[ SYSTEM PROMPT WINDOW – CRITICAL ERROR DETECTED ]
[ Host Identity: SECRET AGENT KEITH – STATUS: TERMINATED ]
[ Final Mission Result: SUCCESS + PERSONAL REVENGE ACHIEVED ]
[ Side Note: The girlfriend was delicious. ]
[ Betrayal Protocol Activated by Own Company ]
[ Memory Lock Initiated… Base Personality Overwritten ]
[ WARNING: Transmigration Error – 99.7% Data Loss ]
[ New Host Generated: Caelum – Deadbeat Nobleman / Perverted Transmigrator ]
[ Original Soul Fragment Locked Away… Location Unknown ]
[ New Host Personality Taking Over... ]
[ Awaiting Memory Awkening ]
I was sitting at a desk.
The surface beneath my palms was dark wood — old, heavy, expensive. My fingers traced the grain automatically, and I noted the quality of the varnish, the slight unevenness that spoke of hand-crafting rather than factory production. The chair beneath me was high-backed, leather, worn at the armrests. Before me, the desk was scattered with papers — letters, mostly, written in a language I should not have been able to read but somehow could. A wax seal sat unbroken on the nearest letter, stamped with a crest I did not recognize and yet knew intimately: a coiling serpent pierced by three swords, set against a field of ash-gray.
The Veyne family crest.
Memories hit me like a wave — not my memories, or rather, not 'only' my memories. They came in fragments, disjointed images and sensations that slotted into my consciousness like puzzle pieces clicking into place. A tall, crumbling manor house on a cliff overlooking a grey sea. A father who drank himself to death before I turned twelve. A mother who fled to a neighboring province and never returned. A title — Lord — that carried respect in direct proportion to the wealth behind it, which was to say, almost none at all.
Ash-gray hair. Amber eyes. A face that was too pretty for a man, framed by locks the color of smoke.
Caelum Veyne. Disgraced young lord of a declining noble house in the kingdom of Alderon. And — I realized with a jolt that was equal parts excitement and dread — the villain of a dark fantasy otome web novel I had been reading. Not 'Throne of Ruin.' That was a different story entirely. This one was called 'Blooming Thorns' — a web novel I had discovered three years ago, read obsessively for six months, and then half-forgotten as newer, trashier titles caught my attention.
But I remembered enough. I remembered the routes. I remembered the bad ends. I remembered the women — the fierce swordswoman, the cold duchess, the temple priestess with the healing hands — and I remembered that Caelum Veyne, the original villain, died in every single route. Usually painfully. Always alone.
Well. That was the original Caelum. I was not the original Caelum.
I flexed my fingers. Felt the weight of this new body — taller than my old one, leaner, with a wiry strength in the forearms that suggested someone who had held a sword at least once. I ran a hand through my hair — ash-gray, long enough to brush my shoulders, softer than it had any right to be.
'I am Caelum Veyne now,' I thought. And a slow, crooked smile spread across my face — the kind of smile that would have made my old girlfriend reach for the nearest blunt object.
A knock at the door.
"Young Master? Your tea is ready."
The voice was warm. Maternal. The kind of voice that wrapped around you like a thick wool blanket and made you feel that somewhere in this cold, crumbling world, someone still cared.
I knew that voice. The memories — Caelum's memories — supplied the face before the door even opened. Martha. Head maid of the Veyne household. The only remaining servant in a manor that had once employed thirty. Middle-aged, thick-bodied, with a face that belonged in a painting of a kindly country baker — round cheeks, warm brown eyes, a smile that reached her eyes.
She entered carrying a silver tray with a porcelain teapot and a single cup. Her uniform — the black and grey of House Veyne — was tight across her chest and hips in a way that spoke of a body that had been generous even in its youth and had only grown more generous with age. Her hips swayed as she walked, the heavy fabric of her skirt straining with each step, and I watched the motion with the kind of detached appreciation that a connoisseur might give a fine painting.
"Good morning, Young Master," she said, setting the tray down with practiced ease. "I've prepared your tea just the way you like it. The others have already left, I'm afraid — Cook resigned yesterday, and the stable boy followed this morning. It seems it's just you and me now."
Her tone was sympathetic. Concerned. The tone of a loyal servant mourning the slow death of a great house.
But in my mind — in the strange, echoing space where this body's instincts merged with my own — I heard something else entirely.
'Good riddance. Fewer witnesses. I should poison this young fool soon — no, wait. Poisoning nobility will bring the Magistrate's men. Too much trouble. I'll simply wait for him to fall asleep, take the silver, the candlesticks, and whatever coins he has left in the treasury, and vanish before dawn. He won't even notice. The idiot can't even pour his own tea.'
I almost laughed. Almost. But I caught myself, smoothing my expression into the slightly dazed, slightly grateful look that Caelum — the original Caelum — would have worn. The look of a lost young man who had never had to fend for himself and was quietly terrified of the world closing in around him.
"Thank you, Martha," I said, and my voice came out exactly as it should — soft, uncertain, boyish. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
'Heh. Exactly what I was hoping you'd say, you gullible little lord. Keep relying on me. Keep trusting me. It makes everything so much easier.'
"You're the only one who stayed,' I continued, letting my voice crack just slightly on the word 'only." "Everyone else — they all left. But you stayed. Why did you stay?"