Villain's Odyssey: Enslaving heroines, Conquering Villainesses-Chapter 91: And so it begins...

"You can walk?" Asher asked in shock, unable to believe what he was seeing. This had gone way beyond his calculations; he never expected such a possibility even to exist. His confidence had rested entirely on the fact that she was crippled, and even if he now barely possessed any ether as his slave seal seemed to have faded away completely, he still had just enough to reinforce himself and escape if she tried anything funny. His objective here was simple - to rein in her overwhelming jealousy, he just needed to have a normal talk with her, nothing more complicated than that.

He had been planning to start trying to use his knowledge of her condition to his advantage, manipulate the situation to his benefit, but unexpectedly... In the most unpredictable fashion possible, reality showed him his place quite harshly. You can’t predict the future, you can never be prepared enough for what is to come, as there will always exist a variable you are completely unaware of. That was exactly what just happened now, at this very moment, reality slapped him quite hard with that undeniable fact.

"You can... walk?" Asher frowned deeply as he spoke. He couldn’t understand what this was supposed to mean. How the fuck was she walking? This wasn’t supposed to happen anytime soon, according to everything he knew... what the hell went wrong with his understanding of the situation?!

Suddenly, tears began to trail down her cheeks.

"... I... am sorry," was all she managed to say, her voice barely above a whisper, and suddenly her hair started to go completely static, defying gravity.

Was... she actually trying to kill me right now?

I quickly stood up from where I had been sitting, my hands stretched out in a clear gesture of surrender, hoping to defuse whatever this situation was becoming.

"What are you trying to do, Natalia?" I asked with narrowed eyes, studying her face for any hint of what was going through her mind, but she seemed to vanish in that very instant. My ether began to circulate through my body instinctively, and I jumped back just in time as something completely encased in crackling lightning seemed to pierce the exact spot I had been occupying just moments before. I now STOOD on the bed, my expression completely serious and focused. She really is trying to kill me without any hesitation. But why would she do this? This makes absolutely no sense to me, why was she crying if she was planning to attack me?

Wait a minute...

Someone else is making her do this.

In an instant, my mind went racing back to what I had heard when I woke up in the infirmary.

:: Kill Angelica::

The variable I hadn’t accounted for.

Come to think of it more carefully, that certain arc about the dark church attack on the academy that should have happened yesterday, according to my knowledge, didn’t happen at all. That specific arc about a certain demon, which should have killed a great deal of students in the academy before it was finally stopped by the main characters. I was even preparing to use that chaotic event to my advantage to kill the required amount of students the system needs me to eliminate to unlock my sealed memory, but it never happened like it was supposed to... and now, Natalia who should still be crippled is not just walking around normally, she’s actively trying to kill me. In fact, ever since I stepped foot into this damn place, one thing or another has been consistently trying to get me killed in various ways.

Fuck this entire situation.

Something definitely isn’t right here. Ever since that mysterious entity disappeared after that damned girl looked at me with those strange eyes of hers, I feel like someone powerful wants me dead. My carefully laid plans keep falling apart one after another, and I seem to have absolutely no control over anything that’s happening around me... I have to do something about this... I have to fucking do something completely drastic to change this situation!

I need my damn memories back immediately!

"Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be... please," she said softly, almost pleading, and before I could even attempt to jump off the bed something incredibly powerful slammed into me and I collided hard with the wall just beside the entrance to the dining area, but I didn’t allow myself to stay down, I couldn’t afford to give her that advantage. I sprang up as quickly as possible but it seemed she had expected exactly this reaction as the moment I did, my entire life seemed to flash before my eyes in vivid detail, but my body reacted before my mind could even process what was happening and I raised my right hand defensively.

SPLASH!

It literally blew off completely, blood spraying everywhere. She bit her lips nervously, seeming almost regretful.

What the fuck is happening?!

"Just stay still and don’t move, you will only make it hurt even more than necessary," she said, her voice still carrying that apologetic tone.

"WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!" I yelled as loudly as I could as I took advantage of her slight disorientation, biting back the overwhelming pain shooting through my severed arm and sending an ether-infused punch directly for her face, but she moved back so incredibly fast that a blurred mirage was left behind in her previous position. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"You won’t actually die from this... he just needs your body for something, I promise you, so please... don’t struggle anymore and make this easier for both of us," she said, and my eyes widened in complete realization.

HE.

Who the hell is he supposed to be?

Wait, that means it definitely isn’t Angelica controlling this situation.

Then who the fuck is making her do this?!

Damn it all!

"Argh," I held the bloody stump where my right hand had once been as I began losing blood at an alarming rate.

Luckily, before I left, I had muttered the number of the room to Tracy, but... I feel like Natalia has already accounted for that.

"You are obviously trying to kill me despite what you’re saying, and who exactly is this ’he’?" I tried desperately to get more useful information from her, but her remaining hand was now encased with crackling electricity and glowed even brighter than before.

"You will understand everything soon enough...," she said ominously and I bolted directly for the damn door with everything I had left.

BOOOOM!

I didn’t even come close to reaching it.