Reborn As An Overpowered Villain

Lucien had just finished sending his attendant Connor to remove the notice for the teacher's assistant position from the notice board. He had also instructed Connor to inform the second years that they should not send in any applications, as the position had already been filled, which Connor had listened carefully. Along with all that, Lucien had instructed his attendant to bring and collect all the details regarding Bianca.

Lucien picked the teacup and just as he was about to take another sip of tea from the teacup, lazily leaning back into the chair, the door to the office was suddenly knocked upon multiple times.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Lucien placed the teacup over the desk with a sour feeling having disturbed his tea time. But, nonetheless, he made himself sit straight, and moved a hand back through his hair, making his already perfectly done slicked back hair even more perfect.

"Come in, the door is not locked," Lucien permitted.

The door knob turned and the door was slowly pushed open, and Lucien had to blink twice to confirm that he was correctly seeing the person standing before him, or whether it was merely a mirage, because outside his office stood the main character, Mark.

Mark was dressed in his academy uniform, as the academy was still in session, his average length brown hair falling messily around his head, and he was sweating all the while, as though the boy had come straight out of training, which Lucien had no doubt was correct, or if not, then the boy had come running to his office in a hurry, without thinking much, or perhaps only after arriving at some final resolve.

"Why are you standing in the doorframe? Come inside," Lucien instructed.

Mark, whose brown eyes were intensely scanning the room as if trying to map every detail to memory or familiarize himself with the space, entered with steady steps and stopped before the desk, in front of the chairs.

Lucien waited for a while to allow Mark to speak but the boy was like a mute as he did not open his mouth at all.

"To what do I owe the pleasure that you came to see me in such a state," Lucien asked with slight irritation due to Mark standing still like a statue.

Lucien studied the boy and searched for any hint of a recent fight or anything that might give a clue as to why Mark had arrived in such a disheveled condition. His coat was crumpled in wrinkles and his shoelaces were loose and unbound.

"Before you answer me, smooth your coat and wipe the sweat off your face," Lucien added, unable to look any longer at such an unkempt appearance. He wrinkled his nose internally. "Also, your laces are loose. Tighten them."

Mark, who had been eyeing Lucien with a frenzied look, went still for a moment. But it did not take long for him to return to himself, and he began quickly following the advice, or more precisely the instruction, of Lucien.

Mark smoothed his coat, adjusted his red tie, straightened his red pants, tightened his shoelaces, and wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief before tucking it back into his dimensional ring.

Lucien waited patiently and reached for another sip of his tea, only to place it back on the desk, because looking at the state of the boy's face had left him feeling utterly detested, and drinking tea while his skin was crawling only made his stomach churn all the worse.

Mark, having finished his cleanup, met Lucien's eyes, and for a moment, much like Bianca before him, seemed to struggle to say the very thing for which he had appeared.

Lucien was sitting with something indigestible settling in his chest, because for some odd reason, his office door had now been knocked upon twice by two considerably important people.

The first had been Bianca, the vice president, who, from everything Lucien's previous life Evan had read in the story until he dropped the book, had not been shown much in the story beyond occasional appearances, making it difficult to determine whether she was among the main cast, a minor heroine, or perhaps a hidden heroine who emerged in the later parts of the plot.

And now, the second person to knock upon his office door was the main character himself, the hero and protagonist of the story, Mark Kasper, who harbored deep resentment toward Lucien and Lucien's family for failing to dispatch knights in time to save his village. The first time a significant character knocking upon his door could perhaps be counted as coincidence, one of those uncertain and unpredictable turns of life, but the second time could only mean that a third time was not a matter of if, but when.

"So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, student Mark," Lucien addressed the boy by name, and the boy flinched ever so slightly, whether because hearing his own name from Lucien's lips unsettled him, or because it stirred the anger simmering in his blood from memories of the past, from the day Lucien's family had not sent help to his village.

"You may take a seat if you are feeling tired after arriving in such a state," Lucien gestured toward the chair across from him. "Though I doubt you would tire so easily. After all, you are quite high ranked, and one of the very top students in the class," Lucien pressed tightly on the words high ranked, watching for any reaction, because he knew from the original story that Mark was concealing his true power.

And just as Lucien had anticipated, the boy's eyes went wide for the briefest of moments before settling back to their usual steadiness, and with a small nod Mark replied, "I will take a seat," and sat down across from Lucien, facing him directly.

Mark closed his eyes and drew a slow, deep breath, which for a fleeting moment made Lucien think the boy was steeling himself to issue a challenge to a duel, which Lucien would of course have accepted without hesitation and used as an opportunity to teach the hero a thorough and merciless lesson so that Mark might grow even stronger than the original story had allowed.

And, if Lucien were being entirely honest with himself, some small and quietly resentful part of him did want to teach the boy a lesson, because in the original plotline it had been the protagonist who had been the reason behind Lucien's death.

Mark then opened his eyes, and the brown irises suddenly sharpened with focus. "I want my training challenge to be raised like the princess and Eleena's. I want to wear bracelets that restrict mana circulation to only fifteen percent, the same as them," Mark stated clearly, and as he finished speaking he began removing the bracelets from both his hands and placed them onto the wooden surface of the desk.

***

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