Maybe I really am a Villian

They were talking about Selena Astrean, the woman who slaughtered demons like insects with her destructive Light Magic. And with her healing magic, she had been close to the Immortal Rank in healing abilities, capable of healing even injured mana cores. If she had advanced to the Immortal Rank, she would have become almost impossible to kill.

But fortunately, she had died during the war ten years ago.

And if this meeting was about her son, then it was absolutely necessary.

All three of them stood there and watched the footage in silence.

"We cannot let him reach Master Rank, or it will become almost impossible to kill him then."

"But he is at the Academy, and you know that an even bigger monster is present there. We cannot do a single thing to him while he is inside the Academy. And when he is at home, his father is no less of a monster than his mother. So what are you going to do?"

Then the figure who had called the meeting spoke in a dangerous tone, "Don’t worry. I always knew something like this would happen, so I had already planned for this long before."

After hearing the plan, they all wore confident expressions on their faces.

"There is no way he can survive that."

One of them leaned back and said, "Then it is settled."

The third figure closed the projection with a wave of his hand. "We do not act yet. We only prepare. When the time comes... he will disappear quietly."

The room fell into silence once again, this time not of fear—but of certainty.

At the academy, a week passed peacefully without any trouble.

Meanwhile, on the island where the test had taken place, all the academy staff had left four days ago, and now no one was monitoring anything.

Within just a few days, Asher’s vessel had already taken control of most of the Gold-rank beasts on the island, while deliberately leaving the lower-rank ones untouched.

And today, they were going to kill the mutated shadow beast.

It had already broken through to Gold 6-star.

Today, around 100 of his vessels would continuously attack it until it became fully exhausted and could no longer transform into shadow form. Once its physical body was exposed and weakened, they would finish it off.

On the desolate part of the island, the mutated shadow beast stood like a distortion in reality itself. Its body constantly flickered between solid and smoke-like darkness, as if it couldn’t decide what form it wanted to exist in.

A hundred figures surrounded it.

All of them were Asher’s vessels.

Then they all kept attacking the beast until it became fully exhausted.

After becoming completely exhausted, it changed into its real physical form. Its true form was a humanoid beast covered in dark scales, with crimson eyes filled with hatred and exhaustion.

During the entire battle, Asher lost almost ten of his vessels along with their mana cores, but it was worth the sacrifice.

Then the vessel of the Three-Tail Monkey healed the creature and executed the process to turn it into a vessel.

In the end, he said, "Arise."

Every other vessel looked at him and said, "Oh shit, why did I not think of that earlier? I will do it next time."

The Three-Tail Monkey vessel just laughed and said, "Bastard, we are all the same person."

After the mutated beast became one of the vessels, a crack in space opened, and a Diamond-rank vessel stepped out from it. Then the Shadow Beast vessel went inside the crack along with the Diamond-rank human vessel and left the island.

Meanwhile, the other vessels stayed on the island.

At the academy,

Asher was having lunch when he got a message on his mobile from the Students Council.

Adam asked, "What happened? You look happy."

Asher replied, "It was a message from the Students Council. My suggestion was approved by the Students Council, and now I only need to get the support of the students and some professors for it to be implemented."

Aria said, "Ohh, that suggestion about spice levels and dessert implementation. I almost forgot about it."

Noah then said, "So how are you going to get support from the other students and professors?"

At Noah’s question, Asher just smiled, and Noah felt like he had seen that smile before. Then he remembered where — it was the same smile Asher had when he tortured Leon, Celestine, and Kevin.

It was his villian smile.

And suddenly, he regretted asking the question.

Asher finished his lunch early, stood up, and released his mana pressure throughout the entire cafeteria, causing everyone to turn toward him.

A heavy silence descended over the cafeteria as Asher’s mana pressure spread through the entire hall.

Even the students who were talking loudly moments ago immediately fell silent.

Some weaker students felt their breathing become heavier, while a few accidentally dropped their spoons from nervousness.

Adam looked at Asher with a helpless expression and muttered, "I knew he was going to do something crazy."

Aria sighed and rested her forehead on her hand as if she had already expected this outcome.

Noah, on the other hand, quietly moved his chair a little farther away from Asher.

Asher ignored everyone’s reactions and calmly looked around the cafeteria before speaking,

"I need support for my proposal from students."

His voice was not loud, yet it echoed clearly throughout the entire cafeteria because of the pressure behind it.

One student nervously asked, "A-And what if someone refuses?"

Asher smiled faintly before replying,

"Then I will politely convince them."

Everyone agreed without a shred of hesitation.

Aria then said, "You could have done it in a much better way by convincing them with the benefits of this proposal."

Asher calmly answered, "I could have, but it would have taken too much time. This method is far more efficient, and it’s not like they are losing anything with this proposal."

After thinking for a moment, Aria said, "You are right about that."