How to Redeem a Trashy Side Villain

Chapter 123: A Little Sadistic

"Is that…" Diana uttered as she looked at the snake lying on my lap.

We were on our way to the academy and I had applied for permission to bring Violet to school. I wasn't the only student who had their magical beasts accompany them, so it wasn't a difficult process. It just required me to sign a few papers that were sent to my email that stated what I was responsible for and what I needed to do to ensure that Violet would be allowed to be a part of the campus.

"Yeah. She hatched from the black egg yesterday," I said as I gave Violet a few rubs.

She was currently asleep and just moments ago, she had been gushing about how pretty "the lady" was. The lady referred to Ichiko.

"For an egg that Vivian only wanted to hand out to First Class students, it doesn't really seem that…"

"Powerful?" I completed Diana's sentence.

She nodded, to which I shrugged with my facial expression.

"If it turns out to be a useless magical pet, don't hesitate to turn it into snake soup," Ichiko told me. "I can get you a replacement. We have plenty of powerful magical beasts in my homeland that you can either hatch or tame."

Diana didn't say anything but I could tell that she agreed, although she felt terrible for how she felt.

To them, my safety and the ability to deal damage were more important to have in a pet than one that was cute.

If these were regular girls on Earth, their priority would probably be on the cuteness, but this is the world of Nara where the demon king is on the horizon.

"Do they want you to leave it in the pet room?" Diana asked. That was usually the case for pets that were too large or too dangerous to just have roaming classrooms.

"No. It's small enough that the Headmistress doesn't mind if it stays on my body as long as it remains hidden on my person."

Diana began to mutter to herself, wondering when her egg would hatch.

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. When I pulled it out, it was a text message from Ichiko asking when she was going to receive an egg as a gift.

"...Hahaha," I nervously laughed.

.

.

.

"Why come to me?" I asked as I looked at the stack of papers in my hand. Flipping through them, my eyebrows raised more and more.

"Because you're the only person I know who is crazy enough to do it," said Maya.

"And you're sure about this information."

"I'm positive. Like… 99 percent sure."

"Not a hundred?"

"Unless I see it with my own eyes, nothing is ever a hundred percent certain. And even when I do see it with my own eyes, sometimes what I see isn't even the truth. For example…"

"Me?" I asked as I pointed at myself and laughed.

"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about," she said as she moved her hair out of the way to take a look at the paper as well.

Her hair usually covered her face. It was long, white, and it curved inwards as if it were pointing to the middle line where her eyebrows met. It was unkempt and wild like a wolf cut, except even more primal.

Her skin was black and more beautiful than the finest obsidian.

Her level of beauty was befitting of being in the protagonist's harem, except her personality was so terrifying, especially later on in the future. She would appear out of nowhere and was such a deadly killer that some of the readers were intimidated by how effortlessly she moved around the battlefield.

Right now, she was simply a stalker, although according to her, she was just an investigator who wanted to get the juiciest news available.

But to that, I ask, does her desire for news justify being invisible in someone's home while they shower? Or standing over them all night as they sleep? Or being in the bathroom as they took a… you know.

"What makes you think that I would risk my life by listening to your request?" I asked. "Aren't I the same person who you claim to be two-faced? What if my heroics were all an act?"

"I don't think that is true," she shrugged as she circled something on the paper with her pen. "I don't know what motivates your actions… but I truly believe that you will help out everyone who you see in trouble."

"Aren't you thinking rather highly of me? I'm just a trashy side villain, don't you know that?"

"Bell, I have no doubt that you are trash," she said as she circled another piece of information that she wanted me to focus on. "But you're… a special kind of trash."

Was that supposed to be a compliment?

"And right now, I need help from this so-called trash."

Crossing my arms, I leaned back into my chair and took a good look at this person. After I revealed that my goody two-shoes nature was an act, she would always stare at me with resentment and hatred whenever we passed each other in the hallways.

After I helped her against the Immortal, she still resented me but her hatred had lessened.

And ever since my battle against Selgaath, she still had some hints of resentment, but she was also looking at me with admiration.

"You may be a terrible person deep down… or maybe that is an act. Maybe you are a hero, a good Samaritan who is disguising themself with a mask of having a mask when in reality, there is no mask."

"That… that's a little confusing, but I get it." If I were a reader and had just read what she just said, I would've cursed out the author for the audacity to include that dialogue.

Also, she was wrong. But I didn't bother to correct her.

Maya was interesting to me. She was the only person whom I didn't have to put a constant act on. And if she was misunderstanding my mask to be reality, that only made it funnier for me.

I'll play along.

"So? Will you help me?" she asked, tilting her head. Her eyes were gazing at me as if she was already expecting me to accept.

Tapping my fingers on the desk, I didn't respond immediately. I had already made up my mind but I wanted to see how her face would morph as I took my sweet time.

Watching her, at first, she held confidence on her face. Her chin was slightly raised and her pen was making its way around the papers, circling things, writing down notes for me to read. Her posture was loose as if she had seen the cheat sheet to a test.

But seconds passed. Then seconds turned into minutes.

That certainty in her expression began to crack as I kept my mouth shut and stared at her as if she were stupid.

Is that a bead of sweat I see?

Her lips pressed together tightly. I could see that she had swallowed nervously through the motion of her throat. Her pen had stopped moving and her eyes ketp darking from the paper over to me.

This is so much fun. Hahahaha!

That bead of sweat which had formed on her temple slid down her cheek, then down the side of her neck.

She must've noticed that I was seeing her confidence begin to falter because her fingers twitched and she quickly used them to brush her hair back to how it usually was where it covered a majority of her face, including her eyes.

Maya, this is a lesson not to act so cocky next time, ahahaha! Even if you are correct, incorrect, or semi-correct, I don't care. Don't try to label me so easily. You don't know me and it's best that we keep it that way.

"..."

For your own sake.

'Master, don't you think that is rather sadistic of you?' asked Kimi.

'No! Master is just being honest, which is more admirable than being fake about it,' Liona disagreed.

I could see one of her feet shifting. Then the other joined a few seconds later.

Her body began to sway slightly side to side, like she didn't know what to do with her own body anymore. Standing still probably felt too awkward for her.

For someone who could disappear from the view of everyone, being watched so closely was most likely a very uncomfortable feeling. And once you add into the mix, everything she had said earlier — it was a poison that could only be cured by burying your face deep into a hole.

She's starting to doubt herself now. She looks like a goose that just realized they had been hanging out with a group of ducks.

Maybe she was wondering if she had misread me.

Perhaps she pushed too hard and now, the chance of my accepting had diminished.

Or was it that she had truly asked the wrong person for help?

Letting it stretch just a little longer, I finally opened my mouth when I felt like she was about to cry, "Okay."

"...O-Okay?"

"I'll do it," I told her.

Her head snapped up so fast that her hair fluttered and I could see the entirety of her eyes again.

"But," I added, raising my index finger, "only on one condition."

She froze and I leaned forward.

"I'll only do it if you help me out."

Staring at me for a second in silence, her face suddenly lit up. No, it exploded.

Her smile stretched so wide that for a second, I was stunned by how bright it was. A part of me began to admire her beauty, beyond just what I had read in the novel or the superficial beauty that equated to the feeling of lust.

"Of course," she said immediately, extending a hand. "I never planned on dumping everything on you in the first place."

Looking at her hand, I didn't shake it.

After clearing her throat, she pulled her hand back to her side.

Confidence starting to return to her expression, she straightened her back and continued taking notes as if the pen had never stopped moving.

"I'm the one who brought this to your attention. There's no way that I would leave the entire thing to you and not involve myself. Besides," she continued, "I need to be there in person. If something this important is happening, I need to be a primary source of news. Secondhand information is not as reliable."

Gesturing with my hand for her to calm down, I took another look at the paper.

As a matter of fact, I had already been planning on dealing with this person.

She simply brought it to my attention that their villainy had begun earlier than it did in the novel.

Aldo Niro…

The young man who had been at Rubi's birthday party. The man whom I considered to be a worse version of Bell. If Bell was a trashy side villain, Aldo Niro was a true villain. He had committed the crimes that Bell had committed, but multiplied by a hundred.

I look forward to seeing you.

There were many villains in the novel who hate commited terrible crimes. But for me, Aldo was up there in terms of disgust and hatred.

"Bell?" Maya called my name. "Bell? Hello? Bell?"

I pulled myself out of the trance I was in.

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

"...Yeah. Just a little excited," I smirked. "How many more followers do you think I will get on social media once news comes out about me defeating another evil?"