Paradise. The aroma of an alderwood fire would entice almost anyone to pull over and inhale it. The wonderful blending of nostalgic fire, delicious wafts of sizzling proteins and fats, and the wisp of aromatic herbs and spices produce an olfactory paradise. The peaceful scent is tinged with predatory-like yearning. The indicators that told a barbeque was taking place. That, together with the fragrance of dewy, damp grass on a July evening, reminded Kendrick of his childhood.

That feeling of being under the calm yet tepid sun.

Kendrick was safe and sound when he opened his eyes. He checked his hands as he reached towards the sky, recognizing that his thin and snappable wrists had fleshed out and that his skin had regained some color in comparison to his prior self. In this tranquil and delicate moment, with his body restored to full health Kendrick could only...

"RUPERT NOOOOOOOOO!"

Wail out in despair startling the well dressed man cooking meat beside him.

"GREAT WYRM'S MERCY! What's wrong?!"

"*Hic* R-rupert whhyyyyyy!"

"Apologies, master, but who is this rupert fellow?"

"*sniffle* My pet t-tape worm"

The butler's confusion only grew. What the hell was a tapeworm and what had happened to Rupert to leave his master in such hysterics? 

"Alright, let's calm down and process this slowly... first off, what's a tapeworm?"

This incredibly strange question gave Kendrick's greif pause. Who the hell doesn't know what a tapeworm is? Like a dam rupturing a bunch of questions flooded into his mind. First off if Rupert is dead, and Kendrick by extension, where is he now? Who is this random butler sitting next to him? Why does he suddenly have meat on his bones? Surely he'd look the same as his original body if this was the afterlife. So since this probably isn't the afterlife,  he can probably rule out the butler being a deity or something. Presumably he was unconscious just now right? Was he knocked out cold or just taking a nap? Despite Kendrick's... 'oddities' he was fairly quick on the uptake. A safe line of questioning formed in his mind.

"Uh, this is kinda akward, but could you perhaps say my name?"

"My master's name is Dan Alastair, why?"

Oh this is that otome iseaki thing. You know that thing were someone from modern day is reincarnated into a dating sim as the bad guy or whatever and gets a harem, but is really confused about it because they have both more density and attractive force than the average blackhole? Yeah its that. CRINGE! Kendrick doesn't want a harem! Worms before hoes! The stamina needed to deal with all those partners just isn't feasible when you have a tapeworm to feed. Hmm, usually the protagonist of such stories would have constant anxiety over some bad end that's easily prevented by just being a decent person in like 5 chapters tops. Kendrick is now faced with a similar dilemma, but being nice would probably hurt him more than it would help if he's Dan Alastair.

Dan Alastair was a villain in the otome game he was playing just before he died. More beast than man, he'd brutally beat the shit out of anybody who inconvenienced him with just his bare hands. He didn't even attune to a monster because he lacked the ability to truly connect with any beast and yet still managed to pummel tamers until they resembled a Picasso painting. He served as a sort of casual filter, being one of the first hurdles you really had to make a build for. Kendrick still remembers how his first attempt fighting him ended in failure. The bad ending you get after losing shows the heroine's broken body being beaten into a distinctly bouncy castle like structure by Dan. It was one of the game's more extreme examples of body horror.

The rest of Dan's family wasn't much better. His father Viscount Alastair was a fat, greedy cancerous growth in the nobility. Nothing was off the table if it meant getting more money or status. Murder, torture, backstabbing, he didn't give a damn if at the end of the day he made a buck. He even went so far as to kill his own wife after she had done something that was considered shameful in noble society. His sister, Annalissa, was arguably worse. She was heavily implied to be a serial rapist and confirmed to be a sadist with a thing for torture in-game. If the player didn't keep an eye on her she'd kidnap and break the capture target you were going for, immediately causing a bad end and forcing you to reload a save. Kendrick didn't really care about the capture targets, but he had been slapped with the pop up "so and so person has gone missing" upon entering a town and then be forced to reload too many times to NOT have a grudge form. The worse part is that you never get to beat the shit out of her personally. Instead you get to a certain point in the game and the whole family just gets thrown in jail as their "comeuppance". There apparently also was supposed to be a third child in the Alastair family that was cut from the game. Kendrick had saw a video about it pop up when he looked up a location guide for all 6.235×10^28 collectables needed to unlock one of the monster's third skill trees and 100% the game. (It was not worth it. The skill tree was ASS.) All that's left of them was a sprite hidden in the files labeled 'G. Alastair.jpeg'. The sprite was a young blue haired girl which is strange because none of the other Alastairs have blue hair.

Now Kendrick knew he could probably just lie low and let the plot happen and be fine, but Kendrick knew that wasnt him. He wouldn't let these shit stains off easy. He had a plan and he would make sure that'd it absolutely ruined the Alastair household, even if that meant it'd kill him in the process. After all, why would he fear death when he has already died before?

"Master? Why're you spacing out like that?"

"Ah, apologies. I'm just hungover is all. Ignore everythingI just said."

"Oooooooh that explains it!"

"Shouldn't you be checking on the meat around now?"

"SHIT I FORGOT!"

The butler quickly returned to focusing on the grill. Soon enough Kendrick was enjoying some only slightly burnt barbeque. This would probably be his only moment of peace before the storm, so he decided to savor it.

Afewconcepts65

Ok so I have a lot to discuss about the making of this chapter so I'm ditching the bulleted list format of the last chapter for now. 

To start off I think the biggest difference from the original Kendrick and this fanfic Kendrick has become apparent this chapter and it's that this Kendrick will be a lot more confrontational for better or worse. I kinda hinted at it with the bully fact last chapter, but now its really in your face.

Second, for those of you WTFing at the distinctly bouncy castle like structure description, good. 

Third, I decided to skip a lot of the questioning the whole iseaki transferring thing. I've never really enjoyed the initial "omg what's going on" moment that always pops up at the start of every iseaki story, because its almost always the same and is never of consequence plot wise. I felt like the original story is a prime example I can point to for why I dislike the trope because it drags on way too long and everyone just kinda shrugs their shoulders afterwards despite the massive fuck up of meeting the Viscount while still in denial.

Fourth, while going back through the older chapters of reincarnated into the worst otome game to fact check some stuff, it hit me just how different the story felt. It really felt like it was setting up a harem thing and was gonna pull the trope of the capture targets being bad people. (still might be in all honesty) Like does anybody else remember Yuusa or the hero's crown? I didn't. Dan also had a whole other sister we STILL don't know the name of! The only time those two have been mention since is the plural in siblings! Also when Annalissa was introduced she was described as the villainess which meant the prince route had multiple villainess. So yeah the blue haired one is now a W.D. Gaster like character. I think I'll probably do a missing poster joke with Yuusa on it too at some point. Depends on how big a part they play in the original story.

Fifth, there'll be no harem in this story. I won't pull the 'I don't want a harem, but all these woman won't leave me alone' trope. Those kind of protagonist doesn't want X but gets it anyway jokes are done to death and weren't even all that funny in the first place. Kendrick might get a love interest towards the end with the gag being "this hoe IS a worm" but I'm still iffy on whether I'll include that.

Finally sorry if this chapter has more errors than usual, my internet kept cutting out while writing meaning I'd lose my progress randomly, including errors I noticed and fixed in the process of writing.