I Am a Villain, So What?-Chapter 114: Aftermath [1]

Being able to read others’ minds just by closing the distance meant that quiet rest had no place in her life. Walking through a crowd was like walking through a screaming storm. Sleeping in a city was impossible without heavy sedatives.

Some in the Church called her ability proof of Sainthood. A divine gift to guide the lost lambs.

’...My ass.’

She gritted her teeth, twisting the massive mana valve in front of her.

She didn’t particularly want to tear apart the doctrines of the Silent Vigil. They were the only family she had left.

But her honest feeling? She wanted to grab every pious priest who praised her gift and force them to live with it for one day.

It was certainly a powerful ability. But having information she didn’t want to know forcibly shoved into her brain day in and day out was a hardship sufficient to wear down the spirit of anyone.

In the first place, she was strongly beginning to doubt whether the Church was really doing the right thing.

Were they saving humanity? or were they just annoying fanatics getting beaten up in parking lots?

Recently, she had even occasionally had the blasphemous thought that she was just a scapegoat—a mascot being used for propaganda by the elders who took over after her father died.

’Just a scam... that’s what we are.’

That was what she believed.

Until she met a certain man ten minutes ago.

A man who looked at the apocalypse and smiled. A man who claimed he truly believed in the ’prophecy’ her father had spoken of, even when she didn’t.

"..."

While her hands were fiddling with the large, glowing Mana Crystal, diligently bypassing the mana flow according to the map he gave her, Darien’s mind was filled only with thoughts of him.

HUMMMMM.

The Mana Crystal in front of her pulsed, turning from a volatile red to a stable blue.

The rumbling stopped.

"Oh! Ooh! Th-the vibration is stopping!"

One of her followers, a young man with a bruised eye, cheered.

"The pressure gauge is normalizing! The explosion has been averted!"

The followers looked around, their faces lighting up with awe. They had done it. For the first time, they hadn’t just held signs; they had actually saved the Tower.

"Oh, ooh! Th-the vibration... it’s stopping!"

"The prophecy was right after all! The gospels were all true!"

As the violent trembling of the Spire subsided and the ominous red glow of the mana vents shifted to a stable, humming blue, the followers of the Silent Vigil erupted in unison.

It was a scene of pure, unadulterated vindication.

Some of them, overcome with emotion, rushed up to Darien. One young man grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her with a strength born of hysteria.

"Saintess! Saintess! We were not wrong! We aren’t crazy!" he sobbed, tears streaming down his dusty face. "It is all as the prophecy foretold! We saved the Tower!"

"Yes... Yes. That’s right."

Darien nodded mechanically, her voice hollow.

In a way, it was the moment of proof she had longed for her whole life—definitive evidence that her father was not a swindler who died in madness, but a true prophet.

Yet, Darien could only give a lukewarm response.

Her head was still wandering far away.

To be honest, if it weren’t for a certain man who had pushed her to act according to the prophecy just now, she doubted she would have lifted a finger. She would have let the explosion happen, perhaps welcoming the silence of death.

’...Strange.’

She stared at the blue light of the crystal, but she saw only black eyes.

The fact that he had come looking for her out of the blue was one thing.

The fact that he had pushed her back without a shred of doubt, saying that her father’s prophecy—which even she, his own daughter, had treated as a burden—was definitely right, was another.

At the very least, his appearance was too exquisitely timed.

It was as if he had appeared just when her faith was wavering. Just when she was about to give up on everything.

’More than anything...’

Darien brought a hand to her temple.

The fact that she couldn’t read his mind at all bothered her the most.

In sixteen years of living in a world of screaming thoughts, she had never once met a person who was an ’exception’ to her ability. Even powerful High-Rank Hunters she had encountered in the past... she could hear them. Their arrogance, their lust, their greed. It was all noise.

But that man.

He was a void. He was a black hole in a universe of light.

’What on earth was he?’

Surely.

She surely had a memory of hearing something related to this situation before. A fragment of a verse she had read in her father’s old journals, the ones she had dismissed as ravings.

"Let us raise a toast! Saintess, today is a very joyous day! We must spread the word!"

Even as the follower who had grabbed her shoulder was passionately speaking, spraying spit with every word, Darien’s consciousness was diligently searching through the dusty warehouse of her memory.

It was hard to concentrate because the follower kept shaking her, his thoughts bleeding into hers—Joy. Vindication. Hunger. Pride.

"The Savior is surely watching over us! Soon, according to the gospel, His incarnation will also descend in person—"

"Wait a minute."

Darien’s hand shot up, grabbing the follower’s wrist. Her grip was iron-tight.

"What did you say?"

"...Pardon?"

The follower stopped speaking, flustered by Darien’s sudden intensity. The joy on his face faltered, replaced by confusion as he looked into her eyes.

They were burning. Not with the gloom of a tired girl, but with a terrifying, fanatical heat.

"What did you just say?" she repeated, her voice low.

"That... the Savior is watching over us..."

"Not that."

"The part about... the Savior’s incarnation descending, you mean...?"

"That’s it."

Click.

The lock in her memory turned. The dusty book opened.

’And when the world is filled with the noise of sin, He shall arrive. The Incarnation of the Savior. He who holds the Silence. He whose mind is a fortress of God, impenetrable by the woes of man.’

The follower who was holding Darien’s shoulder took a step back.

The eyes of the woman he was facing... well.

They were slightly creepy.

"...Saintess?"

"Yes," Darien whispered, a smile slowly creeping onto her face. "If it’s that... then everything fits."

If that man was the ’Incarnation of the Savior’ spoken of in the true gospel, then the anomalies made sense.

His sudden appearance before her when her faith was wavering? Divine Intervention. His knowledge of the disaster and the hidden mechanics of the Tower? Omniscience. His immunity to her ability? Divine Silence.

Her curse was meant to hear the sins of mortals. Of course she couldn’t hear him. One cannot read the mind of a God.

’...’

Darien rolled the word around in her mouth, tasting it.

The Incarnation.

The Messiah she was meant to believe in and follow. The only person in this loud, wretched world who could give her peace.

"Where did he go?" Darien asked suddenly, snapping her head up.

"H-Huh? Who?"

"The man," she hissed. "The black-haired man. Where is he?"

"I... I think he went toward the lower basement levels? But Saintess, we need to evacuate! The Hunters will return soon!"

Darien ignored him. She brushed past her followers, her grey robes fluttering.

The gloom was gone from her posture. She walked with a terrifying purpose.

"Saintess? Where are you going?!"

"To find him," she replied, her eyes gleaming in the dark.

She didn’t care about the Tower anymore. She didn’t care about the Silent Vigil.

She had found the Silence. And she was never going to let it go.

****

[The Basement Entrance]

"Why are you looking at your watch again?" Alicia asked, wiping soot from her rapier.

"Because there are two things left to check," I replied, tapping the glass face of the timepiece.

"Two things?"

"One is that."

I pointed with my chin toward the spiral staircase. Heavy, dragging footsteps echoed from above.

"The bait returns."

A moment later, Tony and the Iron Fangs emerged from the shadows.

"..."

You could hardly call them a survey team anymore. They looked like the survivors of a natural disaster. Their armor was dented and scorched, their cloaks were in tatters, and more than half of them were limping.

They had trudged all the way up the Spire, fought through waves of elite guardians, only to find an empty room and a mocking stone tablet.

"You guys seem to have had a hard time," I said cheerfully, leaning against the wall. "Was it rough up there?"

"..."

From the side, Alicia looked at me with a gaze that screamed, ’You are truly the devil,’ but the hunters didn’t have the energy to retort.

The look on their faces wasn’t just pain; it was the hollow emptiness of greed denied. They realized that while they were bleeding out upstairs, someone else had snatched the prize.