The Villainess Returns with a System-Chapter 153: Outrage

It was outrageous in every sense of the word, and no matter how she relived that accursed moment in her head, Logan’s arrest was something she couldn’t make heads or tails of.

How could things turn out that way? Vivian kept asking herself.

Was this about her?

Did she leave any trace, and did it lead them to Logan?

What, or how, did this all happen?

Vivian protested, shouted, cried, aimed her guns, and faced all their swords at the same time, but she could do nothing.

She was powerless!

"WHY?" she shouted.

"I suggest you aim that away before you get yourself hurt, Miss Moore." Facing her gun’s barrel was Edmond Black, whom she had fought against four nights ago.

"ANSWER ME!"

She couldn’t accept it; she couldn’t take no for an answer, even when she was surrounded by the Knights of the Black Hand, and every one of them was an Aura user at least twice as powerful as her.

"Princess..." But then, it was Logan calling for her, with manacles binding his hands and a solemn gaze in his eyes, "Put the gun away. It is alright."

"Alright?" Vivian couldn’t handle how calm he was, "What’s alright? These people are..."

"Vivian."

But it only took him saying her name for her to aim her gun away and turn to him with a devastated face.

"I’ll handle it," he said, and turned without resistance to the large iron carriage used to contain Aura users inside.

Just as the situation cooled down, the Black Hand Knights put away their swords and started retreating from the front gate of ViTech HQ. The last was Edmond, who oversaw this entire operation.

Just as he turned away and headed for his carriage, Vivian called him:

"Black!"

No honorifics, no niceties. The Vivian who was looking at him was consumed by pure anger, one that would carve out his guts and eat his liver raw.

He turned, feeling the aura that was boiling around her, and was surprised that she was an Aura user as well, albeit being only bronze. He didn’t speak and only looked at her.

"What evidence do you hold against him? I swear by all that’s holy and unholy, if this were an arbitrary arrest, you will suffer more than..."

"Calm down, Miss Moore," Edmond replied, and took off his glasses, wiping them calmly with a white cloth, before looking coldly at her, "We have eyewitnesses and testimonies that an argument occurred between Sir Eric and Sir Logan four nights ago, and he was the last to see him alive."

"Just that..."

"And we have discovered correspondences between them at Sir Eric’s residence. We waited for you to get out of the mansion this morning and requested a search of Sir Logan’s chamber at the Moore Mansion with a legal note from a judge, which led us to physical evidence of the murder stashed inside his room."

"What?" Vivian couldn’t process what she heard and stared at him blankly.

"Now, if you’ll excuse me," he said, and calmly raised a foot to enter his carriage, but halted and turned to Vivian, "Oh! If you ever aim that at me again, it won’t go lightly..."

He threw a casual warning, but as soon as he turned, Vivian was almost a foot away, staring at him with piercing eyes.

"Did you frame him the same way you framed Reginald?" 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

There were things that were meant to startle people, but what Edmond experienced was a whole shift in his natural state of being: pale skin, racing heart, goosebumps, and a shiver running through his core.

Vivian coldly flashed a card at his face, looking deep into his very being.

———READING———

Name — Edmond Black

Race — Human

Level — 2-star Silver Aura

Age — 20

Social — Heir (House Black), Claw (Black Hand)

Emotions — Terrified, Startled by the Truth, Alarmed, Tired

——————————

Startled by the Truth! There was no clearer indication.

Vivian had to reveal her knowledge of the situation regarding Reginald to get the truth in his mind and extract it with a Tarot. One of the few powers of the system that made her feel overpowered as it is.

The card was the reversed Magician, and it was a card of trickery and illusion, indicating clear falsehood.

"My gun should be the least of your worries," Vivian said, and gave Edmond the villainess’s chilling stare, "Next time we meet, it will be your downfall, Edmond Black."

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

What happened right in front of ViTech HQ sent even more violent ripples through the turbulent waters of House Moore. The fact that Count Moore was already bedridden made it clear that the power dynamics of the House had become less active, but with the appearance of the Black Hand Knights on the doorstep of the Count’s mansion with a judicial search warrant from a tribunal court meant that even if the Count was as healthy as a warhorse, he’d have to accept it either way. Still, the backlash was greater with the Count down.

As the search was conducted and the evidence was recovered, the arrest happened immediately... almost too immediately.

The time frame didn’t make sense to any sane mind. They waited for Vivian and Logan to leave the mansion, conducted an evidence search and seizure, and then an arrest force was waiting for them at ViTech, even though the evidence had just been seized.

They knew it was there because they planted it themselves. They have someone on the inside of the Moore mansion, and that someone had access to the living quarters.

Vivian knew who to trust; in this case, anyone who had access to her room. By that, it is the ladies of her Villainess Association.

They all know she is the Bloody Swan, a far greater offense than whatever murder a knight would commit against a knight, but she still has her head on her shoulders.

Aside from them, the trusted others are the core people of the House, such as Old Theo, Ray and Rusty, the Knights of the Lord, and the Security Agents. Those people were with Lord Julian through thick and thin, and their loyalty was proven time and time again.

Still, by eliminating all these people, the list wouldn’t grow any smaller. The Moores’ mansion is the second largest residence in the Capital, only a few square meters shy of the Royal Palace, and not for the lack of resources, just out of respect and also due to the mansion having too many facilities; it is almost supporting the population of a village within its vast grounds. This was due to the fact that House Moore is the only Great House that has its Title Holdings outside the borders of the region of Harland, namely a few fiefs in Moravia and one-third of the Avalai colonies.

So the list of suspects was big, really big, and that is the biggest problem. On top of it, there are always spies among the workers due to the sheer number of workers; that’s why only those who walk into the mansion itself, rather than its grounds, are the ones who are really trusted.

Should Vivian trust the investigative power of her house over its employees, or should she conduct her own search?

Still, there were a few people she could suspect right off the bat, starting with her younger brother, Robert Moore, who may have sneaked back into the House and planted the evidence against Logan. He may have also used his mother, Saskia, or any of her maids to do the deed, since they would do anything he asks.

Still, Robert and Saskia are hard to suspect right now, since he would be caught if he were seen anywhere near the mansion for not answering the Lord’s summons, and Saskia was somewhat redeeming herself, or appearing to do so.

Then who... would it be? Vivian thought of all possible combinations of traitors among the servants, those who could have cooperated with each other rather than doing it alone, those who could have been exploited to plant the evidence without knowing, and those who could have been exploited by outside factors.

With what she is focusing on in her day-to-day life, the last thing she needed was to solve such a situation. Still, she had a very powerful card to play, actually a whole set of them: her Tarot.

The downside is that she is now very low on SP, and the last card she drew at Edmond just this morning cost her 1,300 SP, and if she draws another new card, it will cost 1,400 SP, etc.

Between that, she had to choose between investigating with Tarot or returning to the System Upgrade with the projector automaton she stole from the Kabal.

Speaking of which, the Kabal seemed to have sent someone to meet her right the next day, but as she fell ill and announced a sick absence, the Kabal didn’t send anyone until today. It seemed that side had informants placed around her as well.

It wasn’t the best feeling to be watched by others, but since that was something out of her control at the moment, she decided to remedy what she could and meet with the one the Kabal sent right after she calmed down from Logan’s situation.

Lucky for her, the visitor was someone she was quite fond of: her professor, Amos Morgan.