Villain's game

When Zeo opened his eyes, he discovered that the ceiling above was not same. Rather, it was made of wood and water droplets were leaking from up above. Then he felt a sharp pain. Looking down, he found his chest was wrapped in some bandages and there were crimson blood marks...

He looked around and saw he was inside a room. Like the roof, the walls and floor were also made of wood. He was lying on an old bed.

'Am I dreaming?'

"Arrgh!"

Then, a sudden pain in his head assaulted him. A huge amount of memories started to pour into his head without stopping as if wanting to blast open his head. After about half an hour, the pain disappeared and he digested all the memories.

A sudden thought came in his mind:

'I crossed into the world of 'Hero's Path?'

He remembered yesterday night he was making last checks for the oncoming launch of the game "Hero's Path". He had been working hard to create this game for 5 years alongside his team members. This game was a huge investment of the company they were working for and after this much hard work it was finally going to be released. So, to celebrate this his team mates arranged a party where he got drunk. After that he can't remember anything.

Zeo tried to remember and sort out his thoughts and finally came to the conclusion, that he really crossed into the game and became Zeo, a minor villain in the background story of the game.

Recalling the memories of this body he found the useful information-

Zeo is an illegitimate son of Count Rick Belmont in this game. He and his mother were abandoned by the count when he was 10 years old. His mother and Zeo both lived as a commoner in this wooden house in the outskirts of the royal capital, of the kingdom of Twilight.

At first, they both lived happily, but, after a few months, his mother fell seriously ill, when Zeo took his mother to the priest in the nearby small church, the priest said that he will charge some fee for helping him in healing his mother but Zeo did not had money due to their poor living conditions.

Then the priest suggested that there will be a swordsmanship competition in the arena nearby and it is a competition for young children to show their talent. The priest said: "if you win, you can win enough money to cure your mother."

The young Zeo accepted it readily, because even if he was an illegitimate child, he still had gotten a basic swordsmanship training since he was 5-year-old in the training ground of the Belmont family. Even after being abandoned he still trained diligently every day in hope of becoming an adventurer one day.

He reached the arena and registered his name there. Since it was a competition for commoners especially, he was accepted easily. And Zeo was confident because unlike, commoner children, he was good in swordsmanship. And at the start, everything was going well; He won every match easily and reached the finals safely. Then, suddenly a noble girl came and ordered the management staff to replace his last opponent. She challenged him for the last match.

Normally he would have admitted defeat because his mother had taught him not to get entangled with the nobles, but because he had to save his mother he accepted. The girl said that she was looking for an opponent who can contend with her.

When their match started, Zeo was able to hold off for half an hour but eventually he lost to her. He was extremely angry and wanted to kill this girl but he did not dare to do so because she introduced herself as duke Ricard's daughter and everyone in the kingdom knew that duke Ricard was the legendary sword king. Duke Ricard has killed countless demons and invaders of the kingdom and his swordsmanship was too terrifying.

Dejected, he chooses to go back and when he reached home his mother was at her last breath, his mother said to live a happy life as she died in front of him.

This caused Zeo to develop endless hatred towards that girl and the duke's family. He promised himself to kill that girl. He investigated through the rumors and found that her name was Tia and she was the sword prodigy of the duke household.

He knew that he can't kill her until he is strong enough, so to soothe his hate, he decided to participate in several competitions and try to defeat her. Yet he got defeated by her every time. Eventually, people started to call him 'Second' because he always got second place due to Tia.

This caused Zeo to increase his hate even more. At 15 years old, he joined the adventurer's guild and made a name for himself and became a B rank adventurer at the early age of 19.

Recalling all this made Zeo sad and a sigh escaped his mouth

"If I remember correctly this Zeo died because he conspired to poison Tia and got caught by the hero. If I followed his way then I will end up dying too. Haaa... such a troublesome thing."

Since I have reincarnated here, I will try my best to not get killed.

Let's take a different path and become strong enough to protect myself.

After waking, Zeo moved towards the mirror hanging on the left wall. The face reflected in the mirror have golden eyes and dark black hair.

"As expected, even a minor character has good looks in this game."

Now that I think about it, isn't his house way too old. Even though he is a B rank adventurer?

Looks like the original Zeo neglected dealing with other things and only focused on his swordsmanship. Even the body looks malnourished.

"Let's find some food first, I am starving."

After looking around, Zeo found some bread to eat. Although, they were as hard as bricks, he still forcefully ate them. He found a storage ring in which a sword, some breads, few potions and some coins were stored.

A sudden thought came to his mind: "Can I use the game system like a player, even though I have become a NPC? Let's give it a try."

<Status>

<Synchronizing....>

<Synchronizing complete!>

[Name: Zeo]

[Class: Intermediate Swordsman Lv-6(1296/4000)]

[HP: 2500/3000] [MP: 1000/1000]

[STR: 300] [SPE: 267] [AGI: 219] [DEF: 286] [INT: 186]

[Mana Purity: Lv-3(0/10,000)]

[Titles: Abandoned, Second, B rank Adventurer]

[Skills: Body Strengthening Lv- 5, Mana Manipulation Lv-2, Dash Lv-4, Persistence Lv-3]

[Resistance: Disease Res. Lv-4, Physical Res. Lv- 5, Magic Res. Lv-4, Poison Res. Lv-2]

[Condition: Malnourished, Injured]

[Evaluation: A careless person, blind in his revenge.]

[Available Exp:1456]

Well, he really was a careless person. His mana purity is only at Lv-3? Tsk, so this must be the reason for him being abandoned. In this world, every average noble child has mana purity of lv-5 or above. Every Child is born with a particular Lv of mana purity in this world. Mana purity level cannot be increased by any orthodox method.

Only if you become an Undead, you can increase it by devouring souls. Well, this rule doesn't apply on the players though. Mana purity refers to your mana density and its purity. The higher your mana purity the stronger your attack will be when fighting with a person of same level as you.

"The main protagonist have the mana purity of Lv-9 since birth, while the max mana purity is Lv-10 it can't be increased anymore after that."

The main protagonist is the crown prince of the kingdom of Twilight. Well, this game was designed so that you can choose any named character to play or choose a commoner to become an adventurer, every character hasits own story.

Let's first heal this wound. In this world you cannot heal fast enough, if you do not have a potion or a person with healing skills. Although, there is natural recovery but it takes too long based on your body. Thankfully, there are some healing potions in his storage ring.

[Healing potion - low rank]

[+10 HP every second for 3 min]

Well, it really is convenient to heal so quickly. According to the memory of previous Zeo, he got injured when on a hunting mission by a group of Orcs.

Now, I should visit the market, I don't want to eat those bricks every day. Thankfully I have some cooking skills because I was an orphan in my previous world. But if we compare, I am still an orphan, even if the father of this body is alive.

I don't really want to get involved with that Belmont family. Anyway, they will be caught by the hero using black magic on the common folks.

Although their ending will not be as terrible as original Zeo in the game. The Original Zeo was caught by the hero and as a punishment, he got burned alive on the stake. Even thinking about that gives, me goosebumps.

If you play as the crown prince, you can play this game as an otome game. This game has several routes, based on which starting character you choose. And if you play as crown prince, this poisoning event will be the first event you will come across and if you fail to find the real culprit, then the duke family of Tia will cause a huge rebellion and kill thousands of people in revenge. Later, it will become more difficult to play the game.

So, this event is of great value. But I should not let this event happen. Who would want to get burned alive?

Hmm, although it's true that I will not try to poison Tia but atleast I will defeat her in swordsmanship fair and square one day, so that I can complete the last wish of original Zeo. Obviously, not now, she is a sword prodigy and have mana purity of lvl-7 but someday I will do it.

Rather, I am surprised how did the original Zeo even managed to stand half an hour in front of her. Maybe she was going easy on him.

I should focus on adapting to this world first. I can find out about these things later.

Now, that I am thinking about it, I can feel mana inside me and in my surrounding as easily as normally breathing. In my previous world, there was no concept of mana, it feels really strange to suddenly feel it.

Forget it, I can't figure out this strange feeling. First Let's test the skills to find if I can use them normally, it would be devastating if I can't use them after replacing the original owner of this body.

From my earlier inspection, I discovered a medium sized garden on the back side of this small house. It's a relief that the basic things like toilet, sewage and water facilities were added in this game, otherwise it would have been a big problem for me.

Let's find out my current fighting abilities in this garden. The original Zeo trained in this garden every day. So, it would not be a problem. And since my house is in the outskirts of the capital city not many people pass by this place. It's a nice and quiet place where you can concentrate on your work.

"Hooo... Let's get started."