I'm in Love with the Villainess!-Chapter 85: My Own Version of Righteousness

[Light Guardi—crack

"Goddammit!"

I slammed my head on the training room’s walls as the frustration finally caught up to me.

After all those breakthroughs, I still couldn’t cast a single advanced light magic spell? Even if its formula was fundamentally different from what I was used to.

All the cheats I had should be able to brute force it, right?

Unfortunately, I was wrong. Unlike Julius, I didn’t have the broad, unwavering sense of righteousness needed to wield it as effortlessly as he did.

"What a stupid limitation..."

[Major Healing]

I patched up the wound on my head, rubbing my temples as I thought of another solution to increase my proficiency with light magic.

Math and Equations... that was supposed to be the language of magic, but of course, it had limits; the gods can’t just let mortals surpass them, after all...

KNOCK!

KNOCK!

KNOCK!

"What is it this time?"

I checked through the small window on the door, seeing a crowd of male students who were definitely not here for small talk. All of them looked as if I insulted them personally...

What’s up with that?

Most already even had spells ready.

The moment I open this door, they’ll immediately try to beat me up.

Non-lethally, of course, they’re way too much of a wimp to commit to what’s already a violation of academy rules; they weren’t even subtle about it like I was.

"Should I entertain them?"

They weren’t able to enter the training room anyway; it had way too much magic imbued in the walls for them to be able to scratch it.

I could just leave them alone and continue with my training.

But that would be pointless... my progress was already stuck, and it was clear brute forcing it wasn’t going to help.

Maybe this would be a good change of pace?

Sure, it would make Vivianne’s job of increasing my reputation harder... but... I’ll let her handle the excuses, she looked like she enjoyed it anyway.

BANG!

"Now!"

Fire, ice, water, even air.

All coming from all directions the instant I kicked the door open, for people who didn’t want to kill me, they sure as hell didn’t have any qualms paralyzing me.

[Light Manipulation]

"W-Where did he go!?"

FWOOSH!

I appeared behind a student whom I observed to be the strongest, using light manipulation to hide my movements by manipulating how light bounced off my body.

It was crude, but it was enough to deal with the students here.

CRACK!

"Shit! He can go invisible!"

That’s one down, a lot more to go.

CRACK!

The student dropped like a sack of bricks the moment my elbow connected with the back of his neck, his spell dissipating mid-cast.

That made two.

Panic spread instantly.

"Scatter!"

Bad call.

Scattering only worked when your opponent couldn’t pick you apart one by one.

[Light Manipulation]

I bent the light again, not fully cloaking myself this time, but distorting depth and distance just enough to make my movements unreadable. To them, I was flickering—too close, too far, wrong angle, wrong timing.

"Don’t let him get close!"

A bolt of lightning tore through the space where I had been a second ago, blasting a crater into the training hall floor.

I stepped into the caster’s blind spot and grabbed his wrist.

[Light Explosion]

A controlled surge detonated through his arm, not enough to cripple him, but more than enough to overload his mind with unbearable pain.

He spasmed once and collapsed, twitching.

Three.

"W-What the hell is this guy!?"

"Didn’t they say he only used dark magic!?"

Idiots.

I pivoted, catching a fireball barehanded and dispersing it by breaking down its formula through chaos energy. The heat licked my palm, stinging just enough to be annoying.

[Major Healing]

I didn’t even break stride.

"Too slow."

I ducked under an ice spear, kicked off a wall, and brought my heel down on another student’s shoulder. Bone cracked. He screamed and went down clutching his arm.

Four.

The remaining group finally hesitated.

Good.

Fear always made people sloppy, especially when it’s from students who barely had an ounce of combat experience.

"You really should’ve thought this through," I said calmly, straightening my posture as the light around me stabilized. "Who picks a fight against someone who took down a lionbright?"

They backed up instinctively.

"You’re not here because I wronged you," I continued. "You’re here because you heard things."

That struck a nerve, and here I was just guessing...

One of them snarled. "You think you’re special just because women keep talking about you now!?"

Ah.

That was it...?

So Vivianne had already started working.

And why women? Did she seriously not come up with a plan that included men? Well... guess I couldn’t complain much.

Reputation is reputation.

"Look... if someone like me is becoming the talk of the academy, that says more about you than it says about me, doesn’t it?"

"You had to have bewitched Lady Crestwood, there’s just no other way!"

I raised a brow. Did he seriously believe in his own excuse? After hearing everything about me? He still thought I would entertain someone other than Evelina.

"You... seriously don’t believe that, right?"

I chuckled.

Wait... entertaining someone else other than Evelina...

What if...

[Light Guardian]

"Oh... that actually did work..."

I was a literal idiot...

Instead of copying Julius’s own version of righteousness, why not make my own instead? A righteousness born for one person only.

A goddess, a symbol of perfection itself... Evelina.

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of that before.

"W-What...?"

The crowd of male students suddenly tripped on nothing, their eyes widening and mouths agape.

They just saw a dark user cast a high-level light spell.

It’s like seeing physics itself breaking down in front of you, doesn’t help that the person who cast it was someone they literally tried to cripple.

"You have to be kidding me..." I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to stifle a manic laugh that threatened to break through.

"Ah... nevermind, you’re all still screwed..."

[Light Sword]