Chapter 57: Starting today, I’m becoming an SSS-Class Villainess Adventurer! (5)

“What in the world happened…”

Cain, having arrived from the westernmost tip of Albion to a small, remote village in the southern part of the empire, doubted his own eyes.

“Ria, where is Ria?”

He hurriedly scanned the village, searching for any trace of Ria, but all he found were unsettling signs of black magic.

‘Ria possesses divine power. There’s no way she would have fallen to mere black magic…’

No matter how hard Cain tried to remain calm, it wasn’t easy.

Although she possessed enough divine power to one day become a saint, it was uncertain if her power, not yet fully manifested, would have functioned properly….

It seemed he himself already knew the truth.

“H-Hey…! There’s a village boy over there!”

“What? A survivor!?”

At that moment, people from a neighboring village, who had discovered the village’s catastrophe shortly before Cain, mistook him for a survivor as they were escorting a high-ranking person to the scene, and rushed over.

“Well, that’s truly pitiful…”

The circumstances were such that claiming he had come looking for Ria, whom he had never met, could seem highly suspicious.

Unnecessary suspicion would only complicate matters.

He simply explained that he had come to meet a girl named Ria.

No one dislikes a tender reunion between a boy and a girl.

Though Cain hadn’t said much,

He had somehow become a village boy who had harbored a crush on Ria since childhood and had left the village for some reason.

“It’s unfortunate… but when we found it, all the villagers had vanished without a trace. Perhaps, that child named Ria too…”

“Now, now, old man. Do you really have to say such things?”

“It’s a regrettable matter, but we still have to tell him, don’t we?”

“Sigh, tsk…. To think such a natural disaster could happen.”

The people from the neighbouring village consoled Cain, who had lost his unrequited love, Ria.

The subordinate of the baron, whom the villagers had brought, also flinched at the village’s desolation, sensing this was no ordinary situation.

“…?”

Then, Cain discovered a scrap of cloth that the neighboring villagers hadn’t cleared away.

The piece of cloth he quietly picked up bore a torn fragment of an emblem belonging to a group he knew.

“……”

After roughly stuffing the cloth scrap into his bosom,

The villagers were flustered by Cain’s hurried steps.

However, their bewilderment didn’t last long.

He had taken a horse from the stables, mounted it, and had already disappeared far beyond the horizon.

“W-Wait…! If you take that horse…!”

“Leave him be. With the village in this state, what does such a trivial thing matter?”

“What do you mean trivial? Don’t you know all horse thieves are hanged?”

“…He must be the stable master’s son, man!”

Fortunately, the local baron, who pitied the village’s tragedy, did not issue a warrant for Cain’s arrest.

It seemed the boy had gone to seek revenge on those who had done this to the villagers.

How could one rebuke such a boy for riding a horse left by a fellow villager?

Based on the boy’s actions reported later,

He merely ordered a thorough investigation into the group of black mages who had turned the village into a field of ghosts.

‘The emblem on this cloth scrap…. The traces of the magic circle drawn in the village….’

‘There’s no doubt.’

‘It’s them.’

Thus, Cain had found a crucial clue to the incident.

He began to ride day and night to board a ship back to the continent of Albion.

***

“One, two, three, four!”

A bright morning deep within the Abel Forest.

Under the sunlight filtering through the dense trees,

Lin was doing her stretching exercises, an important daily routine that signaled the start of her day.

“Hoo, it’s another refreshing morning!”

Lin, stretching her limbs like a cat, wiped the morning dew from her forehead with a cheerful voice.

Perhaps it was thanks to the special meat stew she had eaten the day before.

Lin, already brimming with health and vitality, seemed even more energetic than usual.

“Hm-hm. Hmm~. Lots of delicious wild raspberries have bloomed too~.”

Having pleasantly finished her stretches, Lin picked and gathered the lusciously ripe wild raspberries.

“What are you making?”

“Hmm. Raspberry juice.”

Lin hummed a tune as she clattered various things around.

From the bag attached to her puppy’s back, she took out lemon juice and carbonated water, mixing them with the thoroughly mashed raspberries.

“Right here! I’ll make it cold with my ice water magic…!”

She raised her wand and used water magic.

She enveloped the bowl containing the raspberry juice with specially chilled water to cool it down.

“Can’t you just add that water directly to make it?”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, you’re a fool, aren’t you? Rio. Food made with magic tastes truly, teeeerribly~ awful.”

Saying that cooking only becomes true cooking when it contains love and sincerity,

Lin wagged her finger left and right at her younger brother—her dear older brother, that is.

She had said cooking was a form of alchemy,

And now it seemed she intended to master cooking in addition to being an alchemist.

“Ehehe, shouldn’t it be cool enough by now?”

Grinning, Lin poured the raspberry juice into a ‘glass cup.’

After the magitech revolution, flat, ordinary mirrors had begun to be widely distributed, but glass cups with their elegant curves were still a different story.

Considering this, it was akin to carrying jewels around, offering another glimpse into the Rosegarden family’s wealth.

“Hmm. Not bad.”

“Ah…! Who said you could eat it first!?”

But Rio snatched the cup a step ahead of his younger sister.

The two siblings bickered over a single glass of raspberry juice early in the morning.

Hearing the noise outside, a party member who had woken up late walked out of the tent.

“Eek…!”

“Are you awake?”

“Ah, Young Master…. Young Lady too….”

Unlike Rio, who greeted her leisurely,

Lin’s hand, desperately reaching to snatch the glass cup, looked quite pitiful.

Only after her older brother, having emptied about half the glass, returned it himself, could the younger sister enjoy the raspberry juice she had made.

“Sob, there’s only half left…”

“There’s still half remaining.”

A remark from her brother that was just asking for a beating.

Her younger sister, thoroughly provoked, picked up her flying broom and began to beat him relentlessly.

“No. This doesn’t do any damage…!”

“[Master! Dinavel is on standby with a jolt!]”

“Hmph. That much doesn’t hurt at all anymore.”

“Hmm, really?”

At his words that neither the broom nor Dinavel’s jolts were effective anymore, Lin’s gaze changed slightly.

“Then how about this?”

Click!

And so, Lin drew the revolver from her hip and aimed it.

“W-Wait a moment…! Young Lady!? No matter what, that’s…!”

Bang!

The party member, whose sleep had been disturbed by the estrus, was instantly wide awake, but it was already too late.

Startled by Lin’s action of ruthlessly firing the revolver as soon as she drew it, she unknowingly covered her mouth with both hands.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

And that wasn’t all.

As if unsatisfied with one shot, she fired continuously.

“Just die already!”

However, thanks to Mana Skin, one of the innate privileges of nobles, which tightly enveloped their skin, the small bullets merely felt like a sting to Rio.

But because it had a structure like tightly woven threads, it was relatively less effective against sharp weapons like swords or teeth.

Conversely, it boasted overwhelming protective performance against small, point-like weapons such as bullets or arrows.

And this was one of the biggest reasons why guns were treated as commoners’ weapons and their development was slow.

Simply throwing magic spells was more effective against both humans and monsters.

“Alright, alright, stop shooting! Yours stings more than I thought!”

“I’m shooting it so it stings…!”

Of course, it did sting when hit.

“Wh-What’s going on!?”

The other two people, startled by the continuous gunshots of the revolver, rushed out.

When they hurriedly came out of the tent….

“You, don’t you stand there!?”

A game of tag was unfolding, with the young master fleeing from his younger sister, and the young lady persistently chasing and shooting at his arms and legs.

…

That night.

In a certain old building, dormant deep within the Abel Forest.

“……”

There, where countless magic dolls and failed artificial spirits lay scattered.

An administrator entity heavily lifted its long-closed eyelids.

“……Mo, ther….”

The magic doll sensed someone’s mana reaction ‘nearby.’

Its joy at not being abandoned was brief, as it soon detected numerous life reactions as well.

“…?”

Compared to before it fell into deep hibernation,

It tilted its head at the excessively increased life reactions.

They were concentrated in one place,

And it felt a great sense of crisis from their behavior pattern of periodically traveling between the forest and that location, while gradually approaching this way.

Just then, a group of adventurers discovering the moss-covered laboratory was detected by the ‘surveillance camera.’

Assuming the concealment field was active,

They should by no means be able to see this laboratory with the naked eye.

The administrator doll, sensing something was amiss, checked the security device.

“…It’s broken, I see.”

It noticed that it had stopped working at some point, perhaps due to wear and tear over many years.

“You have worked hard all this time.”

The administrator doll commended the security device for its hard work and prayed for its repose.

As the only one awake in the laboratory, she had no choice but to go outside the building herself.

“This building is, what on earth…”

“It’s made of… iron, right? This building.”

“It might be a new type of dungeon.”

Meanwhile,

A group of adventurers, cautiously surveying the building.

Due to its utterly unfamiliar appearance, they speculated it might be a new type of dungeon.

Hiss…

“Huh? The door opened?”

“What? How?”

“No, it opened on its own.”

At that moment,

A door silently opened, emitting steam.

The adventurers, thinking it was indeed a new type of dungeon, immediately assumed combat stances.

“…Hmm?”

“A child…?”

However.

What walked out from the hazy steam was a very small, young girl.

“I-It might be a succubus. Everyone, don’t let your guard down…!”

“Wait. If what you said is true, and that’s a succubus…. …Don’t tell me you…”

The small index finger of the administrator doll, which looked like a little girl, pointed at an adventurer.

Soon, a beam of light shot out, sequentially piercing their heads and hearts.

“Another one is approaching this place.”

Despite having killed three people,

The doll flew off to eliminate the next intruder with an indifferent expression.

The doll, having eliminated all adventurers near the laboratory.

“…There’s no problem with the disposal itself, but the number of entities is too large to handle alone.”

She realized that her workforce was critically insufficient to welcome her mother, who would soon arrive.

“Before Mother returns…. I must clean everything up. Otherwise… I will surely be scolded.”

While expanding her detection range to the maximum to get an accurate estimate and counting all unnecessary life reactions,

“There were children who awakened before me.”

As soon as she noticed three useful reactions wandering nearby,

She accurately picked out Lin’s direction and looked straight at it.

“…?”

“[Dinavel?]”

“[Is it perhaps an enemy?]”

Dinavel, sensing the clash of detection waves.

While on guard duty like yesterday, she turned her gaze towards the administrator doll.

“Return at once. There is a critical mission to entrust to your sisters…”

Crackle…!

Exercising administrator authority that placed all magic dolls beneath her.

A wave carrying a coercive command was shot towards Kiriel, Dinavel, and Exia.

“Ugh…!”

“[Oooh? This is, a strange sensation.]”

“…!?”

While Lin and all other party members were asleep.

Kiriel and Exia clutched their heads at the command being issued.

Among them, Dinavel, whose detection abilities were specialized, had the worst headache, but she was more preoccupied with experiencing a sensation she had never felt before.

“Kill…? Master?”

Unlike Dinavel, who was busy enjoying the novel sensation,

Kiriel desperately resisted the command to eliminate all intruders in the vicinity, including Lin.

“…? Refused? My command?”

Thanks to her inherent ability to command other magic dolls, similar to an administrator doll, having been granted the right to issue commands in the master’s stead on-site, Kiriel succeeded in resisting the brainwashing-like order.

“Dinavel…! Exia!”

“[It’s like my head hurts so much that it doesn’t hurt anymore, you could say. Dinavel! I feel like I’m about to awaken to some new sensation!]”

“……”

Kiriel, as soon as she regained her senses, tried to override the command and assert her dominance over her younger sisters, Dinavel and Exia.

Fwoosh…!

“…!”

“[Uuunh?]”

But unfortunately.

Her youngest sister, already completely brainwashed, drew a flame-wreathed sword.

“I will purify all intruders with flames. For our, Mother…”

“[Even if your master changes, your way of speaking is the same, huh?]”

“Exia, get a grip! Your master is…!”

Kiriel tried to persuade her somehow, but Exia’s eyes were already gone.

Her youngest sister, seemingly having lost her ego, turned her gaze and looked at the tent where Lin was sleeping.

“Absolutely not!”

“[Huh? Sister Kiriel?]”

Kiriel swiftly blew Exia away with wind magic.

Exia, pushed away from her target by the surprise gust, was flustered.

“[Why are you suddenly fighting?]”

Dinavel, watching Kiriel and Exia who had abruptly started fighting, tilted her head.

Dinavel slowly toddled over to her sisters.

“Why, are you interfering?”

“You’re the one. How dare you try to kill Master because of some unknown command?”

“She’s not, my master anymore.”

“[Uuungh…?]”

Magic and sword,

Storm and flame clashed violently.

The battle between the two spirit-manifested magic dolls was considerably fierce.

And Dinavel, caught in the middle without any combat ability, unable to go either way…

“[Whichever side wins is our side!]”

She dodged the aftermath of the attacks here and there,

Cheering for both her older sister and younger sister simultaneously.