Eek! Become the Villainess! Eek! 3

‘I thought she was crazy, but she’s really out of her mind.’

【This is also unexpected for me.】

Alice was inwardly horrified as she looked at Fira, whose face had become slightly younger.

Fira’s youth wasn’t just some optical camouflage magic.

Originally, Fira’s own mana, power, and presence were impossible to ignore, so in order for her to quietly infiltrate this layer, she had to look as similar as possible to an Academy student.

So, Fira lowered her abilities and level to that of an Academy student in order to infiltrate Ruincrest Academy.

She probably left behind a considerable number of maggots that filled her body.

‘No, it’s fine if it’s just power or ability, Fira can restore that anytime… but she gave up all the authority of an independent First-Class Overseer? Is she really crazy…?’

Fira was still a First-Class Overseer, but the fact that she had transferred her affiliation to the same Rilstia Administrator as Alice was significant.

To put it bluntly, it was like a king who ruled a country bowing his head and entering another force.

The numerous rights that Fira possessed alone were special, something that even ordinary First-Class Overseers could not have, but Alice couldn’t understand why Fira had voluntarily given them all up.

For reference, Alice’s goal was also a position like Fira’s.

To be able to enjoy the power and benefits of a First-Class Overseer without being interfered with by anyone.

She didn’t want to become a Demon King again and be responsible for something.

“Fira. I’m not that great of a person… well, I am, but I’m not great enough for you to give up your rights.”

“Oh my, what are you saying! Our Alice has much greater potential than she seems! Besides, this girl has already fallen for Alice’s charm, so shouldn’t you take responsibility for me?”

“No, you unilaterally, suddenly… just fell in love out of the blue.”

No, was she even in love in the first place?

Theresa, does this body have some kind of charm or fascination ability that I don’t know about?

But Theresa said, ‘There is no such low-level magic or power in a human body, and it is presumed that Fira Dunhill is purely in love. Even if she was under something close to fascination, that’s not the human’s problem, but Fira Dunhill’s problem,’ so Alice was just embarrassed.

‘It’s not like I hate Fira…’

Honestly, she didn’t hate her at all.

It would be strange if she wasn’t tempted by a pretty woman like Fira saying she liked her.

What?

Isn’t the inside maggots?

If you think about it that way, people are also a collection of small and grotesque things called cells.

Saying that Fira’s body is made of maggots is actually more accurately expressed as being made of large cells that can handle mana.

Fira can have sex just like humans and have children, just like her appearance as a roll-bun-haired beauty. If she wants, she can completely seal her identity as a descendant of Beelzebub and live as 100 percent human.

But the reason Alice refused Fira was clear.

Fira was suddenly shouting about marriage as if she had gone crazy, so she wondered if her mind was contaminated with something. The Ark wasn’t a peaceful era right now either. Fira and Alice were not in a time to settle down and live happily ever after.

Alice wasn’t the type to coldly reject the affection that came to her, but no matter how she thought about it, Fira’s excessive affection was too sudden without context, so even if she wanted to accept it, her heart wouldn’t open easily.

“Hehehe, this girl knows. That this feeling is held by this girl, not Alice.”

“But why did you come here? Besides, I’m on a stealth mission…”

“Isn’t it obvious that it’s to make Alice fall in love with this girl?”

“……”

It’s not that she dislikes Fira, but her actions are strangely fast, and the direction is hard to predict.

Is this the qualification of a First-Class Overseer and Commander-in-Chief of the Outer Expedition Team?

“Don’t worry! This girl came to help Alice rather than hinder her mission! If this girl helps Alice, of course, her affection for this girl will increase, and someday Alice will also dream of the marriage that only I dreamed of…!”

“I want to refuse here, but I won’t say anything for now because I don’t know what will happen…”

“Oh my, oh my! Does that mean Alice also feels responsible for making this girl fall in love?! Then let’s get married as soon as this mission is over!”

“Sister, what are you talking about? Responsibility? Marriage?”

Taylor’s eyes were filled with shock, as if she had followed them without realizing it.

Sister is getting married?

She became the adopted daughter of the Arbentaine Family, so what is this?

Could it be that sister was also a playboy like Dehite?

Before coming here, did she sleep with, seduce, and charm everyone regardless of gender?

Come to think of it, sister is being too nice to me right now, and there’s a lot of skinship…?

Taylor recalled when she encountered Alice coming out of her mother Jess’s room four weeks ago.

Her mother was only covered in a blanket, crying.

According to her mother and Alice’s explanation, nothing happened that day, and it was just an adopted daughter and stepmother greeting each other, but in fact, questions and doubts still remained somewhere in Taylor’s heart.

“Y-Yeah, I knew it. Sister was a playboy after all! Just like that trash Dehite…!”

Before Taylor’s expression darkened further, Alice decided to explain quickly.

“Hey, my sister! That’s not it, so stop with the weird delusions!”

“…Really?”

However, perhaps thanks to the kindness and goodwill that Alice had shown as a sister over the past four weeks, Taylor easily believed her words.

“Yeah, this woman is…”

“This girl’s name is Pyon Dunhill!”

“Py… ha, yeah. Pyon just met me by chance when I was passing through the layer and we started talking. She always exaggerates her actions and words, but she’s a weird kid, but she’s not a bad kid…”

“…Really?”

“I don’t lie to my sister.”

Alice, as if already used to it, put her hand on Taylor’s cheek and gently stroked it.

Taylor blushed at the brief warmth and nodded. Pyon, who was watching this, had the words ‘This girl is envious too! Do it for this girl too!’ rising to her throat, but she held back because she might ruin Alice’s favor by not reading the atmosphere.

“Haa, I understand. Let’s focus on the liberal arts class for now. My precious sister’s test, which is like a real battle, is waiting, so we can’t just waste time chatting, right?”

“Okay. But…”

Taylor’s sharp gaze turned to Fira.

Taylor’s nerdy appearance when she encountered Britney and the young ladies’ group was nowhere to be found.

The sense of crisis that she might lose her sister Alice seemed to have temporarily grown Taylor.

“You have to tell me who that strange woman is.”

“A strange woman?! This girl is Pyon Dunhill!”

“Don’t lie. It’s obviously an alias.”

“Oh my, you have a good sense, don’t you think?”

In fact, Taylor didn’t like the woman who suddenly appeared, Fira… no, Pyon Dunhill, at all.

Alice’s sister is me. Why is some rootless woman who doesn’t know where she came from suddenly interfering?

In fact, this practical lesson was rumored to be difficult at Ruincrest Academy, and it was classified as dangerous because it felt the same level of pain and sensation as reality.

The score itself was high, and it was a great class because it could improve practical sense and ability, but Taylor’s purpose was based on the idea that she could overcome adversity and hardship with Alice alone and develop sisterly affection.

“Don’t worry. Since class is class, this girl will help you too.”

“I only need my sister? Why are you trying to interfere on your own?”

“Hehehe, isn’t the student’s duty to improve their abilities through grades and practical training? This girl, who is a First-Class Overseer and a senior…”

“Pyon.”

At Alice’s point, Pyon closed her lips.

“Pyon is from a hunter background, so she’s been rolling around a lot, so she’ll be helpful in class. Taylor also said she was curious about how hunters live and how they attack dungeons, right?”

“When did I…?”

“Um, you did. 3 weeks ago. You muttered it in passing. Maybe.”

“Sister has a good memory. You remember what I said in passing 3 weeks ago?”

In fact, Taylor had never said such a thing, but human memory is not accurate, so if you speak shamelessly enough to be natural, people often believe it.

★

★

★

Ruincrest Academy is not a peaceful Academy.

On the surface, you may see young ladies enjoying tea time with bright smiles, and passionate young people engaging in friendly sparring.

However, this is a place where the number of people who die in Duel Trials in a year is in the triple digits, and power struggles between the upper classes are secretly unfolding inside and outside the Academy. The impact naturally extends its demonic hands to the inside of the Academy.

Beneath the glittering skyscrapers and flawless luxurious facilities, there were the corpses of innocent students, the struggles of the upper classes, and the hands of the Arbentaine Family, who were working in advance to transform the Ruincrest layer into a hub of rebellion.

And, of course, the Academy students crave their own survival and success.

“Is that Alice Arbentaine?”

“That’s right.”

Some Academy students, led by a student wearing glasses, were looking at Alice in groups.

She is the person rumored to have killed a student in a Duel Trial on her first day of enrollment at the Academy four weeks ago.

Duel Trials are not so rare at Ruincrest Academy, but it was a different story if the target was Dehite, the eldest son and scoundrel of the Arbentaine Family.

Rumor has it that he was not simply defeated, but that Dehite’s limbs were torn apart and displayed in colorful magic engineering streetlights.

“It’s strange. How could the Arbentaine Family not take revenge on the woman who killed their eldest son, but rather offer her the position of successor?”

“I heard that other kids are already wagging their tails trying to look good.”

“That’s not important. We have to properly uncover Alice’s identity in today’s virtual dungeon entry. If possible, not only her identity but also her purpose.”

These are students of Ruincrest Academy, but at the same time, they were not students.

To be exact, they were also infiltrators like Alice.

“She killed that scoundrel? I’m curious about how good she is?”

“Don’t let your guard down.”

“It’s a virtual dungeon with a magnification of 240x. Capture her and interrogate her. Or build friendship and extract information.”

Alice was an infiltrator from the Central Administration, but these students were a kind of infiltrator dispatched from the high-ranking families of the Ruincrest layer to collect information inside the Academy and for the power struggles between the high-ranking nobles.

In other words, they were also the core personnel of the rebellion to filter out the infiltrators of the Central Administration who might be in the Academy.

That’s the setting on the surface.

“Is it Countess Margarita’s order?”

“It’s not just the Countess. Everyone is dreaming of a great cause, so it’s a sensitive situation. They want more reliable information.”

“It’s not just the Countess, which means…”

“That’s right.”

But their real identity was not the henchmen of high-ranking nobles.

“We received a call from [Coffee Tree].”

Rebellion, whether the person intended it or not, involves the entire layer.

And the upper classes naturally raised their voices and wanted to participate in the Arbentaine Family’s ‘great cause’, but conversely, there were also those who wanted to stop the great cause.

They saw the possibility of success in the great cause as low, or rather, they knew their place well, so they thought that a direct confrontation with Ark Central was impossible.

The Arbentaine Family calls them cowardly anti-rebellion factions, but they call themselves various names such as resistance or liberation front.

Of course, they didn’t really have the grand purpose of liberating the Ruincrest layer from the Arbentaine Family.

Most of them were just afraid of rebellion, and afraid of losing everything if they rebelled and went wrong. In other words, the expression that they are cowards who are content with their current lives would be accurate.

But their names or the reasons for their opposition were not important.

It was important for them to stop the ‘great cause’ that the Arbentaine Family was preparing and to extinguish the embers that could burn the entire layer early on.

“Then what is the exact content from Coffee Tree?”

“It’s obvious. Investigate Alice and persuade her if her purpose matches ours.”

“Simple.”

“What if the purpose doesn’t match?”

“Kill her. We can’t leave a variable greater than Dehite.”