'It's better to remain nameless rather than to have a bad name',

I have lived my life sticking by this principle. But never in my wildest thoughts did I ever think that fate would f*ck me up so badly that I would one day find myself in a situation where the only need this wretched world will have for me would be to die.

Yes, I was reincarnated as a minor named character in my own novel.

To be precise, my only role in the novel was to die and become one of the reasons behind the righteous protagonist’s pursuit of power.

Yes, that’s all what I amounted to, that's all what I existed for.

I was a character who was supposed to make only two appearances throughout the entire plot of the novel, the first one where I would meet the protagonist and end up dying partly because of him, and the other one during the time when the protagonist is about to lose a fight against his opponent, at that very moment my soul or whatever that's left of me will make an entrance and then proceed to provide the main character with fresh motivation to turn around the tables and finally win the fight.

Just thinking about this bullsh*t plot makes me want to puke.

'Sigh… why the hell did I even create such a character? And why the hell did I add something so cringe in the plot? Was I high or something?'

'Why did I make a character whose only use in the plot was to die? Am I really so cruel?', various thoughts crossed my empty mind as I remained laying on the ground staring at the clear blue sky.

I was getting depressed by the second. And slowly as the time passed, I was losing my grip over the reality.

But then slapping myself awake with a light smack on my two cheeks, I got up and stood under the shed of an oak tree resting my back against its thick trunk.

"No, I shouldn't be thinking about this right now",

Shaking my head trying to deny my apparent lack of empathy, I recalled my memories from the last 6 months after my reincarnation.

Honestly, I don't remember much, no, actually I don't even remember anything at all about my death.

I don't know why but no matter how hard I try to think about my death or even try to think about the possible reasons behind it, I never succeed in coming up with an accurate answer regarding it. If I am being completely honest, I feel as if I am being stopped by some kind of an invisible power. It feels as if there is some kind of an entity that is purposely trying to stop me from knowing the truth.

This is quite confusing for me as well as the only thing I remember from my last day on earth was me going to bed and then feeling a chill crawl down my spine, after that, my mind always draws a blank.

"Ugh!", I issued a slight groan while holding my head. There's also this problem that I have been facing ever since I had reincarnated in this world, that is, whenever I try to think about the circumstances behind my death, my head starts aching all of a sudden.

At first, this pain wasn't much but as the time passed the pain in my head only ended up becoming worse by the day.

Massaging my aching temples I tried to relax my mind that had gotten heated up after thinking about my death and past life, so in order to relieve my condition I tried to divert my attention towards a completely different matter.

Honestly, my mental health has been in shambles for the last 6 months,

Sometimes I can't help but doubt whether everything I have been seeing was real or was I just living a dream.

There have been many times when I would just wake up in the middle of the night, completely drenched in sweat due to the many nightmares I end up seeing in my dreams regarding the possible reasons behind my death.

In one of them I see my past self being engulfed in flames and in the other I found myself getting eaten by different monsters, and every time I see a nightmare like that, then for some strange reason I would wake up feeling pain throughout my entire body.

But over the last 6 months, I have gotten somewhat numb to these feelings of pain and uneasiness. Now even the nightmare of me being eaten by a monster or me getting stabbed over and over have stopped bothering me.

At first, I was also a bit doubtful about my condition, that is, whether I have been dreaming or had I really been reincarnated in a different world.

But considering that I can feel and smell things in this world, I guess my mind isn't playing tricks on me and that I have actually gotten reincarnated in a different world!

Well, coming back to the topic,

In this world, my name is Aziel, a 16-year-old orphan who was adopted by one of the villagers of a small village by the name of Palaron.

The person who had adopted me owned a small establishment for travelers where they can rest and eat during their travels.

Although his business wasn’t very profitable, it wasn’t a lost cause either as it allowed him to make enough bucks to sustain himself.

The owner of the establishment, Mr. Gerund Grover is a widower with no children in his name maybe that’s why he had decided to adopt me in the first place, probably because he wanted someone to keep his legacy alive

Well anyway, right now I am in the body of one of the minor characters from my novel whose only role was to die and become one of the reasons behind the protagonist’s thirst for power and his subsequent character development.

The protagonist of my novel, Adam Jenkins is a reincarnated human from earth.

I wanted to develop him as such so that he would start off as a normal person but because of certain encounters he would go over to the bad side but then realizing his own flaws alongside the world's he would eventually come back to the good side and defeat the final boss.

In order to develop the mc’s character, I had to make certain characters who, in future, will become his reasons to become stronger. So that’s why I created this guy named Aziel whose body I have currently been in possession of.

But never had I ever thought that I, of all people, would end up reincarnating as this minor character with a literal death flag over his head.

If it were up to me then I’d rather be a mob than be a minor character, after all being a mob means that your future is not decided, but… now that I have reincarnated as a minor character I have no choice but to go along with it.

But that doesn’t mean that I am just quietly going to accept my death, no.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Since I have been granted a second chance in life I am not going to throw it away for something like the plotline, not even in a million years, like why the hell should I go and defeat the main villain? There’s no merit for me in doing so, honestly, I’d rather sit back and enjoy my life in this village than train with a singular goal in mind to defeat the main boss.

But for me to live a peaceful life I needed to clear the first hurdle, that is, the protagonist.

That guy is a jinx. Just his presence alone brings disasters. And the first disaster it will bring in a few days will quite possibly be my death. Thinking about this I couldn’t help but shiver.

Well, now that I am here, I am going to do everything in my power to survive. Even if it means that I have to change the plotline, nothing will get in the way of me trying to live a happy life.

“Aziel come inside and serve the guests, you ungrateful brat!!!”, I was lost in my thoughts when suddenly a loud voice sounded in my ears,

It was my adoptive father, Gerund Grover. Guess I should go and help the old man.

***

Walking inside the small establishment I could see a middle-aged man with a bald head glaring daggers at me with his eyes and in front of him 4 beautiful women were sitting across one of the tables with bored expressions on their faces.

I don’t know why but the moment my eyes fell on the women before me I felt a sudden chill crawl down my spine.

‘What is this ominous feeling? Is there something wrong with these women?’, I was lost in my own thoughts when suddenly I heard someone speak with an irritating voice.

“Hey, you, why are you looking at us like that? Go away poor beggar”, the voice said as if it was trying to diminish my entire existence.

Ignoring the last part I looked at the source of the voice and found out that it was one of the 4 women who was sitting across the table, not only that, she was the ugliest of them all.

But I won’t say that, looking at her clothes she looks like a martial artist. The last thing I would want would be to offend her and become her sandbag.

So bowing down my head I apologized to the girl and looked at Gerund Grover, my adoptive father.

Honestly, I don’t know why I named this guy, 'Gerund', maybe it’s because I was teaching English grammar to a cousin of mine when I was writing this chapter. Well anyway, this guy Gerund’s name is a product of my laziness. If humans had someone represent the carnal sin of Sloth from their side then I’d probably work out as one of the best ones.

Well, coming back to the topic,

Gerund was still glaring at me as if I had killed his children or something but I couldn’t help but notice that his anger had seemed to have cooled down a lot. It was then that I noticed him nodding his head at me, it was a signal that he wanted to talk to me about something.

So heeding to his gesture I walked alongside him to the kitchen.

As we arrived by the kitchen, Gerund once again looked at the 4 women, probably to make sure that the distance was enough to hide his voice, and then looked at me with a warning expression and said, “You better behave properly with them, those women are dangerous”, his tone was grave making me wonder what the source behind those ladies was.

I mean even though Gerund looks like a regular middle-aged man, in reality, he is far from that. I remember two months ago when a bandit tried to rob us, this guy Gerund beat the hell out of him with just a shovel. He might not look it but he is extremely strong.

As if understanding the expression on my face Gerund once again said, “Don’t try anything funny, please. Those women are from the Amifa!”,

My mind stopped working and I couldn’t help but feel a chill deep inside my heart.

Amifa, one of the strongest powers on this land was a martial arts sect with enough influence to topple countries!

But this was not the reason behind my fear, no, I mean even if Amifa is strong, it’s not like they will try to kill me without me doing anything, no, that will probably be bad for their image, also, it would give their opponents an excuse to target them.

The reason why I was so afraid was very simple, the thing is, the first scenario in the novel where this minor character meets with the villains of this arc, the ladies from Amifa, has already started!

***

The Purple Life, this was the name of my novel.

The novel’s story was not something out of the ordinary, honestly, it was quite generic, but even so, I believed that my readers would have probably liked it.

It was the story of a human who was from the modern earth like myself and got reincarnated in this world as Adam Jenkins, one of the heirs to a merchant company.

But since he was the youngest and the strongest of his household by using his previous life memories, he was sent by his father to attend the Ashby Academy, one of the best schools in this world with its prestige rivaling even the strongest of sects like Amifa or Wudang.

Adam was supposed to be a laid-back character with no desire to become stronger and live out his life in luxury but things never go as you planned as just the moment he turned 16 he was sent by his father to attend the academy.

While on his way to the academy he would pass by a small village and stop at an establishment where he would notice 4 women harassing a boy his age.

So being the protagonist he will stop those women.

The women, angry from his interference will try to harass him too but upon finding out that he is a student of Ashby Academy they will stop it at that.

But the women turned out to be more vicious than Adam had thought as they decide to kill Aziel, the one whose body I am possessing right now, during the night.

I guess, even though they are the disciples of a sect like Amifa they are not bold enough to kill people in broad daylight.

But all of their plans would almost come to a foil when they are discovered by the smart main character.

Honestly, I would have been happy if the plot were to end at that but no, in the end, I, by which I mean Aziel, will end up dying whilst under his protection.

Broken and sad, the main character will lose himself to the dark side over the death of a random stranger and then in retaliation, he will kill the 4 women.

That’s how the plot is going to evolve. That’s how I am going to die.

"Fuu..."

Taking a deep breath I calmed myself and looked at the situation carefully, if the main character doesn’t interfere with the situation, I won’t die. That’s a given.

So all I have to do now is to stop the main character from interfering and to do that is very simple as I just had a brilliant idea in my head. So brilliant that I feel like patting myself on my back for being such a genius.

I guess, it's time to enact my plan, hah? Walking towards Gerund I swiftly turned around to look at him and gave him the warmest smile I could ever muster.

Perhaps shocked by my sudden reaction Gerund took a step back and looked at me with caution and fear in his eyes.

“Wh-what do you want?”, he said as if he was holding onto his dear life. I didn’t really mind his behavior though and said, “Father, do you….”, but before I could finish up my sentence the man started shouting.

“F-father!!!”

Ignoring him once again I said this time with more force behind my voice, “Shhh, do you want to disturb the guests?”

The moment I said that Gerund’s behavior composed a little and he looked at me once again with a cautious expression on his face.

Didn’t minding his expression one bit I looked him straight in the eyes and said, “Father, you should close the establishment until those esteemed ladies leave this place. I don’t want to come off as someone rude to the disciples of Amifa”,

Gerund rubbed his chin and thought about what I said and in the end, he decided to heed to my suggestion and close off the establishment.

Perhaps hearing the bits of the conversation between me and Gerund one of the women smiled and looked at me with an interested expression on her face.

Honestly, with her staring at me like that I felt somewhat afraid and tense but then somehow managing to cool my head down, I didn’t let the fear and apprehension show on my face and calmly walked towards the women to ask them for their respective orders.

I arrived before the women and waited for them to place their order whilst they were skimming through the menu but then suddenly heard a knock on the door.

"*Knock* *Knock*",

The knock was gentle but I don’t know why I felt as if my heart was going to burst because of it. Probably noticing my condition the women also looked at the door.

Gerund went ahead and opened the door and then from outside someone entered the small establishment leading the entire mood of the establishment to change all of a sudden.

The one who had entered just now was the one around whom the story of this novel revolved, he was the protagonist.