Death, they say, is the end.
But for me, it was only where everything began.
I wasn't anyone important in my past life. Just another name in a long list of disposable workers crushed under Korea's corporate grind. I did everything my team asked. Stayed late. Ate instant noodles. Took the fall when the project failed.
They celebrated behind my back while I collapsed at my desk.
And then came the truck.
The lights. The screech. The numb cold spreading across my spine. One second I was alive. The next, I wasn't.
When I opened my eyes again, I was a child—frail, pale, and gasping on the polished floors of a marble hallway. The name I was given: Arjen Velerion, the bastard son of House Velerion, one of the most powerful magic families in the empire.
For a moment, I thought fate had given me a second chance.
I was wrong.
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"Disgrace."
"He must be defective."
"Why is he even allowed to wear the family crest?"
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Those were the first words I heard from my new brothers. Three perfect sons—strong, beautiful, brimming with magical talent. And me? I couldn't even make a spark. No mana, no aura, no gifts.
Everyone thought I was a mistake.
But I wasn't.
I was cursed.
I only discovered it years later, when the servants whispered that the Lady of the House—my stepmother—had visited a forbidden temple right before I was born. When she touched my forehead as a child, I remembered shivering, like something was crawling under my skin.
And just like that, I was always the weakest in a family built on strength.
Even Father, who once held me as a baby, now looked through me like I was nothing.
When I turned ten, they banished me to the cursed forest outside the estate. They said it was training. A test. But they never expected me to come back.
I survived.
For two years, I ate rotten roots and drank rainwater. I fought off wolves and stitched my wounds with needles made of bone.
And then, one day, I found the cave.
The dead man. The blue necklace.
And the assassin.
The pain came again—cold steel through my back. A whisper I'll never forget:
> "Your brother sends his regards."
But this time, as my life bled out in the dirt, something inside the necklace pulsed. Time tore itself apart.
And I opened my eyes once more.
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"You have entered the Villain Path."
[System Activation: Complete]
Welcome, Arjen Velerion. Regression Successful.
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I was back.
Back to the day I was first summoned into this body.
But this time… I remembered everything.
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