Silly, Im Not The Villain!

Chapter Fourteen: The Grand Mansion

After breakfast Alex and Hope were given an extensive tour of the mansion, every thing from the grand hall used for hosting banquets, the enchanting garden, the stables, the balcony, and the great library of the house was shown to them. The mansion was magnificent both inside and out, looking at the decoration felt like being in a museum where you can touch anything and everything you wanted, and the outside was nothing short of beautiful with trees and bushes shaped perfectly and flowers of all sorts showing off their vibrant colors for all to gawk at.

Alex couldn't help but marvel at all the décor and inadvertently slowed down the tour of the gorgeous home, but Henry didn't mind, thinking that he could relax a little before going back to work so he intentionally took the pair to places that had paintings, vases, and beautiful furniture for them to take their sweet time looking at them.

"And that concludes our tour to the great mansion," said Henry while clapping his hands "So what did you think?" he asked.

"It's truly beautiful." Alex answered, though Henry already knew that he thought that, he simply wanted to hear him say it.

"I'm glad you think so highly of the grand mansion, I will do my best to ensure you enjoy your stay here so please feel at home."

"Alright, thank you for the tour."

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be off to do my duties as the head butler of the mansion so if you ever need anything at all, feel free to come to me." He bowed to him and went off to report to his master.

"Young master, is there anywhere you'd like to go now?" Hope smiled.

"What time is it right now?"

"It should be around 8:45."

"Then I think I'll study." There was a lot he needed to catch up on now that he was starting school all over again, about a year worth of work would surly keep him busy for the summer, additionally he would need a plan to survive the events of the book so the sooner he could plan the better.

"...Would you like to go to the library then?" she hesitated for a moment not expecting him to say that but excepting it non the less.

"Mn."

"Then I'll lead you there."

A while later they were in front of the library.

"Shall I go and get your school materials in your room young master?"

"Yeah, that would be great."

"Then I'll be right back."

They parted ways as Alex entered the quiet library. Alex looked around in awe at the tall book shelfs filled to the brim with books he had never seen before, all illuminated by the morning rays of the sun coming in through the windows. He let out a sigh and slumped his shoulders, feeling at peace in such a familiar place with nothing but his thoughts to distract from the calming silence. He walked through the halls of bookshelves, running his fingers along the books picking up a little bit of dust on them before coming to an open area with a crimson couch against the wall and a table with chairs around it. Time seemed to slow down to a comfortable pace as he sat on the almost maroon couch taking in his surroundings. And for a moment everything was good. To him things would only get worse from here so he allowed himself this moment of absolute tranquility. He kicked off his shoes to lay down and close his eyes, he stayed that way for another two or three minutes before he heard the doors open and sat up.

Hope appeared soon after and brought with her a stack of books that he wondered how she was holding. They were very clearly heavy.

But she still placed them on the table with ease it seemed. "I've brought all your text books, note books for all your lesson and school supplies. Do you need anything more?"

"No this is enough. Thanks." He smiled.

She smiled and stepped away from the table to let him look at his new things. He combed through the books and picked out an empty note book. It had a red-ish brown leather cover and looked to be in pristine shape, the lined pages were a nice light creamy color without so much as a fold on the pages. He decided that this would be the book he would use to put down his plan and everything he needed to remember about the plot of the original novel.

He took one of his textbooks to check if it was written in English but it wasn't, actually now that he was actively thinking about it, it seemed that he could read the language of this world perfectly fine, it came so naturally that he overlooked it the first time he read anything and hardly noticed it. It also sounded exactly like English but the alphabet was different.

'Weird, maybe it was just some sort of weird muscle memory? The brain is a muscle, right? Can I even write in this language?' he thought to himself.

He grabbed a piece of paper and a quill pen, dipped it in ink and wrote down his name, 'Alex' but surprisingly he didn't write it in English alphabet. Every thing feels so natural to him but was so clearly unnatural. He was sure he didn't know how to write in this language or properly use a quill pen but now...he did. He wondered if this was a side effect of being transmigrated into this body but decided not to question it further and just go with it.

He sat down on the chair and crossed his legs on it as he began formulating a plan to ensure his survival.

He began by writing down everything the new about the transmigration and reincarnation genre since now that an entire character has fundamentally changed the plot will not go as originally planned and he could use his knowledge of the genre to predict some or most of the things that will happen from here on out, he had read quite a bit of books about them and it seemed that ever thing he knew about them would actually prove to be helpful.

First, the person who is transmigrated or reincarnated are either an antagonist, protagonist, supporting role, don't exist/unmentioned or some variation of those. But they usually have the added benefit of time before the story actually begins which he didn't have.

Second, they usually end up loved or were loved from the being but were unaware of it, the love can either be gained intentionally or unintentionally. These kinds of stories are typically a sort of underdog in an unfortunate situation achieving happiness in some way.

Third, they themselves gain or already have great power, or the people around them already have great power and will do anything for them.

And those are the basic components of these sorts of these stories. For him he is hated by just about everyone who knows anything about Elias, a villain and despite being the child of a duke has no power. So, if this was a story then he would either gain the love of the original main cast and everyone around him or make friends elsewhere but still continue to be hated by the majority of the people who know him. And he might never gain any power because one, gaining power would means getting political clout which he didn't want and wouldn't pursue and two, getting power could mean getting magical power which he could learn but it would also give him political power and he wasn't sure if the duke would allow it.

For him he wanted to live peacefully like most protagonists of transmigration/reincarnation stories, but they often fail in this and he would have to take that into consideration. But they do sometimes effectively remove themselves from the plot. Sometimes. But at the same time this is actually happening to him and these things might not even happen, but it was still worth keeping this in mind.

Better safe than sorry.

Now he also needs to plan how he would remove himself from the plot of the story completely. From what he knows simply becoming passive will greatly affect the reincarnator's life in the plot so all he really needs to do is nothing but he wants to take this a step further, he wants to completely remove himself from the plot and have a life far away from it but that would prove to be a difficult task because one, he literally lives with one of the love interests of the story and two, because the education he's getting as the 'illegitimate' child of the duke is really good and it would contribute to his future if he were to graduate. So maybe he can't remove himself from it but he can avoid and quietly plan for his future.