The Villain Professor's Second Chance

I gave him a silent nod, stepping out of the Drakhan carriage. The air was thick with moisture, the heavy scent of earth and pine filling my lungs. The forest around me wasn't just any forest—it was the ancestral grounds near the Drakhan manor, a place few dared to tread at night.

The trees were ancient, their twisted branches hanging low like they were weighed down by centuries of history, whispers of the past. Shadows clung to every corner, making it feel as though the very woods were watching me.

"Wait here," I said, my voice cold but calm, as I started to walk into the forest alone. Stay connected through empire

Alfred shifted slightly. "My lord, it might be dangerous—"

I cut him off, my pace unchanging. "You wanted me to meet my family, didn't you?"

There was a pause behind me. "Yes, but—"

I didn't need to hear the rest. Whatever danger lay ahead, it was nothing compared to the questions I needed answered. As I moved deeper into the forest, the ground softened beneath my boots, and the sound of Alfred's protest faded into the background. It wasn't that I didn't care about his concern—it was that something else had already begun to weigh on me the moment we entered these woods.

There was a strange sensation in my chest, a tug I couldn't quite place. It was as if the forest itself was calling me, pulling me toward something I didn't understand. It wasn't magic—not in the traditional sense. This was deeper, older. As if the very blood in my veins recognized this place and yearned to be here.

The Forest of Ancestors.

That's what the Drakhans called it, though others had taken to referring to it as the Forest of Memories. For generations, this place had been a sacred ground, a burial site for the heads of the Drakhan family. Twenty generations of them, buried here beneath the earth, their lives and legacies woven into the fabric of the forest itself.

And now, I was walking in the footsteps of those who came before me—those who had carried the Drakhan name with honor, with power.

But me? The truth was, I couldn't remember much about them. The lore, the legends, the stories of their greatness—all of it was a blur, fragmented pieces of a history that I wasn't truly a part of. Because I wasn't really Draven Drakhan.

I was Dravis Granger, a man who once taught mechanical engineering, someone who had designed this world's Draven. And now, here I was, trapped in this body, in this life, with more questions than answers. As Draven's memories began to fuse with mine, I felt something growing within me—something incomplete trying to take form.

And all of it seemed to lead back to one word. One simple, elusive word.

Family.

The trees grew denser, the air colder as I pressed forward. After what felt like hours, I arrived at the grand cemetery of the Drakhans. Massive stone tombs loomed before me, each one bearing the name of a Drakhan ancestor. There were twenty of them, twenty tombs marking the graves of twenty generations. I was the twenty-first.

The thought struck me with an odd sense of detachment, like I was standing at the edge of something vast and ancient that I didn't quite belong to.

I scanned the names etched into the stone, trying to make sense of the lineage, but nothing clicked. No flood of memories. No sudden epiphany. Just silence. Because in the end, these weren't my ancestors. This wasn't my family.

I had created Draven, shaped his life, but the real Draven's history was still a mystery to me, locked away in fragments of memory I couldn't fully access.

Family.

It was a word I'd never fully understood, not even in my old life. And now, standing here among the graves of men and women who had lived and died carrying the Drakhan name, it felt even more distant, more foreign.

I continued walking, my boots crunching softly against the undergrowth until I reached one tomb in particular. It was larger than the others, grander. I didn't need to read the name carved into the stone to know whose it was.

This was the tomb of Draven's father—the man who had been revered as one of the greatest mages of his time, a legend who had come close to unlocking the mysteries of the unknown realms of magic.

And yet, I couldn't bring myself to look at his name. Something inside me, perhaps the remnants of Draven's soul, warned me not to. It felt like opening Pandora's box, like acknowledging that name would bind me to something I wasn't ready to face.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

I knelt in front of the tomb, my hand hovering above the cold stone. There was something about this place, something familiar yet distant. A part of me, maybe the real Draven, felt a sense of relief knowing this man was buried here. But for me, it was different. For me, this was about answers—about understanding what had shaped the man whose body I now inhabited.

I could feel a pull, a resistance, like Draven's soul was urging me to stop. But I didn't care. I needed answers. And answers required questions.

My hand pressed against the stone.

In that moment, everything changed.

Memories flooded my mind—images, sensations, fragments of a life that wasn't mine but had become mine. I saw Draven as a child, a small, fragile boy standing in the shadow of his father, a towering figure of power and authority. And with those memories came a voice, cold and merciless.

"You're dirty. Like trash."

Draven—no, I—looked down at my clothes. A small stain of milk had dripped onto my shirt, barely noticeable. But to my father, it was a symbol of failure, of weakness. The scene shifted, and the voice returned, harsher this time.

"You're a failure."

I knew why. It was the curse, the curse that had first appeared in Draven's childhood, a curse that wasn't his fault but had become his burden to bear. His father had called him a false prodigy, a disgrace to the Drakhan name. The words echoed in my mind, cutting deeper than any physical wound.

"If you want to live, become a real genius. Use whatever means necessary. Do not be a disgrace."

The weight of those words was suffocating. They weren't just commands; they were a prison. A set of expectations so impossibly high that failure was the only option. And yet, Draven had tried. He had done everything in his power to meet those expectations, to be the genius his father demanded.

The scene shifted again, and this time, I saw her—Draven's stepmother, the mother of Tiara and Clara. She was silent, always silent, her presence a shadow in the household. But her silence wasn't indifference. It was care, quiet and understated, directed toward her daughters.

"Why do you care so much for them?" I—Draven—had asked her once, watching as she doted on Tiara and Clara. "They don't have any power."

Her answer was simple, yet incomprehensible to me at the time.

"Love isn't measured by one's worth, Master Draven. It's something you give, without expecting anything in return."

Love.

The word felt foreign, alien. I couldn't understand it. But looking at her, at the way she cared for her daughters, I realized something. Even though I didn't receive her love directly, seeing Tiara and Clara being loved made me feel something I couldn't quite explain. A shadow of warmth, perhaps.

But it wasn't real. Not for me.

I had never been loved, not truly. Not like them.

Family.

The word echoed in my mind, and with it came a sharp, wrenching pain in my chest. What was family, really? Was it love? Was it power? Was it obligation?

The memories continued, faster now, the scenes changing rapidly. I saw myself—no, Draven—as a boy, playing with Tiara and Clara, two bright girls who had no talent for magic but had sharp minds, sharp enough to become assets to the Drakhan family. I remembered their laughter, their innocence, and for a brief moment, I felt like I had a family.

But then, the scene shifted again, and I saw it—the corpse of their mother, blood staining the floor. My hands, covered in that blood.

And my father's voice, cold and detached.

"True power has no shackles. That," he pointed at the corpse, "is a shackle you need to remove."

I had closed my eyes that day. Closed my eyes to the horror, to the reality. And in doing so, I had lost the only semblance of family I had ever known.

As the memories faded and I returned to the present, I stood slowly, my gaze fixed on the tomb before me.

"I see," I muttered, my voice barely a whisper. "You—no, we—are empty, aren't we?"

Two faces flashed in my mind. The first was Kirara, my first fiancée, the one who had been killed before my eyes. The second was Sophie, her face filled with anger and hatred, her once-kind eyes now reflecting only the pain my obsession had caused.

"That's why we relied on them," I said quietly, my voice bitter.

I turned away from the tomb, the weight of everything pressing down on me. As I walked back toward the carriage, I muttered one final word under my breath, a word that summed up everything I had just experienced.

"Ridiculous."

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