I'm in Love with the Villainess!-Chapter 44: A Glimpse of Attraction...?
"Enough!"
Julius screamed, the tendrils completely disintegrating from the sheer aura that his spell was emitting.
Light Guardian... an advanced defensive light spell that allowed someone to passively block attacks as long as the spell was maintained.
And along with it came a special new look of big, glowing translucent wings that radiated from his back, along with a halo.
An angelic look, a perfect fit for light magic.
"Unbelievable..."
Evelina muttered, crossing her arms. Did she literally just see someone achieve a breakthrough using the power of love or something?
She thought she had already seen enough of that through me, albeit twisted; what she didn’t expect was for someone like Julius to also do the same.
Literally growing stronger just to protect Lillian.
[Dark Fireball]
Evelina finally had enough of playing around, sick of having her fun ruined by Julius.
It was time she now used actual spells instead of just relying on simple manipulation.
But Julius wasn’t fazed one bit; his spell casually destroyed the fireball before it even got a chance to touch his uniform.
An advanced light spell against a basic dark spell, of course, he would win.
But even if Evelina wanted to crush Julius with her full strength.
She didn’t want to reveal her full power just yet... her entire persona and influence came from secrecy and fear.
If she were to show even the slightest bit of effort here, it would make anyone who hated her see a small glimpse of weakness.
Because if she were really as powerful as she claims, even a simple basic spell should beat Julius, even with the attunement counter.
And of course... I’m here to fix that problem.
She didn’t need to show actual effort if she could order someone else to do it for her.
And if her pawn was shown to be already significantly powerful? What would that mean for his master?
"Cael, take care of him."
Evelina ordered without hesitation, snapping her fingers, and by instinct, I moved with it.
Too bad I still couldn’t use my profaned attunement here, one shot would probably take out Julius faster than I needed to.
I still needed to make this look like a show.
[Dark Serpent]
The serpent coiled around me just like it always did, but this time, its focus was on empowering the gadget on my wrist.
"You have no chance of winning, Arden!"
Julius braced himself, confident in his breakthrough.
[Light Spears]
ZING!
ZING!
ZING!
Good thing for me that the dark serpent was an all-in-one spell for both offense and defense, just like you would expect from a special book that almost no one could decipher.
HISS!
The serpent hissed, my dagger launcher responding to its call.
All I needed was to reload, and it’ll do its job.
[Bottomless Daggers (S)]
CLICK-FWOOSH!
One simple dagger controlled by the serpent, it acted more like a drone, to be honest.
Intercepting each light spear heading my way like an automated defense system.
"You have vastly underestimated me, Julius."
I tilt my head in mockery, reloading my dagger launcher once more.
CLICK-FWOOSH!
Julius stared at the dagger heading straight toward him, having full trust in his new ability that it would block it like the rest.
But... that was not happening.
FWISH!
The dagger pierced the air and passed through Julius’s aura of defense.
And the moment it got even an inch beyond the defense radius.
Julius immediately panicked.
No one in the world would expect a random noble nobody had heard about to have enough control of dark magic to pierce through an advanced light magic spell.
And even if there was... he should have heard about them as he did for Kevin!
"H-How—"
Julius didn’t have time to react anymore; he couldn’t solve a spell formula in time to block it with another spell.
All he had was his hands, and hope to the gods it was enough.
"Enough!"
CLING!
The dagger fell to the ground harmlessly.
It was Corvus, removing the barrier and depowering the dagger with a satisfied smirk.
"The victor goes to team darkness!"
He declared proudly.
Despite being a professor, he didn’t have any qualms about being biased about those from the same attunement as him.
Even dubbing us as team darkness with a prideful declaration.
"And Julius, see me after the tournament later."
His face quickly changed into a scowl, despite his rather excited mood about the entire thing.
He still had to act like a professor, even if it was forced and fairly useless.
"Y-Yes, Professor." Julius barely even whispered, still feeling the fear of almost getting stabbed by a dagger moving at the speed of an automobile.
"Are you okay?"
Lillian managed to stand up with heavy effort, consoling Julius.
Anyways... enough of those two.
What was more important was Evelina.
And how well I did in her eyes.
"Did I do well?"
I approach her with a slight skip to my steps.
I was hoping she thought that I did well.
And even better yet, finding my performance impressive.
"Well...?" She smirked, then looked at the bleachers where everyone was sitting, murmuring and discussing the results of the match.
"You did better than well... look at them."
She laughed.
"I bet they’re thinking about how powerful we both actually are."
She stepped closer to me, grabbing my chin and looking straight into my eyes.
"You were having fun the entire time, showing all of them you weren’t going all out, following my lead perfectly."
Evelina spoke with heavy satisfaction before leaning closer to my ears, close enough that it’ll make people talk.
But not too much that it’ll cause a scandal.
"I think you should finally deserve your reward..."
She whispered, remembering what the succubus had said before, and also... something else, hidden deep beneath her expression.
Was it... attraction?
Attraction to my power? Attraction to my efficiency? Or to me as a person?
Every option would be great.
But I wasn’t even sure if I was correct; even my practiced gaze had a hard time reading her motives.
But... her talk about the reward and now this.
Maybe... maybe I was finally getting to her? Even if it was just one small step.
