Reincarnated as the Villain's Butler

Chapter 1

Reincarnation.

It's quite a fascinating concept that makes for fairly interesting stories of fiction, but frankly it's something that he had never actually believed.

He supposed he was more of a realist. Fiction, though entertaining, stayed fiction, and reality was reality— something you could touch, see, and experience— though experience after death rightfully remained a mystery. After all, once you were dead, there was no way to record your experiences after death, could you?

Death was certainly an otherworldly experience, if he did say so himself, and admittedly different than what he would have expected. The world didn't slow like it did in the movies, nor were you able to narrate amidst your wide-awake mind. It hit you like a truck— too quickly and too abruptly.

There was no time for goodbyes or regrets— just the moment's realization of 'Ah, I'm going to die'— and along with his consciousness, his short lived life faded into null.

***

He wasn't sure when exactly his full consciousness had returned in his next life, but when he reached around the age of seven and he had his first cognitive realization that this wasn't his first time he was alive, his previous memories as well as his newly made ones astonishingly aligned into one.

Scenes of cities, schools, and home replayed in his mind, and visions of people, both strangers and those that he held dear in the past all returned to him like a tidal wave as he recalled all those memories he had in his previous life.

Names were admittedly impossible to remember— hell, he couldn't really remember his own name— and the faces and figures within his memories were blurry and vague. But he did however, retain his previous knowledge, and now that he was fully conscious once more, his previous mentality— which helped him come to the shocking revelation that this new world, which was definitely different than the previous modern-day Earth, was not entirely unfamiliar.

"In the Garden of Roses."

It was a somewhat popular shoujo manga in his previous life. A romance story set in a typical fantasy, Victorian-gothic era, where magic and fantastical creatures existed.

Luna Weiss, the protagonist, was a young woman who despite being a commoner, was called to serve in the kingdom's royal army, or more specifically, the royal court magicians due to the discovery of her exceptional magic power.

It was an incredible high honor reserved for the best of magicians typically from high standing aristocrat families, thus rightfully so, the nobles were adamantly against it. The king however, made a compromise so the low-born heroine would attend the school for nobles, and once graduated, and would be granted nobility and a seat in the royal magicians once reaching a certain amount of achievement. While attending the school, the heroine meets the male lead, Crown Prince Orion Asvel, and falls in love.

Obviously, to keep the story entertaining, there was a needed conflict.

There was the petty villainess, Capella Rosewood, who in addition to the side character nobles backing her, constantly harassed and pressured Luna into leaving the school while aiming for the prince's hand in marriage.

Then there was the main villain, Scorpius Val Linhearth, initially the annoying and hateful side character and the male lead's envious cousin, but later growing to become a real detestable bastard, plotting to kill the crown prince. By exposing his schemes and thus saving the prince, the heroine was granted both the initial rewards of nobility and a seat in the royal magicians, as well as the prince's hand in marriage.