Somehow, I’m the Otome Game Villain 14:

Somehow, I’m the Otome Game Villain 14:

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Wordcount: 2500

Commissioned by LordMarksman

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There’s no shortage of problems that arise when you prove that you’re better than someone else in high society, especially when that someone is higher up on the political ladder than you. It might seem insane, but people will call you a cheater, a hack, and a bastard, if you happen to outdo someone that they’re trying to curry favor with.

I mean, I’m technically all those things for bringing along an overpowered store item into a duel, but they didn’t know that. Therefore, they’re just all being mean and terrible people because they’re currying favor with Julius and the other love interests. They’d be just and correct, if they could prove that I was a cheater, but they didn’t, so they’re in the wrong.

How did the saying go?

Evidence of guilt must be provided by the accuser?

I’m certainly guilty as hell, but I’m not spilling the beans on myself.

Anyway, they messed with my innocent, pure heart, so it was time for them to face the consequences of their actions.

HM?

Yeah, it’s totally correct to beat the lot of them down for calling me mean things.

Says so right in the letter Mylene sent me: I’m free to be a little tough in order to put this little rebellion in the Academy down.

A little tough = as long as no one dies, it’s okay.

Well, at the very least, that’s how I interpret it.

Eh, healing magic exists, anyway!

…

“I beg of you, Leon, please let me gas them all into unconsciousness. No one will die. Some may get paralyzed, but it’ll wear off! At most, they’ll suffer from stiffness in the limbs for the rest of their lives! Please! Let me gas the whole school!”

“I’ll be honest, that’s a very tempting offer, but we’ve to be mindful of Alzer’s image here. Gassing the whole school is… sadly a bad image.” For a second, Ideal looked at me, searching for lies in my words. However, the AI orb slumped when it saw that I was being serious. “HM, how about we gas a few places where we can say they’re too entrenched for our Knight Armor? We’ll say it’s safer than storming the place.”

“Yes! Perfect! I shall prepare the neuro-toxin now!” I was ready to inquire about the evil-sounding name of the stuff getting deployed, but I decided against it. Ideal was a sadistic bastard, but he’s not the sort of person to lie about this sort of thing. “These new humans will pay for their licentiousness and perverseness! Enjoy frigid sex for the rest of your lives, bastards! Bwhahaha!”

Ideal floated away to prepare the weapon, which left me with Cleare and Luxion at the command table.

Clear glanced my way with a glowing, pink ocular sensor.

“No. He’s earned it. You haven’t. Maybe in a few months when the opportunity comes up.” A good boss knows their subordinates. Ideal’s been putting up with a lot of things lately. I mean, usually, I shouldn’t have to control someone’s genocidal urges, but that’s just part of the Ideal package. Immense power and versatility, but also genocidal tendencies against the New Humans. I’d rather have to deal with the demerit than not have the bonuses. “Alright, how’s the little rebellion going?”

“Better than expected. We believe that there are several parties in the background that are instigating it and supporting it in one way or another. The ‘Church’ of Holfort amongst them.” Luxion took control of the holographic table that we were coordinating the assault around. The Academy was displayed as a wireframe with hundreds of little dots in it. Persons of interest had their names and portraits displayed above their dots.  Notably, however, there were persons of interest outside of the Academy that were linked to dots moving in and out of the school for nobles. “Weapons and supplies are being ferried in. Those doing so are using intermediaries, but I have tracked them down. They are part of a faction in contact with the Principality of Fanoss, which is the ‘evil’ nation of the first iteration of the game, I believe.”

“Yeah, they’re behind a lot of things. Loads of nobles work with them for money, power, or other things. They get beaten in the end, but they definitely cause a lot of trouble before that.” That was an understatement. The Principality takes on Holfort and practically undercuts the budding world-power to the point where they have to accept their prince and several prominent houses marrying a single commoner, and that person becoming part of the crown. The post-game Holfort was forced to consolidate a lot power in a single person, the protagonist, who’d be able to rule unchallenged by anyone else for at least a generation. “Can you stop them?”

“Preparations are already in place. I presume that you want to steal the supplies and use them as evidence?”

“You presume correctly. Let’s make use of this opportunity to bolster this country a bit of what’s to come.” Luxion bobbed up and down, before settling on a pedestal to coordinate his other bodies located elsewhere with greater efficiency. Now, it was clear turn. The mad-scientist of an AI with a predilection for all sorts of terrifying ‘solutions’ to the New Human ‘problem’ looked at me with eagerness. “Clearly, you’re on backline duty. You’ll be watching our flanks and our backs for anything weird.”

“Oh, but I want to help Luxion or Ideal out, Leon-San!” Clear pleaded, and I felt a shiver go down my spine at its words. They were sickly sweet and innocent, yet I could sense the deranged psychopath that lay hidden behind it all. Ideal wanted to systematically wipe out the New Humans. Luxion desired their destruction and to install a Human government to rule over them. Slayer wanted to use them as test subjects and lab rats for its own goals. “Please, let me help them! I’ll be very gentle, I promise!”

“Denied.” I wouldn’t sick clear on my very worst enemy, let alone a bunch of hormonal teenagers. If I let it loose, I was sure that all sorts of bad things would happen. Bad things that might or might not involve mutation, corruption, and all sorts of nasty stuff best left to mess up doujins. “Control the supporting drones and keep the perimeter clear.”

“Phooey!”

Cleare floated away, and I turned my attention to my last employee: Marie.

She was sleeping off her partying the previous evening. The diminutive blonde was sleeping holding an empty bottle of cider. How she got drunk off the atmosphere from her one-woman party, I didn’t know, but it was already nearly noon and we had work to do.

I moved to wake her up, but as I did, I decided against it after thinking things over.

There were a few ways I could use her skills, but something told me that I should let her sleep for the moment.

So, instead of doing anything, I decided to just take an emergency blanket I kept in one of my office desks and put it over her.

Sleep well, my employee, because you’re going to be waking up to something special tomorrow.

…

“W-what do you mean we’re storming the Academy and taking everyone their prisoner!?”

“Exactly what I said. That’s what we’re doing.” I had my piloting suit on and I was ready to go ahead and get on the mech provided by Ideal. I also had one of the ships he constructed overhead with the permission of the crown. It would be a diplomatic incident if a foreign fleet was over the capital of Holfort, but one ship was allowed for the task, as long as it was escorted by Holfort’s own. The technicality in play was that Holfort wasn’t putting down the rebellion led by a future monarch for their lover, but one of their great and friendly allies. “You were there when I briefed everyone in the morning.”

“You can’t just do this! There’s now way we’ll be able to go back to… the school that hates us…” Marie trailed off and pondered her statement carefully. Luxion came by and put some sort of vest around her that she accepted without a thought. Probably a protective device. “Wait, so we’re just not going back into the Academy?”

“Yep. Waste of time. The school will get shut down for the rest of the year, at least. It’ll derail a lot of things, but Olivia and her harem should take the opportunity to level grind or something.” There’s going to be some difficulties getting events to pop up, but I’m sure something will happen, and I got the key items ahead of time. If they all get cooped up, the worst case scenario is that some hidden benefactor will get them all together and drop the items onto their feet. We needed the protagonist to level up and get her mind-control ability online, though I suspected she could already do so with the buff she gave the Prince in the Arena. “We’ll do our work, get called heroes by the crown, get hated by everyone else, and relocate so that we can attend school at Alzer while getting events done over here when they pop up.”

“Huh, well… that sounds a lot better than sticking around here.” Marie admitted, just as Luxion tied her hair up and put a helmet on her, then some shin guards and knee pads and elbow pads. Jeez, protective much? Marie wasn’t complaining, though, so I didn’t bring it up. No. I’m not jealous. “Wait, this is all still dangerous right now! I better be getting hazard pay for this! Everyone else should, too!”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve already set it aside.” I grumbled while Marie pumped her fist and held her hand up to give Luxion a high-five, which the AI sphere accepted. Man, why can’t Ideal be as cool? I mean, I like the fact Ideal’s willing to use weapons on a dime to get things done, but it’s always harassing me. I bet Luxion would be a better, cooler partner who won’t demean me nearly as much.  Wow, that doesn’t even sound possible in my head. “You’re going to keep an eye on things with Cleare and Luxion on the backline. You have reinforcements and my guards and you’ll be holding the base. You’ll probably see an angry mob or two try to take the house while I’m gone, but that shouldn’t be an issue.”

Marie glanced at Luxion at my statement.

“The mansion will remain secure. None here are in any danger whatsoever.”

Yeah, I wouldn’t have been able to pry a promise like that out of him.

I gave the two of them a nod and walked over, with  my helmet trapped in the crook of my arm, towards Ideal.

“Are you finally finished? Can I finally use my neuro-poison?” Ideal pressed against me, while I climbed up towards the cockpit of my Armor. Since we were storming an entrenched position, I’d agree to Ideal up-armoring the thing, and he’d gone ahead and done so while also upgrading the weaponry. There were two additional guns on the shoulders on articulating mounts. Smaller caliber guns were on the head and chest. Twin missile launchers were on the back and both the arms and legs were beefed up. It looked like the final boss of some mecha anime. The ultimate model of whatever the protagonist was using. I guess the bastard was trying to set me up as some sort of extra boss at the end of the game. “I see that you’re admiring the additional armor and weapons.”

“Yep. It all looks good. And, you actually put in stun rounds, paralytics, and shock weapons like I asked… they’re all just shy of being lethal, aren’t they?”

“You know me so well!”

Augh, Ideal being chirpy and happy made my stomach crawl.

I shook my head and got into the armored command pod within the chest of the machine and booted it up. The gentle hum of a very powerful, non-magical, and probably sci-fi adjacent engine hummed through the machine as everything came alive. Ideal settled into the dashboard and went through the majority of the activation sequencies, while I checked on the weapons. It oversaw ranged weapons and flight, while I took over for melee and land mobility. Two heads were better than one, and there was plenty of space.

I checked on the sensors of the armor, linked to the small ship that Ideal sent to aid us, and frowned.

“There’s more than fifty armors on the school grounds. That’s just freaking ridiculous. The prince really has a lot of followers.”

“Hmph, it just shows that the New Humans are easily swayed by promises of power and influence. They have no concept of national pride nor loyalty. All they see is a system to be used by them.” Ideal insulted the New Humans with ease and luxuriated in the fact that I couldn’t contest him. We were both looking a massive military build up right in front of us, just so that some houses could curry favor with the future leader of Holfort. “Have you given thought to my proposition of destroying most of them and selecting a few decent ones to live? Primarily those with low levels of magic and who can stay rational, such as your beloved Mylene?”

“Begone from here, tempter.”

“Hmph. You know that I’m right.”  Ideal scoffed, and the massive machine lumbered to both legs. We began to walk towards the Academy from our launch position, and I kept my eyes on sensors. Within a few minutes, most of the Magic Armors were moving to intercept me in squads of five by taking flight and hovering to meet me on the large clear space of cobblestone and small fountains that preceded the entrance of the Academy. “I’m seeing none of the love interests amongst the ranks of those approaching us.”

That was a statement of fact, which I verified by taking a long look at all the screens I had at my disposal, before nodding.

“Take them out, Ideal.”

“With pleasure.”

The arms on the shoulders of the massive mech came online.

Both regular arms came online.

The missiles on the back came online.

The various small guns embedded all over the armor came online.

I saw where they were all targeting, perfectly tracking where our opponents were going to be, and predicting the movement of our foes.

“Firing.”

Ideal spoke and so did all the targeted weapons strapped onto the armor.

In an instant, half of the Knight Armors were taken out of action by losing arms, legs, or sensors via the head, and each one keeled over and fell onto the cobblestone.

All the while, I just sat and watched in my chair without doing a thing.

Yeah, I’m definitely going to need to go back home after this.