The Villainous Me Turned the Losers into Blackened Bosses-Chapter 265 - Run!

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“Nope,” Shuna hissed, quickly ducking back after peeking out. Bright flashes of silver armor glinted under the moonlight. She scrambled back into the bushes where Will was huddled, hugging his knees.

“The entrance I used... it’s totally surrounded now,” she reported, gesturing towards the wall corner.

“Not surprising... Knowing Treya, she’d definitely want every blind spot covered to keep us from getting out,” Will sighed.

“Mhm,” Shuna nodded, her mind already racing. She pictured the palace map she’d memorized, mentally marking the known exit with a big red X. Okay, that route’s blocked. “We’ll have to head deeper into the palace first. But... where? If we can’t get out before sunrise, things get complicated.”

“It’s alright, just follow me for now. I might know this place better than you think,” Will offered.

“Do you really ‘know’ it? Or were you just sleepwalking around here?” Shuna asked, the skepticism clear in her tone.

Will caught the doubt. “W-Well... I actually visited Treya quite often these past few years. Haven’t been everywhere, but I’m somewhat familiar.”

“Oh, okay then,” Shuna conceded, crossing her arms. But as she looked at Will, a thought struck her. “Speaking of which... you don’t... feel anything weird, do you? Like, feeling drowsy here, like you might just... drift back into the dream any second?”

She’s worried if I’m truly free from Treya’s control, worried I might get dragged back mid-escape. It was a valid concern. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and focused inward.

“For now... no,” he replied after a moment.

“Hmm... That’s kinda strange,” Shuna murmured, narrowing her eyes.

As they moved deeper, the oppressive “dungeon-like” aura she’d felt earlier, the remnants of Treya’s influence, seemed to lessen.

...

Their escape route choices weren’t exactly...’rich’. First, they had to eliminate paths near known patrol points. Second...

They needed to avoid areas Treya might think were ‘weak spots’ and subsequently reinforce heavily. Those sudden troop surges were likely directly linked to Treya.

The simplest reason...

They didn’t want to alert Treya directly.

Shuna might not care as much, but for Will, falling back under Treya’s mental grip meant returning to the “dream.”

After scouting out the “extra” knight patrols that had appeared, Shuna and Will marked them on their mental map. They also crossed off several areas Will knew Treya frequented at night.

Sunrise was getting closer.

“Okay, if this side door and that path are both patrolled and unusable... Then...”

Finally...

Even Will and Shuna were surprised.

They were left with a route that wasn’t convoluted at all. In fact, it felt... almost too straightforward!

This “palace escape route”...

Led directly out... near the main gate.

“...”

“Uhhh...”

They stared at the imaginary map, then at each other, the implication dawning on them simultaneously.

“”She’s leading us!”” they blurted out in unison.

Treya must have calculated they’d have to avoid the new patrols. By sealing off potential weak points in the walls, she was effectively funneling them, “guiding” them onto this single path.

“This is...” Will hesitated.

Treya’s traps were, as usual, remarkably ‘obvious’. But she seemed to possess a chilling ‘confidence’ in them— a confidence that screamed, ‘This trap is the only path you can take,’ and ‘Once you fall in, you won’t escape.’

That’s the kind of dominance she wields here, in the palace, her home turf.

While he hesitated, Shuna snatched the mental map right out of his thoughts.

“Don’t overthink it,” she declared firmly. “If it can be a ‘trap’, it means she had to use something with a potential ‘opening’ as bait. As long as we find that opening, we’ll be fine.” She mentally folded the map and stuffed it away.

“Would be nice if we had more people—like that maid of yours who’s super worried about you. If she were here, one of us could stick with you just in case, and the other could act as bait to test Treya.”

“Eir...”

Will hadn’t forgotten her.

It was just...

He didn’t have any particular “expectations” of her. In his eyes, Eir was always the obedient, well-behaved little maid.

He couldn’t easily picture Eir storming the palace over anything.

But Shuna’s comment brought the image of his cute little maid to mind—tail wagging, ears twitching, nervously running off to be bait.

Aww...

However...

It was strange hearing Shuna mention her.

“Why bring her up all of a sudden?” Will asked.

“Seeing the main gate as the destination on the map reminded me. I ran into her this morning.”

“...You met her?!”

In his memory— scratch that, his memory wasn’t exactly reliable right now— in his impression, Shuna had met Leah, and obviously just met Treya, but she shouldn’t have ever met Eir.

How could she be so sure it was Eir?

“This morning, it was drizzling a bit. When I was scouting the place, I saw her talking to the guards at the main gate, then she left under an umbrella.” Shuna explained, then paused, realizing a potential flaw. “Ah... Actually, I’ve never seen her in person. But a brown-haired beastkin with obvious wolf features hanging around the palace? Only matched the description you gave me.”

“Then... she must be trying hard to contact me,” Will murmured, a pang of guilt hitting him.

Before he left, only Eir had agreed with him meeting “Mr. S”. Yet, Eir was also the one most concerned about his safety.

And the most... naive.

Her young master finally has news, right here in the nearby palace, and she wasn’t notified or brought along— usually, if she wasn’t busy, I’d always try to bring her with me on palace visits. She probably wants to curl up and cry her eyes out. He really should have written Eir a letter before leaving the Tenth Demon Castle.

“Once we’re out, maybe we should call her,” Shuna suggested, though she sounded slightly reluctant.

Still...

“Ah... I can already picture her tackling me in a hug,” Will chuckled softly.

“Not much night left. Let’s get moving, take this route around,” Shuna urged, changing the subject.

...

Towards the palace’s grand, ornate main gate they went, dodging watchmen, moving step by careful step.

For Will...

Each familiar yet strange “scene” flickered before his eyes.

The previous two times he’d woken from the dream, he hadn’t managed to wander the palace this extensively, hadn’t had the chance to truly see what it looked like now.

They crossed the small palace square.

In Treya’s “dream,” this square was pristine, filled with blooming flowers and trimmed bushes— a perfect setting for a royal date.

But now, before Will’s awakened eyes, the square looked desolate and grim.

Every small square like this used to fly banners representing nearly all members of the royal family. But after Treya took power, clearly intending to weaken the others and discard Entark’s long tradition of infighting, she’d had all the banners removed, the representative flowers destroyed, even the flagpoles chopped down.

The place where dream-Treya had held his hand and walked with him was now like ruins after a bygone era of prosperity.

“Head down! Someone’s coming that way!”

Shuna smacked his head down just as a patrol passed. freewebnøvel.com

They slipped past the former Near-Divine Palace.

His last clear memory before Treya captured him was here. In the dream, however...

This place didn’t appear. In his two weeks of fabricated memories, it was a beautiful indoor garden. Looking from outside, he could see its vibrant stained-glass windows and plants growing tall enough to touch the roof.

But the doors were always closed. He only ever saw the building from the outside, never entering.

Now, though...

The main doors were still tightly shut. And it seemed Treya, severing ties with the old Entark, hadn’t just closed it off but had removed everything representing Entark’s power from within. Even the glass windows were shattered.

“This way—stay in the patrol’s blind spot on that side,” Shuna whispered.

She yanked him by the hand into the building’s deep shadow.

Finally, they reached the front of the Guest Palace.

About twenty steps below lay the main gate of the entire palace complex. The Entark royals, aiming to flaunt their superiority, had elevated the palace facing the gate with a long staircase, despite the palace already being built on a mountain.

Treya’s regency office was here. In Will’s “dream,” the entire building and its steps were gilded, shimmering, magnificent.

But now...

He saw the steps before him were dilapidated. Many of the stones were weathered and cracked from rain erosion.

Because for so many years, very few people had bothered visiting Entark anymore.

“The main gate is just below,” Shuna stopped and stated flatly. “Definitely a trap. Even the usual gate guards aren’t visible.”

“Does that mean it’s easier to escape?” Will wondered aloud.

“...Let’s just get down these stairs first, before she shows up,” Shuna urged.

“...!”

Staring down the staircase, a rare prickle of “intuition,” a sense of wrongness, surged through Will.

He rarely got such feelings in dungeons—that feeling of being watched, or...

Of imminent danger.

But the feeling now was sharp, undeniable, almost exactly like... like how he could always sense the anomalies within the dream.

“Shuna—Watch out—!”

Hearing Will’s warning, Shuna reacted purely on instinct, shoving Will behind her and whipping out a dagger from its thigh sheath.

Clang—!

The Shadow Wraith Sword, trailing faint black mist, clashed sharply against Shuna’s dagger.

“Spending so much time with me... can you sense me now? Will-sensei~? ♡”

The voice held the sweet melody of a half-elf, yet spoken with a chilling tone teetering precariously between cold detachment and utter madness.

She seemed to emerge from the shadows themselves, her silver hair fanning out in the fading moonlight.

“Because of someone like her...? Just one look at someone like her, and you could wake up from such a sweet dream with me? Will... Whyyyy??”

Will stared into her eyes.

Her purple eye was uncovered, the rich violet within blazing at its peak intensity.

Like potent enchantment, a single glance threatened to pull him back into her fabricated world.

But...

Shuna shoved Will hard.

He lost his footing, tumbling backward down the stairs.

In dreams, the sudden sensation of falling was the most effective way to jolt someone awake.

“WILL, RUN FOR IT—!!” Shuna roared.