A Regressed Villain: Heroines, Villainesses and Me?

'A doctor with four years of experience, graduated at 19, published five medical papers, led three international research teams, won four global awards for surgical innovations, and received four invitations from the Royal Kingdom.' Standing near the window, looking at the phone screen, Avendial, alone inside the ICU with an unconscious body lying on the bed, read through the information he had received about Dr.

Etrinia on the phone screen belonging to Aecilia, scrolling as he went through all the important information about her achievements and the significant values she had achieved at the mere age of 23.

Naturally, for someone achieving such a feat at the age of 23, it could be considered a prodigy, making it clear that this woman was the same one whom Avendial was searching for. But the question arose here: how would he be able to persuade her to join his side?

From the beginning, he had prepared two sets to categorize individuals: the first would be those who could be forced into submission without any need for their approval, while the second would involve those who needed to have free will and join him on their own initiative.

Simply put, if someone possessed a healing ability, forcing them into becoming a slave healer would not be a big deal, given how, even in a previous life, there were instances where people with only healing abilities were treated as slaves by several strong individuals. Instead of pursuing their ability through consent, one could just threaten their life to make them heal someone.

But this wasn't the case with people who possessed fighting abilities, as forcing them would only lead to problems. At the lowest times, they could easily betray.

This was the reason why Avendial was searching for individuals prior to the appearance of the Tower, mostly those possessing abilities that could not be forced to submit to him or to use his influence.

Given that time was too short, considering he had to search the whole globe within a year and recruit people without raising the suspicion of the royal family.

The task in itself was like searching for a perfectly round and shaped stone among an enormous sea beach—there were several stones present there, but they existed far away from each other, and not each of them had a perfect shape.

And right now, he was talking about the whole globe, which contained billions of people. Initially, he had thought it would take him a few weeks to at least get his hands on a single powerful, awakened individual.

But somehow, within one and a half days of his arrival, it seemed he had struck luck as everything was going very smoothly, without any problems.

To be honest, he and his luck had a real enmity with each other. So it was impossible to blindly believe that everything was going smoothly just because he had returned to the past.

It was the same as a professional fisherman fishing from a boat; he was definitely catching fish, but some of them were jumping into his boat on their own accord.

Though with all these observations, his mind was right now filled with several things regarding Dr. Etrinia, Lin Diego, and his first experiment, Leo, lying on the bed, carrying his blood type. But he had enough space to link every fortunate happening today with a single person who could be a variable in all these events.

'Aecilia?' Avendial thought about all the variables that could influence his luck this time, and among them, he could only give credit to the woman who had first chosen to save a man who had gotten into an accident, even though she came from a noble background. But of course, it was just a hypothesis.

However, Avendial was not one to reject even a minor doubt that arose in his mind, prompting him to put the luck aspect to the back of his mind while deciding to confirm it tomorrow.

Of course, he was going to confirm it by not bringing Aecilia with him and seeing how things went the next day.

Additionally, seeing how the Sotso family could get information regarding Dr. Etrinia this soon, but not Lin Diego, it was clear that the central government was supporting the Sotso family with all their might. Given that Avendial himself was involved in this case, it appeared this wasn't the same for Lin Diego, who most likely belonged to a noble family.

According to the information they had gotten about Lin Diego from college documents and similar sources, it was clear that Lin's mother was a noblewoman married to a man from the Free City. But what exactly that noble family was and their connections was what Avendial needed to know.

"So, you woke up?" Avendial, noticing the movement behind him, turned towards Leo, whose eyes fluttered as he slowly came to, exhausted, observing the ceiling of the room, trying to understand where he was.

"....Th...an..k," Leo murmured, hearing the voice of the man who seemed to have saved him from the accident. From his last memories, being in this situation made Leo understand that this man had most likely paid his hospital bills. It was evident that people usually leave those who got into accidents alone.

"Your mother would get world-class treatment at a better hospital," Avendial said, glancing at a file placed on the nearby drawer, which Dr. Wen had delivered himself.

After discovering that Leo's mother had stage four cancer, Avendial had ordered Dr. Wen to personally accompany her to the Kingdom of Thaloris.

Initially, Dr. Wen had protested against being sent to the Croceaus family's territory.

However, when Avendial assured him that he only needed to convey the details of that woman's health condition to the doctors available in the hospital exclusively for the treatment of Croceaus family members, he relented.

Upon hearing Avendial's words, Dr. Wen, who had only heard about the specialists and professionals available within the Kingdom of Thaloris being on another level compared to those in the Free City, and considering how Avendial was going this far to provide treatment for a frail, dying old woman at his residence, decided to make a trip to Croceaus Estates.

This was certainly in line with Avendial's expectations, as he had already observed Dr. Wen's personality, which was clearly professional but sympathetic towards those genuinely in need.

It was evident from the fact that he was the only one who stayed to treat Leo, a construction worker, and he didn't even show any reaction when he heard Dr. Fredi had been killed.

From all these observations, it was very easy to trap someone like Dr. Wen.

Now, Avendial had Dr. Etrinia's father as a hostage in case she tried to choose to be in the first category for Avendial—a category of people designated to be used by force.

It was a kidnapping without any retaliation, similar to offering candy to a child before abducting him.

".....I...see," Leo was taken aback after hearing about the mention of his mother, but he didn't show extreme reaction or shock given that he couldn't even move a finger of his body. He was clearly in a state that was equal to being dead. While his eyes remained fixed towards the ceiling, he could only think of this all being some kind of dream. Find exclusive stories on m_v l|e'm-p| y r