The Lustful Villain: Every Milfs and Gilfs are Mine!-Chapter 226. I Stand For Apollo (Just To Get Even More Respect!)
Rex decided to deal with it.
"It’s time for me to play the role of a false hero and help that bum, because I believe this approach will likely make it easier to reach Nerith and Mireya."
He walked across the plaza’s broken surface to where Valentina and Apollo were. He walked in a way that made it look like he had made a deliberate choice to move, not an impulsive one.
"Rex Rexilion," Valentina said, and her tone was the one she used for people she respected and was also mildly annoyed by.
The knights at the perimeter had turned to look at him. Rex registered this and kept moving.
"Lady Valentina, with all due respect, I am here to stand for Apollo regarding what he has done to Aethelgard." Rex declared this while placing his hand on his chest.
He stopped about three meters from where Apollo was kneeling and looked at him for one moment with the expression he had built for exactly this kind of moment: the one that said something real without performing it.
Then he turned around and looked at the way the crowd was coming from, where most of them were.
"Please hear me out for a second, everyone!"
He spoke in a manner that made people feel like he was addressing them personally rather than performing for them.
"I have something to say, and everyone who can hear me must listen before making any choices about what happens next."
The noise at the edge faded, though it did not disappear entirely. Instead, it diminished to the kind of background sound that arises when a group of people decides to concentrate on something specific.
"Three hours ago, Aethelgard was being attacked by a coordinated undead force that none of us had been told to prepare for," Rex said without changing his voice for drama.
He said things as they were. "At least three hundred constructs with an organized deployment are directed at the target."
"A command structure smart enough to use our city’s drainage system as a way to get in."
He let it sit for a while.
"The defenses held the outer perimeter for a time, and the reincarnators in the city responded."
"The knights reacted. Everyone capable took action." He paused. "But it wasn’t enough..."
"The attack was too large, too well-planned, and too precisely aimed at the vulnerabilities in a defense designed for a smaller threat."
He could hear the kind of attention that a crowd gave when it was thinking about something instead of waiting for the next thing.
"What stopped the assault was not the perimeter defense or the reincarnators or the knights," Rex said.
"What stopped the assault was one person, who went to the most exposed position in the city and drew every available unit of the assault’s attention and then released everything his system was capable of and destroyed the assault’s operational capacity in a single engagement."
He looked over at Apollo, who was kneeling, for a moment before turning back to the crowd.
’Now that I’ve executed it... I fucking hate this shit, but I had to do it because my eyes were already locked onto Nerith and Mireya.’
"What’s even more game-changing is that the Nightwings will have their names tarnished because one of his foolish sons just punched the man who saved many people in this situation, including Apollo."
Rex continues to talk. "That engagement caused damage to this district that most of you have now seen. It also caused injuries and deaths among people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
He didn’t soften his voice for this part, as that would have been dishonest. "I am not saying that it didn’t happen, and of course, I am not saying it was acceptable either."
He held the silence for two seconds, listening as some members of the crowd continued to reject what Apollo had done. They began to gossip and cast disgusted looks in his direction.
"Please listen to me just this once, citizens of Aethelgard!" Rex raised both his arms.
"The person who did that did it because an enemy who knew exactly how to push him there pushed him past every limit that training, discipline, and years of careful practice had built in him."
"And when he went past those limits, he chose to go toward the threat instead of away from it."
He gazed at the crowd.
"The city he was trying to protect took damage from the force of that decision. That is true, and it is terrible, and it deserves grief and acknowledgment and every form of support and restitution that can be offered." He paused. "And the city he was trying to protect is still here."
"Although the city is damaged, it still exists—not because the defenses held, but because one person made a decision that cost him and those around him everything, yet he persevered."
The crowd was very quiet now.
"I am asking you," Rex said, "to hold both of those things at the same time!"
"The damage is undeniable. The grief is palpable. And the fact that this city still exists is equally undeniable."
"The person who made that reason possible is kneeling in the middle of this plaza right now."
"He has already admitted what his power did, more honestly and completely than I think most of us could manage in his position."
He paused for a moment to reflect. ’Wow, delivering all this bullshit, I really need some compensation from that asshole...’
’One of those girls is going to serve me up nicely!’
Valentina was looking at him with a complicated look that he liked: the look of someone who had just heard an argument they hadn’t expected and was deciding whether it changed the conclusion they had already reached.
It didn’t change the conclusion, but it did change how it needed to be expressed.
She stared at Rex for a long time.
She then turned to Apollo.
Then she looked at the crowd.
"Very well..." Valentina nodded.
"The council will determine the specific terms tomorrow," she said, and her voice carried clearly to the crowd. "Apollo Brightsoul will be remanded to the Academy’s restricted quarters for system assessment, not punitive detention."
"That is my recommendation, and I intend to make it clearly."
She turned to Rex.
"What you said was accurate," she said. "Thank you for saying it."
Rex opened his mouth to say something else because he had already thought of an argument about the timeline of the assessment and the terms of Apollo’s access during it.
"I..."
And then the fatigue hit him.
’W-What...?’ Rex could feel something was wrong.
The fatigue hit suddenly, like a system shutting down—abruptly and without any warning. This fatigue was due to a total expenditure account being presented all at once to a body that had been functioning on deferred payment for the last two hours.
’I used a lot of energy, huh...?’
’Oh yeah... I did put extra effort into saving these useless crowds just to get my name even more respected...’
He had been operating an energy manipulation field as his signature mask throughout the night. This involved using telekinesis in different ways, turning on gravitational mode twice, using the Earthen Authority’s mapping, creating a link with three hundred constructs, setting up a large containment field as a backup, and transferring consciousness at the end.
All of this had relied on an energy reserve that began the night at fifteen hundred points, which had been depleted with the relentless precision of someone who had meticulously planned for every point and executed each plan.
His legs made a decision that his mind had not approved.
He fell, and the last thing he heard before the darkness enveloped him was the way Lily called his name. It was not calm, which was unusual for her.
"Fuck it..."
"...at least I fucking did it, and I will claim my reward soon."
