episode_0039

The villainess quietly furrowed her brow.

-More than shining, I wished to become a star that illuminates.

A hope she had fully cherished in her childhood.

But perhaps it was due to her harsh life.

The world didn’t leave her as merely a child, and the girl had to struggle through a fierce daily life.

Just to survive.

In the end, she forgot.

Her once pure heart now held a murky hue.

It was the process of becoming an adult.

‘To protect the family from the elders… I must always show a venomous appearance.’

She hid her fragile sincerity.

So others wouldn’t look down on her, she donned an even more venomous shell.

The villainess, painting hypocrisy in her heart.

Because of that.

She sometimes felt a sense of disconnect.

As if she had become someone else.

As if the self she loved as a child was being uglily worn away with age.

The villainess occasionally regretted the dawn.

‘……Honestly, I hated it.’

Forgetting her childhood.

Even if it was an inevitable process of becoming an adult, wasn’t she parting with it too early?

There were days she agonized over such thoughts.

‘But that was the best option.’

The girl forcibly erased herself.

She changed to survive.

The doll reflected beyond the mirror felt increasingly unfamiliar.

As the aspects of herself she loved were torn away one by one, the villainess tried to fill that sense of loss with something else.

That was the recognition of others.

‘A special person.’

She wanted to be a special person.

A sparkling star.

The compulsion had soon settled into obsession.

The girl accepted that she had become an adult, and no longer suffered from reflecting on her childhood.

She thought she had become dulled.

“Run out the door immediately.”

That is, until an unthinkable statement burst from her lips.

“I’ll try to buy some time here… you at least get out alive.”

“Y-yes…?”

“I won’t be able to hold out for long.”

It was a simple change of heart.

-Emilia.

-You can forget all other words, but you must live remembering this one thing.

It was precisely then.

A nostalgic voice echoed in her ears.

-Light… only has value when there is someone to illuminate.

A situation facing death.

A forgotten phrase colored her mind.

Like her life flashing before her eyes.

“It’s fine.”

She seemed annoyed.

Her own frightened appearance, the ugly trembling, was pathetic.

She hated that.

“Because I am a special person.”

Perhaps even this was vanity.

If she survived at the threshold of death, she thought she could at least show off to that commoner.

Emilia kicked off the ground.

At the same time, she hurled her spear with full force.

Whoosh!

The javelin streaked forward at high speed.

The strike, flying like a blue thread, was soon blocked by writhing tentacles.

Subsequently, the monster’s eyes fixed on the villainess.

It groaned, its massive mouth agape.

Hundreds of eyeballs plastered all over its body simultaneously stared in one direction.

A scene beyond bizarre.

For a moment, she was tinged with fear, but she didn’t stop.

She exploded her mana even more fiercely, scattering murderous intent around her.

To surely draw the monster’s attention.

Snowflakes soared into the air.

Following the pure white afterimages, a biting wind raged.

Sharp fragments of ice struck the monster.

Perhaps surprised by the sudden rebellion of its prey, it reacted by swinging its tentacles wildly in all directions.

Soon, a roar of fury echoed.

A scream that seemed to tear eardrums.

Immediately after the unpleasant noise, the monster extended its tentacles towards Emilia as if annoyed.

It seemed considerably enraged.

The villainess hastily deployed her magic.

Crack, crunch!

The small snowflakes clumped together, forming a massive shield.

It collided with the rapidly surging tentacles.

Boom!

Perhaps it was because she poured in all her remaining mana.

Despite being a somewhat hastily constructed defense, it barely held up.

Successive impacts struck the shield.

The girl gritted her teeth and tightened her grip.

“Ugh…!”

It was a terrible struggle of strength.

A fight where the sheer size difference was mismatched. Yet, Emilia resisted, utilizing her techniques to their limits.

Crunch, crunch!

The flow of mana was meticulously adjusted.

The arrangement intricately wove them together.

Such detail condensed the coldness, forming a density comparable to steel.

Control beyond limits.

“Just a little more…!”

An untimely winter wind gathered.

Amidst the raging tempest, the girl stared wide-eyed with pure tenacity.

Her blue eyes, flickering with light.

Thud! Boom!

With each moment the tentacles struck, the laboratory resonated.

The intense bursts of sound evoked a sense of futility.

She was doing her best, but even this was ultimately just buying time.

Cracks slowly appeared on the shield.

The monster let out a shriek unlike any before.

Realizing her diminishing endurance, Emilia murmured softly.

‘Even so, this much… wasn’t it enough?’

The time the girl had bought was a staggering 21 seconds.

This was more than enough time for Regia to escape the laboratory.

‘I think I tried quite hard.’

The villainess had disliked the protagonist from the start.

A commoner who entered with excellent grades, someone with more brilliant talent than herself.

It was hard to admit that fact.

Perhaps it was jealousy.

Still.

In the end, she had won.

Regia had fled and wasn’t here, but Emilia remained alone, shining until the very end.

A nobly floating star.

She savored her pointless moral victory.

“Because I am special.”

Just as she put strength into the shield once more.

“Lady!”

Boom!

A fireball, flying from somewhere, struck the monster’s face.

The unexpected ambush made the tentacles falter.

“Ugh…!”

Emilia barely managed to restore her shield.

Where she turned her head, a pink-haired girl stood.

“You…?”

“Lady!!”

Shaking green eyes.

The villainess, seeing the protagonist, cried out in shock.

“Commoner?! Why are you still here?!”

“How could I leave the Lady alone and go!”

“I clearly told you to run away, you idiot…!”

She opened her mouth as if to rebuke, but soon realized it wasn’t the situation for that.

Because tentacles were flying down right above them.

Boom!

A heavy impact descended.

As she regulated her scattered mana, she saw Regia kneeling right beside her.

Regia placed both hands on the ground.

She drew mana around the floor as if painting.

The girl shouted.

“I’ll summon Epri! She can definitely buy enough time for the two of us to escape!”

“Weren’t you unable to use summoning magic when you were scared…?!”

“Exactly! I’ll keep trying until it works!”

“Are you crazy?!”

“There’s no other way!!”

It was a dangerous plan.

Summoning magic consumed a large amount of mana just by attempting it, so Regia could easily collapse from mana exhaustion first.

A gamble like this, when even the shield could shatter at any moment.

However.

In the current situation, it was also the most viable hope.

If she succeeded in summoning a wyvern, its unique overwhelming power could carve a path for them.

In short, it was an all-or-nothing situation.

“This is really driving me crazy…!”

Emilia frowned.

There were no other options.

The villainess finally decided to trust the protagonist’s potential and nodded.

Blue mana shimmered in all directions.

“The shield will last for one minute at most! You absolutely must succeed within that time…!”

Snowflakes spreading everywhere.

In that scene, the two of them were confronting the monster.

***

Meanwhile.

Slitted eyes dissolved in the darkness.

Beyond the thick curtain of shadows, the figures of children engaged in a fierce struggle were visible.

I was watching every scene.

“Hmm.”

I, who had been quietly humming, soon murmured a single word.

It was a reaction filled with surprise.

“Unexpected.”

The blue-haired girl.

My eyes were fixed on the villainess, who was enduring the monster’s attack.

“I hadn’t expected it at all… that she would choose sacrifice there.”

Originally, it was a stage for Regia.

The idea was for her to gain experience by facing a terrifying enemy and lead to the precursor of an awakening.

In a word, a growth event.

To create an extreme situation, I even pretended to be dead.

Since I had even embedded safety measures to prepare for any potential injuries, I thought all I had to do now was quietly observe.

“It completely deviated from the intention, you see.”

The development flowed in an unexpected direction.

At its center was Emilia Vanity, the villainess young lady who had relentlessly tormented Regia in the original work.

She volunteered to be the bait and stepped forward.

-Run out the door immediately.

Honestly, I hadn’t held any expectations.

Even if there were hidden circumstances, she was still a villain who pushed the protagonist to the brink.

I thought there would be a fixed destiny.

Therefore.

I had planned to give her a pass even if she just didn’t backstab Regia.

But Emilia actually showed potential beyond that.

-I’ll try to buy some time here… you at least get out alive.

I remember her pupils, which shone brilliantly for a moment.

Her gaze sparkled like a star. It was poignant in the face of death, yet also tenacious enough not to break.

A resolve that sent chills down one’s spine.

This time, it wasn’t just vanity.

It was a nobility that broke a predetermined fate and moved towards a new path.

I had encountered her 1943 times in my previous lives, but this life was the only one where she showed such dramatic regeneration.

She seemed to be stating proudly.

-Because I am special.

That she was a being capable of change.

Not to arbitrarily define her future, her existence, her character.

“She proved it.”

I had no choice but to acknowledge it.

The vain person who craved praise in a world where only she lived had now learned to care for others and be together.

She was no longer alone on the star.

“I praise you. This time, it will matter.”

A faint smile spread across my lips.

Shaking off the lingering emotion, I focused once again on the scene unfolding before me.

“Well… it seems the boss strategy isn’t going well for them.”

Already, 10 minutes had passed since the battle began.

The children, who had initially seemed to barely hold on, now appeared to have completely given up hope.

Their gamble had failed.

Regia, who had overexerted herself trying to summon multiple times, eventually lost consciousness, likely due to mana exhaustion.

Emilia was sitting blankly.

The unconscious protagonist was cradled in the villainess’s arms.

“Have they given up?”

In fact, it was natural for those two to lose.

Even if they had succeeded in summoning, the result would probably have been the same.

From the beginning, this stage was an event where defeat was inevitable unless one used cheats.

[EP5. Midterm Exam] -Abandoned Laboratory, The Monster That Cannot Laugh-

Boss Monster, the Monster That Cannot Laugh.

This monster was set up to be impossible to defeat in the early stages.

It’s easy to think of it as a typical guaranteed-loss event that sometimes appears in various games.

“It was closer to a stepping stone leading to the next episode.”

In the original work, Regia also loses.

The monster tied the protagonist with its tentacles and dragged her to an unknown location.

It was kidnapping the player.

The episode that followed was.

[EP6. Bergen Belsen] -The Lost Girl, The Monsters That Cannot Cry-

Originally, both episodes were parts that showed the wickedness of a black magic organization called ‘Baobab’.

This time, it was going to be a little different.

“It seems it’s about time I stepped in.”

Black mages tormenting the protagonist’s party is a sufficiently clichéd development, isn’t it?

So, wouldn’t it be okay to reverse it sometimes?

I smiled slyly.

“Hehe.”

Shadows gathered around me.

I stepped towards the outside scenery.

***

“……Is this how it ends?”

Emilia murmured blankly.

She was kneeling on the floor, waiting for the slowly approaching death.

The shield above her head was completely cracked.

“It feels so futile.”

Her voice, quietly murmuring.

The unconscious protagonist lay in the villainess’s arms.

Emilia idly stroked the pink hair.

The warm body temperature touching her fingertips felt uniquely fleeting. It made her feel alive.

She felt as though she couldn’t remain detached from the imminent end.

Thump-thump-thump-thump!

She was feigning composure, but she couldn’t deceive her own pounding heart.

Her heart pounded as if it would burst.

‘……It’s still scary, after all.’

Even though it was a choice she had made herself, tears kept flowing.

She bit her lip tightly.

Boom! Thud!

The cracks in the shield grew larger little by little.

Through the widening cracks, tentacles could be seen. They were filled with the intent to tear their prey apart at any moment.

Emilia chuckled softly.

‘I didn’t think I’d die like this.’

There was only regret.

The days she struggled desperately to survive flashed by.

Life was truly this futile.

‘I’m sorry, Ruthka.’

She had wanted to stay by his side as his only family, but in the end, she would face her end first.

If he were left alone, the family elders wouldn’t leave him be.

She was a sister lacking in many ways.

Hot tears streamed down her cheeks.

CRASH-!!

The shield finally shattered.

Through the fragments of ice, the monster’s form emerged. It was smiling with its hideous mouth agape.

The tentacles writhed and twitched, grotesquely tangled.

The gods were truly heartless.

Truth, revenge, happiness, success, love… she hadn’t achieved a single one.

To take her breath at her most pathetic moment.

“What a pity.”

She hadn’t yet uncovered the truth about her parents’ deaths.

She hadn’t been able to take revenge on the abominable family elders.

Ruthka had a fiancée. She hadn’t even seen her younger brother’s wedding.

She hadn’t achieved her dream of becoming the empire’s best ice mage.

“Even love, which I’d only read about in books… I wanted to experience it someday.”

She only murmured bitter laments.

The villainess carefully laid the protagonist’s unconscious body onto the floor.

And then she rose to her feet alone.

“……Perhaps I should have lived a little more kindly.”

It was the reminiscence of a condemned prisoner awaiting execution.

In the girl’s hand was a blue spear. It was ice, carved by squeezing out her last strength.

Perhaps due to insufficient output, it had a crude shape.

Of course, that was enough.

The girl moved her trembling arm, aiming the spear tip at the monster.

If her future was to be swept away and shattered by fate anyway.

She intended to fight until the very end in this damned tragedy.

“Haa, haa…”

As she caught her tired breath, dozens of tentacles suddenly flew rapidly towards her.

Massive whips descended above her head.

Emilia gently closed her eyelids.

‘……I just hope it doesn’t hurt too much.’

Holding a faint wish.

The surging end flashed by like a play. Just before the tentacles enveloped the girls.

Precisely then.

Slice!

A clean cutting sound that stimulated her ears.

When she opened her closed eyes, fragments of tentacles floating in the air came into view.

Every single one of them was sliced into small pieces.

“……?”

As she stared at the unreal scene, dumbfounded, a familiar voice was heard.

Jet-black shadows scattered before her eyes.

“Oh dear… truly a moment of crisis, isn’t it?”

The shadow, standing behind her at some point.

As if performing a display of affection, it rested its chin on the girl’s shoulder.

Thick golden hair shimmered in her vision.

“Lady.”

When she turned her head, what she saw was none other than a snake.

The boy, who appeared from who knows where, leaned against the villainess with a sly smile.

A wicked whisper colored her earlobe.

It was a breath that made one feel dazed just by hearing it.

“Do you need power?”

The snake flicked its tongue.

Emilia, frozen, stared at the slitted eyes.

Through the slightly parted gap, white pupils she had never seen before gazed at her.

A sticky sense of unease ran down her throat.

“I think I might be able to help you.”

The corner of its eye, smiling faintly.

Shone more dangerously than any tragedy.