Villain's Odyssey: Enslaving heroines, Conquering Villainesses-Chapter 84: The Mind

There was something she had noticed that was happening to him. It wasn’t just about whatever Maria had done to him—no, it was about something else entirely. In fact, he suspected that whatever was happening to him was what had amplified the sensations he was feeling towards Maria to that insane degree. Maybe the reason he was that crazy about her was because he was genuinely in love with her. Or rather, his alter was. And what she did just brought out those hidden emotions that had been buried deep within his psyche.

At least that’s one of the theories he formulated as he couldn’t just wrap his head around how a drug, potion, or whatever the hell it was she used on him could have such devastating effects. He just couldn’t understand how a mere substance could have such power over his mind and body. It didn’t make logical sense. If he wasn’t disciplined to the core due to the extended period of time he had stayed without emotions, if not for that resilience built over a long period of time of emotional numbness, he would have gone completely mad from these overwhelming emotions he always felt around her.

He couldn’t describe it properly—those moments when she would kiss him. It wasn’t just that he wanted to kiss her back. It was more like he was compelled, or rather desperately needed to possess her entirely. Yeah, it was just that crazy. Like an addict who had suffered through a week of withdrawal, suddenly seeing their substance of choice right in front of them, but they’re tied to a pole just an inch away from grabbing it. That’s the perfect analogy of what he was experiencing.

He was that rope holding his body back.

That’s why no matter how much he tried to fight back, she always had the upper hand. Because he was literally fighting something within himself—his very own nature. That’s what he was battling whenever he saw her. There was this thing inside him that always tried to take complete control, wrestling with his conscious mind for dominance.

That’s why he came to the conclusion that it might be the original feelings of his alter surfacing. But then, was his alter really that possessive of Maria? If yes, why? What had happened between them that created such an intense bond?

He didn’t understand, and why would he anyway? He had little to no information to work with. He was basically running blind, stumbling through a maze without a map. His powers were hidden by an alter that had been existing and manipulating his every move all this while. In fact, at this point, he began to doubt his own memories. He began to doubt everything about himself and his past.

He had been controlled from the very beginning, hadn’t he? Like a puppet dancing to strings he couldn’t even see.

One of the memories he doubted the most was that final moment of Emilia—a memory that had driven him to this very point in his life. A traumatic event that had traumatized him more than everything he had endured in her hands. But now that he thought about it, like now that he really thought about it with a clearer mind... Emilia was a yandere. She was literally the embodiment of that word, the textbook definition of obsessive, dangerous love.

Now why would someone like that, who had literally made members of her own family disappear because they opposed her marriage plans, suddenly betray him? Something didn’t add up in that narrative. The pieces of the puzzle didn’t fit together the way they should.

Perhaps his alter had the answers he needed.

The reason he didn’t consider taking the route of the boost anymore was because of what he had watched Jenny go through after ingesting that potion. She looked like she was going to die, even with all the incredible powers she possessed. So he could only imagine what would happen to someone like him who was using borrowed power.

Speaking of borrowed power, he could no longer link with Anna and Vivian anymore. The ether link was still there, but he couldn’t access it. He suspected it might have something to do with his emotions returning in full force. Perhaps the ritual was being reversed automatically, because he literally couldn’t see the tattoo on his skin anymore. Even the borrowed supply of ether was fading slowly with each passing day, like sand slipping through his fingers.

It was only a matter of time before he lost his leverage completely, going back to being the weakling he once was. That was why he was desperately trying to recover his buried memories. Not only would they answer all the questions that kept him awake at night, but they would also help him fix the problem with his diminishing ether supply.

That was the real reason why he was in the archery club. It wasn’t because he was fascinated by the sport—far from that actually. It was because he wanted to kill two people here. Yes, kill them without hesitation or remorse.

He wanted to fulfill the requirement the system had given him, and there were no better targets than side characters. At this point, given that he was weak and the entity was no longer actively helping him, he couldn’t risk the goddess taking direct action against him by attacking major characters. He could only take advantage of events and opportunities as they presented themselves.

An arc was coming soon—in fact, it was going to start today. And he planned to take full advantage of it, exploit every single opportunity it provided to finally unlock these damn memories that kept his true power locked away.

Oh, there was also his second theory. His first was that the true emotions of his alter were affecting his feelings towards Maria like some kind of emotional bleed-through. Now his second theory had to do with the entity itself. After all, it did deal primarily with emotions.

So perhaps it was having an even greater influence on his emotional state than he initially realized. That might be the reason why day by day his mind kept getting clouded with the overwhelming need for physical intimacy. And perhaps it really was the reason for why he had become so ridiculously good-looking, like some kind of supernatural enhancement to make him more appealing to others.

The more he thought about it, the more the pieces seemed to fit together in a disturbing pattern. But he needed concrete answers, not just theories and speculation. And those answers lay buried somewhere in the depths of his memories, waiting to be uncovered.