I will not die a Villainess's death

"Hello, did you miss me?"

The orange-eyed man grinned at Elysia's surprised expression, his eyes shining with satisfaction at seeing his prey freeze at his actions.

His face looked rather proud at having been able to take his target by surprise but Elysia was not going to have it.

Unknown to the man, her fight and flight instincts were quite sharp and the man never saw that kick aiming for his leg. As a result, he managed to lose his footing and fall on his ass.

But that was not the end of his humiliation. The man was forced to look at Elysia's eyes as she pointed a polearm in front of his neck.

"H-Hey, put that thing away, please. I am sure we can talk our differences out and -" the sharp end of the spear was dug deeper into his neck.

One wrong move would be enough to get his neck served forever and he would bleed out even before he could get any help.

Unless this man was a master-level healer, he won't be able to survive such an attack.

Truthfully speaking, this man could be a healer who was hiding his colors, making Elysia's threat useless against him. But the panic he was showing plus the aura around him made Elysia think of him being a healer as unlikely.

"Stop messing around. Tell me what you want from me before I decide to end your life. Oh, and a warning. Even if I let you go, my familiar is not that forgiving so make sure your words are not nonsense."

Those orange eyes shined at the word 'familiar' but the man did not make any demands of Elysia.

"I-I fell for my Lady's beauty. I swear I had no other intentions behind approaching you, My Lady."

What he did end up saying was utter bullshit and Elysia was not going to have any of it. If this man thought of Elysia as a sheltered blushing virgin then he was wrong.

To prove her point of not believing that man, Elysia's spear dug even deeper into that fragile neck in front of her and a line of red broke the surface.

The man was bleeding now and Elysia was sure his wound would also take some time to heal.

It made the man go pale and he put his hands up in a 'surrender' position.

"Alright, I admit that I had intentions when I approached you. I knew you were related to Lord Dirac and I wanted him to take action on my behalf. This man has been causing all kinds of inconveniences for our people so I want him out of my hair."

The flirty expression was wiped off from that young face and a hardened warrior stood in its place.

Those dark and gloomy orange eyes were finally visible to Elysia in all their glory and looked similar to her even more now.

"Are you someone from one of the local villages? Is that why you decided to take action on your own?"

Elysia decided to get the basic actions out of the way first. The more she looked into this situation, the worse it seemed to be.

The initial intel said nothing about external places being affected by Baron Pheros but it kind of made sense.

The amount of blood that could be safely harvested from a human body was minuscule. Even if Baron Pheros killed off every servant in this mansion, it would still not be enough to create a blood pool of the size Elysia saw in that corridor.

However, it would make sense if the man was taking humans from outside as well. It also made sense why this man would head out secretly to investigate the Baron like this.

"Local, huh? I am not a local but this situation does concern me. Since I could not investigate this situation myself, I decided to get help from those kids. People tend to underestimate kids and speak in front of them without thinking."

It was true. Elysia had deployed the same strategy of using her charms as a kid to get many missions done.

People often did not realize how much a kid could hear and get away. And they were also easy to gain the trust of.

As much as Elysia hasted this method of work, it was surprisingly effective in the long run.

"I would appreciate it if you did not use those kids any longer to carry out dangerous missions in here. If you need someone to look around in there then use me instead. I am sure I will be much more useful to you."

The kids were great but Elysia had a clear advantage over them. She had strong magic at her disposal so the chances of her being in danger were much lower (not that it had protected her this far)

The black-haired man looked taken aback at Elysia's offer. She could see his lips opening and closing as if trying to make sense of what he heard right then.

"You want me to use you instead of those kids? Are you out of your mind? Why would you offer such a thing to a stranger like me?"

The man had a point when he said that. There was no need for Elysia to use him to get her way but she had made a promise to help Lady Pheros and her kids.

She could not allow those kids to put themselves in danger for no apparent reason.

"I am not asking you to trust me. Nor am I going to trust you. It's a mutually beneficial relationship where we both benefit from it. I have a feeling that it would bear fruits for us."

"Fine. I will agree to this contract since you managed to convenience me. But I still cannot see what kind of benefit this arrangement contains for you. I just feel like I am taking advantage of you by doing this."

The man had a suffering look on his face but he did agree in the end to this condition. Elysia could see the gears in his brain turning.

He extended his hand out toward Elysia which she took. She expected her hand to be shaken but the man turned her arm around to expose her arm's lower side instead.

"Don't get startled. I am just pouting a ruin on your arm that will allow us to communicate easier with each other. We should keep in constant contact now that we are cooperating."

The rudeness of that action had startled Elysia at first but she had to agree with that man now that he had explained himself.

And on that note, Elysia still had no idea who that man was. She should rectify that much at least.

That had been Elysia's intention but the black-haired man was already leaving the scene.

"Hey wait a minute. At least tell me your name so that I know whom I am talking to. I cannot keep on calling you 'hey' all the time."

The man almost miss-stepped and fell at Elysia's random yelling. She could see the annoyance filling up his eyes but then they softened as they looked back at her.

"Find out yourself, partner."

The man gave a salute before he was gone. Elysia was left looking after his disappearing image before she huffed and turned around as well.

'Fine, don't tell me now. It's not like I am interested in you or anything.'

With that, Elysia left the scene as well. Neither she nor the orange-eyed man noticed the figure hiding in the garden.

Or did they notice that their conversation had been heard by someone?

And that was how Enma managed to avoid another near-death by hiding away. And another mystery was added to his never-ending questions about this world.

All he had wanted to do was to have a nice day. It had already been ruined by that horrible breakfast and then Elysia had gone missing which had set Sorias off.

Enma had agreed on going to look for Elysia himself to avoid Sorias's angry mood but he had never expected to run into a collaboration between the two villains of this novel world.

And he was more than sure that the black-haired man he had seen had been Chrome Akatsuki, the prince of the neighboring empire.

The story had changed so much but his circumstances seemed to not have changed at all. His orange eyes still looked as if they had been cursed recently and there was no light in them.

'Let's not think about it for now. I do not need to get involved in any of this mess as it is not my place.'

This was Enma's motto now and he would abide by it until the end. He wanted to get away but as soon as he walked out of his hiding spot, he felt a pair of eyes looking back at him.

"You knew who that man with Elysia was, right? Give me the name and I will dispose of him right here and now. I won't allow anyone to put Elysia in danger."

It was Sorias who seemed to have seen everything as well. And he had rightfully guessed that the black-haired man was dangerous.

'But I cannot allow Prince Chrome to die like this. It would take away any chance of the story progressing naturally."

This was Enma's biggest concern. He still needed Prince Chrome to start the event that happened during the hunting festival that would cause the main pair of this world to become close and that was the beast release incident.

"Sora, Enma, since when were you both here? Ah, sorry that I disappeared all of a sudden. Something came up so I had to take care of it."

'Don't say that. Sorias saw that man so you better confess.'

This was what Enma wanted to say but he controlled his mouth. The man sitting at his side was already pissed off, he did not want to give him any more room to get angry.

But contrary to Enma's beliefs, Sorias did not blow up on Elysia. Instead, he took in a deep breath and took out an invitation from god knows where.

"We got a reply from the royal palace. They will be sending the next saintess candidate and the Crown Prince to investigate this incident. They will arrive here tomorrow."

'Oh finally, things were going on track.' That was all Enma could think about. But he did not know why he had a bad feeling about the future.