Life Of A Nobody - as a Villain

"Take his body to the altar. And tell the Ersion's to prepare for the rituals. Godmother should be happy today." Baani said, and little pixie-like creatures flew from the various trees and started chiming and chirping in excitement.

Though they lost his army, their leaders and many men, there wasn't a single trace of sadness over anyone's faces now.

The soulless 'puppets' had regained their sanity back and without any question, complaint, or confusion, stepped forward to pick Rio's body and started walking towards the big tree in the center.

Valtor took his place next to Baani, like his guard without saying anything. A mark made out of green veins grew from his navel and flowed towards his chest and etched itself in a tree's pattern.

"Have you found Dyaem?" Baani turned his head and asked the man who was earlier counting crimes for Rio and Valtor.  The guiltkeeper, who was busy admiring Valtor into his ranks.

"No, the dark representative had run away as soon as the battle started. I tried tracking him, but he's out of range." The guilt keeper shook his head and replied.

"So he already left the city huh. Damn traitor." Baani cursed and turned around, "Tell the spirits to issue a hunting order on his name. I want his head hanging on my gate before the gathering of clans starts."

"And send a notice to every city, camp and colony you can find, inform them that the prophecy is over, the cursed one is dead."

"As you wish, chief." The man bowed and disappeared from his place.

…

On the other hand away from the city of Etum, a forest was set ablaze as rain of flames fell from the sky, incinerating everything it touched. The clouds turned hot in an abysmal color, moving along the air as ground shook with screams of the living.

Smoke and heatwaves turning everything blurry. The place could remind anyone of pits of hell where souls would be tortured for all eternity after death, never getting a moment's rest.

And in this chaotic hellish place, a girl was standing alone, surrounded by monsters who hovered in air holding spears and tridents.

"Lost your way, outlander. You shouldn't have come here and meddled in the affairs of Sol city."

"Guess the dinner after war served itself on the platter 3 days earlier eh."

"She smells delicious. She's acting cold, and it's making me so hot."

Excited chatter broke in between monsters as they all dropped their guards and started teasing her. Making fun, spoiling all the fun things they'll do with her, until a sharp voice broke their laughter and silenced everything.

"Be careful idiots. Don't forget she was able to infiltrate the Kurami's (leader) den and slip away after causing a mess that big."

A man walking on ground stood in front of the girl and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look up. "She has some skills too. Or we wouldn't have lost so many of our brothers while tracking her."

"Now tell us, where is the treasure you stole from Kurami?" The half demon-half human spoke in a murderous tone.

"For the last time, I don't know what you're talking about? I've said it before he's not your leader. I killed him. But someone took his place and is fooling you idiots"

"Plus I didn't steal anything. But someone else will, if you all just keep chasing after me, and not that imposter." Vanessa said, her face filled with anger, as she slapped the monster's hand away.

If she had any more mana left, she would've killed all these creatures. Yet she couldn't. After days of running away and fighting tirelessly with these tracking beasts, she had finally exhausted herself today. Hence the situation.

'What kind of damn dungeon did the academy even send us?' She cursed in her heart as she remembered her experience ever since she landed here.

3 days ago, she was transported not far from here, in the hills outside the city of Sol. A place controlled and ruled by the monster tribes. After a few hours of hunting monsters outside, she found her path and managed to sneak into their territory.

At first she thought it was a dungeon where she just needed to kill all monsters till the boss appeared and then kill him too, to clear this. But when she witnessed the sight where these monsters showed signs of intelligence, of wisdom beyond normal, she chose to stay put and investigate first before taking any action.

After all, hunting a hundred mindless monsters is easy, but getting surrounded by a few dozen intelligent monsters will get risky.

So she chose to stay put and investigate first before taking any action. Or at least wait until she found a few other students first for safety.

After searching around for the whole day, she finally got some information. A rumor was going around in the city that a group of humans and Nefrats (halfbreed/mutatee) had sneaked into the city and were captured by Kurami, the leader of this city, known for his cruel nature and twisted habits.

Thinking they were her classmates, Vanessa chose to rescue them. So she dressed as a maid and sneaked in the 'castle' .

Yet she was too late.

By the time she bypassed the guards, and reached the prison cells at night, all her classmates were killed.

The sight she saw in those closed walls chilled her heart, their dead bodies hanging through the chains and blood still slowly slipping past the iron walls and reaching her feet.

Signs of severe torture were evident on their bodies, their fingers, teeths and nails missing several pieces, with tongues forked in two.

She was glad as these corpses didn't include anyone she was friends with, but she was angry nonetheless as few of them had been her comrades and party members during several school activities.

While she was collecting their corpses in her ring, hoping to take them back and give a proper funeral, she noticed a familiar magic ring on one of the girl's fingers. A ring equipped with a diamond shaped image recording crystal, which were famous for quite a while in Arcadia, a few years ago. ***

Vanessa pulled the ring and poured her mana in it, next second a holographic display appeared in front of her.

A man with demon-like features, two small horns on his forehead, a tail behind his back, was chuckling while holding a bloody knife in hand.

"Arcadia, Dungeon, and me a boss monster, hahaha ahaha. What a funny little story, but I've heard better."

"Throw their corpses in a corner, and search for their other partners. I want all of them chained in my cells before the war starts."

"We'll use their bodies to light up the pyre, godmother should be happy." The demon said before turning around and leaving, while soldiers just bowed their heads and replied shakily, "Yes, Kurami."

"What's the progress on tracking that cursed girl?" On his way out, Kurami stopped in his tracks and asked while looking over his shoulders.

"We sent a team to catch her kurami, but _" The soldier started hesitating, wondering how to explain, before Kurami's shout broke his courage. "But what?"

"S_some outlanders interfered and rescued her._ We're tracking them now. They'll_ they'll be caught soon."

"They better. She'll help me defeat those damned rebels, so do it fast, or you're next on that chain." Kurami said in a cold tone and left the cell.

...

"What are you doing still standing here, fuck these corpses, they're not going anywhere." The soldier shouted, cursing his minion who was loosening the chains, "Go and inform everyone to speed up the search for the cursed girl, and take more people out to hunt those outlanders. I want them found as soon as possible or I'll kill you all before kurami kills me..."

The recorded scene ended, and Vanessa found many clues for her next actions.

"If I'm not wrong, the outlanders these guys are hunting are probably another group of classmates. I need to find them first." Vanessa thought.

But before going on a search outside the city, she chose to cause a little commotion inside, just to keep these monsters busy and give her friends some time.

And what better way to cause chaos in a capital than to kill its king.

Vanessa, dressed in maid's clothes, sneaked into Kurami's room after knocking out a couple of guards, and after a hectic fight, she finally managed to kill the monster leader. Turning his corpse to a kebab with her fire magic.

Through her plan she would kill Kurami, who was around a C ranked awakener's strength, and then disappear in darkness. Next morning a whole drama over death would be staged and then there'll be disarray, infighting, and chaos.

But somehow none of that happened. As soon as she left the castle, a hunting order was placed on her head, her picture held in every guard's hands.

And then there is this scene now. After nearly 3 days of constant running , she finally lost her breath today.

'Damn it, I clearly killed that bastard, so how is he still alive?' Vanessa cursed as she still couldn't understand how someone could come back from the death.

Though she said that these monsters couldn't identify their leader and were following a pretender, but that was just to cause distrust, a seed of doubt just in case, cause she knew, that man, was the real Kurami.

Her magic was impeccable, her spells doomworthy - she carefully identified it wasn't a clone, shadow or a puppet either before dealing the final blow, and burning him to a crisp. So how… .. How did he come alive again?

"Grab her, we'll take her back." The walking demon (Nefir/halfbreed race) said as flying demons floated down and grabbed her hand.

Vanessa tried to struggle, to summon last of her mana to give the final fight, but before she could do anything, a force struck the back of her neck and she started losing consciousness.

"You've wasted enough of our time, Leita (lady), Kurami will get the truth out of you." The Nefir said, as he turned around and disappeared.

Two flying demons grabbed Vanessa by hands and started flapping their wings, flying with her in arms. But before they could take off higher than a few feet, something happened and they all fell down with a thud on the ground.

Vanessa slowly opened her eyes, and in her hazy vision she saw a silhouette she remembered.

"Leon," She muttered slowly as the blurriness cleared a little and she became sure it was him.

A smile came to her face, as the stress of captivity and fear of death disappeared for some reason in her heart, and she felt relaxed. Like she was safe now, with him being with her.

####

[*** explainations --- The Memoir rings were made by the magic tower for the Sentinels and the Guardians.

These rings looked normal from an outsider's perspective, but what made them unique was the feature they were engraved with. A mana connection method.

These rings could sense mana inside the blood flowing in the finger, so as soon as someone died, or lost their connection to mana, the crystal on the ring would start recording the scene 360° for the next 30 seconds.

This feature allowed the rings to be a major success as it promoted safety for the populace, and the merchant association went crazy over it. As the threat of dacoits and bandits was solved much easily with proof and faces recorded. Making many cases of thefts and homicides very easy to solve.

Obviously after some time the news of this feature was leaked, making the effect and demand of these rings much lesser, but they could still be found in some market shops being sold easily.]