"Ethan Carlien," said a young man, his sharp voice cutting through the room. Lorelle noticed how the guy had been glaring at him as if trying to bore holes into his skull.
'Crap! I KEEP GETTING MORE AND MORE ENEMIES, AND I'M NOT EVEN STRONG ENOUGH TO DEFEND MYSELF!' Lorelle thought, clicking his tongue in frustration as the weight of his predicament settled on him.
The odds of surviving even before the grading exams were slim to none. Everyone seemed to hate him to the core, each one more eager to see him dead at any cost than the other.
"Arton Urien," another young man continued, but Lorelle's thoughts drifted as his mind raced.
Wait...
…What if he befriended the protagonist?
No. That wasn't going to work. The protagonist would inevitably meet the other heroines, most of whom would gladly trade a limb to kill him.
The protagonist was a no-go.
Plus, there was the risk of one of them spilling the beans about his past. The protagonist, being the righteous fool that he was, might see it as his moral duty to kill Lorelle in the name of justice or something equally absurd.
That left only two viable options.
One, he could try to ally with the side characters who would eventually become major assets to the protagonist. These characters were destined to play crucial roles later in the story, evolving into power characters.
If he could befriend them, they might protect him.
But…
…that plan had its own flaws. No matter how strong these side characters became, it was only a matter of time before the heroines made their move. And when they did, his allies wouldn't be enough to shield him.
Then there was the other option.
Getting close to the villainesses.
The very thought made him pause.
"...Rizel?" he muttered, his eyebrow twitching. The idea unsettled him.
If for some twisted reason she became curious about him...
Not only was she far more powerful than him, but as a villainess, she was bound to grow even stronger, just like the heroines. If Rizel got obsessed with him—like the novel described—then...
…She might actually chain him up, and he wouldn't be able to do shit about it.
Yeah, she was definitely off the list.
"…Liliana?"
The thought was immediately met with a facepalm.
Her bloodline made her capable of turning people into love slaves. If he ended up as her slave, he'd lose himself entirely, becoming nothing more than a puppet.
And if, by some cruel twist, she did fall for him or became obsessed like Rizel? He'd be doomed. She could literally manipulate emotions.
So it was... Bye-bye sanity.
Nope. She's off the list, too.
"…Scarlet?"
The more he thought about it, the more hopeless it seemed. Scarlet was madly in love with Michael. The novel made that abundantly clear. Changing her feelings would be like trying to rewrite fate itself—a fool's errand.
"Well, there are others... Maybe Selena?" he wondered aloud, letting his gaze sweep across the massive room.
The place was enormous, teeming with people. Finding anyone specific in the crowd seemed like an impossible task.
At least, that's what he thought.
Until he noticed her.
A girl was staring at him intently, her lips curled into a smile that sent a shiver down his spine.
"What the hell?" he muttered under his breath, his instincts screaming that something was off.
It was only then he realized how many girls had been sneaking glances at him. Some were even blatantly flirting with him from across the room.
'What the freak is going on? Wait… Am I actually considered good-looking?' he thought, but then shook his head. He couldn't be sure. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him.
He'd never paid attention to how others perceived him. His past life had trained him to ignore such trivialities. But still, he couldn't entirely shake the unsettling thought.
And yet…
None of that explained Selena.
Selena, a bona fide villainess and the cause of countless deaths in the story's future, was gazing at him with unmistakable… interest.
The moment their eyes met, she quickly averted her gaze. But not long after, she looked again, and their eyes met once more. This pattern repeated, almost as if she couldn't help herself.
"Okay... Something is definitely not right here," he muttered. "Could I have met her before now?"
He racked his brain, but nothing came to mind.
For the past three years, his singular focus had been on finding his lost lover. There was no recollection of encountering someone like Selena during that time.
So why did she look at him with such unsettling familiarity?