A ruined world called Edest. A world that had undergone an apocalypse and was still trying to survive it.

Outside the sanctuary, humanity had already lost.

He knew that much, not from experience but from memory. The cities had fallen two hundred years ago, swallowed by the surge of mutated beasts that had turned the surface into their hunting ground.

What remained of civilisation had retreated into closed-off sanctuaries in different parts of the world, where resources were controlled and survival came at the cost of freedom.

Even behind the reinforced walls, nothing was ever secured. A small mistake and everything would go down the drain.

"Harem in the apocalypse, " he said quietly, the name rolling off his tongue with familiarity that felt almost ironic in the kind of situation he was in," out of everything I could have ended up in..."

A humourless laugh escaped him, though there was no real amusement behind it.

He had read the novel casually. The way people consumed a popular book without expecting it to matter beyond a few hours of entertainment.

It had been predictable in many ways: the overpowered protagonist, the ever-growing number of women around him, and the escalating threat of the world collapsing.

A power fantasy.

What stood out to him were the side characters, especially how easily they had been discarded after their service was finished.

His fingers tapped lightly against the edge of the sink as his expression grew more focused.

"And I ended up as one of them. "

He wasn’t just any side character but the side villain, a talentless one at that.

Thought calling him that could be considered... generous.

"He wasn’t even competent," he continued, voice steady, analytical rather than emotional as he pierced through the memories that now belonged to him.

"Just an obsessive man."

The former Silver had loved one of the protagonist heroines, but it wasn’t the kind of love that could be romanticized.

It was persistent to the point of discomfort, blind to rejection, and rooted more in fixation than genuine care.

Even now, traces of that emotion lingered in his memory. It wasn’t enough to control him but enough for him to understand how it had once driven the former Silver into making increasingly poor decisions.

"No self-awareness," he added, almost critically, " no restraint either."

It was the kind of behaviour that guaranteed only one outcome.

Rejection, humiliation, and eventually ... 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

His gaze slightly darkened.

"... removal."

That part had taken longer for him to process, it wasn’t because it was complicated but because it was just ... too ordinary.

It had been the worst kind of death anyone even the villain himself would have hoped for.

His own family had killed him.

Poisoned.

Silver let out a harsh breath.

"All of this for something I have not seen yet," he murmured, straightening slightly as his thoughts shifted to the one detail that made everything click in place.

"That inheritance. "

Whatever his parents had left behind seemed to be very valuable to those who took his life.

He glanced at the ceiling in frustration.

"I should probably look for it."

The memory about it kept on eluding him time and time again.

Killing him, in retrospect, made sense in a way.

In an apocalyptic world like this, attachment was secondary to survival, and resources mattered more than feelings.

Even the protagonist group, as righteous as they appeared on the surface, was not above making pragmatic decisions when necessary.

For Silver, it was probably worse, he never saw his death coming. Even in death, he never knew who had ended his life.

That was the part that lingered.

At that, something that his mind seemed to have selectively forgotten, started to sit in.

"There is also that engagement," he murmured to himself his tone dropping with exhaustion.

It was one of the good things that the former Silver never noticed he had fumbled, very badly at that.

The situation around their engagement was somewhat cliché. His grandfather had saved her grandfather and then both of them agreed on an engagement between the children.

Silver had been the sacrificial pawn in the old man’s fantasies.

His fiancée, Ravenna Arkland, was just as unlucky. She was deemed the first villainess by the novel, the first for heriones to get rid of.

The book had glazed over the reason leaving it for the reader’s imagination.

She had been a pitiful character herself. Also a pawn, sent to marry but unlike him, she was a walking contradiction to her background.

She was hardworking, bold, and the type of person who could achieve anything if she put her mind to it.

And she had lived up to her character. The moment she had arrived at his sanctuary and found out about his infatuation, how he behaved, how he chased after a woman with no dignity...

She had dropped him immediately.

She had coincidentally been saved by the protagonist during that period but no one knew how it went but a few Chapters later she was then branded the villainess.

It had been an unexpected twist since she had left with his group but was killed by the Herione, the one the former Silver had been in love with.

With all of this hanging over him, Silver had a lot of thinking to do.

How was he going to survive a family that wanted him dead?

What about his fiancée, he wasn’t sure if she had even arrived.

The novel had been vague about a lot of things.

And his future, if left unchanged it would end up the same way.

For a moment, Silver simply stood there, taking it all in without reacting outwardly.

Then he let out a slow breath.

"It’s manageable," he stared at himself for a moment then turned to leave," let’s clear this mess of his first."

Just as he had come to a full decision, a knock came.

Silver paused for a moment, then left the bathroom.

"Young master," the voice called.

Just from the familiar tone, a memory trickled in.

Sander Miller, the former Silver servant.

He sifted through his memories of the book, and then it came to him.

The one who had administered the poison. The man had been sent by his uncle to spy on him and obtain the location of the so-called inheritance.

"Come in," Silver called out, his tone mimicking that of the former Silver. Cold and disdainful.