The Villainess Returns with a System-Chapter 100: Face the Villainess

Ten minutes after Vivian’s party set off, the carriage was away from the Power Plant, parked outside Willow Alley near the residential area. It was surrounded by a dozen Moore agents—the elite guards of the Conglomerate—while another dozen were sweeping the nearby streets under the leadership of Logan. In the carriage, Vivian sat waiting along with Morris and Voros, who was visibly hostile to Morris.

After chatting about the refined arts and the revolutionary ideas Morris had in his mind, Vivian was convinced that Morris is the Da Vinci of this world, a man who had visions of flying with wings, gliding with sheets and sticks, and sailing in metal boats.

Unlike her, he didn’t know where to start with most of his ideas, but as Vivian was aware, all he needed was an assortment of fine materials and advanced craftsmanship. She had all that, and she could provide a lot of resources for trials and errors. Still, Vivian learned the hard way not to accept all those who come to her without actual proof of their work.

But just as Morris wanted to show Vivian some of his sketches, Logan opened the carriage door.

"We got them."

He moved off the door, and Vivian could see what was behind him. Seven men, with bruised and hurt bodies, dressed in simple clothing, holding their hats and leaning against one another as they were receiving help from the Moore Agents. Behind them and up against a wall, the agents lined up a few thug-like individuals with dangerous faces and unsettling tattoos.

Logan got both the workers and the thugs.

"Nice work. Is that all our men?" Vivian asked.

"Yes, my lady. No one is badly injured, but I don’t think they can come to work tonight," Logan said and looked at them. "We found some of them getting hit and humiliated by those villains."

"Those fools? Thugs like them give real villains a bad name," Vivian said with obvious disdain.

"Here she goes again!" Logan rolled his eyes and walked away to deal with the situation.

But just as this was about to get wrapped up, one of the workers approached Vivian’s carriage hastily.

"Hey! Stop right there!" Logan shouted at the man, but the man cried.

"The lady! Is it you?" the man said as it seemed that he had spotted Vivian. "Please, my lady, help us!"

As the word "lady" was uttered, both the thugs and the workers were now focused on the dark carriage that had no insignia, and its windows were curtained. On the other hand, Vivian cared little for anonymity in this situation and answered the man.

"Let him approach, Sir Logan," she spoke clearly and looked at the man from where she sat. "Speak, mister..."

"Denning, my lady. John Denning." The man approached, revealing his face to be that of a middle-aged working man who is past his prime.

"So you are Mr Denning who lives nearby. What do you want to tell me?"

"That’s me, yer Ladyship. It’s an honour that ya know of me," the man replied with a deep bow to Vivian. "M’Lady, those thugs... those wasters... they won’t stop. The other day they hurt Randy the Kid real bad, now that they’re out again, they’ll be lookin’ for revenge and..."

"Hold on, mister," Vivian raised her hand and stood up before descending from the carriage to the open. "Those men were the ones who caused the same incident yesterday?"

"Yes, my lady," Mr Denning replied.

"Logan, what does this mean?" Vivian asked.

"It is news to me too," Logan said with a shrug. "Those men were supposed to be handed over to the metropolitan police, and I got confirmation that they were in custody, but... it doesn’t seem to be the case."

"So the system is corrupt," Morris commented as he got down from the carriage to guard Vivian’s back.

"Not a surprise," Vivian spoke with calmness, but those who saw the light reflecting on her purple eyes would know that she was fuming with rage.

One thing was clear, and it didn’t need to be spoken: whoever hired those thugs had a reach inside the metropolitan police force. This would narrow the list of names quite significantly.

"Mr Denning, thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will deal with it right at the moment."

"Thank you, yer Ladyship."

The man retreated while bowing to Vivian, who stood tall gazing at those thugs. She knew just what to do at the moment, and as she turned back to the carriage, she grabbed her umbrella, but just before she turned, she mumbled something that even Morris couldn’t hear.

Everyone turned with Vivian as she walked back to the thugs, who were brought to their knees and had their hands tied behind their backs. Most of those thugs looked like dangerous people with the typical physical characteristics of a perfect criminaloid, the sort of people that would make Cesare Lombroso go nuts with his born-criminal theory.

Vivian stopped right in front of the man who looked like the toughest of the patch; her street smarts told her that this had to be the leader of the bunch. As she approached, he spoke with an arrogant tone right away:

"Well, well, well..."

"Shut it!" Vivian pointed her umbrella’s sharp tip against the man’s mouth with obvious anger."Firstly, you are at my mercy; therefore, if anyone is entitled to say "well, well, well," it is I, you oafish brute."

Seeing as Vivian was already the one throwing sophisticated insults, the thugs looked at each other with amazed faces before exploding in laughter one after another.

"WAHAHA!"

"Oafish bru... HAHAHA!"

"Look at you, Paul! AHAHA! You oafish brute!"

The group found the situation rather funny and were happy despite their previous defeat by the Moore Agents. The young lady’s tough act was an amusing change of pace for them.

Logan stepped up, willing to slap the last man who mocked Vivian’s way of speaking, but she raised her hand.

"Halt, Sir Knight. I find myself averse to the messy spectacle of violence," she said with a manner more naive than that of the last.

Logan paused and looked at Vivian with narrowed eyes, ignoring the thugs who started to laugh even harder. In a way, Logan started to sense that Vivian was plotting something, also, she worships violence.

Until the thugs got tired of laughing, Vivian looked at their leader and asked:

"What master do you serve?"

"What master do I serve? What am I supposed to say? Saint Heimdall?" the man replied mockingly, but no laugh track came after his retort.

"The sooner you answer, the easier it will be for you. I am not in the mood for physical torture, but you and your merry band of outlaws have provoked me quite too much recently. I am interested in knowing who your employer is, and if you don’t want to reveal him easily, I can soften your tight lips with gold and silver."

The man laughed at her proposition, and he replied:

"Instead of that, why don’t I widen your small lips with my co—"

Out of nowhere, a punch landed on the face of that man, and his face was planted to the ground before he could finish his line.

Vivian stood unmoved, and after a couple of seconds, she turned to Logan, who retreated his fist.

"Sir Knight, you guard my body, not my feelings," she said.

"Those were my feelings I was guarding," Logan replied shamelessly.

"How cheeky! Sit him up, please," Vivian said coldly.

As Logan pulled the thug up, he seemed to be bleeding from his forehead, but as the blood slid down his bald head to his greasy face, he tasted it with his tongue before spitting it to the side, saying:

"Still bitter."

As he seemed to be putting on airs of toughness, Vivian started to throw the next blow.

"Admiwable! For a lowlife, you have quite the spiwit."

"The what?"

"Spiwit! Bwavado! A touch of dewwing-do!"

"Is it... bad?"

Vivian rolled her eyes and looked down on the thug.

"Either way, I’ll have to break that spirit of yours on the spot. A cockroach like you should know their place, so we are going to play a little card game. It is called Tarot."

The thug seemed unimpressed, but he wasn’t even vigilant to what Vivian had in mind as she explained:

"I’ll draw four cards: your past, your present, your future, and what you can do about it. Each card will reveal a truth about you and will allow you to know yourself better. If it gets too much, don’t expect any mercy from me."

The men around her looked at each other as if they were fooling around, but those who knew her well understood that every time she starts drawing cards, something very interesting happened. Logan and Voros were aware of that, while Morris watched from the back with interest as she was doing her little play.

"So... the first card we draw is..."

Vivian spent 100 SP on the store shops for a Tarot draw, and immediately, she revealed the cards.

« 6542 > 6442 »

"The Fool, Reversed," she said and looked at the thug. "You have led a foolish life. Never planned ahead, have you? Sooner or later it is going to bite you in the ass."

Vivian’s words were now devoid of naivety, and she seemed to be using vulgar language quite normally. Even the thugs could tell that what happened earlier was just an act, even though her voice is now different, with a lower pitch and a deep, dangerous intent.

Vivian picked another card to draw, and it was also another 100 SP.

« 6442 > 6342 »

"The Devil, upright," she said and continued, "Now that’s another shit card. This is your present, you whoreson. Trapped in a bad situation, a slave to your vices, addiction, and a shit ton of bad choices, and not a single way out in sight."

The man snorted with disdain and looked away, putting on a layer of a tough mentality between him and Vivian.

"Now your future, what comes next for you."

« 6342 > 6242 »

Vivian saw 100 SPs drop, and the card she drew was...

"Death, upright. It’s a good card; it means something is going to change. Change, in my opinion, is good, but... with a shitty past and a shittier present, it always means the shittiest future. No way around it."

Vivian lowered her posture to face the man, and with a flick of her finger, she threw the card in an insulting way at his face.

Now even with the best mentality in the market, a rough man such as the thug wouldn’t look at Vivian with a poker face. For an uncultured specimen like him though...

"Fucking bitch! Acting like a know-it-all."

Vivian smiled and stood tall once again before using the same naive way of talking.

"Stwike him, Sir Knight, very woughly."

Logan was just so pleased Vivian said so, and with the back of his hand, the thug found his face slapped, with a few molar teeth jumping off their place. That, however, wasn’t as demeaning as Vivian’s method of acting. What she did wasn’t just show a simple difference in power and status, but with obvious sadism and real villainy.

"Now, the final card, the one that carries the answer to your situation."

« 6242 > 5142 »

This time, it was 1100 SPs, indicating a card she drew for the first time.

"The Tower, upright like a motherfucker," Vivian paused for a while and looked at the man. "Honestly, this was the most depressing reading I have ever done. Like what kind of shit future do you have for its answer to be the worst card ever. What a pathetic existence you are!"

Vivian wasn’t aiming for any reaction from the man, but just as her Tarot powers go, every reading she makes strikes the nail on the head with absolute accuracy. The man looked as if his veins were going to pop, and his anger was at its peak, but he knew that he was incapable of doing a thing at the moment, with his hands being literally tied.

As for Vivian, she stood up and had the System showing her something rather interesting.

The reading was complete; Vivian had what she wanted to see right in front of her eyes, and what do you know...

"Name: Paul Stevenson. Age: 39. Occupation: a privateer soldier of the Black League." Vivian turned to the man who was left kneeling with a shocked face. "So, you are taking orders from Ian Grayson."

That alone was enough; she had everything she needed, and the culprit that tried to sabotage her work was exposed. It is not concrete evidence, but she can make up one based on it and go to war with it. After all, she has the full support of her father, and it is against their nemesis, House Grayson.

"By the way, the name is Vivian. Vivian Moore."

"Moore?!"

Declaring her name was enough for the thug’s blood to boil. As for her, she calmly walked back to her carriage, but just at the moment, she faced forward, accidentally where Morris was standing, and an unsettling smile was forming over her face.

For a gold-ranked knight like Morris, very little can unsettle him, let alone making him scared, but that smile on Vivian’s face, that was diabolical... fucking diabolical.

This moment of hesitation was the exact same moment the thug Vivian was interrogating had his binds cut loose, him and all the ones around him... all at once.

As their hands and feet were suddenly free, the thugs couldn’t help but wonder how this strange miracle happened, but one of them never questioned their turn of favour; one of them was so angry at Vivian, that he charged like a mad bull at her.

"MOORE BITCH! YOU DIE BY MY HAND!"

Even though they acted like thugs, they were all soldiers; they were mercenaries with no honour, but they had pride, one that Vivian just trampled over and made a cheap joke of.

Once that bitch of a noblewoman lies in their hands, not a single one of those wannabe knights would even dare to act. And for having Vivian Moore delivered to their employer, not even they would imagine the rewards waiting for them.

But they weren’t fools either; it was a pipe dream to get to her, but as Paul charged like crazy, they all knew they had to support their comrade in order for them to escape. Their logic was sound, and for soldiers who trained day and night and fought together, their minds moved in sync.

While Paul charged, all the others jumped at the Moore agents and the knight, hindering them from stopping Paul, a gamble well taken, and Paul was just an arm’s length away from Vivian.

Morris was about to act, but he knew that he was stunned by Vivian just now, and unless he revealed his true level of power, she would get caught no matter what.

Just then...

BANG!

The thug that charged at Vivian halted in his tracks with a red dot right between his eyes.

A smoke trail was seen as all the stunned men from both sides looked at its origin. It was coming from under Vivian’s shoulder cape.

"Well well well, resisting arrest, are we?"

The small gun appeared in her left hand as she turned, and in her right, a dagger in her hand started to dramatically elongate. Vivian held up her spadroon, and with a single wave slash empowered by aura, she cut the man down.

Morris saw it all and felt it all.

She is a villain, and like every villain, she has a lackey who does things from the shadows.

That Duergar, Voros, it was him that cut the thugs’ binds, and all she had to do was dance, slash, and shoot the thugs down.

It wasn’t a fight; it was a massacre orchestrated from the second Vivian’s pistols materialized in her hands.

Her silhouette, solitary against the grim backdrop of the alley, was forever etched into the minds of the few who survived to witness her deadly dance. A circle of lifeless bodies formed a stage around her, Vivian’s face, a mask of grim satisfaction, a spectacle that only the Angel of Death could truly admire.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel