oh shit. i finally understand the title. "the villain discovered my identity" does not refer to ignis, but letio. it's not referring to the novel inside the story, but this story itself. does this mean letio is the villain?
rereading this and i can't believe i didn't catch it the first time. this chapter explicitly states that athy's magic has the ability to turn back time. if she continued reversing claude's condition, would she be able to turn back his magic to a time before he even started using black magic?