A Villain's Survival Guide

Raine’s POV:

’I would have preferred Leomaris over Lucius. With my current strength, I don’t stand a chance.’

Raine had faced Lucius plenty enough to know she hadn’t a chance against him. She’d never won a single duel against him, and his physical strength was something she couldn’t account for.

The man had shattered the head of an artifact made entirely of preet metal without breaking a sweat, the very metal her sword was made of.

’That forced me to approach the duel differently. I had to pursue a different kind of victory rather than the duel itself.’

She lay in a cold bath, letting the coldness work into her muscles and dull the fatigue the duels had ground into her. Her healing had taken care of most of her injuries. What little it left behind was still enough to give her pause.

Her eyes wandered across the grey ceiling, dull and grey as it had always been, just as she had always hated it. She picked through everything that had happened during the examination.

A few days ago, Leomaris had handed her an assignment, one she had no intention of failing. She had to work out the identity of whoever wanted him dead. The very same person who had orchestrated the Great Citadel incident, leaving fifteen first-year cadets dead and nearly taking Leomaris with them.

According to Leomaris’s intel, the cadet was a first-year, though clearly no novice when it came to disguises.

They belonged to the Unholy Priest organization — a vigilante group with no real outline or hierarchy, just citizens who had taken matters into their own hands in a world that had never much cared for the weak or the poor.

’Leomaris spoke very highly of this person, so I knew it wouldn’t be easy.’

Word was the culprit slipped out every night at eleven. Raine had been at it every night, trying to pin down their movements, but the campus was far too vast to get a proper bead on them.

That was what brought her to it: using the hand-to-hand combat examination to her advantage.

From the moment the examination began, her attention was split across many things, the duels being only one of them. Every matchup was an excuse to sweep her gaze across the arena again.

For someone working on the habit of clocking everything around her, it had come in handy. After a few passes, she began to remember faces, where everyone was seated, and even something as forgettable as a simple mole.

"I wanted to know if someone would use a disguise within the crowd. They had no idea I was watching them, and when people feel safe, they tend to let their guard down."

But after a few passes, she’d seen all there was to see. No signs of a disguise, and the wildest thing she ever figured was someone slipping out of the arena or changing where they sat.

"Well, it looked harmless... until I spotted her — Marie Marven."

When nothing was going her way, Raine realised the frame she’d been working with was too broad. Cast that wide, there was no real way to fish anyone out, not when she couldn’t even be sure they were in the arena at all.

Then, just before her matchup against Charlotte Greenwood in the semifinals, she switched tack. Instructor Moon’s presence and his offer to handpick promising cadets as his trainees for a month had the whole arena’s attention.

No one had any doubt that a cadet as promising as Leomaris would be among the ones picked out.

"That was when I knew they would be trying everything to be selected as well. Their goal is still to have Leomaris killed, even after their initial failure. They will likely follow him everywhere."

First off, what made Raine cautious about Marie was simple: she had made it to the quarterfinals. Marie was talented, sharp, and calculated, and her place there wasn’t something Raine could easily dispute.

"Ahhh!" She let out a sharp scream.

She stretched within the bathtub, then climbed out, snatched her white towel, and wrapped it from her chest down. With a few adjustments to the gas pipe on the wall, her hair dryer clicked on and she got to work on her wet, white hair.

Once her hair was dry, she left the washroom and dropped into her seat behind the table, reaching for the sheet that had everything concerning Marie laid out in detail, trying to piece it all together.

"Marie’s ability was unknown throughout the examination. Because I had been observant over these past few days, I was able to notice things I wasn’t meant to."

She leaned back into her seat.

"She didn’t use her ability during the practical exam, and even failed to break the crystal. She only used a sword throughout the examination."

She was well aware of what the culprit’s ability was supposed to be: curses. Not only would Marie give herself away the moment she used it, but it wasn’t a particularly fitting ability for combat unless she’d already slipped a hex onto her opponent beforehand.

"But that alone was difficult to prove. She only lost to Lucius, but claiming she cursed all her opponents would be a stretch."

This narrowed her focus to Marie above all else. Particularly during Lucius’s duel with Leomaris in the semifinals and her own against Lucius in the final.

"She was highly observant during the semifinal. She did not budge. This was expected, as the duel was shrouded in mystery, particularly Leomaris’s movements. It was natural that she attempted to pay close attention in order to understand it."

That, more than anything, was what had led Raine to spend her entire duel against Lucius in the final doing nothing but watching Marie Marven.

She genuinely wished she could have topped the entire class, if only to prove she was capable of becoming a Calamity. Losing to one wasn’t something she was keen on in the slightest.

But that was a wall she couldn’t climb, so she made her effort worth something and set about succeeding in a different way.

Her eyes swept from one seat to the next. The entire duel through, not once did she catch a glimpse of Marie.

"Why did she leave? Did our duel bore her to death? Did she not want to wait for Instructor Moon’s selection, or was it simply because Leomaris wasn’t around anymore?"

She could be mistaken. Maybe it was just a coincidence, maybe Marie simply hadn’t cared for the final. But her gut said it was too much of a coincidence for that.

Leomaris had simply asked her to identify whoever wanted him dead, not to confront them. And yet she’d found herself in a right pickle all the same.

"Should I confront her for more information, or should I simply report this to Leomaris?"