I Am a Villain, So What?-Chapter 134: Extra Privilege Item
"Transcended...?"
"Yes! I became the fear itself! I became the power that can fix everything!"
"...Hmph."
Merle smirked weakly into the dirt. If she thought becoming a monster was transcendence, there was no saving her.
"Right... Clara?" Elena turned her head.
Merle followed her gaze and doubted his eyes.
Standing behind the monstrous Elena was Clara.
Unlike Elena, whose body was a melted nightmare, Clara stood pristine. Her pink twin-tails were bouncy and soft. Her uniform was clean. Not a speck of soot or a single burn marred her skin.
It was obvious.
In the split second before the explosion, Elena had wrapped her own body around Clara, taking the full force of the Big Bang to protect her puppet.
"What... are you? Why go so far?" Merle whispered.
"Oh, I’m not like that maid," Elena hissed, touching Clara’s cheek with a clawed hand. "I don’t abandon friends to flee alone."
"Friends... friends..."
Could someone whose soul was suppressed by demonic power, whose mind was broken and used like a doll, be called a friend?
Yet, seeing the monster standing in the fire to protect the doll... it was a twisted, horrific kind of love.
Merle understood now. The reason Elena went mad.
"Were you betrayed?" he asked softly.
"...What?"
"I asked... if the real Clara betrayed you. Is that why you broke her mind? To keep her ’loyal’?"
"...."
Elena’s burn-ravaged face twisted into an indescribable, grotesque expression of rage and pain. The truth hit a nerve deep within her shattered psyche.
"SHUT UP!"
Elena raised her hand. Ominous black mana surged, forming a massive guillotine of shadow above Merle’s neck.
Merle sensed his end.
’Ah, Irina.’
Forgive your grandfather for going first. I’m sorry I couldn’t leave you a proper inheritance. But I hope the knowledge I passed to that maid will light your path...
’Master...’
The hope has surely been delivered.
Merle closed his eyes, accepting the darkness.
CRASH!
At that moment, a sound louder than thunder tore through the air. It wasn’t magic. It was the sound of something heavy slamming into the earth from a great height, cratering the ground.
And then—
BANG!
"KYAAAAAA!"
A sharp, guttural scream pierced Merle’s ears—the sound of a beast being torn apart by the jaws of a greater predator.
Sizzle.
The smell of ozone and burning demon flesh filled the air.
Merle couldn’t open his eyes immediately. His soul teetered on the edge of unconsciousness.
But a powerful, blinding White Light pierced through his closed eyelids, forcing him to look.
’Ah... this is...’
What was it like when the people of Lumeveil first saw it?
Young Merle, in his 20s, had seen it once in the distance. A light that no evil could survive. A radiance that made darkness vanish like dew before the morning sun.
Some called it Divine Punishment.
The Lumeveil Empire’s highest authorities were the Emperor and Pope, but the people’s hero was another.
The leader of the Holy Assassins. The lone warrior who cleansed the Empire’s sins with gunpowder and steel.
The Creator of the First Grade Divine Bullet.
’Holy Executioner... is it you...?’
In his fading consciousness, blurred by the intense holy light, Merle saw a figure standing atop the crater’s edge.
He wore a long, tattered black coat that billowed in the heat. In his hand was a weapon that smoked with golden light.
The figure didn’t look like a student. He looked like the Grim Reaper of the Church.
Lucien Ashborne.
But to Merle’s dying eyes, he was the legend returned.
’Hope... it was you all along...’
Merle smiled peacefully and let the darkness take him.
*****
Here is the improvised Chapter.
Chapter 153 (Part 2): The Price of Silence
Nothing remained.
Where the First-Order Divine Bullet had passed, the monstrous chimera was erased. Only a pair of legs—severed below the knees—remained standing for a split second before they, too, were consumed by white holy flames and vanished into dust.
"Manager Merle!"
I stepped toward the center of the crater.
Merle was collapsed in a heap of ash.
’?!’
Suddenly, the defensive enchantments on my boots hissed. The ground wasn’t just hot; it was a vitrified, red-hot mass of molten stone. The residual mana from the Big Bang was cooking the air itself.
I approached Merle and lifted him.
"Stay with me, old man!"
He was scalding to the touch, like handling a stone pulled from a hearth. Thanks to the traces of the Lumeveil defensive magic woven into his now-tattered suit, he wasn’t dead, but he was critical.
’Damn.’
His face was severely burned, his breathing shallow. He needed a Healer, and fast.
But first—
I turned my head to the spot where the chimera had stood.
[Skill Active: Know-It-All (Lv. 2)] [Accessing The Registry...] [Target: Deceased Remains (Ash)]
Information flooded my mind instantly.
[Name: Elena] [Age: 17] [Status: Deceased (Purified)] [Cause of Death: Divine Judgment]
’So that was her name.’
Elena.
The reason I struggled so much to find the serial killer in my memories was that her name never appeared in the original Asteria Online. Nor did her human appearance.
In the original game, the demon she thought she’d grafted onto her body had consumed her mind completely. By the time the Protagonist Party found her in the canon timeline, she was fully transformed into a mindless, grotesque demon boss.
Her humanity had been erased long before the fight began.
But that didn’t matter now.
Sizzle.
A sound made me turn.
Standing a few meters away, staring blankly at the spot where Elena died, was the girl with pink twin-tails.
Clara.
The heat was melting the soles of her academy shoes. The hem of her skirt was smoking. Yet, she stood motionless, a puppet whose strings had been cut.
I quickly checked her status.
[Status: Mind Broken / Catatonic]
’I need to take her.’
She was a witness, a victim, and the heiress to a Marquis family. Leaving her to roast in this radioactive crater wasn’t an option.
[Equipment Swap] [Equipping: Shadow-Weave Suit (Strength +20)]
My clothes shifted into the reinforced military gear I used in the tournament. I hoisted the unconscious Merle onto my left shoulder and grabbed Clara by the waist, throwing her over my right shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
She didn’t resist. She didn’t even blink.
"Let’s go."
I activated [Adrenaline Surge] and leaped out of the crater, vanishing into the night just as the sirens of the Imperial Guards began to wail in the distance.
*****
[System Notifications]
[Quest Complete: The Shadow in the Slums]
[You have defeated the Demon Summoner, Elena!] [The future of terrorizing the capital has been brilliantly altered!]
[Rewards:]
System Points: +2,000
Reputation: The Protagonist Party will remember this. (Favor Increased)
Intel: Princess Rumina acquires vague information about the event.
Loyalty: Merle vows to serve you for life.
New Feature: You’ve become the hope of the Last Alchemist! An ’Extra Privilege Item’ exclusive to Merle is unlocked!
*****
[Two Days Later - Ashborne Residence]
In the original game, the ’Slum Serial Killer Incident’ plagued the capital for two weeks, resulting in hundreds of deaths and a city-wide panic before barely being resolved.
This time, it ended in three days.
Not even public sentiment was negatively affected. The Imperial Intelligence Department didn’t even know a serial killer existed; they only rushed in due to the shock of the sudden, strategic-magic-level explosion.
Naturally, no traces of "Lucien Ashborne" remained at the scene.
The Big Bang and the Divine Bullet had erased all physical evidence. The sewers were cleared, the bodies vaporized.
My concern lay elsewhere.
I had beaten up half a dozen Sewer Guards and run through the capital carrying an unconscious old man and a noble girl. My name hitting the media seemed unavoidable. I was prepared for the scandal.
But—
I sighed, tossing the morning newspaper onto the breakfast table.
’...They didn’t even have to.’
[THE DAILY AURELIAN]
[HEADLINE: TRAGIC ACCIDENT IN THE SLUMS!]
[Ducal Daughter’s Staff Malfunctions - Massive Explosion Miraculously Harms No One]
Surprisingly, the Protagonist Party had handled the media.
The official story was that Mariella Arlon, the timid healer of the group, had been practicing with a new staff embedded with a Top-Grade Mana Stone. The stone had overloaded, causing a massive explosion in an abandoned sector. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢
The article claimed she was "deeply remorseful" and that the Arlon family would pay for all damages.
I sighed again, rubbing my temples.
’A Top-Grade Mana Stone... That’s rarer than a Platinum Knight.’
As I recalled, only two existed in the entire Aurelian Empire—one in the Imperial Treasury, and one in the Arlon Ducal Family’s vault. It was a national treasure.
Since it didn’t actually explode, the Protagonist Party likely hid the real stone somewhere to fake the evidence. But the issue was the political fallout.
Imagine the criticism Mariella would face from her family.
Despite being the eldest daughter, her timid nature already made her the family’s outcast. Now, she was the clumsy fool who "accidentally" detonated a nuclear-level artifact and destroyed a city block.
She took the fall.
She did it to hide the Big Bang (Merle’s forbidden magic) and the Divine Bullet (my forbidden power).
"...Hah!"
I couldn’t help but let out a frustrated breath.
I hated debts. Especially debts owed to people I was supposed to be antagonistic toward.
"Master?"
A soft voice broke my brooding.
"Oh, yeah?"
I looked up.
Lily was refilling my coffee, looking at me with concern. Across the table, Alicia sat—bandaged but eating heartily.
"You’ve been staring at the newspaper for ten minutes," Lily said gently. "Is it bad news?"
"No," I said, folding the paper to hide Mariella’s tearful apology photo. "Just... annoying news. It seems I have some cleaning up to do."
I stood up.
"Alicia. How are your injuries?"
Alicia swallowed a mouthful of sausage.
"Fully operational, Master. The burn cream Lily made is miraculous."
