His eyes flickered open. The dim light from a lamp was the first thing he saw, but his sight was blurry. He blinked a couple of times to clear it. Finally, he could make out the figure of the lamp after a few blinks.

The lamp stood at the edge of the table. It had a metallic base and a metallic cylindrical top, but unlike other lamps he had known, this one had a warm glowing crystal inside it.

"Huh? A crystal lamp? I've seen this exact lamp," he said and tried to get up, but was hit with a splitting headache.

"Arghhhh!" He cried out in pain, moving his hands to rub his temple slowly, his eyes going back to the lamp.

"I've seen this. I know I have, but where?" he asked, struggling to remember. He looked over the rest of the table.

It was a small table with a stack of thick-covered books on one side. A piece of paper lay on the table, completely stained with blood. As his eyes met the paper, he flinched back in shock.

"What the hell?" he said. He moved forward carefully and picked up the paper. There was something imprinted at the top; half of it was covered in blood, but he could make out the first four letters.

-Blac.-

When he saw those letters, a memory popped into his mind: the lamp, this table, this stack of books. He quickly picked up one of the books and read what was imprinted on the cover.

There was an insignia on it—a wand and a sword crossed over a shield depicting a vermillion bird.

And under it was written in bold letters: BLACK PHOENIX ACADEMY.

"What the hell?" he yelled out. "This... this academy was from the novel I read before bed," he said. He let go of the book and stood up. The chair behind him toppled to the ground.

"Is this a prank?" he asked himself, but then he recalled that he lived a lonely life, with barely any close friends or people to talk to.

He picked up the lamp from the table and tried to take a look around the room. He tripped on the chair that had fallen in his rush, but he quickly got back up and picked up the lamp.

He looked around under the dim light, struggling to see the full outline of the room. He could tell immediately—it was the outline of a standard bedroom in the academy.

"What is happening? This can't be a dream; I felt pain when I fell," he said. He drew a deep breath and tried to calm himself down.

"Could it be? Did I enter the novel? Is that possible? It looks to be so," he said, thinking about how crazy it was that he could possibly be in the novel.

Knock Knock.

He paused. He didn’t even know who he was yet; how was he supposed to respond to whoever that was? He decided to keep quiet and let them think he was asleep.

Knock Knock.

He still didn’t respond. He watched the door like a hawk and said nothing.

"I’m pretty sure you aren’t asleep yet, Raze," a male voice came from behind the door. "I just want to inform you that a full investigation is going to be launched.

Annabel almost died because of you, and if it’s found to be true, you’ll be expelled from the academy, and you’ll lose everything.

Your scholarship, your privileges, your pride. Your jealousy has brought you to your end."

The person finished speaking and started walking away. He could hear the footsteps as they got farther and farther away.

"Raze... he called me Raze. I remember that character."

Inside a small room, holding only a single one-person bed, a small table, and a laptop on it, a young man in a black T-shirt and ripped jeans sat at the table, engrossed in what he was reading.

His name was Nathan, a jobless college dropout who, rather than find a job, decided to read novels and play games.

Nathan leaned back on his chair and stared at the ceiling. "This Raze character reminds me of myself. Dropped out of school because of an issue that happened by accident.

But he didn’t have to try and kill the girl in such a crude way to cover his tracks. If he hadn’t, that simp of an MC wouldn’t have killed him.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

But the writer just had to make him a disposable villain that the MC used to show how good he is. Bullshit, if you ask me, to be honest," Nathan said. He slowly closed his eyes, drifting into sleep with the thought of how Raze was treated unfairly when you looked deeper into it.

This had been his third time reading this book, and every time, it felt new to him. His understanding of Raze was always the same.

His eyes shut completely, and he fell asleep, never to wake in that world again.

"Raze... he called me Raze. I remember that character," he said.

"Wait, I am Raze? The small villain that gets killed the day he tries to assassinate the girl that could get him expelled? Shit, what a way to enter a new world," he said, but then a thought came to him.

"Raze was wronged in the story. That was what made him into a villain. He was the top student until the protagonist came and started getting favored.

All that Raze fought for and built by himself was taken away by the protagonist, and in anger, he started to do some things that were questionable.

I never liked the decisions that Raze took. They were rash and rough. He never had the makings of a long-term villain.

But that changes now. I’m Raze now. I can actually be a better villain than him—not one that gets expelled tomorrow and has nothing, or the one that gets killed, but the one that actually thrives and wins this."

Raze looked at his bed. He walked there and sat down; he needed to think about his current situation, as it was not something he should rush into.

"I have to understand, how did I come here in the first place?" He paused and thought about what he did before he was thrown into this reality.

He had just re-read the novel, stopping after Raze's death. He wanted to sleep for the night, and that was the last thing he recalled.

"Did I die? My health has been trash, to be honest. All the junk food and excessive caffeine killed me then."

He took a deep breath, cleared his mind, and started recalling the details of this story. Raze was a top student, a nobody that rose through the ranks with his intelligence and hard work.

He was able to get a scholarship into this prestigious academy, a feat that was applauded wherever he went. He was a beacon to the normal man that they could achieve greatness.

But all of a sudden, that changed when the chosen one, the blessed one of the gods, the hero, the protagonist, came into the picture.

He didn't have to struggle for anything at all. Everything simply went his way. He thrived easily and reached the top, taking Raze's position in everything.

No matter how Raze fought for his position, he could never retake it, and that led him to fall into jealousy—a jealousy so deep that he started making rash decisions.

The latest one was setting a magical trap for the protagonist that a girl called Annabelle fell into and was saved by the protagonist.

She was severely injured and was sent into treatment. She didn't just fall into the trap by accident; she was the only person that saw Raze set it up, but she didn't know how to defuse it, and she couldn't call anyone in time.

So she took the fall for the protagonist, and she nearly died. If she finally wakes up, she'll be the one to reveal that Raze did it, and his life here would be over.

"Raze, Raze, Raze, you messed up badly. That's not how you handle an issue of this measure. Now we have to get out of this situation. We might have to kill the girl or find a way to silence her. No way am I getting expelled so soon.

I have to become a better villain, after all," Raze said. He didn't understand why he had this drive to be a villain, though. Sure, he loved villains that planned well, but just wanting to be one was not something a normal human would do.

But for some reason, he couldn't care less. He was happy with his current state of mind.

As he thought about killing the girl, he recalled something, and that was the fact that Raze died. Raze did not die in the original story like this.

According to the story, Raze was at his table, thinking about how he would deal with the situation at hand. He couldn't even focus on the homework he had because of it.

Then later, the person that came to his door did come and told him about the investigation, and that caused Raze to panic.

And then Raze rushed out to end the girl, and that was where everything went bad.

"Why did I die now? I wasn't meant to die so early," Raze thought, trying to find what happened to make him die at his desk, but he couldn't recall anything. It was like the real memories of Raze were blocked out, and all that he had was from what he read in the story.

"I can't even recall what I ate before coming to the room. What is going on? I don't have any memories at all," Raze said.

He picked up the piece of paper stained with blood. He didn't know what to do right now. How does he find the reason that he died?

He didn't have any ability to do that. From what he knew in the book, Raze's magical ability was spatial control, a rare talent, but there was nothing it could help him do, since at this point, Raze only knew a few spells as a first year.

Raze focused on the piece of paper, like he was trying to figure something out, and then suddenly a bright light shined in front of his eyes, and a holographic screen followed.

"What the hell?" Raze said in shock and fell backward, almost bumping his head into the bed frame. He looked at the screen in fear. This was not part of the story. Nah, this had never happened in the story.

Like every stupid, curious human being, he slowly stretched out his hand to touch the screen, but his hand went right through it, like it wasn't there, but he could still see it.

[You have a message]

A notification suddenly came up on the screen. Raze looked at it, not knowing what to do. He couldn't touch it, so how was he to read it?

Immediately he thought about reading it, the notification opened, and the contents showed to Raze.

[Everything that is, was meant to be. You didn't die. You were killed. Changes occur different to what you know. Kill or be killed.]

"What's all this? Is this the message?"

The message was clear, yet it was filled with sentences that didn't connect. Even with that, something from it stuck to him: you didn't die, you were killed.

Could it be that he was murdered? But that didn't happen in the main story.

"Maybe that's what it meant by changes occur different to what you know. The story might be changing a little, and rather than Raze dying at the hands of the MC, he was killed by someone. But who?" Raze asked himself.

"Does this system do anything more? Can I use it to somehow find out who killed me?" Raze asked, and the system responded to his thoughts. The screen changed and showed his stats.