I'm in Love with the Villainess!-Chapter 82: Quid Pro Quo

FWOOSH!

I set Vivianne down on my dorm room bed, locked the door, and infused the surrounding walls with chaos energy to strengthen them against spells as an extra precaution.

While waiting for her to wake up was definitely a choice, I still needed to head to my room to check the examination coverage.

And I’d rather not have her escape while I was gone.

Not like this was an actual kidnapping anyway, after I’m done asking for what I wanted in return, I’d easily let her go without even the slightest scratch on her.

"All of this should be enough."

I knock on a wall, feeling it vibrate against my finger as I did.

It was durable enough, I decided, looking back at Vivianne’s unconscious form to double-check.

There was literally no way she could get out, even if she unleashed her strongest spell, and if she still does despite that...

Well, she probably deserved the freedom at that point, to be honest.

[Profaned Step]

"Sorry, I’m late."

I arrived in the doorway, suitcase in hand, as I entered the classroom.

This time, the professor in charge was Corvus, once again teaching moral and pragmatic applications of day-to-day life, just like the first time I attended this class.

It was uneventful as always.

"Finally attending again, Arden?"

Corvus chuckled, but stopped immediately as I reached a certain distance from him, his eyes narrowing immediately as he noticed the stark change in aura compared to before.

He raised a brow as I finally took my assigned seat. Kevin, as usual, was still absent, likely still doing his own research about dark magic to even bother about the usual curriculum.

"I’ll talk to your professor on spell formula to give you some extra marks." Corvus smiled, returning to the board as he continued to write terms and definitions.

"Sir, if I may."

"Yes, Gloomwood?" Corvus turned around, his personality switching entirely as he looked at the student with an annoyed expression.

The student’s hand lowered slightly at seeing the professor’s sudden change in demeanor, but to his credit, he didn’t completely back down.

"I feel it’s unfair to the rest of the class if you give—"

"Silence." Corvus returned to the board, barely even giving the student’s concern any attention. "If you deserved it, I’d also have included you, but you didn’t, so don’t complain."

He laughed slightly, looking at the student with a demeaning expression. "And here I thought this was supposed to be the top class of this batch."

He wasn’t the type to hold back at all.

"Marcellus... come on, back me up."

The student nudged Marcellus, who was sitting beside him with a less-than-interested expression. He himself had learned his lesson not to intervene in my business too much.

And being asked to help was certainly not going to change his mind.

"The professor has a point; stop bothering me with this."

"D-Don’t tell me you’ve given up, your highness?"

CRACK!

Marcellus snapped his dip pen.

The sheer statement that Gloomwood had proposed was absolutely ridiculous.

Him? A literal prince? Submitting to a mere baron’s child? Impossible.

But even he knew when and where to pick his battles, and a classroom where one of the world’s strongest dark mages was currently teaching was not one of them.

"I suggest you watch your words, don’t mistake me for my brother." He glared at the student with contempt.

"I am far less accepting of brazen insults like that..."

"I-I apologize..."

Hey... I gotta give Marcellus some credit, actually no... this was par on the course for his character.

A prodigious good guy who also isn’t fully a good guy; even the label of anti-hero doesn’t suit him very well. While he had a less-than-decent temperament, he was still mainly a good person, if you believe it or not.

"You’d better listen to Prince Charming..."

I muttered, resting my head against my hand as I mocked him from my seat.

"Y-You bastard..." The student gritted his teeth but immediately stopped when Corvus suddenly sighed in front of the class. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"I know my class is boring, but the least you could do is stop talking... It’s giving me a damned headache."

*** A few minutes later

Corvus left the class with a yawn, placing the coverage for the examination on the desk.

Didn’t even bother pasting it on the board for everyone to see; he literally just left it there in a position that could easily cause it to fly off the window, never to be seen again.

But I guess that’s the privilege you get by being a fully defined S-Rank.

I didn’t take long as I merely glanced at the paper, storing it within my memory to ensure I could access it later with photographic memory.

And with that done, I’m obviously going to skip the rest of the day.

I wasn’t the only one with that same idea as well; more like the entire class had also planned something like that.

"I love privilege..."

I shrugged, snapping my fingers and returning to my dorm room.

[Profaned Step]

In fact, I’m probably teleporting more than I was walking at this point, but then again, why the hell would I choose to walk if an option like this even existed?

FWOOSH!

THUD!

The moment I returned, I had to use my suitcase to block a letter opener aimed at my neck.

The culprit? A now awakened Vivianne with an irritated look on her face.

"I swear I could have gotten you there..."

"You’re still on about that?"

"Well... what do you expect me to do while I was locked up?" She sighed, sitting back down on my bed with her arms crossed.

"You seem to be in high spirits, no longer afraid of Evelina?"

Vivianne answered with an anxious chuckle at my question, avoiding eye contact and instead looking directly at the open window while her mouth twitched.

"I’m already far off the deep end at this point..."

Her voice was filled with utter devastation as she realized that being brought to my room had probably already sealed her fate once Evelina heard about it. Yet I still couldn’t bring myself to take her seriously...

The way she delivered it was far more comedic than actually depressing.

Watching someone calmly accept that their life was about to fall apart—even though it really wasn’t—was genuinely amusing.

I already had Evelina’s permission after all; she had no reason to worry, but I preferred not telling her that.

There’s nothing wrong with having a bit of fun with her reactions...

"Finally willing to hear what I have to say...?"

"Y-Yes..."