A Villain's Survival Guide

The vast open space was thick, more suffocating than the darkness surrounding it. The atmosphere pressed down on itself, aristocratic and heavy with order. A place that didn’t belong to the wrong tongue.

Leomaris appeared calm. Hands on the armrest, attention like everyone else’s on the man at the far end of the table. The leader, by all appearances.

He knew how quickly things could fall apart. He collected his thoughts quietly, turning over what information he could offer them, given that he’d already made a promise.

"At last... you’ve finally arrived, ally of the Lady of the Cross."

Deep and daunting, the kind of voice that demanded full attention and received it from everyone in the room. Everyone except Leomaris, whose mind had already wandered.

He wasn’t certain Rosay was the Lady of the Cross. What he did know was that Rosay had connected him through her allies, so why would an unknown sovereign consider him one of theirs?

The question was still unresolved when the voice spoke again.

"Your presence here is no coincidence... it was ordained by the Goddess."

The man’s gaze drifted across the table.

"But first, we must know what you have brought us, Apostle of Death."

Leomaris swallowed bile.

In the novel, the Crimson Order had been practically nonexistent, Einstein’s failed mission had seen to that, long before the main character ever encountered them. But the way this man spoke told him something.

Their cult was built around the Firstlight Goddess. That, at least, gave him a reasonable chance of surviving the room.

’To think they already knew about the Apostle of Death...’

He exhaled, studying himself. Reminded himself who he served right now, the Firstlight Goddess. Then, with rehearsed confidence, he spoke:

"Praise the Goddess..."

"Praise the Goddes..." the room echoed in unison.

"Before we proceed, I’d like to ask something. What exactly will I gain from sharing this information?"

The murmurs that ran around the table when he spoke had the quality of something blasphemous being said aloud. It made him paranoid, everyone there was at least a Sorcerer. He held onto his masked confidence regardless.

"Silly me — I forgot to mention how valuable my information is."

He paused, intentionally, letting the murmurs build around him. The anticipation was his to hold.

"Just as you mentioned, my arrival here is no coincidence, but rather the doing of the Goddess, her way of lifting the Crimson Order from its tide."

The woman beside Leomaris was dressed in dark clothes, dark-haired, noble by appearance, and in her late thirties. She spoke:

"A bold claim, Apostle of Death. Everyone here is First Order, and our audience is an honor, something even Third Order members would pray for."

She didn’t finish. From across the table, a broad-shouldered blond man cut in before she could.

"Don’t entertain him, Cian. I don’t understand why Zero Order allowed him to be here."

"Haha... are you jealous, Slayer?" The voice belonged to an energetic, optimistic man, laughing as though he couldn’t help it.

In the moments that followed, nothing progressive happened, just murmurs and banter between the twelve First Orders. Leomaris was quietly glad of it, since it allowed him to piece things together.

’I assume Zero Order is an Archmage, or perhaps a Philosopher. He holds the highest level of power and influence, so I cannot afford to be on his bad side. The rest likely range between Archmages and Sorcerers. And anyone below First Order is a Magician or holds even less influence in the underground community. That means joining this cult will not be easy.’

He hadn’t come here to start from Third Order and build his way up, he’d come to sit exactly where he was sitting. That was the only path he could see to pleasing his father.

But knowing Einstein’s identity, when he had no business knowing it, made everything considerably more complicated than it needed to be.

"Order!"

Zero Order’s voice echoed through the room, daunting and immediate, and the noise ceased at once. Then he spoke:

"I believe we have reason to trust you, Apostle of Death. As the Lady of the Cross has said, you are her masterpiece. You can strike terror into your opponents even without sight, and you are the only one to have mastered the Mercy of Death sword arts in two hundred years. You have at least earned our attention."

Leomaris didn’t like how quickly they had picked up on his identity. It put him in a dangerous position, though he was thankful the title of Apostle of Death gave him some protection. To them, it was the renowned divine sword art blessed by the Goddess.

"So, Apostle of Death, what do you expect in return for this information?"

Despite the tension creeping beneath his skin, Leomaris smiled and answered in a low, friendly tone.

"First Order. I want the position of First Order within the Crimson Order."

"What?"

A man’s voice rang out sharply.

"Is that meant to insult us?"

Almost immediately, more voices followed, filling the room with open hostility.

Leomaris leaned back in his seat. Whatever Zero Order decided was final, and for some reason, the man seemed rather interested in him. The Lady of the Cross must have spoken highly of him to stir that much curiosity.

’This isn’t even the difficult part. What happens if they learn I know Einstein’s identity? I don’t even know whether Einstein was truly a First Order.’

After thinking it over for a moment, he pushed the concern aside. Once he became a First Order, the details behind how he knew about Einstein would hardly matter.

Then Zero Order spoke again.

"I believe that will be impossible, Apostle of Death. In fact, you cannot join the Crimson Order at all."

Leomaris went still.

The words did not sound like rejection. If anything, they sounded as though Zero Order knew something about him that made it impossible from the very beginning.

That was when it settled. Zero Order’s friendliness, or what had passed for it, hadn’t been genuine. It had been a direction. A careful, patient steering toward something Leomaris couldn’t yet see clearly. He didn’t know what it was. He knew it wasn’t good.

"Impossible..."