Taming The Villainesses-Chapter 364: Main Character (9)

He had been an orphan without even a name.

And the world was not a kind place for a boy with no parents to survive alone.

So he did whatever it took to stay alive.

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Then, one day—

While fleeing after stealing a loaf of bread, he was struck on the head by a rock and collapsed, teetering between life and death. In that moment, something strange appeared before his eyes.

「───.」

He knew it was writing, but as an illiterate boy, he had no way of understanding it. Still, he could sense that it was something important. And yet, he couldn’t read it at all.

But those letters became the driving force that kept the boy alive. Letters that no one else could see. Even as he was laughed at and beaten by others, those letters sustained him.

‘I’ve been chosen. I’m different from you.’

The boy who clung to that hope eventually met someone who showed him kindness.

A man called the father of orphans. The headmaster of an orphanage.

The man taught the boy how to read and how to live like a person. He also taught him how to kill people—especially how to kill effectively.

The teachings were strict, but for the first time, the boy knew what it meant to feel full and warm. He made many friends who were just like him.

Family was a good thing. He even liked the orphanage headmaster who had made him feel like a person.

The boy gradually became a man.

He eventually became able to read the letters that had always appeared before his eyes. And those letters that had long haunted his curiosity now said this:

「Kill the orphanage headmaster ── and take his name and the treasure in the basement vault.」

Ah.

The boy who had become a man now became Andromalli.

He lost warmth and fullness in exchange, but it didn’t matter.

Now he had the letters with him always. The letters that gave him a name and constantly told him what he had to do were no different from a father to him.

And so Andromalli knew.

“You’re our Father. I know it. I’ve seen those letters—tens of thousands of times, every day. You resemble them. You look just like them. Others may not know, but I do. This is the final test, isn’t it?”

The final commission from Father.

Kill the one among the tournament participants with a palm-shaped bruise on their ankle. Andromalli had seen those fixed words for three years and always found them strange.

But then word spread that the Queen was truly holding the tournament. And someone with a bruise just like that had appeared before him. Father really was incredible. He had foreseen all of it.

And the fact that he had understood Father’s will—that made him incredible too.

This was the final test.

A test to see if he could transcend Father and become truly free.

The others didn’t seem to realize it, but he understood it well.

So he would give it his all.

Just like he did when he first received a name.

***

Crack, crackle.

Bones fractured. It was the sound of the magic swordsman forcing himself upright against the crushing pressure that pinned him.

The gravity field wasn’t something an ordinary human strength could withstand. Yet Andromalli, the magic swordsman, managed to rise to his feet.

“Giving... it... my all....”

Of course, even though he had stood up, his condition was like a shredded dried pollack tossed onto a highway.

His arms, legs, chest, and lungs had all been fractured and shattered under the crushing force.

He likely couldn’t even move properly.

Clatter.

Then, the long iron chain wrapped around his left arm tightened violently. And not just around his arm—it coiled around his legs and chest too, mummifying him.

As I watched that, Bael bristled with tension.

━Grrrrrr...!

I know. He’s not normal.

This wasn’t how he looked when I took him down in the waiting room earlier. Honestly, I’d thought he was too petty for Bael to be on guard. But now I could tell.

This is the form Bael had been wary of.

“Ugh... final... teeeest... graduaaaation....”

Andromalli seemed to be alive, yet also not. It wouldn’t be wrong to call him a puppet, clinging to life through the chains coiled around him, manipulated by force.

What was certain was this—if I left him alive, something ominous and dreadful would happen.

So I gathered my mana while he still seemed half-unconscious and fired it like a spear straight at him.

─Gungnir!

A deadly technique meant to pierce a single point.

I no longer had any sentiment about having to kill him.

I would send him off painlessly—so quickly he wouldn’t even have time to realize he was dying.

That was the mercy I offered, if only as someone he had mistaken for Father.

Shaaaaak—!

Clatter...

The magic spear pierced cleanly through his stomach and chest, blowing a large hole in his torso. The chains coiled around his body lost strength and fell limp to the ground.

Thud.

The man’s corpse collapsed forward, smacking its face into the dirt. Maybe it was just my imagination, but his expression looked... peaceful. Now there were four left.

Shfft.

I pulled a flare rod from the scroll at my waist. After lighting the fuse at its base, I raised it high into the sky. A ball of flame shot upward from the tip.

Fwoosh—!

Pop—!

The firework blended into the sky with the rest of the opening ceremony’s explosions. Professor Balan would understand the meaning behind that flare. He’d either imprison these people or deal with them in some other way.

“So this wraps things up, for now.”

At least the slaughter of someone in the waiting room by a deranged psychopath wouldn’t happen now.

If Elga and Stella had followed my words correctly, the other conspirators would’ve been apprehended and excluded from the tournament ahead of time.

━Hioooong...!

It really was bizarre.

I had clearly made it to the main bracket, and now I had returned to the past to fix things I hadn’t even known before. Had I reversed time?

But from what I knew, reversing time was as impossible as reviving the dead. Even Solomon at the tenth tier had said it couldn’t be done.

So then, what exactly had I experienced? If I thought back to my final memory, I had been battling Ayra. I’d offered up a massive chunk of my lifespan and triggered a powerful explosion.

The ultimate-tier spell—Teo-Nova.

Had there been some variable in that spell I hadn’t accounted for? Had the energy—akin to a supernova—blasted me across space and time? That’s the scientific theory I considered.

It might also have something to do with that painting inside the frame.

“......”

I didn’t think it was entirely impossible. But it was also clear that this wasn’t something I could reason through on my own. I should discuss it with my wives later.

“Ugh...”

“Urgh...”

Then I saw the Brotherhood, still collapsed on the ground.

Just what was this so-called Father they spoke of?

The target they were after was clearly me. Not just me, but me who had returned through the frame and reversed time.

The palm-shaped bruise on the ankle. I couldn’t imagine that belonging to anyone else. If I pressed the Brotherhood further, I might be able to find out.

Pop, pop-pop!

Fireworks exploded above my head.

The opening ceremony was ending. The first preliminary match would soon begin. I figured I still wasn’t late, so I pulled out the hand mirror 「Karma Changer」.

Shfft.

In the gleaming reflection of the mirror, my face and the scar at the corner of my eye stood out sharply.

My face was filthy, covered in dust, blood, and sweat. In this moment, I could’ve chosen to live as someone else—someone other than this small, fragile-looking half-fairy.

“......”

Shfft.

But I put the mirror back into my inventory, 《Squirrel Vault》.

Ayra had recognized me anyway. Changing my face or name might’ve been meaningless from the start.

Also—

Through trial and error, I had come to realize something.

Even if I dressed up and tried to look cool, I was still a half-fairy.

━Hey, show me your application form! Hey! You! You there!

I stepped onto the stage, packed with people. The view had changed drastically from before. Maybe because I was shorter, the world seemed taller, harsher.

Yet, among it all, the figure of Ayra seated on the high throne stood out more clearly than anything.

“You really came... Even broke your probation. And your promise.”

Her voice reached me clearly, even through the crowds of competitors and noisy spectators. And Ayra... she seemed to know what I had been through.

If so, then surely my appearance—and my voice—must also be reaching her clearly.

“Queen Ayra. I will be the winner of this tournament. Therefore, I, Teo Gospel of Angmar, formally challenge you under the rules. And when this match ends—we need to talk.”

At my small voice, Ayra smiled.

“Teo Gospel of Angmar. Much improved. Very well. Even if you’re a heinous criminal, it is my duty as Queen to accept the challenge of a worthy opponent.”

Ssssshh.

Ayra rose from the throne.

━Ah—! Her Majesty the Queen has something to say...! Everyone, listen closely and respectfully...!

The announcer’s voice rang out, and all attention turned to her. Ayra walked slowly, descending through the air onto the stage.

━Ah—! Her Majesty is descending to personally encourage the competitors...!

Everyone held their breath again, just as before, gazing at the scene as though witnessing sacred fire—or an angel descending from the heavens.

Clack.

Queen Ayra set foot on the arena floor.

Even without issuing a command, competitors around the arena dropped to one knee, one after another. In the end, only Ayra and I remained standing in the now-silent preliminaries arena.

People from all over had gathered. Among them were surely ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) violent nymphs. And yet, her sheer charisma had brought them to their knees. Truly the model of a queen.

“Very well, Teo Gospel of Angmar. I accept your challenge. You must’ve come a long way just to say those words. Paid a great deal of time.”

Ayra’s black eyes slowly scanned the bowed heads.

“But before that, the surroundings are far too messy. This can hardly be called a proper finals arena with so many third parties. Don’t you agree?”

Shfft.

With a gesture, a crystal orb flew from somewhere and landed in her hand. Speaking into the transparent object, Ayra declared,

“I am revising the rules of the preliminaries. I, too, shall participate in this one-time-only match. The rule is simple: whoever touches my crown wins.”

━What? Is that for real?

━No one said anything about a match like this!

One by one, people began to raise their heads. How would they react to this? The spectators too? Then again, it was clear Ayra wouldn’t care what they thought.

Ayra was Queen.

And a Queen’s words were law.

At last, the great gong rang out, and Ayra unleashed her mana with a roar.

“Receive my applause─!”

Kwoooo—!!!

It swept over the arena like a mass-laden shockwave, blowing people away.

━Aaaagh!

━Wh-What the hell!

To withstand it, I had to counter with an equal force. So I too unleashed all the mana stored in my body.

KWA-BOOM—!

The clash of our mana swept away everything in the surroundings, and the neatly laid tiles of the arena flew off in every direction.

Screams erupted. People fainted. In an instant, the arena turned into a battlefield.

It didn’t even take three seconds for the tournament they’d spent three months preparing to be obliterated.

But Ayra twisted her lips into a delighted grin. Her soft “Ho...” of admiration showed she was enjoying my resistance.

“You withstood it. That’s seventy percent.”

KWOAAAA—!!!!

Ayra’s magic output surged even higher.

My skin prickled like it was soaking in carbonated water. My knees shook, my ears rang—but I didn’t retreat. I unleashed every bit of mana I had left.

“Hrrgh!”

━Ah—! Mana so dense it’s visible to the eye...! Every blink brings new eliminations...! People in the stands are fainting now too...!

“Kneel! Teo Gospel of Angmar!”

The magic dwelling in Ayra’s body began to glow in five dazzling hues.

She was pushing herself even further. I could feel it—my body, which had been holding steady, was starting to be pushed back.

“Ghhh...!”

At this rate, I would lose.

Ayra in full force was still too powerful.

━Hioooong...

I know. I don’t need to offer my lifespan anymore.

Just standing here as myself—I’ve already spent a hundred years. That was the time I wandered to figure out who I was.

Now I know exactly who I am.

“I am Teo Gospel of Angmar! And there is no longer a single lie in that truth! I stand here only as myself! Ayra, I’m sorry, but—”

This stage, this story’s protagonist is me now.

Shfft.

I lifted my foot.

─Fairy Step.

And took a step forward.

“......!”

Ayra furrowed her brow in surprise. She didn’t seem to understand how I had moved forward in the midst of that pressure. Even Ayra’s extraordinary eyes couldn’t see everything.

Behind her head, I could see children with hair in brilliant colors.

━Everyone, stay strong! Send your strength to our comrade...! It’s our chance to bring down the terrifying queen and lift our friend high!

━Follow our top comrade Marmar and cheer...!

I saw imps raising their tails like antennae. Their cheers poured into me like power.

I will keep moving forward.

Beyond the shadows of queens and noblewomen—

Toward the bright road beginning faintly in the distance.

Ready to continue when you are.