The Villain’s Ending

Chapter 100

Afterimage (11)

I ran towards Levina.

I madly thrust my feet forward into the darkness from which her voice had come.

From behind me, a foul stench and unsettling gazes seemed to bite and cling to the back of my head.

Levina watched me run towards her, then slowly took a deep breath and began to chant a spell. A faint light bloomed from the tip of her staff-holding hand, quickly transforming into a massive ball of flame, almost too bright to look at.

She aimed the tip of her staff at the village.

An enormous fireball arced across the sky.

Soon after, the fireball engulfed the village. While it couldn't completely obliterate everything, it at least succeeded in setting the entire village ablaze.

The houses, built of dry wood, instantly became gigantic torches and blazed.

Villagers who had been soundly asleep began to burn in Levina's flames, screaming as they rushed out.As the villagers burst out, they made eye contact with Lineta, who was dancing among the burning houses.

Their bodies then began to twist grotesquely.

With something amiss in their eyes, they began to crawl on the ground, then walked on all fours like the crimson-masked priests.

They slowly lifted their heads and began to run towards us on all fours, like dogs.

I turned my back and ran again.

Grabbing Levina's outstretched hand, I madly pushed through the forest.

Looking back, I saw Lineta casually touching the thorns sprouting from her neck, then snapping them off one by one.

There was no sign of pain on her face.

"Don't look back, just run forward!"

Levina shouted.

Her voice was urgent.

"The stone you placed in front of the door, that was you, wasn't it?"

I asked, panting.

"Thanks to it, I saved your life."

Levina replied gruffly.

"Shit, I can't see the river."

I mumbled, looking around.

The familiar stream was nowhere to be found.

It was then.

From behind me, I heard something sharp cut through the air.

Simultaneously, I felt a searing pain in my right shoulder, like a red-hot iron skewer being plunged in.

It was an arrow.

"Lavin! Are you okay!?"

Levina let out a sound close to a scream.

"No, I'm not okay, it fucking hurts."

I replied through gritted teeth.

Blood slowly trickled from my shoulder.

Whether it was poisoned or not, I felt my vision blurring.

"They're right behind us! Push yourself, run faster!"

Levina shouted, pulling my arm.

I followed behind Levina, turning this way and that as I ran.

My mind began to grow faint.

Without knowing where we were going, I simply moved my feet wherever she led.

Then, suddenly, a faint shimmer of water appeared in the distance.

It was the river.

Just as I thought we might finally escape, Levina and I crashed into something transparent stretched directly in front of the small waterway.

The impact of hitting the invisible wall instantly took my breath away.

"A few spells and it can be broken."

Levina said, feeling the wall.

I looked up at the sky.

The moon was still red.

"We can't escape. We have to fight. Or just leave me and go."

I spun around instinctively.

Perhaps it was because of the forest, but the back of my head felt a strange tingling.

I conjured fire in my hand.

I threw a flaming punch at the jaw of the first priest who rushed at me.

First, his neck and jaw caught fire, then the flames spread across his entire body.

Even as he burned alive, the bastard kept staring only at me, advancing, until he finally toppled over and turned to ash.

My hand had burned along with him, making it excruciatingly painful.

The smell of burning flesh permeated the air.

But I had to survive now.

Setting aside the priest who had become a living torch, stumbled, and died, other villagers and priests now surrounded me.

They still glared at me with bestial eyes, then charged all at once.

I was immediately overwhelmed and knocked down.

The impact of my back hitting the ground almost took my breath away.

The bastard snarled above me, opening its foul-smelling mouth.

I tried to push it away with my left hand and kicks, but unfortunately, it wouldn't budge.

I fumbled along the ground with my right hand.

Finally, something solid met my grasp.

It was a stone.

I raised the stone with all my might and brought it down on the bastard's head.

Thwack!

With a dull sound, the bastard's head burst open.

Yet, it wasn't dead.

It twitched, trying to bite my neck.

I raised the stone once more.

And brought it down.

Thud!

Again.

Crunch!

Over and over.

I swung the stone until the bastard was completely motionless.

Hot blood and brains splattered across my face and body.

A metallic, repulsive smell assailed my nose.

The bastard's head was now so utterly pulverized it was beyond recognition.

I gasped, pushing myself up from atop the corpse.

But there was no time to rest.

"Kyahhhhh!"

From all directions, villagers who had lost their reason crawled on all fours like beasts.

Their eyes glowed red, and foamy drool slobbered uncontrollably from their mouths.

I gripped the stone once more.

My heart pounded madly.

I swung the stone at the face of the first one that charged.

It couldn't dodge, took the hit squarely to the face, and rolled sideways.

I immediately pounced on the fallen one and crushed its head with the stone.

But immediately, another bastard bit my leg.

I screamed, kicked its head with my foot, then got up and stomped on its neck, crushing it.

At the same time, I struck the head of yet another bastard attacking from the side with the stone.

The sound of breaking bones echoed chillingly.

At that moment, the heads of the bastards above me burst apart.

It was Levina's magic.

She was stumbling, yet she continued to chant spells.

Driven by the desperate urge to survive, I clutched the stone disgracefully and swung it ceaselessly.

I should have brought my revolver.

At least then I wouldn't have had to fight like this.

My entire body was drenched in blood, sweat, and dirt.

Blood continued to flow from the wound in my shoulder, and the pain made my mind grow hazy.

How long had I fought like that?

I killed everything around me.

I consecutively smashed the heads of the bastards that were gnawing on Levina's thigh and chewing on her stomach.

Levina's condition didn't look good.

She had been covered in bruises to begin with, so she wasn't in good shape, but now she looked almost on the verge of death.

At least once we got out of here, the priests would take care of those unsightly bruises and wounds.

"......Sis, are you alive?"

"Ah, yes. You, by the way, you, since when...?"

Levina said, looking at the things strewn around me with slightly fearful eyes.

The surroundings were nothing but corpses.

I slumped onto a pile of bodies, gasping for breath.

Seeing the brains, flesh, and blood flowing from the broken heads, a bizarre urge suddenly arose within me: to lick them.

Even though I knew it was an insane thought, my tongue tingled with saliva.

I shook my head.

It wasn't me; this place must be the problem.

I had to believe that.

"Young master! You killed my mother too!

How long are you going to act like a delinquent? What kind of crazy bastard kills a servant's parents!?"

Lineta yelled.

She casually blocked the magic Levina, who had painfully leaned on a tree to stand, was firing, and smiled leisurely.

"You're fired, you crazy bitch!"

"It's obvious to anyone that the young master is one of us, so why are you pretending to be normal and living there?

And here I thought you were some kind of paladin!"

Lineta easily approached Levina, who was casting spells, then turned and kicked her in the stomach.

Levina hit a tree and fell unconscious.

The staff fell from her hand and rolled away.

And Lineta slowly approached me.

For some reason, I thought her eyes looked similar to the eyes she had looked at me with before.

The eyes of Lineta who had confessed to me.

Whether vertically elongated or round as usual, I had seen those eyes many times.

Levina, Seraphina, and even Estelle, everyone who approached me had those same eyes.

The moment that thought flashed through my mind, I relaxed my body, took out the tobacco from my pocket, put it in my mouth, and lit it.

"Oh my, are you giving up?"

"Soon I would have been able to manipulate Edelgard however I wanted from behind the young lord, but you fucked it all up."

I whispered, exhaling smoke.

Lineta frowned slightly at my overly calm demeanor.

"I don't think those horned, ill-tempered bastards will be very fond of the crap you've pulled."

Lineta snickered too, making a 'figures' expression, then looked back at Levina and hummed.

"From the start, young master, whose side are you on?"

Sometimes, simply glaring without answering was enough to resolve problems.

I scratched my brow slightly, as if to say, "Is that even a question?", and glared at Lineta.

"Ah, well. Still, she's unconscious... if I take her to a priest like this, maybe she can be sa-saved?"

As she said that, I naturally approached Lineta, who was turning her back to me as she moved towards Levina again, without bothering to hide my presence.

As if I were just approaching Levina myself.

And then I swung the blood-soaked stone towards her head.

For some reason, it felt like it would just work.

It was extremely impulsive, if anything.

Self-assurance had always brought me terrible results, but looking back now, I had lived that way even knowing it.

At this point, one or two more idiotic acts wouldn't make much difference.

"Ah, no... why is this... working...? It's not divine power, so it shouldn't be effective...!"

Lineta dodged my swinging stone once and exclaimed in a flustered voice.

Clutching her bleeding head, she fell and looked up at me, trying to crawl away. Her eyes were filled with an expression of utter disbelief and absurdity.

But she couldn't evade the second attack.

The stone struck her temple.

She collapsed sideways without even a scream.

I climbed onto her fallen body and raised the stone again.

With each blow to her head, I could feel her legs twitching as if in convulsions.

Her arms thrashed, trying to find purchase on the ground, but soon fell limp.

I hadn't intended to climb atop Lineta like this, but I had to do what needed to be done.

The thought that things wouldn't go smoothly this time was creeping in, but there was simply too much I didn't know.

Thwack! Thud! Crunch!

I brought the stone down again and again until her head was completely pulverized.

By the time her head was so mangled that even Lineta's fallen mother wouldn't recognize her, I too was exhausted and sat slumped on the ground for a long while.

I roughly wiped the blood from my face with my hand and took a moment to catch my breath.

All that rose was the shitty stench of urine, the reek of blood, and the unique metallic smell of what had been inside a human.

I stared blankly at the unconscious Levina, then picked her up and returned to the mansion.