The grand castle of the Campbell family sits quiet in the early light, and inside one of its bedrooms a young man sits up and wonders what in the world has happened to him.
Hold on a second. Did he not just die in a brutal car crash? A massive accident, the kind nobody walks away from. Did he somehow travel through time, or leap across dimensions? This room decor looks completely European. And the face staring back at him from the mirror looks exactly like his own seventeen or eighteen-year-old self.
Except that makes zero sense, since he was way older before dying.
He takes a much closer look, and there it is, sheer shock. And yeah, he is pretty damn handsome right now. This is his face from way before he turned into a totally broke, overweight mess. Just as he starts putting the pieces together, he decides his tired old brain is only having an insane reincarnation dream, because his real life was miserable enough to earn one.
He grabs a small knife off the table. "Time to test it," he mutters.
Blood instantly gushes out. It is just a tiny cut, but the pain is absolutely blinding. He licks his fingers and realizes this crazy setup feels way too real.
Then, suddenly, a flood of new memories crashes into his mind.
He has possessed Moon Campbell, a fallen noble who lost everything. His titles ended up rotting away with him as a street beggar, and he was totally abandoned by his own family. His father warned him never to set foot on Campbell territory again, or face instant death. Apparently this original owner of the body committed some unforgivable crime.
He buries his face in his hands. Damn it all. He really hoped this was a weird coincidence, but the truth is clear.
Unfortunately, he has just transmigrated into a completely useless fool. The pathetic blond villain. Not an elite, not anywhere close to powerful.
Because he used to obsess over this exact web novel. A story called The Protagonist, the Strongest Woman in History. You can probably guess the vibe from that title alone. Total classic cliche setup. The single biggest difference is the main hero being a female warrior.
Her family throws her away, so she strikes out into the massive world alone, grinds her skills, hunts down monsters, and rises up as a legend. Right at the beginning, this idiot Moon Campbell is an early-game stepping stone, sending countless thugs to crush her, and she just uses them to level up like an absolute beast. His schemes fail. He gets permanently exiled from the grand mansion and wanders off as a beggar. Twenty chapters later, the fans have completely forgotten he ever existed.
Being reborn sounds amazing. Stealing the body of a doomed loser destined to be crushed by the main hero is pure trash.
Suddenly, a soft knock hits the door. He calls out, and the maid steps inside, asking if everything is all right.
He brushes it off. She mentions his formal clothes for the banquet tomorrow, already pressed and ready.
"Just leave them on the bed," he replies.
But right then her sharp eyes catch the blood, and she asks if he has injured himself.
"Just a tiny accident." He insists it is nothing major at all.
Ten dollars says you know the next move. She kneels down and carefully wipes the blood away. Talk about a highly dedicated employee. She clearly deserves a raise. Then she softly begs him to stop injuring himself.
Moon starts blushing like crazy, his heart hammering, mentally burning this beautiful memory into his brain forever. She spins around on her heels, bows her head, and tells him to please stay safe before heading out.
The second that heavy door clicks shut, he sits there grinning like an absolute fool, muttering that this new world is pure perfection. He covers his red face and flails around, completely thrilled about having such an incredibly cute personal maid. Yeah, he is a total hopeless romantic.
Meanwhile, the maid waiting in the hallway finds his polite thank you super suspicious. The original Moon must have been absolute garbage before he possessed the body.
Back inside, Moon wonders how a handsome, wealthy noble with a sweet maid like that ever thought it was smart to provoke an insanely overpowered protagonist in the first place.
The real reason he caught that harsh exile is supposedly because he tried to drug the third princess. But since he knows exactly how that whole path turns out, he only needs to avoid it entirely. To keep this super cushy life of his, the very first step is surviving the ceremony where all the real chaos kicks off.
Then it hits him. The maid with the amazingly thick thighs already dropped off his banquet outfit, and she said it happens tomorrow.
At this point he is literally rolling around in bed, begging for a system, a goddess, a monk, anyone at all who can hand him a cheat or some kind of crazy power-up. The problem is that with the banquet tomorrow, it means he has already done a lot of terrible things to the protagonist. He just hopes she does not go totally overboard by stomping on his face. Though, if she really does, he hopes she wears black tights and takes her time. Clearly the man has incredibly refined tastes.
But right now he has completely made up his mind. Tomorrow, the second he sees her, he will run over, drop right to his knees three times, and beg for mercy.
Suddenly, something smacks him right on the head.
He spins around yelling, trying to find out who actually did that. That is when he spots a little book lying on the bed.
Did his cheat finally show up?
He excitedly grabs it and shouts that God had not abandoned him after all. He is not destined to be a loser forever. Now is the perfect time to gain infinite knowledge and rewrite his fate.
But when he opens the book, there is absolutely nothing inside.
He starts wondering if the thing needs some special activation to work. These fantasy stories usually take place in Europe anyway, so what is the deal here?
Right then the book attacks him, drawing blood. A tiny drop splatters onto the blank page. A heavy dark aura rises off the paper. He starts panicking about what is going on.
His vision totally blurs.
Suddenly he wakes up completely restrained. Hands, feet, and even his neck are locked down. He is battered all over. Slowly opening his eyes, he wonders where he is.
Then this seriously creepy girl shows up, saying he slept for quite a while.
He complains that his body really hurts. She just smiles and says, "Pain is inevitable when learning a hard lesson."
He has zero idea how deeply sad she is. She never wanted him tied up like this. But he was acting so cruel and selfish. He should be bringing pain to others instead of showing tolerance. He needs to make everyone despise him. That was the only way he would belong solely to her. But lately his heart started changing, and she simply could not accept that. Still, no matter how long it takes, she is absolutely going to purify him with her twisted love, until they are together forever.
Then, bam. A rapid barrage of stabs, and he wakes up gasping back in his own room.
So the protagonist actually likes him better as a total villain. But if he goes down that exact path, his life turns into a bloody nightmare. And if he does not, it is already ruined. So what is he even supposed to do?
He starts wondering if that was some past memory, or a horrifying glimpse of the future. After all, that messed-up vision only started when his blood touched the book. It must be a future warning triggered by making the wrong choice.
He looks at the book again. The text warns him not to alter fate.
He instantly understands. If he went through with that cowardly plan of kneeling and begging for mercy, it would lead straight to that bloody outcome.
Considering how heavily he was bound and tortured in that vision, suddenly getting kicked out of the family and living on the streets really does not seem that terrible anymore.
Now he is fired up. He is a smart modern guy. He can use his outside knowledge to shift not just his personal fate, but the destiny of this entire country. Besides, playing the rich aristocrat is not even that amazing. Anyway, they are all trapped in this tiny little land.
He will seize control of his own destiny with his bare hands, and stop relying on this fake privilege.