Villain's Odyssey: Enslaving heroines, Conquering Villainesses
Chapter 49: Trapped

Chapter 49: Chapter 49: Trapped

"Arghhh!" Maria roared in frustration and hurled the book across the room, pushing back the strands of hair that had fallen to obstruct her vision. She was now in her dorm room, and just as she had expected, things weren’t going to be easy. She glanced once more at the book she had thrown away.

Blank.

The pages were all blank.

"It seems he placed some rune on it," she muttered, biting her nail in frustration. She had suspected he would place some sort of protection on the book—after all, it contained future knowledge of this world. It was supposed to be their plan B, designed for a specific scenario: if a future event occurred and something happened to him, she would be able to read this book, understand everything, and recreate the plans he had already made with the others.

But instead of the distant future this contingency was prepared for, they found themselves in exactly that situation now. Something had indeed happened to him.

After his expulsion from the Academy, he was supposed to wait for her and the others at a certain place on the outskirts of Elfame—that was where they were meant to rendezvous. They had planned to use a particular relic to reconstruct his face, and with her help, he would be readmitted to the academy for future ’arcs’ (as he always called them).

But for some reason, he hadn’t gone to the meeting point. Not only that, but everyone he had bound to himself—those who were supposed to regain their hidden memories with his permission—had forcefully remembered everything all at once. She was among them, and that could only mean something had happened to him.

He wasn’t dead, though. That fact was unquestionable. After all, if he were, she would feel it. The connection she shared with him would shatter, and she herself, along with the others, would die. This was the cycle of their lives, after all—an eternal bond. They were connected to him at a soul level, which was why he had been able to make them remember... their past.

But for some reason, he always kept the future hidden from them, and this book only served to further vex her about the situation. It seemed the book bore a time rune, readable only at that specific point in the future they had agreed upon—but that wasn’t really her concern at the moment.

She simply wanted to know what had happened to him. Something unexpected must have occurred for him to deviate from a plan they had been crafting for so long. He wasn’t dead, so perhaps he had been kidnapped?

She sighed deeply, then heard her teleric ringing. Standing up, she walked toward it and glanced at the contact ID.

"Tasha," she muttered with a frown, then picked it up and answered.

"I saw him," came the voice on the other end, and Maria’s eyes widened.

"What?" Maria’s eyes grew wide as she grabbed her jacket, swiftly putting it on before rushing out.

"But... he’s changed," Tasha continued, causing Maria to frown and stop at a corner.

"I clearly felt the connection—I know it’s him—but he doesn’t look like himself. He doesn’t even recognize me. It seems his alter is in control... I really don’t understand it." At this, Maria bit her lip.

"Where did you spot him?" she asked.

"At Elfame."

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.

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"O...kay?" Asher said, blinking as several individuals dressed in black attire materialized from the shadows around them.

"Asher..." Natalia’s voice carried a note of panic that made him turn toward her.

Despite her considerable abilities, she clearly wasn’t confident about defeating this many opponents. It made sense—her condition put her at a severe disadvantage. Even with enough power, being unable to move freely left her at their mercy. What made her panic worse was that she didn’t expect Asher to be strong enough to protect even himself, meaning the burden of protecting them both now fell squarely on her shoulders. If her friend had been here instead, things would be different. Her friend would be the one doing the protecting.

"What?" Asher asked, not bothering to look back at her.

"Get behind me," Natalia said through gritted teeth, her hair beginning to crackle with static electricity.

"Calm down. Nothing’s going to happen," Asher replied casually, manifesting the last weapon from Annabella’s ring—a elegantly crafted wand.

"Hmm, a mage," observed the figure in front of them. The voice was distinctly feminine, and the moment Asher heard it, he frowned. He was certain he’d heard that same voice somewhere before.

"What do you want?" he asked directly.

"Everything. Hand over all your belongings," came a male voice from behind them. Asher glanced back, realizing they were now completely surrounded.

Belongings? Asher thought. I have practically nothing.

From the moment they’d arrived, he’d sensed what the apparent leader—the woman in front—was really looking at: Natalia’s bag.

But that didn’t make complete sense. Would they really deploy such a complex magical array just for a bag when they weren’t even sure of its contents?

"Asher—" Natalia started.

"QUIET," he said, his voice carrying an authority that made her instantly fall silent. This was the first time she’d heard him sound so commanding.

"You..." Asher continued, studying the lead figure intenson. "You’re that lady from the restaurant."

"What?" Natalia gasped. "Eve?" The name popped into her mind immediately based on Asher’s words.

The cloaked figure remained ominously silent.

"We’ll do this the hard way if you refuse to comply," another male voice threatened. This one belonged to someone standing directly beside the suspected woman.

One, two, three, four, five, six, Asher counted internally. Though he appeared panicked on the surface, that wasn’t what he was truly feeling. He wasn’t panicked at all—not because the situation didn’t call for it, but because he understood that panicking would do nothing to help. That, and his true emotions remained frustratingly restrained.

This was planned well in advance. It seems I have some peculiar luck, he realized grimly.

There was literally no way this ambush had been set up on the spot. Laying down such a complex magical array required multiple intricate magic circles, something that would take considerable time—unless there was a high-level rune master in their group. But that seemed unlikely; such a person would almost certainly be in Arcane, the utopian city where the Arcane Legacy was located. Someone with that level of rune mastery could typically only be found in such places.

Which meant this had been planned far in advance. For them to walk into it without noticing required an insane level of preparation. And if his deduction about the lead figure really being the waitress from before was correct, then they’d been specifically targeted. No—more likely, Natalia and her friend had been the original targets. The waitress had probably been planning this for quite some time.

But what could they be after—oh. Understanding dawned on him.

Her ID card. Of course.

It made perfect sense now.

"How about..." Asher began, and suddenly a tattoo appeared on his right hand while a pink magic circle materialized before his wand. His voice dropped to a dangerous whisper.

"No."

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!