A Villain's Survival Guide

At the peak of his excitement, Leomaris wasted no time excusing himself to his room. He hadn’t thoroughly thought it through, but he’d braced himself for something worse all the same, and locking the door behind him was proof of that much.

Inside his room, he sat on the edge of his bed, the hymn book resting on the table before him. Just as Mystery had asked of him, he needed to draw his magic circle behind the book and use his ability, Solve, to learn everything within it.

Le Mythe des Quatre was said to hold forbidden knowledge, the kind exclusive to Philosophers and higher ranks alone.

By all rights, Leomaris consuming it shouldn’t have been possible, not even Archmages possessed the mindset for forbidden knowledge.

But with his ability, Solve, granting him mastery over every physical and psychological aspect, he was practically the only Magician who could attempt such an abomination.

’Mystery lifted the limitations... as a Magician, I shouldn’t be able to use my ability on anything except skills. But with its permission, I have one chance... just one shot at this.’

With his red ink, he traced his magic circle carefully behind the book. Mentally and emotionally, he was calm and collected just like he trained for, but his body was another matter entirely. His hand recoiled time and again, his body stiffening as though pleading with him to stop.

But with the warmth of his meal settled quietly in his mind, he stayed optimistic and hardly noticed the battle his own body was putting up.

Once the magic circle was done, he set his hand upon it, closed his eyes, and relaxed his entire body, emptying his mind of all thought.

’Solve.’ He thought.

CRACK!

As the knowledge entered, his hand broke, right at the joint. But as though pain were little more than an illusion, Leomaris hadn’t minded in the least.

Even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t. His mind was somewhere nothing could reach. His eyes bled, and his body burned so hot his clothes melted away, as though he’d been set well ablaze.

His mind was flooded with so much information that his entire being reacted as though it had been pushed to the end of its capabilities. His mind turned mellow, as though trying to consume something it was never meant for.

...

Meanwhile, in the dining room, the smile Rosay had been wearing moments ago faded clean away. A chill swept over her, as though something that completely overwhelmed her had made itself known. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

She stopped eating and looked to Cloud and Celestial. Their expressions said it all, they felt it too. But strangely, Raine was completely unbothered. That gave her a fair idea of what was going on. Whatever this force was, it was strong enough to go clean over the heads of Magicians.

"What’s going on, Ace?"

Celestial asked, her face etched with nothing but confusion and terror.

Cloud gulped bile.

"This force... it is unlike anything I have ever felt before."

Rosay’s eyes darted about, and almost instinctively, she made up her mind. She had no idea what to expect, and she wasn’t going to make things worse.

"Don’t worry about it. Just sit back and enjoy your meal."

Her red eyes drifted toward them in a deadly flash.

"That is an order. No one leaves this table."

...

While they pondered the source of the ominous presence, Leomaris was already broken. Every bone in his body had given way, and bar his fingers, which could barely twitch, he was no different from a vegetable.

He’d collapsed to the ground, the hymn book falling with him, his body curled in on itself like a newborn wrapped in a blanket.

It was about this time that something began to stir. And despite the pain and agony that ought to have been coursing through his spine, the first thing he felt was his brain.

He knew he had consumed too much, and yet there were still countless more to consume.

With the little consciousness he’d managed to scrape back, he knew continuing would only kill him. He forced his fingers to drag across the magic circle.

He was well aware of the state his body was in, and the realisation that his fingers could move brought him a small measure of relief.

He worked his fingers across the circle over and over, knowing full well it wouldn’t be easy, but he hardly cared. His fingers lacked the strength and with every scratch against the book’s cover, the force behind it dwindled, but he didn’t give up.

After nearly an hour, he managed to scratch out the faintest line of the magic circle. The overwhelming presence looming over the mansion vanished, and with it, the torrent of knowledge flooding Leomaris’s mind came to a stop.

But he wouldn’t get to rejoice. He lay unconscious on the floor, right in a pool of his own blood.

At first, he was battered and broken, much as the hymn book had left him, but with each passing day, his body slowly began to reform, as though he was being reborn.

On the fourth day, Leomaris finally opened his eyes, though it was the buzzing at his door that roused him rather than anything else.

His eyes crept open, and the first thing that hit him was the stench of blood. It was dry in his nose, mouth, eyes, and face, and the floor beneath him was the same. His clothes had burnt clean off, and he realised with some difficulty that his body was stuck fast to the ground.

BANG

BANG

"Are you there, young master?"

"Hello?"

Almost reluctantly, Leomaris forced himself upright, peeling away from the floor with a crust of dried blood clinging to him.

He took a good look at himself and knew right away a shower was in order. However, his body’s reform was a mystery to anyone else, but not to him. He knew well enough how that had come about.

His eyes dropped straight to his torso, and what he found was something like a tattoo.

An exaggerated centipede, darker and more aggressive than it had any right to look, almost horrific. It crawled from his spine and wrapped around his waist, incomplete, missing a third of its body and without a head.

His attention shifted toward the door.

"Gi—

His throat was so dry that the mere thought of speaking felt like it would wear out his gullet. Instead, he rapped on the door, just enough to let Hazel know he was alive.

"Thank goodness. You’re still alive, young master."

He found himself wondering why Hazel hadn’t barged her way in as she usually did until he remembered he’d locked the door.

After a few return knocks on the door, something like morse code he couldn’t make head nor tail of, he slipped into the washroom and cleaned himself up.

After that, he stretched out on his bed, eyes trained on the ceiling.

’So that’s why Mystery told me to clear my mind of all negative thoughts and emotions... everything in that thing is sinister. If my mind had been filled with negativity, I’d have died on the spot.’

He stretched out a little. The hymn book was filled with myths concerning the Firstlight Goddess, but they were far more than that. Behind each myth was a false entity that could be summoned through the hymns and prayers.

There were four of them, and yet for all that, despite consuming the Abyssal Cube and Mystery shifting his limitations as a Magician, he’d only managed to master one of the four.

Now he had mastered one of the myth hymns. The Myth of the Burning Eye. The first myth. And with it, forbidden knowledge over the false entity, Heliara, the Watching Flame.