I Am a Villain, So What?

"Like us, the monsters have a strict chain of command," I explained, shifting into my analytical mindset. "Whether it’s an army of humans or a horde of beasts, ’suicide missions’ can only be carried out under direct orders. A feral beast will flee to save its own life. A soldier will march to his death if his commander demands it."

"Hmm." Rumina nodded slowly, gesturing for me to continue.

Intrigued by the hypothesis, Arthur leaned forward. "Then who is it? Are you suggesting there is a stronger beast out there capable of gathering and organizing the disparate monster tribes? I’ve commanded Winterguard for years, and I’ve never seen such a creature."

"Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it isn’t there, Commander," I replied bluntly. "There is always a bigger, stronger monster. And this one is highly intelligent."

I pointed to the patched sections on the wall’s blueprint.

"They aren’t just harassing the engineers; they are probing us. They are intentionally denying us the time to mend the physical walls and stabilize the mana barrier, all while treating the lesser monsters as completely expendable fodder. They are systematically feeling out our defenses to find a definite structural weak point. Once they find it, they will bring the main force and destroy it all at once."

I looked up, meeting Arthur’s grim eyes.

"This is all far too coordinated to be dismissed as standard, feral monster attacks. There is a commander out there in the Wilderness. And they are currently concentrating the most intelligent and powerful monsters for a massive, organized siege."

At that hypothesis, the warm office went deathly silent.

The monsters of the Wilderness were already a massive headache purely due to their vast numbers and raw physical strength. The terrifying idea of them being organized, disciplined, and tactically coordinated... that was a worst-case scenario that Winterguard was simply not prepared for.

Arthur’s face was pale. He rubbed his face with a scarred hand, letting out a heavy breath.

"That... is a grave assumption, Cadet Lucien," Arthur said, trying to maintain his authoritative composure in front of the Princess. He waved a hand toward the door. "You are dismissed. Return to your quarters. This matter will need to be thoroughly investigated by the veteran scouts before we jump to any apocalyptic conclusions."

"Understood, Commander," I nodded.

I bowed deeply to Princess Rumina one last time, eager to escape her suffocating, amused gaze, and quickly exited the office, leaving the two leaders to process the grim reality of the impending siege.

******

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The heavy bronze bells of Winterguard began to toll, the frantic, deafening sound cutting through the freezing wind.

A sinister, suffocating energy stirred from the dense fog out in the desolate Wilderness, rolling toward the patched barrier like a tidal wave.

Below us, the heavy iron portcullises of the prison block ground open. One by one, the death-row inmates crawled out into the biting cold. They were shoved down the narrow path leading to the open barrier gates, armed with crude spears and battered shields. The formal soldiers fell into formation behind them, ready to hold the bottleneck, while the knights and archers lined the high fortress walls.

"Hey, Madman."

A knight stationed to my left called out, leaning against the frozen parapet. It seemed my nickname among the local garrison had already firmly solidified.

"Cheer up," he grinned, tapping my shoulder with a gauntleted hand. "I bet my month’s pay on ’today’."

The betting pool. He was betting that I would die on my very first day of combat. He wasn’t underestimating me; he was just addicted to gambling in a place where life had zero value.

"Don’t feel safe just because you’re standing on the high wall right now," the knight droned on, his breath misting. "After the prisoners and the infantry get chewed up, it’s our turn. There are plenty of beasts out there that can climb the masonry, smash the gates, or just leap right over us from the air. Do you understand the situation now, rich boy?"

I ignored his annoying babble. My eyes were fixed on the tree line.

Through the distant, swirling snow, the monsters finally revealed themselves. A chaotic, writhing mass of corrupted beasts emerged from the fog, all madly rushing toward the fortress.

"Don’t let your guard down just because it’s not the dead of winter!" Commander Johny roared, his voice amplified by mana. "A single beast from the Outside can cause a dozen casualties if it breaches the line! Hold your positions!"

All the humans gathered to defend the barrier tightened their grips on their weapons. Most of them had likely already made their peace with death.

My eyes darted upward. The most dangerous threats weren’t the ones charging the gate; they were the winged beasts launching themselves into the grey sky. Monsters that could ignore the physical barrier were the main culprits in taking the lives of the knights stationed on the wall.

It turned out the annoying gambler beside me wasn’t entirely wrong.

...Hmm. That’s a lot of them in the air.

’System.’

"Huh? What did you say?" the knight beside me asked stupidly, blinking at me.

’System. Purchase as many low-grade magic bullets as my remaining points can afford. And since my Winchester broke yesterday... I need a new long-range rifle.’

[Purchasing: 50x Low-Grade Magic Bullets. Points Deducted.]

[Purchasing: ’Blackwood’ Bolt-Action Sniper Rifle. Points Deducted.]

The heavy, perfectly balanced rifle materialized seamlessly into my hands, pulling directly from my spatial pouch inventory. This was going to be one hell of a fight.

The knight beside me stopped talking. He stared blankly at the massive, dark-barreled gun I had just pulled out of nowhere. While a few knights had never seen firearms up close before, their attention was quickly dragged back to the horrific scene unfolding in front of the walls.

"Archers! Aim!" Johny commanded.

Hundreds of bowstrings were drawn taut.

"Fire!!"

A volley of arrows rained down. But the monsters from the ’Outside’ were of a completely different class. No matter how low their rank, their hides were thick, mutated, and inherently resistant to physical damage. Ordinary soldiers found it difficult to pierce their skin even with heavily enchanted arrows. The volley merely slowed the horde down, without significantly reducing their numbers.

I raised the Blackwood rifle, pressing the stock firmly against my shoulder. I didn’t aim at the horde on the ground. I aimed up. I channeled a thin, highly compressed thread of Divine Force from the Rosary of the Weeping Saintess directly into the chamber.

BANG!

The deafening crack of the rifle echoed over the battlefield, completely distinct from the twang of bowstrings.

A streak of pure, white-gold light tore through the freezing air. It struck a massive, winged Gargoyle mid-flight. The divine-imbued magic bullet didn’t just pierce its thick, stony hide; it detonated inside the creature’s chest, entirely obliterating its corrupted core.

The beast shrieked and plummeted out of the sky, crashing into the snow below.

Click-clack. I racked the bolt, ejecting the smoking brass, and fired again.

BANG!

Another winged beast dropped. Then a third. Then a fourth.

Commander Johny, standing further down the wall, saw the scene clearly. The moment he had shouted "Fire!", bullets had buzzed past his flank like streaks of miniature lightning, and the most dangerous aerial threats had immediately started dropping out of the sky like flies.

Johny’s jaw tightened in sheer disbelief. What in the Gods’ names? To veteran knights, guns were considered nothing more than fancy, outdated gimmicks from a bygone era—loud, inaccurate toys that lacked the raw destructive output of high-tier magic or Aura.

Are firearms truly this effective? Should I request the higher-ups in the Capital to supply us with guns? Johny thought wildly.

It was a complete pipe dream. Guns were still just gimmicks; it was Lucien’s absurd combination of Firearm Proficiency, magic bullets, and Divine Force that was completely abnormal. But Johny didn’t know that.

Johny traced the trajectory of the light. He saw where it came from. He saw the disgraced heir of the Ashborne family, standing perfectly calm amidst the chaos, holding a long-barreled rifle and continuously firing with terrifying, mechanical precision.

Johny had genuinely thought the boy was just a naive kid. A pampered child who didn’t know the heavens from the earth, coming to the North just to die a freezing death. He had expected to see the corpse of a boy who wasn’t even a legal adult by the end of the week.

But at this exact moment, amidst the blood and the screaming wind, the boy stood more proudly and lethally than any veteran on the wall.

It was entirely possible for me to eliminate the majority of the monsters currently invading. After all, the numbers in this specific wave weren’t overwhelming.

Their tactical objective was merely to disrupt the repair of the barrier, so the commander out in the Wilderness had only sent a small skirmish force. That made it easy to pick them off.