Ch. Prologue: Isn't it easy to hate on the villain

It was the crack of Dawn, the birds were already chirping while warming sunlight was slowly brightening the beautiful fields of the Reinhardt Duchy. This kind of peace could only be felt this early in the morning by farmers, crafters, and innkeepers that, slowly but surely, had to wake up for another honest day of work.

Nobles, who ruled this land, were painfully adverse to the idea of waking up early just to see the sunrise, after all, they had to be different from the common populace, they went to bed late to wake up late, that was the unwritten rule everyone followed, it has always been like this and it wasn't going to change anytime soon. In their effort to be different, to be regarded as another level of evolution of the human species they completely miss the fact that their existence is and will keep being dependent on the commoners both physically, since without commoners nobles couldn't pay for anything, and metaphysically, since their whole kick is being better than commoners their values and identities are always reliant on those of commoners.

Basically, commoners do one thing, and nobles have to "elevate" it.

There was however a noble, who lived south of the Duchy of the West (Reinhardt Duchy), that lived all his previous life as a "commoner" in another world and as such, fully aware of the hypocrisy he was constantly subjected to, he didn't have a weak ego to nurture that prevented him from going to bed early to wake up early to watch the beautiful scenery play out slowly in front of his eyes. Nostalgia.

He missed his life, his family, his work even, but he came to terms with that two years ago when he first arrived here in this body.

The surprises didn't end with the knowledge he was reincarnated, because he knew this world very well: it was the same setting, names, and story as the popular novel Noah's reincarnation fantasy. It was your regular reincarnation fantasy where a guy gets transported to another world is found out to have the hero class with the holy attribute, has a system, and ends up marrying all of his party/harem except for the male dude who till the end remained single... Cause the hero basically stole everyone. Yes.

The name of this noble is Christopher Arden son of Marquis Willhelm and Marchionnes Camille Arden, he was part of one of the 16 Marquis families residing in the kingdom and part of the wealthiest of the 4 Duchys. The noble caste in this world worked like this King, Prince, Duke, Marquis, Count, Baron where Barons were no more than village or group of villages lords, Viscounts did not exist, Counts were regional managers, Marquises ruled over a group of regions while Dukes controlled the whole area managed by Marquises.

In the original story, Christopher was no more than a minor villain, engaged to the second daughter and the fifth offspring of Duke Reinhardt the beautiful and battle-hungry Quinta Reinhardt. In this kingdom, it was very common to find females fighting in the frontlines as magic leveled the playing field, and since the previous two Kings married two Queens who fought directly to repeal the demon invasion.

There was still a bit of prejudice towards women who fought with swords or magical gauntlets, but it was only background noise at this point.

Why did he become a villain then? Well because before every year a Duke's son or daughter enters the Avalon Magic Academy, an academy designed for nobles to let their children learn about magic when it is safe to do so and experience social life all the while, the Duke hosts a party where other dukes and high-level nobles were allowed to join while the lower did theirs. On that occasion, Quinta invited the hero who she met on the streets the day before after she decided to visit the city alone and was saved by him from a group of thugs, very cliche indeed, and became immediately smitten by how cool he was.

When Quinta completely disregarded noble etiquette and invited the hero to dance first the original Christopher lost his cool. Without insulting your intelligence and explaining in detail what happened after the party I will just tell you that the cliché continued and in the end, the Duke had to break off the engagement under the excuse of the lack of sanity of the young noble, an excuse the Marquis had to begrudgingly accept.

Naturally, the outcome he wanted was the same, the break off of the engagement, he wanted his freedom, and nobody would take it away from him (red flag, I love those) but it will come on his terms.

"Two years uh?" a young boy said from his window, narrowing his eyes in concentration he formed several ice spikes around him, with incredible speed the spikes hit a faraway tree in the same spot showcasing impressive precision. Do not be fooled however, this is a level nobody in this world would be proud of for it is for all intent and purposes merely a start; the hero same age as the boy is already very far in swordsmanship and could cast a simple Smite Spell faster and with more precision and power having trained the first since 3 (bullshit Novel Plot) and the second since 4 years ago; additionally the Hero alone could count on the power of the System, a cheat like ability that could help with faster power-up and pulling items and skills out of his ass by completing easy quests. Of course, the rewards were never proportional to the difficulty of the quest and the items would be conveniently useful in the next few chapters.

Both the hero and the boy in question were the same age (13) and similar to most of the cast (they range from 12 to 16) and all their extremely different journeys would start very soon.

...

-Arden Residence-

"Young Master? Are you awake?" called Alfred, my butler, a fitting name if I say so myself.

"Good morning Alfred, please come in I'm already awake and dressed" I was just about to put the finishing touches to my outfit and just needed the maids to perfect it.

"Sigh, as always you never let the maids enjoy themselves" joked the butler while entering my room with the maids in tow; they quickly combed my hair to perfection and added a couple of careful ornaments, precisely picked for my outfit and the importance of the occasion before hastily leaving fearful I would lash out.

Alfred looked me over, smiled, and said "Good, you are ready, we will leave at once then, while close it will certainly take a full day to arrive at the party by carriage"

Nodding I asked, "Well if there isn't anything else let's leave at once, what about father and mother?"

"It seems they will not be able to make it, demons are stirring to the west both your father and Marquis Gutenberg are on the frontlines your mother right behind them refusing to be left alone"

"Good to know they can actually do their job, the duke will be pleased," I said sarcastically

Alfred's expression became wry "You are still bitter about that"

"Of course, I did not want to have useless trouble and they decided to throw it at me instead" Pausing for a while I then continued "But it will all end today"

That stopped Alfred in his tracks, I stopped as well to look at him with a smirk on my face clearly amused by his shocked expression.

"You have a plan."

I nodded "Naturally" I turned around and left with him hot on my tail.

Unbeknownst to me Alfred was smiling his thoughts unclear.

Alfred was my butler, assigned to me a couple of years ago a bit before I took control of this body and mind, you have to know that since I got here I never stopped gambling and drinking however I made the fatal mistake of never really losing money and in the long run always remaining on positive; this ticked off Alfred who confronted me about it after a while.

Knowing that he was the one managing my money and had to report my actions to my father I had to come clean, if I could turn him into an ally I could only benefit from it. I revealed to him that I was acting like an idiot to avoid worrying my brother regarding the position of house head, and to filter the number of engagement requests coming to me, something that completely backfired on me as I underestimated the friendship between my father and the Duke.

Since then Alfred has been very close to me, he is also a very accomplished mage and probably knows of my escapades in the night to train my magic, never saying anything about it to my family. I also think that some of the guards, more attuned to magic, knew but none ever exposed me. One day I would find out why, but until then...

My brother and sister were already at school in 5 days I would join them but before that-

"To the Duke's residence let's go!" the voice of the guards pulled me from my reverie.

'The plot is finally starting then~'