The last thing I remember before dying was reading a stupid webnovel.
I was sitting on the couch in my penthouse, phone in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other. The city lights stretched beyond the windows behind me, but I wasn't paying attention to them. My focus was on the novel on my screen.
It was one of those cliché stories. A chosen hero. A demon king. A bunch of villainesses who existed only to get defeated and humiliated by the protagonist.
Honestly, the story itself was trash.
But the villainesses were interesting.
There was the Ice Duchess who ruled the north, the arrogant princess who tried to take the throne, and a widowed countess who secretly controlled half the capital. They were powerful, beautiful, and dangerous.
Yet the idiot protagonist kept rejecting them and destroying their lives just to prove how righteous he was.
I snorted and took a sip of whiskey. "What a waste."
If I were in that world, things would be very different. Why reject women like that? If they were powerful and beautiful, the smart move would be to bring them to your side.
Then again, that was probably why I ended up becoming a mafia boss.
I scrolled down to the next chapter, but before I could finish the first paragraph, the sound of glass shattering exploded behind me.
The window broke apart as bullets tore through the room.
Pain slammed into my chest before I even had time to stand up. My phone slipped from my hand and clattered onto the floor while blood quickly soaked through my shirt.
Snipers.
Of course.
Running the biggest mafia organization in the city meant people were always trying to kill you.
I coughed and leaned back against the couch, staring at the ceiling while the world started to spin.
"Damn," I muttered weakly. "Couldn't you wait until I finished the chapter?"
My vision grew darker.
The last thing I saw on my phone screen was the introduction of a new character.
The Ice Duchess.
Then everything went black.
When I opened my eyes again, I was staring at a wooden ceiling.
For a few seconds, I just lay there in silence, blinking slowly.
This wasn't my penthouse.
The ceiling above me had carved patterns, and sunlight poured in through a large window nearby. The bed beneath me felt soft, far softer than the couch I had died on.
I slowly sat up and looked around.
The room was large and decorated with expensive furniture. A wardrobe stood against one wall, and a polished mirror hung beside it. Everything looked like it belonged in a noble's mansion.
"…Where the hell am I?"
My voice sounded younger.
That was the first strange thing I noticed.
The second was my hands. They were smooth and pale, with none of the scars I had collected over the years.
Before I could process it, a wave of memories suddenly crashed into my mind.
Names. Places. Faces.
Information poured into my head like someone had opened a floodgate.
I grabbed my head and groaned as the memories settled.
When the pain finally faded, I leaned back against the bed and stared at the ceiling again.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
My name was now Adrian Valemont.
Second son of the Valemont family, a noble house in the Asterian Empire. My father was a count, my older brother was the heir, and I… was basically the spare son who didn't matter much in the family.
In other words, I had gone from a mafia boss to a noble brat.
I slowly got out of bed and stretched my arms. Surprisingly, this body felt great. There was no pain in my chest, no lingering injuries, and no fatigue from sleepless nights.
"This body's not bad," I muttered, rolling my shoulders. "Could be worse for a new life."
But as I stood there thinking about my situation, something suddenly appeared in front of my eyes.
A translucent blue screen.
At first I thought I was hallucinating. Maybe dying had messed with my brain, or maybe this new body had some kind of problem.
I waved my hand through the air.
My hand passed straight through the blue screen like it wasn't actually there.
The screen didn't move.
It didn't flicker.
It just stayed floating in front of my eyes.
I took a step to the side and turned my head. The screen moved with my vision, always staying in front of me no matter where I looked.
"…Alright," I muttered. "So it's one of those things."
A system.
I had read enough webnovels to recognize this immediately.
The screen flickered slightly.
Then words slowly appeared on it.
[ Villainess Harem System Activated ]
I stared at it for a few seconds.
"…You're joking."
More lines appeared beneath the first one.
[ Welcome, Host ]
[ Primary Objective: Conquer the Villainesses ]
[ Core System Rule: All rewards granted by the system will be multiplied by 10,000 times ]
[ Wealth Rewards ×10,000 ]
[ Power Rewards ×10,000 ]
[ Authority Rewards ×10,000 ]
I blinked once.
Then I leaned a little closer to the screen, reading the lines again to make sure I didn't misunderstand.
Ten thousand times.
Not ten times.
Not a hundred.
Ten thousand.
For a moment, the room was completely silent.
Then a small laugh escaped my mouth.
"…Hah."
I rubbed my face slowly.
"So let me understand this properly," I muttered. "I get shot to death, wake up in another world, and now some system is telling me to build a villainess harem… and every reward comes with a ten-thousand-times multiplier?"
That sounded completely insane.
But the glowing blue screen in front of me clearly didn't think it was a joke.
I leaned back slightly and exhaled.
Then a memory from last night slowly surfaced in my mind.
The novel.
The one I had been reading before I died.
The empire.
The noble families.
The villainesses.
My expression slowly changed as the pieces connected in my head.
"…Don't tell me."
If this really was the same world as that novel, then I already knew what was going to happen in the future.
Every villainess in that story had a bad ending.
The Ice Duchess would lose her territory.
The Princess would be betrayed and executed.
The Countess would have her secrets exposed and be ruined.
One by one, they would all fall to the so-called righteous hero.
I stared at the glowing system screen again.
Then I smiled.
"Well," I said calmly.
"That story just changed."
Because this time…
I wasn't just some reader watching from the outside.
This time—
I was inside the story.