The Villainous Me Turned the Losers into Blackened Bosses-Chapter 271 - She’s Here

Right now, in a certain Hysterm villa nestled within the capital—

Carver Hysterm emerged from the three-story building, casually removing his small hat. He settled calmly into the luxurious carriage waiting for him.

“My lord,” his butler began, respectfully presenting a cup of fragrant black tea as the carriage door closed, “there’s something I’ve never quite understood. Do you truly intend to leave the young master in that woman’s hands? Do you not plan to rescue him?”

The butler continued his cautious inquiry. “For the Hysterm family, Young Master Will has essentially become a hostage. It also somewhat bolsters the royal family’s prestige... Of course, I am merely suggesting; your decisions are what truly matter.”

“Mmm, isn’t this part of the plan?” Carver replied coolly. “Why else would I bother going to the place he used to live just to find his little maid?”

He lifted the lid from the teacup, blew gently across the surface, but didn’t take a sip. Then, looking up with a profoundly meaningful smile, he seemed to silently invite the next question.

“Is... is it because if she takes action, it won’t technically be our fault, allowing us to sidestep certain risks?” the butler ventured.

“Wrong.”

“Then why?”

“In a chaotic system,” Carver explained, his voice smooth and deliberate, “if you want to observe the consequences of changing a variable, the method with the least risk is to manipulate the elements it has already changed.” He took another tentative sip of the tea, found it still too hot, and set the cup down again. “This is trouble Will stirred up entirely on his own. Letting the pieces he put on the board resolve it is the optimal course. Though,” a sly glint appeared in his eyes, “I did add a little fuel to the fire.”

Carver adjusted his glasses, gazing out the carriage window towards the distant royal palace. Somewhere, a clock began to chime, striking eight heavy bells. `Dong... Dong... Dong...`

“Sickness’ manifests differently in everyone, Will,” Carver murmured, almost too low for the butler to hear. It was a rare moment, the butler noted, when Carver used the name ‘Will’ with the distinct tone of a father speaking to his son.

“Some people... if they genuinely believe they’re being abandoned, granted their freedom, they paradoxically become calmer.”

“But they only need that tiniest sliver of positive reinforcement to reignite the full force of their sincere emotions.”

“However, like a spring,” Carver mused, tapping a finger against the windowpane, “without that initial pressure, that compression, there can be no rebound.”

The carriage began to roll forward smoothly, the scenery outside starting to drift past.

“Mmm... Haven’t I provided sufficient assistance already? As my son, he will undoubtedly handle this situation. No need for concern.”

“Yes, my lord,” the butler replied dutifully.

“It’s just...” Carver’s gaze drifted back to the teacup in his hand. “Her skill at brewing tea... it’s completely different from the ‘last time’.” A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. “It seems someone... has indeed been working very hard.”

***

“Current time... hmm, maybe around eight o’clock? Then I haven’t actually been running all that long,” Will thought, crouching low in a patch of dense bushes. He used a stray twig and its shadow against the ground to get a rough estimate.

“Let me calculate... When will Treya likely begin her pursuit? How much faster will she be than me? Is this just a straightforward chase problem...?”

He kept thinking, placing a hand on a nearby tree trunk to steady himself as he moved cautiously through the undergrowth.

The reason he was already calculating Treya’s speed was simple...

He firmly believed Shuna wouldn’t lose.

But, concurrently, he also believed Shuna couldn’t truly ‘win’.

Treya’s objective wasn’t to kill Shuna. Shuna might very well aim to kill Treya, but... as the master of ‘Demon Castle Zero’, Treya possessed far more hidden advantages and tricks than Shuna, who wasn’t even equipped properly for this kind of fight.

`Oh yeah, I could tell instantly. The dagger Shuna brought today definitely wouldn’t give her an edge against Treya’s swordsmanship.`

And... demons excelled above all else at mental manipulation and control.

Lucifa, merely the fledgling empress of the Tenth Demon Castle, possessed techniques capable of subduing even a fully buffed Shuna.

So how could Treya, the Empress of ‘Demon Castle Zero’ itself, not possess similar, likely far stronger, abilities?

Shuna would almost certainly be controlled eventually, though Will held onto the confidence that she could break free, given enough time.

It was the indeterminate length of that time... that forced him to rely solely on himself to escape.

“I’ll definitely be caught eventually,” he calculated frantically. “I probably only have about a half-hour head start, maybe less.”

His right leg, thankfully, was already healed. Since it was a purely physical wound, not magical, his own healing abilities patched it up quickly. The bleeding had stopped. Running wasn’t an issue, physically at least.

Truthfully, his heart was still hammering against his ribs.

Stepping out of the ethereal gloom of the palace and into the tangible warmth of the morning sun—only then did Will truly feel the suffocating ‘nightmare’, where reality blurred and his memories were violated, finally release its grip.

And the root of that nightmare...

Treya wasn’t just far more intelligent than he’d ever anticipated; the information she’d gathered and skills she’d developed entirely on her own surpassed even his knowledge gleaned from the original story.

She was more obsessive, her presence heavier, her desire for control absolute.

“Was it my escape attempt... that finally made her realize the ‘Teacher Will’ she remembered wasn’t someone who would just obediently stay caged by her side?” he wondered grimly.

“Or maybe... her string of successes within the palace...”

“...made her so arrogant she decided she only needed a version of Will who was controlled, dependent, leashed to her for everything?”

“Devoid of independent thought, naive yet kind, seeing the world as bright and pure—isn’t that precisely who Treya used to be?”

...

Will let out a ragged sigh.

Regardless, the priority was escape.

Because only the sharp sting of him ‘getting away’ – the frustration of failure – could possibly jolt Treya, currently drunk on her successful schemes, awake from the dream of victory she had constructed.

`Dousing a yandere’s blazing arrogance is a critical step in regaining control,` he reminded himself. `It’s basic counter-yandere tactics.`

He desperately hoped he could still exert some influence over the ‘narrative’ developments.

“There’s one more person. Eir,” he thought, a flicker of hope mixing with anxiety. “I hope she came today, like she always used to.”

He had left the blood message for Eir as a coded signal, meant to convey the danger he was in. The ‘300 Questions for Blackening’ provided the framework for their ‘secret code known only to them’.

If... If he remembered correctly, question 296 was supposed to be...

`[Q: What if he suddenly disappears?`

`A: Become the strongest detective, use your keen sense of smell to track him down. Believe in yourself; no one disappears without a trace. You can definitely find clues.`

`Especially—clues only you would notice.]`

`Right, the point was, basically, ‘Find me. Use your skills.’`

Except...

A nagging worry surfaced in Will’s mind.

When he wrote the ‘300 Questions for Blackening’, did he start the numbering from... 0, or from 1...?

`Based on the programming conventions from my past life... it should... probably... maybe have started from 0? Which would make the 296th entry actually question number 295... Crap.`

“CAW—!”

But fate didn’t grant him even a second to unravel that potentially disastrous uncertainty. The harsh cry of crows erupted directly overhead.

“!!!”

A dark flurry of wings burst from the trees just behind him.

`A large group of people? Moving loudly, not even trying to be quiet? Did they just pass nearby?!`

`...This is really bad!?!`

`Could I have been caught already?`

`No, no, no... How could they possibly be this fast? I specifically took a roundabout path, not the main trail down the mountain!`

`Unless...`

`Unless Treya does have...`

`...a way to pinpoint my exact location?`

Does she? This chase wouldn’t end just by reaching the city limits; he needed to find a hiding spot utterly invisible to her.

`Hard to say... she’s part demon. It’s entirely possible she planted some kind of tracking device on me...`

His hand instinctively went to the earring nestled against his lobe.

The white counterpart to Treya’s black one.

`She...` `Even this... the matching gift she gave me...` `...was it planned from the very start... as just another tool to control me?`