Lionel returned to his room late at night.
The moment the door closed behind him—
he dropped onto the bed face first.
"…I'm tired."
[You sat at a table and ate food.]
"I dealt with people."
[Ah.]
[My condolences.]
Lionel groaned into the mattress.
Honestly…
today still didn't feel real.
This morning he was dying on a battlefield.
Now?
He was back inside the imperial palace while Kael laughed like a dying donkey and Amelia casually violated his dignity in front of the whole family.
Life was weird as hell.
The system suddenly spoke again.
[You thinking emotional thoughts.]
"…I'm thinking about murdering you."
[There he is.]
Lionel slowly sat up.
Then his expression gradually became serious again.
Silverwind Academy.
The place where everything started.
Future heroes.
Future monsters.
Future wars.
And somewhere there—
William.
Lionel clicked his tongue.
"That bastard probably already making friends."
[Meanwhile you already preparing hate speeches.]
"…It's called priorities."
[Hatery.]
"…That still not a word."
[It got emotion behind it.]
Lionel rubbed his forehead tiredly before standing up.
Then his eyes narrowed slightly.
Unlike before—
he actually had time now.
Time to prepare.
Time to grow stronger.
Time to stop his future from becoming complete garbage.
The system suddenly spoke.
[You know your biggest problem right now?]
"…My personality?"
[Besides that.]
Lionel frowned slightly.
"…Then what?"
A black screen suddenly appeared before him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
☠ HOST STATUS ☠
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name:
Lionel Draven Ashbourne
Rank:
Bronze Rank — Stage 1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Strength: Pathetic
Speed: Mid
Mana: Acceptable
Combat Ability:
"Please avoid violence."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lionel stared silently.
"…You really typed pathetic."
[Because honesty important.]
"…Amelia corrupted you."
[Smart child.]
Lionel sighed deeply.
Unfortunately—
the system wasn't wrong.
Right now he was weak.
His future experience meant nothing if his body couldn't keep up.
And unlike William—
Lionel didn't have the world itself helping him cheat through life.
If he wanted power—
he'd have to take it himself.
A slow grin spread across his face.
Good.
That sounded way more fun.
The system immediately noticed.
[…Yeah that smile definitely illegal somewhere.]
Lionel ignored him.
Instead he narrowed his eyes slightly.
"How exactly do you work?"
Immediately—
the black screen distorted.
Then a massive dark menu appeared before him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
☠ ABYSSAL MONARCH SYSTEM ☠
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Functions Available:
☠ System Shop
☠ Bloodline Archive
☠ Physique Archive
☠ Undead Evolution
☠ Army Creation
☠ Inventory
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lionel's eyes sharpened slightly.
"Open shop."
The screen flickered instantly.
Then countless categories appeared.
Weapons.
Bloodlines.
Physiques.
Artifacts.
Skills.
Even random nonsense.
Lionel's eyes suddenly stopped.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CURRENT SOUL POINTS:
0
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lionel stared blankly.
"…I'm broke."
[Spiritually and financially.]
"…Fuck you."
Before Lionel could continue—
another screen suddenly popped up.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
☠ BEGINNER GIFT PACK AVAILABLE ☠
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Would you like to claim?
YES / ABSOLUTELY
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lionel narrowed his eyes.
"…Why both options yes?"
[Because rejecting free stuff stupid.]
"…Fair enough."
"Claim."
The screen glitched violently.
Then suddenly—
items started appearing one by one inside his inventory.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
☠ BEGINNER GIFT PACK ☠
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Obtained:
☠ Shadow Monarch Suit
Rank: Rare
A black suit that automatically repairs itself, resists stains, and slightly increases charm and intimidation.
Potential Growth:
Abyssal Rank
☠ Ball Buster Revolver
Rank: Common
A cursed pistol that automatically aims slightly lower than intended.
Potential Growth:
Unknown
☠ Replica Forgery Card
Special-Type Consumable
Can create one perfect fake replica of an item for 3 months before disappearing.
☠ Abyss Storage Ring
Rank: Rare
Large hidden storage space.
Potential Growth:
Legendary Rank
☠ Mask of False Intent
Rank: Epic
Hides killing intent and mana fluctuations.
Potential Growth:
Divine Rank
☠ Emergency Escape Scroll
Single-use teleportation item.
☠ Fraud Saint Acting Manual
Rank: Epic
A forbidden manual focused on deception, manipulation, acting, fake holy behavior, and psychological warfare.
Potential Growth:
Unknown
Includes Compatible Spells:
☠ Fake Aura — Lv 1
Temporarily changes the user's aura to appear holy, righteous, weak, harmless, etc.
☠ Silver Tongue — Lv 1
Slightly increases persuasion and speaking ability.
☠ Bluffing Intent — Lv 1
Makes lies harder to detect if spoken confidently.
☠ Saint Expression — Lv 1
Maintains calm expressions even during panic.
☠ False Presence — Lv 1
Creates fake mana signatures.
☠ Premium Hair Gel
"Drip matters."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Silence.
Lionel slowly blinked.
"…What the fuck is this."
[Peak equipment.]
Lionel immediately grabbed the revolver first.
The weapon looked sleek.
Black metal.
Silver engravings.
Actually cool looking.
Then he read the description again.
"…Automatically aims lower?"
[Some enemies don't deserve children.]
Lionel nearly choked laughing.
"You're actually evil."
[Thank you.]
Then Lionel grabbed the black suit.
The moment he equipped it—
dark fabric instantly wrapped around his body smoothly.
Perfect fit.
Elegant.
Dangerous.
Honestly?
He looked hard as fuck.
The system immediately reacted.
[OOOOOH.]
[Villain aura increasing.]
Lionel looked at himself in the mirror briefly.
Silver hair.
Crimson eyes.
Black suit.
Cold expression.
"…Damn."
[Brother look like he about to steal somebody wife and inheritance.]
"…Both if possible."
The system sounded genuinely proud.
[THAT MY HOST.]
Lionel ignored him before grabbing the strange card.
Replica Forgery Card.
His eyes slowly narrowed.
This thing…
was insane.
A perfect fake item lasting three months?
That meant treasures.
Artifacts.
Weapons.
Money.
He could literally replace something valuable with a fake and disappear before anybody noticed.
A slow grin spread across his face.
Dangerous.
Very dangerous.
The system immediately spoke.
[…Yeah you definitely thinking crimes.]
"I'm thinking business opportunities."
[Illegal business.]
"Details."
Then Lionel opened the Fraud Saint Acting Manual.
He stared at it silently.
"…Why does this exist."
[Because you got potential.]
"I feel insulted."
[You should feel honored.]
Lionel opened the first page slowly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lesson 1:
If you sound confident enough—
people will assume you know what the fuck you're doing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lionel slowly nodded.
"…That actually explains nobles."
[Exactly.]
Then suddenly—
new information flooded into his mind.
Fake Aura.
Silver Tongue.
False Presence.
Dozens of methods for controlling expressions, tone, body language, and deception entered his head instantly.
Lionel blinked slightly.
"…Okay that actually useful."
[Brother.]
[Half the continent runs on fraud.]
Lionel could not even argue with that.
Then he tested one of the skills instinctively.
☠ Fake Aura.
A strange energy spread across his body.
Immediately—
his cold dangerous presence disappeared completely.
Now he looked calm.
Elegant.
Almost holy.
Lionel stared at himself in the mirror blankly.
"…That terrifying."
[Congratulations.]
[You now qualify to become a corrupt saint.]
Lionel slowly smiled.
Honestly?
That sounded useful as hell.