The Villainess With A Heroine Harem

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was both the overconfidence of the gangsters as well as the fierce reputation that they had established in the minds of the common folk that made Emilia come up with the idea of using them as a stepping stone.

After all, it was only by solving problems that the local government had 'failed' to handle properly that she would be able to win everyone's hearts. And it was only once she succeeded in doing so that she could safely move on to the next step of her plan.

No matter how strong the rulers were, once they'd lost the favor of their own people, there was no way they could sit on the 'throne' for long. Whether it was their own fault or not simply didn't matter.

This was a fact that Emilia was intimately familiar with, and also the one mistake that she never wanted to repeat again.

The way in which they fell might range from a traitor right by their side to a localized rebellion that grew out of control, but the end results remained the same.

Fortunately, with people like Cynthia and Crystal with her, Emilia could rest assured that she would no longer be as 'insensitive' to the real intentions and feelings of those she led, so she didn't have much to worry about in this regard.

But her goal in this world wasn't just Blue Dawn, though it would always remain her 'home' here. No, what she needed to become was the 'winner', someone who could make Amos and the world will feel truly helpless and hopeless, or her mission would never be completed.

And if she could make the lives of some of her 'knights' outside of Blue Dawn better while at it… wasn't that all the better?

Unfortunately, neither Blue Dawn nor the White Deer could be considered strong enough at the moment to take on any medium-sized countries in a frontal conflict.

At least, they couldn't do so and win without suffering significant losses. Unless she was in a completely desperate situation, Emilia would never want to head in that route.

But just like she had been 'defeated' in the last world without even getting the chance to raise her sword, there was more than one way to 'win' a war. This was especially so against a 'ruler' that had fallen out of favor.

After her 'experience' in Blue Dawn, Emilia was now even more confident in her moves.

Needless to say, not to mention Carmen, even Oriana was within her calculations.

Of course, the way she was handling things now made it so that there was almost no room for mistakes. Otherwise, even if she managed to defeat her 'opponent', perhaps someone else would end up reaping most of the benefits instead.

And to make matters worse, if the root cause of the 'disease' couldn't be routed at that time, it would be her name taking the hit.

Even with the world will teetering on the verge of collapse and her reputation as high as it was now, Emilia didn't dare to take the gamble. After all, if she ended up losing the momentum from such a favorable position, Cynthia would probably be able to make fun of her for decades to come!

While Emilia usually tried to keep an open mind most of the time, she was still well aware of the fact that she had a glass heart that was both soft and easy to break.

No matter how cute or adorable her partner might look while acting smug, there probably wasn't much criticism she could take before she broke down and made things all awkward between them, which was the exact opposite of how Emilia wanted things to go in the future.

That was why it was imperative to not only seize this chance and strike while the iron was hot, but also do it in a way that left both her allies and enemies without the slightest chance to react!

Naturally, this was easier said than done.

Her manager, for example, would never allow her to head into a 'danger zone' if she knew about it in advance, and perhaps even most of the staff working for the White Deer would object to a 'little girl' being subjected to 'danger'.

Perhaps had she been 'Emilia' instead of little Emi, they would have just blindly followed her orders because of the confidence she had long since instilled in everyone with her past ventures, but that wasn't a luxury that 'little Emi' had. At least, not yet.

Unfortunately, revealing her real identity was not an option. Even if she was able to take revenge on the Nightingale clan using force, the losses that both Blue Dawn and White Deer would have to suffer in the frontal conflict with Carmen were simply not worth it.

After all, the people who would fight for her were like her children, and if she could let them keep on living happily, why would she needlessly sacrifice them in a war? Especially so if it was against an enemy that was stupid enough to jump into hot lava with enough coaxing.

Cynthia scoffed. "You coddle them too much. There's no point in their existence if you can't even use them properly, is there?"

In response to her partner's apparent scorn, Emilia just shook her head with a smile. 'You can't say that. Don't I get helped by everyone all the time?'

'Most of those troubles are things you are doing for them anyway, aren't they?' Of course, Cynthia just snorted after thinking so, but didn't bother refuting her stupid partner.

Perhaps this was just how Emilia was, or she would never have landed in a situation where she lost her life after obtaining the supreme position in her past kingdom.

The betrayal might have ironed out some of this flaw and made the crimson-haired beauty a little more cautious — and a lot more paranoid — but the root of the 'problem' still remained in the depths of her soul.

'It's not that it's impossible to fix, but…' Cynthia quickly shook her head with a sigh.

Maybe it was fine to let the crimson-haired girl live with this flaw for now. After all, despite her many shortcomings, Emilia's final performance still far, far exceeded her expectations.

It had only been a few years, and the hero was already on his last legs, helpless in the palms of her villainess, and the 'world will' was teetering on the verge of collapse.

Perhaps the moment the next step of Emilia's plan was finished, the 'world will' would completely admit defeat and surrender, and they would be done with this world.

At that time, was there any need to care about little critters and monkeys bothering her villainess?

Even if she insisted on taking them back, they would only be able to stay back when Emilia headed into the next mission world with her, and only her.

Cynthia couldn't help but smile smugly. 'Hmph, even if those monkeys whine and cry about it later, the most time they can spend in a mission world with my villainess is only a few hours, and that too will only be for a limited amount of people.'

The idea she came up with at the start was really too clever, completely without flaws. As expected of her, she thought. Only a perfect being like herself could have come up with such an infallible plan, she thought.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━