I Will Create a Good Ending for the Yandere Villainess-Chapter 317: Autonomous Parasites?
"No... I didn’t expect you to play fair at all. After all, you’re too much of a loser to play by the rules..."
Thalrek’s right eye twitched at her words, slightly agitated. Just as he was about to respond to Lillian’s blatant insult, he narrowed his eyes.
Right beside Lillian, a puddle of water manifested and as though it was a mirror into another world, a strange figure crawled out before assuming the shape of the human beside it.
Short hair, a jagged and unstable mask, a cloak, and a chestplate.
It was a carbon copy of Lillian, except in a liquid form.
Thalrek huffed, slightly impressed, "So your Affinity is high enough to do that, huh? I doubt you have enough mana to sustain it or create more."
He then grinned mockingly.
"Or even worse! I doubt you have enough mental capacity to even control it while you fight your own share!"
Lillian glanced to the side, eyeing her clone before internally nodding at the Puppeteer’s words.
He was right; if your mind wasn’t capable of achieving some form of parallel thinking, you would struggle, especially in a battle like this.
As she was thinking this, the enemy began to move in towards her, rushing her from almost all sides. However, right as she was about to move, her clone dashed forward without her consent.
The cultist it was targeting raised its sword, imbuing it with mana and splitting it in half.
The cultists around him moved and swarmed the clone with attacks, shattering its humanoid form—the most common way of defeating an elemental clone.
Her clone splashed over the cultists, staining their clothes with water.
This sight brought a mocking laughter to escape from Thalrek’s throat as he uncontrollably slapped the armrest of his throne.
"That’s it!? What? First time controlling a separate body?! KYAHAHAHA!"
Thalrek was an expert when it came to controlling multiple vessels at once, his mind being strong enough to handle the strain. So when he saw Lillian’s pitiful attempt at his craft, he couldn’t help but feel even more superior.
Lillian, listening to his cackling mockery, didn’t pay much heed; instead, she focused on the cultist her clones splashed onto.
Those cultists, seeing that there wasn’t anything wrong, turned back to Lillian, intending to go through with their attacks...
Until...
They were met with another approaching clone that charged towards them aimlessly.
The enemies raised their weapons and destroyed the clones without any issues besides being stained in water, causing irritated groans to resound from their mouths.
Thalrek, seeing this, couldn’t help but laugh even more.
Of course.
That was until he heard Lillian’s voice resound inside the hall.
"How knowledgable are you on the topic of Parasites?"
***
"I can’t get this thing down!" Lillian groaned, standing inside a dark cave with torches hanging on the side.
She raised her arm, willing the clone to do the same, but found it only raised it halfway before feeling an uncomfortable strain squeeze on her brain.
She massaged the side of her skull, unable to comprehend controlling a clone.
In theory, the art of controlling a clone should be that you send a bit of your consciousness into it and control it like that. However, that was far harder in practice.
Possibly because she was doing this for the first time.
She looked back with a pleading look, finding Marionette quietly staring at her attempts.
"Do I have to share parts of my consciousness or can I just move it normally?"
Marionette shook her head.
"Sharing parts of your consciousness would allow far more control and an increased range in your control. They’re also meant to feel like a separate body from yourself."
She then paused before adding:
"You can’t make it feel like a separate body if you’re just controlling it as a basic construct."
"How is creating an exact copy of myself a basic construct!?"
"Exact copy?"
Marionette moved over to the clone and scrutinised it. After walking around and checking out its features, she shook her head.
"The design isn’t an exact copy of yourself, Lillian."
Lillian, hearing what she said, sighed:
"I didn’t mean it literally. Now, could you teach me how to do it?"
"Aren’t I teaching you now?" Marionette raised an eyebrow as she cupped the clone’s cheek, still scrutinising its features.
"Well... Yeah, I guess..." Lillian muttered in a defeated tone.
Marionette turned around and nodded before summoning a dark clone, but not of herself, but of Lillian.
"Truthfully, there isn’t a better way to my knowledge on improving your control over your clones besides practice."
After saying that, she made the dark Lillian do a twirl, followed by rapid and meticulous movements.
A few moments after, Marionette made another clone of Lillian, then another, then another, and then made them all fight each other.
Currently, there are four dark Lillians fighting each other in the tunnel.
"Unfortunately, I am only able to control four at a time before I begin feeling something."
She looked away from the fighting clones and back to Lillian, finding her gaping at her dark selves.
She knew how hard it was to make a single one. And that one barely did what she wanted. So the fact that Marionette was able to quadruple what she did and more left her speechless.
"D-... Doesn’t that use up a lot of mana?"
"It takes a percentage." Marionette nodded stoically before causing the clones to vanish from existence.
Lillian gave an exasperated sigh. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺
"This is going to take a while, huh...?"
"..."
Marionette stared at the white-haired girl with her arms folded.
She then said:
"That’s only if you don’t make use of what you have."
Lillian, tilting her head at the question, repeated:
"Make use of... What I have...?"
What did she have? She didn’t have any items on her that could prove rather helpful in this endeavour.
As she was thinking about it, it finally hit her.
"Are you referring to my Parasitic Element?"
This confused the girl. How could this element help her?
Sure, it may be able to sustain the clone for longer, but other than that, it shouldn’t be able to help.
Marionette nodded and said:
"In our classes about magic with the Sorceress, the first lesson she spoke about the forms we shape our element to be."
She then eyed Lillian:
"The form you gave your element completely leaned into the fact that parasites leech things from others. But besides that, you didn’t do much."
Lillian raised an eyebrow before slowly widening her eyes as Marionette went on. The Assassin was right; she hadn’t truly done much outside of draining her opponents’ mana, stamina, or vitality.
Of course, there was one time where she made use of a monster’s body warmth as time bombs, but the conditions for that were that the monster needed to emit and create enough heat for that to happen.
She definitely couldn’t do it for a regular person.
As she was in deep thought, an oversized rodent slowly appeared in their tunnel and began making its way towards them.
Marionette hummed at the sight of it before moving behind Lillian, patting the girl’s shoulder on the way.
"Try your best. You have a good lab rat in front of you."
Lillian watched as the Assassin hid behind her. She gave a hesitant look before looking back towards the rodent.
She raised her hand and concentrated, creating another clone made of water.
She then thought carefully about the form that she wanted her Parasitic element to be... Perhaps she should have some fun with it; it was her ability after all.
After imbuing her clone with water, she watched it twitch after a moment of imbuing before rushing towards the large rodent fiercely.
Splash!
Its body crashed into the monster and exploded, splashing it.
Despite the fact that her clone barely did any damage, Lillian couldn’t help but widen her eyes at the discovery of what her clone had just done.
It... Moved on its own...
Looking back, she faced the Assassin, who smiled softly at her achievements.
She then heard her say:
"Congratulations. You made an autonomous attack clone. How about we delve more into this spell of yours?"
She then paused and asked:
"Have you thought about what we will be doing on our date?"
***
"How knowledgeable are you on the topic of Parasites?" Lillian’s random question sliced through the air like butter, sinking into the enemy’s mind as they froze.
Her words even caused the scrawny man to stop laughing maniacally. He shifted his expression to one of confusion.
Right as he was about to open his mouth and inquire about the strange question, his cultists below began to act strangely.
Those who were splashed by the clones suddenly found themselves weakened.
The water that had stained their clothes rose from it, shaping into a clone of Lillian.
Every cultist that were in the splash radius had now contributed to the creation of Lillian’s clones that slowly grew in numbers.
Thalrek couldn’t believe his eyes.
He then thought back to Lillian’s earlier question.
Parasites...
Parasites...
The same word rang inside his mind. And finally, that was until he finally grasped it.
And his theory was later confirmed by Lillian’s next words.
