How to Redeem a Trashy Side Villain

Chapter 70: Who Cares?

In a fit of rage, the baron began pushing himself forward, fighting me from a dangerous distance rather than keeping himself safe by cowering behind his tentacles.

He had pulled a whip out of nowhere and it looked like it was long enough to reach from one end of the room to the other.

If you can't tell by now by the scope of our battle, the room of cages we were in was massive and it took up almost half of the acres of land he owns.

'What is his obsession with tentacles? Even his weapon can be considered another tentacle.'

The whip thwipped and I dodged it once, then twice as it came back around like a boomerang.

He had completely abandoned his tentacles at this point, using them as a mode of transport and elevation rather than weapons.

'Foolish decision,' I thought to myself.

"You're not the only one who can push forward," I stated as I began running towards him, dodging, weaving, and avoiding his whip by a small margin of error.

A few feet away from him, I jumped up as he was in the air.

Coating my left arm in a thick layer of mana, I caught the whip and allowed it to wrap around me.

I pulled on it to bring me closer to the wielder and with a clean swipe, I left a second cut on the baron's chest.

"Bastard!" he screamed as he pulled on his whip to free it but I refused to let go of it. "Let go!"

"You're an old bag of rotten shit holding onto life by stealing the life of others! Yet, how come you sound like a child who's not getting what he wants!?" I insulted him.

The more his emotions riled up, the less calm his mind was, and the more reckless he was with his attacks and in regard to his own health.

He must've forgotten that just because you can heal your wounds, it doesn't actually make you immortal.

Planting my feet firmly on the ground, I pulled on the whip once more but rather than shooting up into the air, I was actually pulling the baron close to me.

His body flipped over and began plummeting in my direction.

Quickly, he released the whip in his hand and pushed off the ground with his tentacles to change his trajectory but he was already too close and had entered my range.

With the sword cocked all the way to my back, as if I was slicing a watermelon, I swung the katana forward in a straight line.

In the ideal scenario, I would've gone for the head and finished the battle, but the baron had already reacted by protecting it with a single condensed tentacle that was hardened enough to block my katana.

'But I'm not going for the head,' I thought to myself as the katana released a wave of mana so sharp and quick that it sliced through his left arm as if it were butter.

"How dare you!" he screamed as his face distorted with pain.

He clutched onto his exposed shoulder with his other arm. It was beginning to heal but at an extremely slow rate.

His mana must've been drained quite a bit from using his tentacles as well as regenerating all his wounds.

I wasn't going to let the opportunity go to waste. Like a bouncing ball, I kept shooting up into the air, striking the baron, coming back down to the ground, then repeating the process.

The baron still had his tentacles and could've used them to attack and delay me but he was so busy trying to protect himself and create distance between us that he forgot about their main purpose.

"Is your old man brain getting to you?" I asked. "Look how slow you're reacting."

I left another cut on his thigh.

"Is it just me or is the grim reaper behind you? I think it's your time to leave the plane of the living."

I cut off his left arm once more which was halfway done with regenerating.

"Son of a bitch!" he swore as he clutched at where his arm used to be once more.

He must've assumed that I was done but by shooting a powerful blast of lighting toward the ground, I was able to shoot myself back up into the air and I sliced off his right arm.

"Arghhhhhh!" he screamed so loudly that the echoes blasted across the room and shook up all the dust that had settled on the floor.

Like a wolf who had just become a rabbit, he stumbled to the floor and his tentacles shrank.

'His mana control must've faltered because his focus is elsewhere.'

He got up with the help of his shriveled tentacles that looked like dried plums. Turning away from me, he began rushing towards one of the cages.

I saw Maya in the distance and she looked to be in a better position than before because some of the baron's men who saw him as a deity that couldn't lose, were distracted by the weakness that he was showing.

In their minds, they must be questioning if what they were seeing was real and if they had been deceived this whole time.

Gerald used his tentacles to pry open one of the cages and had them take two of the humans into his grasp.

'What is he doing?' I wondered as I walked closer to him.

"Don't get any closer!" he screamed as his tentacles formed into blades and pointed directly at the necks of the humans he had snatched up. He placed them in front of him as if they were a shield.

"The all-mighty Immortal is resorting to hostages?" I asked.

"What's wrong with that?" he asked with a wicked smile, feeling as though he had just checkmate me. "If it means I get to stay alive, what's wrong with using these pathetic humans as a shield."

"What makes you think I care?" I asked.

"What?"

"What have I said or done that has led you to believe that I care about these humans you're holding hostage?" I asked.

I did promise I was going to free them but that didn't mean I was going to save all of them. In a way, isn't death another form of freedom?

I dashed forward and with a swipe that went from east to west, my katana sliced through the torso of all three people who were in the way of my blade.

The two hostages looked at me as if I had just betrayed them and that expression remained as their lives drifted away.

Baron Gerald dropped the severed humans and with his lower half beginning to slowly heal, he began using all of his tentacles to run away from me as quickly as he could.

I saw him look around the room, then eventually he looked up, and with a push, he sent himself flying up into the air.

One of his tentacles, he must've exerted most of his remaining mana to enlarge it because it returned back to its usual size and with a powerful punch, the tentacle broke through the ceiling of the basement.

With a hole above, the baron latched onto it and pulled himself onto ground level.

Rather than chasing him immediately, I went over to Maya and quickly helped her clean up the rest of the guards she had been dealing with by herself this entire time.

"Did you see?" I asked.

"See what? I was too damn busy with all these fuckers to see anything!" she cursed as she collapsed to the ground, all the energy in her body gone.

I didn't really mind if she saw because the oath we made would've prevented her from sharing it anyway.

"Here," I said as I extended my hand forward.

"What's this?" she asked as she gave me her palm. When she saw what it was that I just handed to her, her eyes widened. "When did you have the time to get this?"

"Don't worry about it," I smiled as I began heading up the stairs. "Go finish what you need to finish. I'll be doing the same."

"...Will do," she responded.

Leaving the mansion, it felt strange seeing how bare it was compared to when I was infiltrating it.

Taking a step outside, I saw the baron in the middle of his field of grass. He had a whistle in his hand and he was blowing it on so strongly that saliva was shooting out of him.

"What are you doing?" I asked as I began approaching him.

He was so drained of power and mana at this point that I didn't even feel the need to rush towards him.

Ignoring me, he kept blowing his whistle.

Whatever it was that he was trying to do, he eventually got frustrated at the lack of success and he threw the whistle to the ground and stomped on it with his tentacle.

"Where are these fuckers!? I pay you like kings! I've allowed you to worship me and this is how you treat your God!" he screamed with a face so filled with anger that it looked like I was staring at a demon.

"Are you trying to call for the men you've spread around the city like a plague?" I asked.

"...Those ungrateful mortals," he sighed as he prepared himself for battle.

It took a few attacks but it was night and day difference compared to when we first started the battle.

The baron was beneath me, his tentacles had disappeared and his body stopped healing itself.

I kept my foot on his chest and he couldn't move whatsoever.

"Please... please don't kill me. I'll... I'll show you how to become an immortal like me," he begged as tears began pouring down his face.

"Stop crying. You're not the victim here," I stated.

"Please let me live. I promise I won't kill anymore. Just arrest me. I'll repent for my sins in prison," he said. If he had arms right now, I could see his hands clasped together.

"Don't care," I commented. He must've thought that I had relaxed because one last tentacle formed and aimed at my neck.

I dodged it and it quickly disappeared from lack of mana.

"I thought you were going to repent?" I asked.

"I... I am. That was a mistake. You know, I wasn't always like this. I only became obsessed with—"

Before he could begin telling his backstory, I sliced off his neck.

"Who gives a shit about your tragic backstory?"

Walking to the front gate, I jumped over it and immediately saw a group of men dressed in holy clothes surrounding the perimeter of the manor.

They had been preventing anyone from entering or leaving the manor and I could see behind them were groups of people that had been captured and tied up for attempting to come to the baron's aid.

"Safe to say that you succeeded?" asked the bishop.

I nodded.

"And I won't be punished for calling for the church?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"Good," he smiled.

I looked back at the manor and said, "In the basement of the mansion, there are about a hundred or so people who are locked up in cages. They've been drugged and some of them are completely disassociated with reality."

Before I could ask him to deal with it, the bishop placed his hand on my shoulder.

With a gentle smile, he said, "We got it from here Agnus of Bell. Thank you for helping those poor souls. You may rest now my righteous friend."

"...Thank you."