Raphael Montesigro, 21, I became a fallen soldier who died from the battle against terrorists who invaded the capital of our country. I was only able to serve the country for three years.
Waking up being reborn from a noble family, I slowly regained my memories piece by piece. I then became Luke Matthews Armodean who was second to the inheritance of the duke title.
Later then I realized that I got reincarnated into a novel entitled, " A Flowery Path of Thorns" which I idly read on my day off & break time.
It was a story about the Male lead avenging his sister's death from the hands of the Armodeans.
It was an R-18 novel where the male lead was linked to multiple love interests with great intimacy.
Basically a harem genre story. It had so much angst that even I was greatly frustrated for the main character & wished that if only I had a part in the story, I would do everything to change it.
But f*ck, I never expected for it to come true & I really had to come from the worst ducal family, the Armodeans…
My character was fated to die at age 16 where after the death of the male lead's sister, he would raid the dukedom & launch continuous attacks & the original Luke got caught from it.
That was the end for my character. It's because the original Luke in the story was weak & didn't properly learn alchemy. So he inevitably died as an idiot.
As I turned 13 in this world, I was able to completely regain my memories. It was right after the moment when my older sister died...from the hands of our older half-sister.
As regretful as I was, I could no longer change anything about it & so from then on, I was able to complete my plan in destroying our family & saving myself from my wretched fate.
First, I need to save the male lead's sister to prevent the tragedy. As I continue honing my skills in alchemy, I built firm blocks to form as my foundation in gaining favor from my father.
I need to be on the upper level of the strongest Armodean descendants. Competing with my siblings for the spot, I'm quite favored by a certain younger sister of mine.
She was so adorable that I decided to keep her by my side. The Armodean clan is a big family involving not less than 10 women as the duke's wives.
I have a lot to compete with & every single one of them aren't worthy of underestimation. They're all that one needed to be wary of.
I can't put my guard down even once. Not even with the precious sibling I decided to keep by my side. I need to constantly improve & develop more strategies. I really can never be lax.
As father demands for perfection, greater power, wealth & authority, all of us are obliged to reflect the same & set that exact standards for ourselves & for others.
Father always regards that as our "bond". Really, it's the strange way of the Armodeans in having a "family bond". But I gradually learned how he thinks. Now I can predict his actions most of the time.
As I await the coming of the male lead's sister, I made preparations in accommodating her within my quarters. This family has a nasty tradition of having high profiled people or high ranking nobles as their "pets".
They would play with them until they could no longer function as their "pet". And I, on the contrary, have only acquired "pets" every once in a blue moon.
One might be confused by my intention but I never "played" with them. Rather, I freed them & made them my allies. They do the groundwork for me as I resolve things inside the dukedom on my end. I can never trust a single sibling in my family.
I have rather found eternal loyalty from my aides that I personally chose than the ones whom I share more than a drop of blood with.
And an overview of the contents of the novel as well, after the attack of the male lead's family, he was only able to diminish the Armodean's power to a considerable extent but he wasn't able to finish off the important figures of the Armodeans.
And so, he was captured by them & had been completely controlled. They took away his freedom to be himself. So they took advantage of him in all possible malicious ways as all of them took turns on him.
It wasn't the hot steamy scenes that made me stay & patiently wait for the incoming chapters of it but the progress of the main character in gradually gaining control over his body.
I was about to drop it but what weighed more for me was the curiosity of what will happen next & the revelations on the foreshadows of it.
It took a few months for him to have complete control over himself & from there he started to purposely go along with them while pulling strings that he was preparing to use against them.
I read the chapters with great frustration as I rooted for the main character with the belief that he'll get to have the revenge that was due for that family & I wasn't disappointed.
In the end of the story, he was able to take down the Armodeans & finally met his heroine who became his salvation & held him back in completely unleashing his grudge towards the Armodeans.
Having someone to accept you no matter what you went through was the greatest relief I ever got from a novel. Everything was vividly illustrated. The thoughts, the emotions, the actions.
It was all beautifully shown. I was left in awe for a couple of hours after finishing it. And now that I'm in that very story, I have to change lots of things to prevent lots of miseries from happening.
Especially on my part. But I would make it that the main characters will still end up with each other. That's one thing that won't disappear from the storyline that I will revise this time as an Armodean.
Now is the time that I've been waiting for. The coming of the very important piece of the story, the one that will become the start of everything.. As I finally turned 16, everything is only starting at this point.
Opening the gates of the mansion, she's finally being brought here. As my siblings were jumping in their feet with their joy & excitement of finally meeting the possibly greatest pet they can have, I stood there expressionlessly.
Looking at the doors & waiting for it to open, it then creaked & finally opened welcoming in sight was Father & the guards & behind them was the new prisoner of the Armodeans.