Only Villains Do That

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

While waiting on an Akihabara train platform one day, ordinary high schooler Yoshi Shinonome was suddenly plucked from his normal life in Japan and whisked away by a beautiful goddess to Ephemera, a world of magic and adventure, to serve as her Hero and drive back the evil Dark Lord.

This is not his story.

Standing nearby at the moment Yoshi was isekai'd was a man named Seiji - a rude, cranky, misanthropic musician who was not at all pleased to find himself also snatched up and transported to Ephemera by the goddess's wicked sister, Virya. According to this self-proclaimed Goddess of Evil, the whole fantasy adventure thing was a game she and her sister played to stave off the boredom of immortality, and since the good goddess, Sanora, had picked her Hero...well, Virya needed a Dark Lord.

A grown man with his own career and ambitions, Seiji has no interest in playing. Unfortunately for him, the call to adventure was not a request. Now, he must conquer Ephemera and defeat the Hero...or Virya promises to make him beg for the release of death before granting it. Playing along for his own survival, Seiji nonetheless is under no illusions who his true enemy is, and it's not the naive young would-be Hero from his own world.

Placed in an impossible position, Seiji must make enough progress toward world domination to keep his sadistic patron goddess off his back, but not so much that he can't strike an accord with the forces of Good and convince the Hero Yoshi that it's the goddesses who are their mutual enemy. Forced to embrace Evil without beingtooevil, Seiji walks the razor's edge, building his forces and biding his time till he can get revenge on the goddesses and be free of them, his only certainty that he will not be getting out of this with his hands clean.

A Dark Lord's gotta do what a Dark Lord's gotta do.

Updates Tuesday and Friday.

Most Patreon tiers get to read one chapter in advance of the public release!

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2021
Author: Webbonomicon

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 6,237
Views: 1,985,657

Chapters(68 total)

What readers say about Only Villains Do That

“Long story short: Seiji is an asshole but with a surprising depth of humanity:) He should have been an evil character but somehow finds himself doing the most heroic things. I love this character and the story, especially for its amazing political intrigue.…”
PreatorianButtRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“THaving read the author's other work (the gods are bastards), I find that what Webb really excells in is writing characters that have actual flaws and their interpersonal connections and development. OVDT mainly focuses on Seiji and the development of his c…”
AaradurRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

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Community Reviews(10)

PreatorianButtRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Long story short: Seiji is an asshole but with a surprising depth of humanity:) He should have been an evil character but somehow finds himself doing the most heroic things. I love this character and the story, especially for its amazing political intrigue. OVDT is and hopefully will remain an outstanding work. It’s sad that the author abondoned this awesome story. It had so much potential.
AaradurRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
THaving read the author's other work (the gods are bastards), I find that what Webb really excells in is writing characters that have actual flaws and their interpersonal connections and development. OVDT mainly focuses on Seiji and the development of his character, unlike the varied cast of TGAB. From the outset, Seiji is a bit of an asshole with an axe to grind with the flaws he sees in government, various institutions and society at large. So when the dark goddess kidnaps him to be her new dark lord against his will, she sends him to a nearly broken country ruled by an autocratic, ethnic caste system whose lower rungs in particular have little recourse against oppression and gives him the resources to start making changes...
Seiji is not by any means OP in this story, and the narrative includes a lot of social, economic and political debate - from the perspective of a charater who is deliberately written to be somewhat flawed. Generally, the story is an incredibly well written 'slide into darkness' faustian narrative; though Seiji never did have the chance to refuse Mephistopheles
KingbobRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Webb has always been a fantastic Web Serial Author, with the highly popular The Gods Are Bastards as his previous work. Only Villains Do That features a fascinating setting, entertaining and engaging characters, and what promises to be a unique take on the Isekai genre.
I find his greatest strength lies in his characters, and Webb's own strong vision of the world, and how people treat and trust each other. Combined, these skills lead to Webb's signature style of writing and engaging with the world.
There is nothing I look forward to more than continuing this journey with Webb as he looks to Ephemera and his new cast of misfits and douchebags.
AnotherRandomRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Really enjoying the story so far, there haven’t been any noticible grammar or spelling errors and the world building has been top notch, great work addressing how people would build on terrain like that and excellent portrayal of the cultural differences, it’s very well thought out and unique world. Doesn’t fall into the trap of having an intelligent MC constantly lording his smarts over other people (like in He who fights with Monsters). Excited to see where this goes
AtemRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Got this as audible and it was great. So coming to check outbook2. Good humour good mix of some culture without being jaring a consistent story and good characters. A fun story. I recommend this as a good story for driving as it's not to intense but also doesn't let it's lightness distract from it being an enjoyable listen
BuddyBeelzebubRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Characters are done well. World building is on point. Prose is great. Good humor too. Only problem is that the MC starts out feeling a bit one dimensional, but the nuance in his character definitely grows over time, especially in the most recent chapters.
I've been reading Webb's work (The Gods are Bastards) for roughly 5 years now, and as much as so love TGAB I think this story might be better. At the very least its far better than TGAB was this early in its run. Really amazing to see how much Webb has grown as a writer.
Let me hit that beat about how long I've been reading Webb's work one more time. TGAB was first released in 2014, and ran with a consistent update schedule for 5 years. Webb is new to RR, but he's one of the longest running and most accomplished web serial writers on the Internet, up there with wildbow. He's experienced in a way very few other authors on this site are, and that definitely shows in the quality of this work. Given my experience with TGAB I strongly suspect this story will only get better with time.
Anon YmousRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Intelligently written, unique and reasonably intelligent MC, and characters that each feel like their own individuals.
The writing gets in as much detail as it needs to progress the story and add memorable flavor without bogging things down.
No grammatical errors have stood out to me, and I'm usuall nitpicky about that sort of thing.
Still early in the overall story, but things are moving and I have high hopes for where they go.
AgentSquishyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Our cynical jerk of an MC is plucked from a train station and forced into the newest round of the goddesses’ game of Isekai Hero vs the Dark Lord, but he has no intention of playing the part of Dark Lord until he sees the horrible state of the world. When life is so terrible that decency is revolutionary, I guess it’s time to tear it all down.
I think the writing quality (not a super technical term) is very good here both in the grammar sense and the ability to capture humor, anger, and horror. I would hold this up as a personal favorite against mainline fantasy and science fiction, not just genre pieces.
For nitty-gritty details:
-The MC is an angry, cynical jerk with a flair for the dramatic and showboating and that really works for me as it’s done with humor and realistic levels of anger at how terrible people and the world can be. It includes actual character growth (and character trauma) which can sometimes be hard to find in this sub-genre. If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “sure that joke was a jerk move, but I’m not evil” then I think this story will resonate with you.
-This has isekai style “cheat power” and OP potential granted to the MC, but with the caveat that it is intentionally made to require acquisition of power over time (infinite mana doesn’t mean much for conquest when all you’re doing is summoning slimes) so it’s a slow-burn weak to strong style.
-The magical system and the MC’s cheat power combine to make the future-casting part of my brain light up, it’s very easy to consider what powerful spells, artifacts, and abilities will be coming to our MC.
-There is what I would call “nation building” but the whole story tries to take a more realistic look at isekai tropes so to start off it’s more organization building than nation shaking.
-The series takes a lot of fun jabs at the tropes of the genre with an actual genre aware protagonist and an attempt to not miss glaring plot holes or reduce things to 2 dimensional portrayals. If you’ve ever
GabryelRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Writing about a protagonist who is a bit of a d*ck can be a bit of a challenge. But this tale demonstrates how to do it in just a perfect way. A bit of Isekai, a sprinkle pop culture references, a hint of harem building and some truly interesting character work makes this a true joy to read. The next chapter cannot come soon enough.
QuazzyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Bloody. Fan. Tastic.
The world and its politics are satisfyingly intricate; enough information to understand it and get invested is given right off the bat, and then further exposition (which is often conveyed through tense social situations) add layers upon layers of nuance, painting what we already know in an entirely new light. The world's incredibly cohesive, and strategies and twists are the sorts of things that can be predicted well in advance if you're smart enough, it's just incredibly difficult. It's yet another way the book pulled me in!
The progression is fantastic, in the actual sense rather than the "his fireball gets bigger" sense. Seiji's ambition takes him to tackle larger and larger problems, which are solved to varying levels of success by using more sophisticated tactics and more nuanced understanding of the world and human nature, as well as more sacrifices of morality and grappling with what morality is. He is, after all, someone who must conquer the world to survive.
The banter is absolutely delightful, and Seiji develops nicely as an immensely entertaining assho- as a character. Interpersonal relationships are rich, varied, and realistic, with just the right balance of tension and absurd wholesomeness to convey Seiji's incredibly stressful life and slow slide into the unknown, without making the novel anything but a delight to read.