Only Villains Do That: An Isekai Adventure

Only Villains Do That, Book 1

By: D. D. Webb

Narrated by: Todd Haberkorn

Length: 21 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

From the author of the Gods Are Bastards series comes a new isekai adventure, in which a man is granted sinister powers he doesn't even want.

On a typical day, on an average train platform, two warring sister goddesses found their avatars. One avatar, the young Yoshi, was swept away to the world of Ephemera to be a great hero of honor, courage, and light. The other, the not-so-young Seiji, was swept away to become a dark lord out to kill or conquer all in his path.

But Seiji is in absolutely no mood for that nonsense. It's bad enough that on Earth he was a closed-off, misanthropic grouch with zero patience for other people. Now he's supposed to muster enough of a give-a-damn to lead vile hordes, crush Yoshi, and take all of Ephemera as his own? No thanks. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a choice.

Seiji's patron goddess wants results, and if he doesn't deliver, she's going to take a serious interest in discovering his pain, suffering, and overall misery threshold. But just because he doesn't care about people, doesn't mean he doesn't care whether they suffer by his own hand. After all, just because you're the embodiment of ultimate evil doesn't mean you have to be a jerk about it.

The first volume of the hit fantasy adventure series—with more than five million views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!

©2024 D. D. Webb (P)2024 Podium Audio

There be no White Knights here

A book with a more practical and bloodthirsty kinda of MC than your typical super self righteous MC. It was pretty amusing as well. Narrator did a great job

Fantastic Isekai adventure!

I really LOVED this book. A smart & (reluctant) villain, or a hero in disguise. Voice acting was great too. A huge “thank you” to author for not including “harem” garbage in his book. I highly recommend. I can’t really give a more detailed review without spoilers. Already pre-ordered Book 2!

Another world story without stats

A great story I didn't even know I needed. The lack of stats or harems really go a long way in making this great

Way better than I’d hoped.

I gave this audiobook 5 stars even though I occasionally felt like the MC was a little exaggerated. I didn’t penalize the book for this because when taken on the whole it does fit the story and the themes.

I just wish the author had been a little more nuanced with the MC’s inner monologue. As a result the MC sometimes comes across as annoyingly dickish and immature even though he’s clearly supposed to be kind of a jerk.

That aside this was a really engaging and at least somewhat different take on the genre. I thoroughly enjoyed the performance and the story and I’m excitedly awaiting the next book.

The Story where the Protagonist is the Antagonist.

A respectable twist on the ancient tale of The Hero and The Villain, summoned to a period of instability, where injustice and inequity rule - one shall Defend The Status Quo, and one shall Tear the institutions down, and rebuild the World according to their own view of How It Should Be.

Two people, isekai'd to a world of lies and inexcusable suffering, but here our Villain, the Dark Lord of the story, who came to raze cities and topple Order, at the command of a malovent yet bored Goddess, finds the world is just so damn broken, that the most Socially Disruptive action he can take is to try and fix it.

A well crafted and narrated story. Does contain graphic descriptions of suffering and trauma. It affects him more than it will you.

The One Where The Dark Lord is Actually Awesome

Amazing, they need to hurry up with the second one 😭

The Dark Lord knows he's a run of the mill d-bag, but realizes that might just be the thing this world needs.

Could not put this down!!

Honestly an amazing book I loved the progression and the voice acting! I never at any point felt like the story was being dragged out or was paced poorly! If you are looking for a morally gray MC audio book this is absolutely perfect for you I cannot wait for the second book!!

Great Performance

I loved this entire story, followed from back when it was on RR. It took a minute for me to transition my own voice with the narrators but in the end I think he did an excellent job.

Can’t wait for the next release!

Victory Built On Bullshit and Bravado

This book is an exquisite masterpiece. Our main character is an aspiring rockstar rudely blackmailed into wearing a Dark Lord hat, and trust me, he has more than just one level in Bard. Performance and presentation is the name of his game, and while his cynical insights into the nature of humanity are too close for comfort, being an a-hole and being evil are two entirely separate beasts. Cool spells and BS magic items, subtle manipulation and desperate improvisation, scathing sarcasm and traumatizing misery, this book exceeds in character, worldbuilding, prose, and plot. Haberkon's narration is amazingly expressive and recorded with 110% effort, doubling the value of this story all on it's own.

And best of all? The story itself feels fresh! Isekai isn't new, being the villain isn't new, being a forced villain isn't new. Hell, even being a Bard isn't really new anymore. But damn if Seiji isn't doing things in a refreshing new way. Maybe I'm just a sucker for intelligent characters, complex social situations, cool practical magic, and a boatload of sheer charisma, but this story has me hooked. In a lot of ways, it combines the best parts of Double-Blind with The Wraith's Haunt, both series that I highly recommend.

The only thing that I could even complain about is the noticeable amounts of plot armor our main character ends up getting. But it's less the "author's hand" type of plot armor we all know and hate, and more the "incredibly suspicious and unnerving manipulations of people who cannot be trusted" type. And besides, for as much his patron is pulling the strings for him, his opponent's deck is just as stacked. And it's not like they started off on equal footing. Villains are always supposed to loose, after all.

If you are even slightly interested in anime-derivative stories, this book is for you. Even if you aren't, the quality of writing will almost certainly make up for any genre issues.

I thoroughly recommend.

Good book

The orators performance of the main character is perfect, however I did not enjoy their rendition of most side characters outside of the goblins and sackin.