Reborn as a villain:Claim the omega, Kiss the beta, Kill the dukes-Chapter 123: Reality

Chapter 121

Jack

It’s been... what?

A month? A little over?

Long enough that the palace doesn’t feel new anymore, just suffocating.

Every day feels the same: wake up, be dressed like a doll, get dragged from lesson to lesson about etiquette, royal protocol, posture, press behavior, historical bloodlines—like any of that matters when all I want is to go home to my family.

My patience is evaporating. I’m trying, I really am, but the walls in this palace have a way of closing in on you.

Today is no different.

Some old scholar is droning on about lineage, voice flat, hands waving over holographic charts of ancient kings. I try to look alive, nodding at the right times, but my brain is melting.

"...and the Albrecht bloodline alphas have always been notably superior in physical prowess," he continues, practically glowing with academic pride.

"It is this exceptional strength that led the early settlers to select them as the ruling family—"

Hold on.

I blink, sit up straighter.

"Wait," I say, raising a hand.

The man looks startled, but pleased. Probably thinks I’m finally interested in the lesson.

"Yes, Your Highness?" he asks.

"What do you mean by stronger?" I ask, slowly. "Define that."

He pushes his glasses up, practically vibrating.

Old academics... they worry me more than assassins.

"Ah! Literally stronger, Your Highness. Historically speaking, the Albrecht line shows a significantly enhanced physical capacity. Many assumed it was myth, but two kings ago, one prince served in the military. He displayed extraordinary power — tossing armored men like dolls, lifting weights several times his size, feats recorded in old footage—"

My brain stops listening right there.

Superhuman strength.

My mind immediately flashes to that day in the beach house—the day, my life was flipped on its head, I sent one of the duke’s flying across the living room like I had launched him with a catapult.

I thought it was adrenaline.

Or trauma strength.

You know, the thing parents get when lifting cars off their kids.

But now...?

I lean back in my chair, processing.

So it wasn’t a freak accident. It wasn’t a random burst of power.

Guess not.

"Huh," I murmur, leaning back.

Of course Rose didn’t write about this.

I’m starting to think Rose’s novel covered only a shallow part of this world.

I mean—of course it was shallow. She wrote it while dying in a hospital bed. A sick, exhausted, cancer-ridden eighteen or nineteen-year-old scribbling whatever she could manage between chemo sessions and pain meds.

Of course the worldbuilding would be incomplete. Of course she only focused on the dramatic bits—Ciel’s "tragic beauty," Nolan’s one-sided pining, the four freakishly obsessed Dukes. It was never meant to be a fully mapped-out universe.

Just a fantasy to escape into, and pay her bills.

But now that I’m living in it... nothing fits neatly into Rose’s outline.

Nolan wasn’t supposed to matter beyond a handful of scenes. In the book he had some shallow, bittersweet lines about loving Ciel from afar.

But in reality? The bond between them isn’t something flimsy or one-note. It’s layered, lived-in, almost painful to look at sometimes—years of shared childhood, shared trauma, shared survival. It’s not "childhood best friends with a crush."

It’s... something stronger, quieter, deeper. Something I’m lucky they let me be part of.

Ciel wasn’t supposed to laugh the way he does. Nolan wasn’t supposed to blush like that. Lanny wasn’t supposed to exist at all.

And I definitely wasn’t supposed to be here— a minor character, that was stabbed to death by Nolan, turns out is royalty?

I exhale and lean back in my chair a little, letting the old man’s lecture wash over me. His voice drones on and on about ancestry, titles, biological superiority, the ancient history of Solmere... but my mind is circling something else entirely.

I need to start treating this place like a world. A real world. With real consequences. Real threats. Real feelings.

And real people I care about.

I sit up a little straighter, rubbing my thumb along my temple. The room feels suddenly smaller, or maybe my thoughts feel too big. Either way, the reality settles in my chest like a stone.

Ciel and Nolan.

My baby boy.

They exist beyond whatever script Rose planned. They’re real in a way nothing in my first life ever was.

I rub my temples, trying to ground myself. I’m tired. Not physically — physically I’m the fittest I’ve ever been.

It’s everything else. The expectations. The lessons. The eyes.

I miss home.

I miss my home.

The beach house. The warmth. The chaos.

I scrub the back of my neck and try to will my brain into cooperating.

I should stop whining. This is my home now.

That’s what I tell myself every morning.

It never feels true.

But fine. If this is my home, then I’ll turn it into one for them.

Not this cold, echoing monument to wealth. Not some glass-box greenhouse room where I have to bow and pretend I know etiquette or how to pronounce the names of forks.

A real home.

A safe place.

Something I build for them.

I straighten in my chair just as the instructor drones on about royal history.

"...and this wing of the palace was originally constructed during King Albrecht II’s reign as a symbolic gesture of—"

I blink slowly.

Focus, Jack. Pay attention. You’re stuck here. Make the most of it.

I force myself upright and pretend to listen. My eyes drift across the room, cataloguing escape routes purely out of habit.

The instructor shuffles papers, tapping one with his finger.

"Next week, Your Highness, we’ll begin preparations for your first formal appearance at court. You’ll be expected to stand beside the royal family—"

Oh hell no.

"And greet the nobility in structured order, beginning with—"

I raise a hand.

He freezes. "Y-yes, Your Highness?"

"When you say greet them, do you mean talk to them? All of them? Individually?"

He nods, visibly pleased that I’m engaging.

"It is traditional, yes."

Great. Fantastic.

I rub my temples.

"Can I... not do that?"

He pales instantly. "I—I beg your pardon?"

"Never mind." I wave a hand. "Continue."

He clears his throat nervously, shuffling his papers again.

"As I was saying... your role will expand over time. Soon, you will have responsibilities, duties, decisions—"

Duties.

Responsibilities. Yay. Home sweet home.