“Anyway, it worked out well! Now we don’t have to wander around looking for those people while exhausted. Let’s quickly see what there is to see, then all go rest together?”
Suddenly Pret stuck his head in front of mine, blocking my view, and said this. Could he possibly be under the mistaken impression that I was feeling envy or complicated emotions after seeing Hailga in her father’s arms?
The thought that suddenly occurred to me was quite unsettling, but this wasn’t the time to offer explanations.
“See…?”
The one who reacted most noticeably to Pret’s remark was the Confession Villain.
His voice was filled with bewilderment, and his face clearly showed he had no idea what was going on, as if it had been written on his forehead: “What is that commoner suddenly talking about?”
He didn’t even seem to suspect that he himself was the spectacle.
So I decided to remind him of what he ought to be doing by addressing him as follows.
“Ah, right. Since you’re here, don’t just stand there. Finish your business and get lost.”
“What?”
“You came here to apologize to the father and daughter of House Bitnir, didn’t you?”
Sure enough, Dyuf’s eyes widened in surprise, apparently having heard nothing from the Villain Brothers or Valtraus.
But the person whose reaction I needed to pay attention to right now wasn’t him.
My gaze turned back to the Confession Villain.
“Here? Right now…?”
His face stiffened as he glanced around at the surroundings.
The action was filled with discontent—complaining about having to apologize in this spot with so many eyes watching.
But even if I sent the onlookers away, that discontent wouldn’t disappear.
Rather, he might think I was cutting him some slack, become arrogant again, and spew even more complaints before trying to rise up.
“This doesn’t seem right.”
“What doesn’t seem right?”
“Hailga and Professor Dyuf are nobles if anything… but those two are insignificant commoners, aren’t they?”
Still harping on status—he truly is a consistently unpleasant person in the worst way.
The Villain Brothers, by using Dyuf to get here, proved once again that they were utterly rotten trash.
Even this alone should have completely blocked any possibility of ending this episode in a relatively mild way through a humiliating apology.
‘This is truly without limit…!’
The villain’s gaze briefly swept over Svein before landing on Pret’s face.
That glare at Pret was filled with anger.
He must have realized that Pret had treated him as a spectacle.
‘Is he going to try and kill Pret because of that…?’
No matter how exhausted he might be, Pret is the heir to the Information Guild Leader.
For someone like that to be killed by a villain who got beaten up by Hailga would be far too lacking in plausibility.
So I didn’t need to worry about that.
‘Should I just redirect the aggro toward Pret?’
This thought briefly crossed my mind, but I couldn’t adopt that method.
Not only could an innocent circus troupe elsewhere get caught in the crossfire, but if things went wrong, that vented anger might spread to another commoner like Svein. If that happened, the Original Work Betrayer would see me as the root cause of the problem and try to kill me.
After all, an enemy within is more dangerous than an enemy without.
Exchanging the murderous intent of a Confession Villain for that of the Original Work Betrayer is something no fool would do.
‘Besides, I don’t want to see that villain blathering nonsense about status differences and acting cocky… and giving him any pretext to get involved with the members of the Awakened Special Class later would be bad!’
Fortunately, the Original Protagonist was standing beside me.
After I drew the aggro, I could just hide behind the Original Protagonist, who couldn’t die no matter what, using him as a shield.
Considering that my possession body is a member of a dukedom.
Even if I didn’t actually get hurt, the mere fact that I was targeted would not only get the Confession Villain expelled from the Academy, but…
‘The readers of the original work will also be satisfied with the level of punishment he receives!’
Having organized my thoughts like that, I glanced at the Original Protagonist.
For reference, as soon as the Villain Brothers appeared in the distance, he quickly turned around, took out a spare eyepatch from his Inventory, and put it on.
So, with one golden eye, he faced me and silently mouthed, “Why?”
Naturally, it was impossible to answer why I was looking at him.
That was because I was planning to draw aggro because the villain might try to harm someone.
If he really did rush at me, I wanted him to stop it.
Saying something like that would only invite the question of why I was doing something so dangerous.
Moreover, the opponent was someone who had been unilaterally beaten by Hailga, and I was even anticipating his surprise attack.
I could handle it on my own.
But still, I couldn’t explain that I had prepared a safety net called the Original Protagonist just in case.
So, without saying anything to Reysir, I just turned my head sharply and threw my gaze at the Confession Villain.
Then, I curled one corner of my mouth into a mocking smile and fired off a provoking remark.
“You can’t apologize because commoners are watching? Don’t you think that’s rather new? After all, the evening before last, even more people were watching you. And among them, there must have been commoners, no?”
As if recalling that memory, the Confession Villain trembled with shame and let out a sound like “Kkeuk…!”
If I stopped here, his anger would likely turn toward the relatively weaker target, Hailga.
“I hear that you entered the Academy before the Demonic Realm was even cleared. If that’s the case, you should have naturally expected that they would be with us while we were participating in the Boss Monster raid? Or did you not even have that much intelligence?”
“How could that possibly be?!”
The Confession Villain denied it with a flushed face, even raising his voice.
Seems like he didn’t want to be treated like an idiot.
“If that’s the case, it’s even stranger.”
“What is?”
“If you hadn’t steeled yourself to apologize to the father and daughter of House Bitnir in front of all of us, including those commoners, then why on earth did you enter the Demonic Realm before the raid was over?”
“Well, the Young Lords entered first, so…”
“Ah, so you thought that if my brother and I were going in, it couldn’t be that dangerous? Compared to your abilities and your brother’s, my brother’s and mine aren’t that impressive, right?”
I interrupted the Confession Villain’s words and demanded an answer, pretending to be angry.
My words seemed to have struck a nerve, as Valtraus scowled deeply, and his familiar Rascatl growled threateningly at the villain.
It was only natural that the Confession Villain flinched and quickly started denying it.
“No! That’s not what I meant!”
“If not that, then what? Did you intend to push us toward death by interfering while my brother and I were struggling against the monsters?”
“How could that be?!”
“Why not? Both motive and opportunity were fully met.”
“Huh? What do you mean by that?”
“You looked down on the Bitnir father and daughter just because they were from a mere viscount’s family, and you were adamantly against apologizing to them, weren’t you? But because of me, you were forced into a situation where you had to apologize to them, and just then, my brother and I entered a dangerous monster den. It wouldn’t be strange if you couldn’t resist the impulse.”
“Don’t slander me with such nonsense!”
Well? I wouldn’t say it’s complete nonsense.
Even if the target of harm might not have been me and Valtraus.
If the Villain Brothers had arrived before the Boss Monster raid ended, they would have surely interfered, and because of that, someone might have died.
“If not that… did you plan to get hurt by the Boss Monster’s attacks on purpose, and then blame us Awakened for failing to properly protect you non-Awakened? Self-harm blackmail—how absurd. The duty of an Awakened is to defeat the Boss Monster and clear the Demonic Realm, not to protect non-Awakened.”
After securing the villain’s promise to apologize, while returning to the Academy, I witnessed the Demonic Realm appear.
At that time, I predicted that the Confession Villain would likely barge in while we were fighting the Boss Monster.
As it turned out, he arrived well after it was over.
‘Maybe because the Original Protagonist Reysir triggered a new skill awakening event, the intrusion event got pushed down in priority and was canceled?’
Anyway, it helped a lot that I had anticipated these various developments ahead of time.
I never expected it would be used to psychologically pressure and provoke the villain, rather than to prevent his trolling.
“Since the Demonic Realm was cleared before you could reach us, either way, it’s quite a shame for you.”
“Neither of those is the case…!”
“You don’t give a proper explanation, just stubbornly deny it, so how can I believe you?”
“You didn’t even give me a chance to explain in the first place!”
“Did I? Wasn’t it because you couldn’t come up with an excuse right away that you just stood there speechless?”
“Th-this…!”
If until now it was just that he hadn’t had a chance to speak because I was talking so much, now anger sealed the Confession Villain’s lips.
Judging by his trembling fists and bloodshot eyes glaring at me, he was properly furious.
No wonder, even when given a chance to explain, he couldn’t form a proper sentence.
“What Young Lord Karbaldr just said is flawed.”
The older brother villain stepped forward, hiding his younger brother behind him, and spoke.
Though he couldn’t fully conceal the antipathy on his face, he was quite calm compared to his younger brother, who had reacted violently with raised voice.
“And what is that?”
“If we had intended to harm the Young Lords by framing it as a monster’s doing, we wouldn’t have asked that professor to accompany us. Because he would become a witness and report us. Besides, entering the Demonic Realm was our own choice, wasn’t it? If we complained about not being protected, who would listen to us? They would just think it was our own doing.”
That was a fairly reasonable argument.
However, it was by no means a perfect logic that left no room for rebuttal.
Woah, thanks for the new chapter!