Fated to Be Loved by Villains

“You look as if you just saw a ghost. What? Are you scared?”

“...”

“Are you not going to attack?”

Hearing Dowd’s provocative voice, Mobius tried his best to calm his breath that was about to get heavy.

“-System, intercept.”

[Executing.]

He began to pour out his attacks again, but its pattern was similar to the ones he had been unleashing so far.

And just like before, Dowd dodged everything while slightly advancing forward.

—Just what the hell is this bastard doing?!

That was the first thing that came to Mobius’ boiling mind.

His rational side was telling him that it was dangerous to be swept away by his anger any more than this, but it was no use.

The man in front of him had been casually dodging the attacks he made so far, and he hadn’t attempted any kind of counterattacks yet. And the problem here was that Mobius couldn’t even guess what kind of strategy the man was cooking up.

“Just what are you trying to do?”

“Nothing, I guess?”

“...”

What the fuck is he on about now?

At this point, even he had to acknowledge Dowd’s courage to ridicule him even in such a situation.

“...Making a play on words isn’t my hobby. Stop now. I’ll at least make your death painless.”

“I mean, I’m really not aiming for anything in particular.”

“...”

In truth...

At this point, he could poignantly feel that Dowd was dragging time.

The problem here was that he had no way to stop him from doing that.

...How long has it been?

To be stuck in a situation where his opponent had the ‘upper hand’, where he was forced to act passively according to his opponent’s moves...

He couldn’t even remember when was the last time this happened.

—It’s not like I can’t handle this.

Mobius surmised that, if Dowd refused to show the cards he had, then all he needed to do was to make him pull them out with force.

Besides, Dowd wouldn’t be the only one who’d gain advantage from the dragged time.

Mobius took a deep breath, preparing for a different type of attack this time.

“...You are not an easy opponent, I’ll acknowledge that. At the very least, you’re different from the opponents I’ve overcome so far.”

Mobius admitted calmly as he changed the position of his staff and fiddled with his artificial eyes.

The punk wasn’t an easy opponent, sure.

But that was all.

At the end of the day, they were in the Magic Tower, the place where the pinnacle of all technologies was created.

He hadn’t used any technologies that could affect other dimensions so far because he deemed his opponent as a precious ‘research material’. In other words, he had been trying to keep it intact the best he could.

Mobius snapped his finger. With that as a cue, all the equipment that possessed the strongest firepower out of all the tower’s research buildings gathered around him.

From dimensional warpers, void-generated cannons, to particle crushing wave generators... 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Each of them was a weapon that one needed to think through before activating since they carried ‘side effects’ that were too severe. But, since he decided to deal with his opponent in earnest, he had no choice but to deploy them.

“From now on, I’ll fight you in earnest. There are a lot of ways to keep your value as a precious research sample intact even if you had turned into ashes.”

“...Ah~”

However, when he heard those words, Dowd...

Just picked his ear, as if he found his words annoying.

“Excuses, blah, blah.”

“...”

It was clear that he did it to get on his nerves, but this time, Mobius pushed away the anger that was about to surge up into his head with a deep breath.

He vowed that he wasn’t going to be deceived by the punk’s words anymore. Instead, he’d crush him in earnest, no matter what kind of bullshit he was spouting.

“Oh, by the way, you’re mistaking something.”

When Mobius took a deep breath, right before he was about to fire the weapons...

Dowd suddenly said so with a smirk.

“Why do you think I haven’t attacked you all this time?”

“...What?”

“Well, before that, let’s go back to the beginning.”

Right before he could fire the weapons...

Dowd, without any change in his expression, continued with a chuckle.

“Do you remember why you’re fighting me in the first place?”

And along with such words...

Dowd, whose gaze had been locked with his, disappeared without a trace.

Mobius’ eyes shook greatly for a moment upon seeing him suddenly turned into yellow particles that scattered around.

“...-?!”

Is this a hallucination?

No, that can’t be...

The observation equipment he had could break through any kind of trickery and illusion, so that was definitely out of question. Besides, there was no way that an organization that had the technology to break through dimensions and read the target’s past couldn’t detect such an obvious trick.

If...

The being that stood in his opposition wasn’t a being that had the highest status in all dimensions, that is.

That was when Mobious found out the ‘nature’ of the Aura exuded from the particles that took Dowd’s shape. When he did, he immediately spat out the air that was rushing into his lungs violently.

—Demonic Aura?

A Yellow Demonic Aura?!

I’ve never heard of a Yellow Devil before!

He had blocked all of the Demonic Auras that he had managed to observe, but the problem here was that he hadn’t expected that there would be a Devil that ‘escaped’ his observation.

“I’ve told you.”

As Mobius’ brain was thrown into such a disorder, such words entered his ears from his side.

Well, actually, it would be misleading to say it was from his side.

Although he had reinforced his sense of hearing with all kinds of mechanizations, the distance of the voice he heard and the actual distance of the voice was completely different.

As he turned his head in confusion...

“It’s impossible to make any rational judgments when you’re angry.”

“...”

There Dowd was, in a distance away from the ‘stage’ where the fight was supposed to happen.

He rested his chin in his hand that was holding the key card that could control Professor Astrid’s life-support system. It was unknown when he had gotten it.

“...”

Upon seeing that, Mobius intuitively scanned the things that were ‘originally’ supposed to be there in sequence.

From Astrid’s ‘important organs’ that he had the authority of control over, to her ‘new body’ that was never allowed to be taken outside.

Apparently...

When Mobius and the punk were arguing just now...

Or rather, when he was having an unnecessary fight with the ‘hallucination’ that punk cast upon him...

The punk had rescued the most important hostage he had taken.

“Even if this single card holds the authority over the life-support system, I know you could just fire something to destroy everything instead if things were to go against your wishes. That’s why I figured I should just transplant all her organs into a new body and send her somewhere safe.”

“...You—”

Mobius finally knew why the punk could avoid all of his attacks.

Because in the first place, it was merely a hallucination that he attacked.

The reason why the punk had only been approaching him slowly without attacking was so that he couldn’t guess what he was up to.

To drag more time by confusing him.

If...

He had been a little bit calmer...

If he just suspected him a little more, he could probably detect the shallow trick quickly.

“Honestly, I was a little surprised. You lost your mind way more easily than I expected.”

“Dowd Campbell...”

“It’s probably because your head is too big, but you flipped out so quickly even when I offended you a little. It was kind of funny.”

“You—!.”

When people got angry...

They couldn’t make rational judgments.

Which meant, just like how he dug a trap for that punk...

Mobius himself...

Was played around by the punk from the beginning to the end...

By such a ridiculous trick...

Him, the owner of the Magic Tower, the person who possessed superhuman intelligence...

By the damn bastard who was supposed to be his mere ‘research subject’.

“You motherfucker—!!”

As his anger burst out like an erupting volcano, Mobius raised his staff and pointed it at Dowd.

The collective power of the weapons he prepared could make a short work of even a demigod, so he was confident that he could finish the fucker in front of him for sure.

However...

This time, the eyes of his opponent shone dangerously.

“I’ve said it before, no? Ten minutes.”

A beeping sound of alarm rang from Dowd’s watch.

It marked that 10 minutes had passed—it seemed like he had set this up in advance.

Now, Mobius finally found out that the 10 minutes he had been babbling about was...

The time the punk needed to evacuate Astrid to a perfectly safe place so that she wouldn’t be in danger anymore.

“Are you ready to die now?”

With such words,

‘Black Demonic Aura’ began to come out of Dowd’s body.

●

—I said that so confidently, but...

I struggled to calm down the Aura that was grinding my heart like crazy.

Things turned out this way because I had been straining myself more than usual to handle the Yellow Demonic Aura.

You see, the Yellow Demonic Aura’s Authority could be used as ‘hallucination’ just like what I did just now.

As a hallucination, nothing could break through it as long as it fulfilled some conditions.

...But, still...

It didn’t change the fact that I only had one shot left. And that was only if I could do it properly.

[...Regardless whether you could use it properly or not, are you sure you can withstand that?]

“...Well...”

—So...

Up until now, I could withstand it somehow, but...

I scratched my head while looking around at the Magic Tower’s facilities that Mobius had gathered around the area.

“...Those things are basically moving fortresses, huh?”

I said dejectedly while looking at the ‘research buildings’ that were lining up around us.

They called those places research buildings, but honestly, its insides looked like they could bring them to wage a war against the whole world and win.

[How are you going to deal with what happens after this?]

“...Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

[...I knew it.]

I knew, my finishing touch was always half-assed.

Well, I had a few hidden cards left, but still....

It would be nice if someone were to help me here. Anyone.

Honestly, I didn’t know if I could pull this off by myself...

“-Teaaaaaaachhh—!”

Then, at that moment...

A familiar voice echoed from beside me.