Catastrophic villain in the future."

"Wait, a Catastrophic villain? ....then that means."

The memories of the game...that led me into the path of the villain because I was cursed?

How can I not notice?

I was genius so I should have notice something is wrong with me!

Yet, I seems to forgot and forgot even though my gut tells me that something is wrong!

My rage was coming back and black crimson aura slowly appeared in my both hands as clench it.

"Kaen! you need to calm down, right now....I'm supressing the nature of that curse but as you grow stronger, it will be hard for me to control that kind of desire..so calm down."

"DON'T TELL ME HOW TO CALM DOWN!"

I smash at the wall with my right hand as I can't accept the fact I'm going to suffer and die because of the stupid script in the game.

The wall crack as I can't fully control this kind of strength.

I clutched my face and lowered my head, leaning back against the wall.

'What if this is a nightmare.'

Yes. It has to.

This had to be an illusion. A nightmare. A trick played by the poison still in my system.

Yet... it felt real. Too real.

My memories as a surgeon. The knowledge of this world as a game. The weight of my fate pressing down on me.

I gritted my teeth.

"why?...Why did you let me live?"

"Kaen....I-"

"Just why!...You knew what I've become!..you knew what will I do in the future! You knew how I died!...I rather die at my birthday than I died with regrets and suffering!"

Tears streamed down my face as my breathing came in ragged gasps. I sank to my knees, wrapping my arms around them tightly.

Umbra sighs and approaching me closer.

"Because you need to live."

"Just what are-"

"That's what your mother would've said if she was alive."

I rise my head and look at umbra with tearful eyes.

"You? How did you know my mother?"

"Because kaen, I was with her since her childhood days...She already knows you will become a villain because I said it to her, I peek one of your memories..Even though it wasn't clear, I saw it..driven by rage and despair. That's how you become a villain."

"But your mother didn't believe in fate. She once told me... 'It's not the heavens that decide our future or what we become, but by our own choices.'"

I was speechless for a minute...thinking about my memories with her.

My mother, Lilia Vaelmount, is the only person that's understand who I am and never question about my temper but instead, she always help me by calming me down. My father, Dominic Vaelmount, is a strict father and priorities stronger, smarter, and above of all, he is a perfectionist.

But my mother was different.

I don't know how she did it, how she able to calming me. She said that it was magic.

I searched all of the library in the Vaelmount estate but I have never found it...By time I ask these questions..She died..at my twelfth birthday. We were ambush by demonic humans..Humans that have contracted by the devil and succumb by their powers.

When she died, I lost consciousness and by the time I woke up..I woke up at my bedroom.

After my mother's death, I was angry at myself. So much that everyone called me human trash. Said I abused my magic to torment lower nobles and commoners because of my temper. 

Rumors spread like wildfire through noble society, painting me as a monster.

I had no excuse for that

Yes, I had hurt someone.

But I was grieving, in pain, and they mock me because My mother died because of me.

Yet, they believed the worst. Because they wanted to.

Because it was easier to condemn me than to see the truth.

I exhaled slowly, steadying myself.

I got up and wipe my tears.

"Umbra...I don't know you...but thanks."

"Well, kaen..I just hope that she's right about this."

".....I hope so too."

If this was real… If I truly was trapped in this fate…

Then I only had one choice.

I had to shatter it.

*

Hello..my name is fallen..as you've known...I'm a newbie author..so I hope you will take it easy on me and I will accept criticisms to do better..ciao!