I'm the Villain, But the Heroines Keep Choosing Me-Chapter 118: Targets
The first target was a port authority administrator named Lord Emrick Thane.
According to imperial intelligence, Thane had been falsifying cargo manifests for eighteen months – the exact timeline when demon smuggling had increased. He lived in the merchant quarter, maintained minimal security, and followed a predictable routine that included late-night visits to his mistress in the River District.
Damien waited in the shadows of an alley between the mistress’s residence and Thane’s route home.
The thirty percent corruption made planning the kill emotionally simple. No moral wrestling, no questioning if this was justice or murder. Just tactical assessment – how to eliminate the target without detection.
Thane appeared at midnight, walking alone, slightly drunk, completely unaware he’d been marked for death.
Damien let him pass the alley entrance, then moved.
Shadows wrapped around Thane’s mouth, muffling any sound. More darkness coiled around his throat, constricting with precise pressure. No violent thrashing – just steady compression until blood flow to the brain ceased and consciousness faded.
Thane’s struggles weakened. Stopped. His body went limp.
Damien maintained the pressure for another full minute, ensuring death rather than unconsciousness. Then he arranged the body carefully – positioned against the alley wall, head tilted naturally, expression peaceful.
To anyone finding him, it would look like a drunk who’d stopped to rest and suffered a heart attack. Natural causes. Tragic but not suspicious.
[TARGET ELIMINATED: Lord Emrick Thane - 1/15]
[SHADOW COMPREHENSION: Level 46.6]
[METHOD: Asphyxiation - Appearing as natural death]
[DETECTION RISK: Minimal]
Damien disappeared into the shadows before the body could be discovered, returning to the residence before dawn.
---
The second target was more complicated.
Magistrate Helena Corvain served in the imperial judiciary, positioned perfectly to dismiss investigations into smuggling operations. According to the Emperor’s intelligence, she’d been blocking legal inquiries for over a year, ensuring demon collaborators faced no judicial consequences.
She lived in the noble quarter, maintained professional security, and rarely went anywhere without guards or companions.
But she had one vulnerability – a weekly visit to the cathedral for private confession. Alone. In a small, isolated confession booth. For exactly thirty minutes every Seventhday evening.
Damien waited in the cathedral’s shadows, his presence masked so thoroughly that even Elara’s divine wards didn’t detect him.
Corvain entered the confession booth precisely on schedule, dismissing her guards to the cathedral entrance. The booth’s heavy curtains closed, isolating her in semi-darkness.
Damien materialized inside the booth’s priest side, his shadows muffling any sound.
Corvain’s eyes went wide as she realized someone was there. Her mouth opened to scream.
Shadow tendrils wrapped around her throat before sound could emerge. More darkness covered her mouth, her nose, cutting off air completely.
She clawed at the shadows, her judicial training useless against an enemy that couldn’t be physically fought. Her struggles grew weaker as oxygen deprivation took effect.
"You facilitated demon infiltration," Damien whispered, though she was already too far gone to comprehend. "You protected traitors. You perverted justice. This is your sentence."
Her movements ceased. Her eyes glazed over. Death came quietly in the place meant for absolution.
Damien arranged her body to appear as if she’d suffered a stroke during confession – head tilted back, expression showing the brief pain of a brain hemorrhage, hands clasped as if in prayer.
The Church would find her eventually. Another tragic death. A magistrate who’d worked too hard, stressed too much, finally succumbed to the pressure.
[TARGET ELIMINATED: Magistrate Helena Corvain - 2/15]
[SHADOW COMPREHENSION: Level 46.7]
[METHOD: Asphyxiation - Appearing as stroke]
[DETECTION RISK: Low]
[OPERATIONAL STATUS: Ahead of schedule]
Damien exited the cathedral through shadows, leaving no trace he’d ever been there.
---
Three days passed. Damien continued his official investigation duties during the day – coordinating with Seria and Elara, reviewing intelligence, tracking conspiracy threads through legitimate channels.
At night, he hunted.
By the fourth day, he’d eliminated six of the fifteen targets. Each death appeared unrelated to the others – heart attack, stroke, accidental fall, drowning in a bathhouse, choking on food, a tragic mugging gone wrong in the wrong part of the city.
No pattern. No connection. Just the normal mortality rate of high-stress imperial officials.
The Emperor received brief reports through encrypted communication – simple confirmations that targets had been eliminated. No details, no evidence, no paper trail connecting Damien to the deaths.
Seria and Elara noticed he was tired, attributed it to the stress of investigation. Neither suspected their partner was systematically assassinating imperial officials while they slept.
The corruption made compartmentalizing easy. Made lying feel tactically appropriate. Made murder feel like just another form of problem-solving.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, Damien was leaving the imperial archives – having reviewed shipping records for his official investigation – when he encountered Queen Lyristae Silverleaf again.
She was walking through the archive’s entrance hall with minimal escort, dressed in practical traveling clothes rather than formal regalia. Their eyes met across the space, and she smiled with clear recognition.
"Lord Valcrest. Still investigating imperial conspiracies, I see."
He bowed appropriately. "Your Majesty. I didn’t expect to find you in the archives."
"I could say the same. Though I suppose we’re both doing research of different kinds." She dismissed her guards with a gesture, approaching him directly. "Walk with me. I’d like to discuss something privately."
It wasn’t really a request. Damien fell into step beside her as they moved through the archives toward the gardens.
"You’ve been busy," Lyristae observed once they were outside, walking among sculpted hedges where conversation couldn’t be overheard. "Six high-ranking officials dead in four days. All appearing to be natural causes or accidents. Quite the coincidence."
Damien’s expression didn’t change, but internally he recalculated. She knew. Somehow, she knew.
"I’m sure the Emperor has competent investigators looking into those tragic deaths," he said carefully.
"I’m sure he does. I’m also sure those investigations will find exactly nothing suspicious." Her smile was knowing. "Because the deaths weren’t suspicious. They were expertly executed political assassinations designed to appear completely natural."
"That’s a significant accusation, Your Majesty."
"It’s an observation, not an accusation. There’s a difference." She paused beside a fountain, watching the water with apparent fascination. "I’m not here to condemn you, Lord Valcrest. I’m here because I’m curious about something."
"Curious about what?"
"About you." She turned to face him directly. "You appeared in the Imperial Capital weeks ago. A minor noble from a regional kingdom, using shadow magic, claiming to be investigating demons. Since your arrival, a forest outside the walls became littered with demon corpses. A warehouse full of traitors and smuggled demons was eliminated overnight. And now, imperial officials are dying in ways that look natural but follow suspicious patterns."
"Correlation isn’t causation," Damien said. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎
"No, but it’s certainly suggestive." Her eyes were sharp, intelligent, missing nothing. "You’re a catalyst, Lord Valcrest. Your presence accelerates events. Changes outcomes. Disrupts established patterns. Almost like you’re not quite part of the natural flow of this world."
The words hit too close to truths he couldn’t acknowledge. Damien kept his expression neutral.
"I’m just a noble trying to serve the Empire, Your Majesty."
"Are you? Or are you something more peculiar?" She stepped closer, her voice dropping to something intimate. "I’ve been watching you, Damien. The way you move through political situations that should destroy you. The way you survive encounters that should kill you. The way people around you change, become different than they were supposed to be."
Her words made the air still.
