Chapter 1: Reincarnated a Villainous Noble

Consciousness surfaced. The first thing I felt was a soft sensation beneath me—and a faint scent of flowers.

That couldn’t be right. The last place I remembered being was my drab office, where the only smells were disinfectant and cheap coffee. There was no way it could smell this luxurious.

Slowly, I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was an ornately carved canopy above me. The silk sheets glided smoothly over my skin. None of this made any sense. When I sat up, the bone-deep fatigue I’d carried for years was gone, as if it had never existed. On the contrary, I felt brimming with strength.

“What… is going on?”

The hoarse voice that escaped my lips wasn’t my own. It was higher—clear, like that of a young boy who hadn’t gone through puberty yet. Still bewildered, I climbed out of bed and walked toward the mirror in the corner of the room. Reflected there was a stranger.

He looked about fifteen or sixteen, with jet-black hair that shimmered like the night sky and cool blue eyes that held a sharp glint. His skin was pale as porcelain—he was the very picture of nobility. Beautiful, in fact. But his expression was fixed in a habitual scowl of arrogance and irritation, ruining that beauty entirely.

Who the hell is this?

The moment I thought that, a stabbing pain ripped through my skull. It felt as if an enormous flood of data were being forcibly written into my brain. Countless images and emotions surged into me like a raging torrent.

Zenon von Arkwright.

Third son of the Arkwright ducal family.
Born with immense magic power, arrogant to the point of despising everyone around him. If someone displeased him, he wouldn’t hesitate to strike them with magic. Feared and shunned as “the demon-possessed.”

“…This is the worst.”

The words came out in that same boyish voice. Apparently, I had become this noble named Zenon.

In my previous life, I was Rei Kamishiro, a business consultant. To meet my clients’ impossible demands, I practically lived in the office, running on energy drinks and caffeine until my body gave out. My last memory was of crossing a street in a haze of exhaustion—then a flash of light and a violent impact.

I’d probably been hit by a truck. How irrational. After working myself to the bone, this was how I went out. If it had at least been death by overwork, my family might’ve received compensation.

No use dwelling on it. The problem is now.
I’m Zenon von Arkwright.
And that name rings a bell. No—more than a bell. It screamed familiarity.

This was the name of the villainous noble from my sister’s favorite otome game: “Kimi to Tsumugu Hikari no Seitankyoku”, or “The Holy Cantata of Our Woven Light,” known to fans as KimiSei.

In KimiSei, a commoner girl awakens to holy power, enrolls in the royal academy as a saint, and—through romance with the prince and other love interests—saves the kingdom from impending doom.
Zenon von Arkwright was the classic jealous noble villain who constantly obstructed her path.

Arrogant and detested, he used the authority of his powerful family to act with impunity. But near the story’s climax, it’s revealed that the Arkwright family had long been involved in corruption and fraud. Stripped of his family’s protection, Zenon is condemned by the heroine and her companions.

His fate differs slightly depending on the route:

• In the Prince route, he’s executed by guillotine.
• In the Knight-Captain route, he’s sent to a remote mine as a slave and dies from exhaustion.
• In the Mage route, he becomes a test subject for magic overdrive experiments and ends up a mindless husk.

No matter the path, his destiny is ruin.
A man with only bad endings—Zenon von Arkwright.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I just wanted a peaceful, rational life.
In my last life, I was at the mercy of gods called “clients.”
And now, my new life was going to be ruined by the “god” of a game’s scenario?
Don’t make me laugh.

I was a management consultant—my job was to analyze problems, propose solutions, and implement change.
Then I’ll do the same here.
I’ll turn this “Zenon von Arkwright,” a failing enterprise on the verge of collapse, into a success story.

First, situation analysis.

I sat at the desk, grabbed a sheet of parchment and a pen. Writing things down always helped me think.

Project Name: Securing My Peaceful Life
Current Status: Multiple Imminent Collapse Flags (High Management Risk)

Let’s list the threats—just like a SWOT analysis, assessing both internal and external factors.

Threat 1: Zenon’s Reputation Risk
His standing both in and outside the academy is abysmal. Fixing this will take considerable effort. Left alone, it’ll give anyone an excuse to condemn him.

Threat 2: Internal Corruption of the Arkwright Family
According to my game knowledge, the duke—Zenon’s father—is a degenerate. The elder brothers are incompetent spendthrifts. The retainers embezzle funds freely.
A textbook case of governance failure.
The family itself is already on the brink of bankruptcy—meaning Zenon’s authority has no real foundation.

Threat 3: Economic Decline of the Arkwright Territory
Crippling taxes and mismanagement have impoverished the people, wrecking productivity.
Revenue is dropping year by year, further straining the family’s finances.
Public resentment is building—and could soon explode into a full-scale rebellion.

Threat 4: The Game Scenario’s Narrative Force
This is the trickiest external factor. The saintly heroine and her love interests are the story’s centerpieces.
Even if I do nothing, they’ll inevitably cross paths with me.
Their involvement is the trigger that leads to my destruction.

I exhaled deeply—probably for the tenth time today.

This was disastrous. A tangled mess of compounding risks, all converging toward a single outcome: ruin.
And yet… I had to admit, it was almost inspiring.
As a consultant, nothing motivates me more than a hopeless case begging to be fixed.

Objective Setting:

• Short-term goal: Avoid the “condemnation event.”
• Mid-term goal: Restore the Arkwright family’s finances and stabilize the territory.
• Long-term goal: Build a self-sufficient life immune to the game’s plot.

Yes.
All I want is a quiet, efficient, rational existence.
If I have to use the reputation of a villainous noble to achieve that, so be it.

The direction was clear.
Next step: Action Plan.

Before anything else, I needed accurate information.
All I had were game memories and Zenon’s biased recollections—hardly reliable data. Without objective figures, no proper strategy could be built.

I’d need the ledgers showing household finances, population counts, tax records, harvest yields, and personnel lists of the retainers.
Every scrap of data available.

“Is anyone there?”

I raised my voice toward the door.
Moments later, there was a knock, and a young man entered.

He looked to be around twenty, with dull blond hair that hung unkempt around his face and drowsy, half-lidded eyes. Though dressed in the plain attire of a servant, a sword hung at his waist.

Gray Walker.
Zenon’s personal attendant and bodyguard knight.

He came from a long line of knights sworn to the Arkwright family. His swordsmanship was solid enough, but beyond that, he had no special merits. A quiet man who followed Zenon’s tyranny without protest, doing only as he was told.
In the game, after Zenon’s downfall, he simply disappeared—one of countless background characters forgotten by the story.

“Did you call for me, Zenon-sama?”

Gray bowed his head, his face unreadable.

I studied him carefully, as though appraising an asset. Could he be useful—or not?
Right now, he was the only piece on the board I could move directly.
That meant I’d have to make use of him, one way or another.

“Gray. I have a task for you.”

“Yes, my lord. Whatever you command.”

I clicked my tongue inwardly. His mind was asleep. The very definition of a yes-man—someone who couldn’t act without explicit, step-by-step instructions.

“Gather everything I’m about to list. You have three days.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“One: every financial ledger of the Arkwright family from the past five years. I want full records of income, expenses—every flow of gold, no matter how small.”

“…What?”

For the first time, Gray’s expression flickered with surprise.
I ignored him and pressed on.

“Two: a registry of all villages in the Arkwright domain—the population, types of crops grown, annual harvest yields, and total taxes paid. Also from the past five years.”

“Z-Zenon-Sama? What purpose could such records possibly—”

“Three: a complete roster of all current retainers serving House Arkwright. Their positions, salaries, and backgrounds. Bring it to me.”

My rapid-fire orders left him visibly confused. His eyes said everything:
He’s throwing another tantrum, spouting nonsense again.

Not a shred of trust in sight.

“Listen carefully, Gray. This is an order. No one is to know of this—especially not Father or my brothers. If even a hint of this leaks out…”

I let my voice drop to an icy murmur.

“…I’ll cut you down myself.”

Drawing on Zenon’s memories, I mimicked his arrogance perfectly—the kind of imperious tone he always used. For now, I had no choice but to wield his infamy as a weapon.
Fear, at least, would keep people moving.

My blue eyes glinted coldly, and Gray stiffened. His breath hitched; fear—and the faintest confusion—flickered in his gaze. Something about me was different from the Zenon he knew. Yet the pressure I exuded was unmistakably real. If he defied me, I would kill him—or so it felt.

“…As you command.”

Gray bowed deeply and exited the room in silence.

Left alone, I picked up my pen again and wrote the heading on the parchment before me:

Phase 1: Assess Current Conditions and Identify Waste

Game scenarios? Destruction flags?

I refused to let something that irrational dictate my life.

The role of “villainous noble” ends today.
No—more precisely, I’ll repurpose it.

From now on, I’ll act according to my own logic.
What others think of me doesn’t matter.

Call me a devil. Call me cold and heartless.
I don’t care.

I just can’t stand inefficiency.

Outside the window, the setting sun bathed the gardens in crimson light—
a quiet twilight marking the beginning of a long battle to come.

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