Home/The Male Lead, Whom I Thought Was the Villain, Is Acting Strange/ch 1

Chapter 1.

‘I’m sure it was around here…’

I clung to the pillar beside the banquet hall like a cicada, my eyes fixed on one spot with tenacious intensity.

At the end of my blazing gaze stood a tall, imposing man. He was a head taller and much broader than anyone else, making him stand out even from a distance.

Of course, it wasn’t just his height that caught the eye.

‘Clothes really do make the man.’

I chewed on the dried meat I’d brought as a snack substitute for popcorn, watching him with an air of indifference.

A lean, toned physique revealed beneath his immaculate formal wear. Russet hair neatly styled back to expose his forehead.

Thanks to that, his handsome face was on full display without obstruction.

The women flocking around him blushed one after another. It was quite a sight, their eyes practically shooting hearts like something out of a romance comic.

---

It seemed everyone was desperate to get just one word in with him.

But he wore an impassive expression, brushing off the heated stares directed his way. He must have been incredibly tense.

Though he appeared composed on the outside, he had a habit of going blank-faced the more cornered he felt.

‘And yet, with that demeanor, he’s supposed to fall head over heels for a woman he’s never met and have a romance?’

Having watched him for years, I found it utterly baffling. The man had never shown the slightest interest in the opposite sex.

Well, of course not. He was practically a ghost haunting monster-infested zones—a man who spent his days covered in dust, swinging a sword around. What kind of love life could someone like that possibly have?

‘…Not that I’m one to talk.’

I suppressed a sigh.

He rarely ever showed his face at social gatherings like this in the first place.

And yet today, on the occasion of my coming-of-age ceremony, he had graced the event with his presence. Not that I was the least bit grateful.

---

‘Damn you, brother! I told you not to come to my ceremony!’

I glared at the back of my stubborn, contrarian brother’s head, grinding my teeth in frustration.

I’d spent years laying the groundwork for this plan, but variables always existed—just in case.

The best approach was to nip every variable in the bud.

If my memory served me right, today was the day the original female lead would meet my brother at this very gathering and fall in love with him.

If my brother got entangled with the female lead and the original storyline kicked off, it would all be over.

‘And I don’t mean metaphorically—I mean literal annihilation!’

I scanned my brother’s surroundings with hawk-like eyes.

To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what the female lead looked like, having only read about her in text.

She was described with flowery phrases like hair like melted sunlight and eyes as deep and blue as sapphires—but those were common colors here.

‘But she’s the female lead of a romance fantasy, after all.’

---

If my brother, a mere supporting character, looked that good, then the female lead would undoubtedly be dazzling enough to be recognized from a mile away.

I gripped the magical rifle in my hand firmly.

Oh, of course, I didn’t intend to shoot her dead. The aura bullets I used weren’t live rounds.

My plan was simply to fire it the moment I spotted the female lead, causing a commotion.

‘And in that chaos, I’ll knock my brother out and drag him away.’

It was a somewhat brutal method, but if it meant saving my brother—and myself—it couldn’t be helped.

I was mentally rehearsing the plan and swallowing a dry gulp when—

Suddenly, the air around me rippled violently, like a transparent curtain being shaken. A signal that someone had breached my barrier.

At the same time, something hot and large clamped firmly around my wrist.

“.....!”

I froze in shock, holding my breath. The barrier I was wrapped in was top-tier—a concealment spell.

---

It didn’t just hide my appearance; it twisted the very perception of my existence.

As long as I didn’t speak or move excessively, I couldn’t be detected. And yet, somehow…

“……Found you. Roo.”

A voice as cold as snow descended from above my head.

Though the nickname felt unfamiliar—too deliberate—the voice was one I knew all too well.

I turned my trembling body around to look behind me. The moment my eyes met those hanging far above me, as high as my brother’s, my heart dropped.

Eyes of a strange, beautiful gold—detached from the world, it seemed.

Among the people I knew, only one had eyes like that.

“……Kael?”

The name, spoken after so long, awkwardly pushed past my lips.

His sharp, leopard-like eyes curved slowly into a gentle arc.

---

“Yes… why are you here…?”

Good heavens! Out of everyone, you absolutely cannot be here right now!

Instinctively, I stepped back. But he tightened his grip on my wrist and closed the distance in an instant.

“Wait! Wait, Kael! This isn’t the time to—”

I struggled desperately to push away his firm grip, but the man didn’t budge an inch.

I nervously glanced around, worried the female lead might appear at any moment.

Then he turned me to face him fully and pulled me into a tight embrace. Trapped against his broad, solid chest, my eyes went wide.

His sleek black hair tickled the edge of my ear. His body, which had always been cold as ice due to his low body temperature, now burned like a furnace.

Burying his face in my neck with a ragged breath, he spoke as if sighing.

“Don’t go. Touch me more.”

“……Huh?”

“You taught me. How to keep from going mad.”

---

The villainous male lead I thought I had thoroughly tamed three years ago had returned—somehow changed.

I stood frozen like a flash-frozen tuna, staring up at the massive man clinging to me.

The villainous male lead I thought I had thoroughly tamed three years ago had returned—somehow different.

And at the worst possible timing, right as the original story was about to begin.

---

---

My wretched fate had arrived a month ago, along with a bizarre dream.

“……Was I inside a novel?”

I woke up groggy, bathed in the morning sunlight, and muttered in dazed disbelief.

The dream I’d had the night before was far too vivid and realistic to be just a dream.

Soon enough, I realized that dream had been my past life.

“Ugh, my head hurts.”

The experience of reliving a past life overnight was far from pleasant.

---

It felt like watching dozens of different movies on multiple monitors all at once.

I remembered the general outline, but the finer details were hazy.

Anyway, in the dream, I was an ordinary student living in a small country called Korea.

I lost my parents in a plane crash as a child, grew up in an orphanage, was adopted, ate a lot of scraps, and eventually became independent at a young age.

I seemed to have died in my mid-twenties, though I wasn't sure exactly why.

However, I vividly remembered what I was doing just before I died.

“……I was reading a novel.”

And I had been reincarnated into that very novel.

Realizing that, I immediately grasped just how dire my situation was.

The novel I had read so eagerly, oblivious to my impending death, was called Tomorrow of a Cruel Angel.

That novel had tags like ‘Apocalyptic’ and ‘R-19’.

---

The reason I chose such a terrifying-looking novel was simple.

‘I was lured in by the description that said the male lead gets tortured and breaks down like crazy because of the female lead.’

That was more than enough to pique my curiosity.

I was tired of reverse harem misery porn where the female lead becomes the plaything of handsome men and suffers horribly.

I wanted to see the male lead suffer instead! That was my battle cry as I devoured the novel.

But I had to throw my phone across the room several times while reading it.

‘Crazy... Did the author’s brain take a vacation?’

That novel redefined my understanding of the word ‘suffering’ far beyond what I’d expected.

Even I, who could usually breeze through any misery porn without blinking, found it hard to stomach.

So much so that the novel’s content stuck in my head more vividly than the reason for my death in my past life.

The setting of this novel is the Arcane Empire, home to four great noble houses.

---

House Neuster in the north, Espello in the south, Langness in the east, and Diabell in the west.

These four houses had maintained a balance of power through mutual vigilance and occasional cooperation.

The female lead of Tomorrow of a Cruel Angel—or Cruel Angel for short—was Muriel, the sole and cherished daughter of House Diabell.

In her twentieth year, Muriel accompanied her father to a banquet hosted by House Espello and fell into a fateful love at first sight with a man.

Rainer Espello.

The eldest son of the famed martial House Espello, and the youngest Aura Master on record.

For Muriel, who had been raised like a delicate flower in a greenhouse, Rainer’s rugged and powerful demeanor inspired both admiration and affection.

He was the first man to ever set her heart ablaze. In other words, he held the position of the female lead’s first love.

‘Honestly, I thought Rainer was the male lead.’

I wasn’t the only one—most readers probably thought so too.

From a good family, handsome, and boasting the status of an Aura Master—he had all the qualifications.

---

The original story was divided into two parts, and the entirety of Part 1 was a sweet, fluffy love story between Muriel and Rainer.

Of course, since it was an R-19 novel, there were scenes of that nature, but Part 1 contained no misery elements at all.

That’s why the nuclear-level twist in Part 2 shocked readers to their core.

It’s a universal truth that falling into despair after tasting hope is far more devastating than suffering from the start.

The author clearly had a disturbingly firm taste in that regard.

Part 2 began with the gruesome discovery of Rainer Espello—the female lead’s first love—brutally murdered.

The sweet, fluffy atmosphere of Part 1 had all been setup to plunge the female lead into the abyss of despair.

‘The comment section was absolute chaos back then.’

Even those who had complained about the slow pacing and criticized the Muriel-Rainer couple were screaming for Rainer to be brought back to life.

Truth be told, Rainer wasn’t the only one who died.

---

The author, who preferred investing in grotesque scenes over romance, had described it all in unnecessary, stomach-churning detail.

The entire Espello household, including Rainer, was attacked overnight and brutally murdered—not a single survivor.

The 19+ content was spent not on romance but on grotesque descriptions of the massacre.

Even reading the text made my stomach churn—the Espello family was slaughtered in such a horrifying manner.

The female lead, Muriel, witnessed it all and completely lost her mind.

So soon, it wouldn’t be just my brother being dragged off to the afterlife.

I, Rutesia Espello—Rainer’s younger sister—was also fated to be caught up in that tragedy and meet my end.

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