Villain: 10x Rewards Begins With The Protagonist's Mother

A few minutes later, the three of them walked out of the wrecked base without a scratch. Behind them, the warehouse looked like a tornado had ripped through it.

Bodies were scattered across the floor, groaning and twitching except... a few.

Dante pulled off his mask the moment he got into the car and let out a long breath.

"Good work, you two." He said, rolling his neck.

"You dealt with one guy." Freya said, pulling the cat ear mask off.

"And I did it beautifully." Dante replied without a shred of shame.

Felix just shook his head with a smile as he started the car and drove off into the night.

*** 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

The mansion was quiet when Dante walked through the front door.

The dining room lights were still on and the smell of food reached him before he even took off his shoes. Two plates were set at the table. One half-finished, the other untouched and still warm.

Natasha had been waiting for him.

She was sitting in her usual seat, her chin resting on the back of her hand, watching the doorway like she knew exactly when he would walk in.

"You’re late." She said in a neutral tone.

"I went for a long drive." Dante answered with a casual smile and sat down across from her.

Natasha didn’t respond to that. She just watched him pick up his spoon and fork and start eating like nothing had happened.

A few bites in, Dante noticed she wasn’t eating.

She was just looking at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read.

It wasn’t anger and it wasn’t worry. It was something in between.

’She definitely heard everything from Felix and Freya.’ Dante thought, chewing slowly. ’Is she waiting to see if I’ll say it first?’

He wasn’t planning on hiding this from her in the first place.

She already knew everything, and pretending otherwise would only create unnecessary tension.

So he stopped eating and looked her in the eyes.

"Master, I went after a White Tiger Union base tonight. I’m planning to join Crimson Hollow and start a war between the two." He said with a firm look in his eyes. "The goal is revenge."

"I’m going to tear the Devereux family to pieces."

The revenge he was talking about was actually for the original Dante, who had been treated like dirt by both Marcus and Ryan.

"I know." Natasha said without a change in her expression.

"Are you angry?" Dante asked, studying her face.

"Why would I be? If you want revenge, go ahead." She said, her expression still the same.

Dante stared at her in disbelief. "...Just like that?"

"Yeah, just like that." She repeated, a smile blooming on her face.

’What the hell? Why is she smiling at me like that instead of lecturing me about how reckless I am?’ Dante couldn’t figure out what Natasha was thinking.

There had to be conditions, warnings, scolding, or SOMETHING.

As far as he knew, Natasha was not the type of person to let her youngest student start a gang war with a smile and a thumbs up.

"Master, I’m being serious." He pressed, trying to read her.

"So am I." Natasha said.

The softness in her eyes was gone, replaced by something much sharper and dangerous.

"Do you think I held back because I forgave the Devereux family?" She asked, and her voice dropped to a tone Dante had never heard from her before.

Her face turned genuinely cold.

’This... this is the same person who wiped out the Kingsleys.’ Dante realized he had miscalculated something. ’So she had her own reason for not seeking revenge.’

He had assumed it was the World’s Will influencing her, but he was wrong.

’If not the World’s Will, then what?’ Dante felt a sense of unease creep in.

Even with his Foresight(EX), he had no clue.

In the novel, Natasha was just an important supporting character who existed to stay loyal to Ryan’s dead father and show up whenever the plot needed her to convince the heroines to join Ryan’s harem.

Her inner world was never explored. Not even once.

Since he couldn’t figure it out, there was no point in overthinking it. His objective was to get her approval, and he got it without any trouble.

"Felix and Freya can handle anything those gangs throw at you. And if something goes wrong, I’ll send the Phantom Force to clean it up." Natasha said it without even blinking.

Then her expression softened. "But if you come home with so much as a scratch, you’re staying home. No arguments."

Dante opened his mouth, closed it, and let out a laugh. "Yes, master."

He went back to eating, and the two of them finished their meal.

***

[Natasha’s favourability has increased by 1.]

[Current favourability: 41 (Crush)]

’Is this because I didn’t hide things from her?’ Dante was sitting cross-legged on his bed, checking the system notifications before cultivating for the night.

’If I tell her I’m her system, will her favourability hit 100?’ He thought with a grin.

He shook his head with a smile. That was a recipe for disaster, and he knew it. He pulled out a mana stone from his inventory and held it in his palm.

"Now then, let’s see how long it takes to absorb this with 2x speed." He said, closing his eyes as the mana from the stone began flowing into his body.

In the master bedroom, Natasha stood beside the window, looking at the night sky with a distant expression.

’He must be confused about why I never went after the Devereux family, especially after I told him everything that day.’ She looked at the moon with a faint smile, as if she could see Dante’s puzzled face in it.

’Is that why he’s doing all of this? To force my hand?’ She wondered. ’But he seemed too prepared for it to be a spur of the moment thing. Maybe he’s been planning this for a while.’

She knew Ryan would come back. His luck was too ridiculous for him to die that easily. And the Devereux family’s collapse was set in stone the moment Marcus tried to kill him.

But that didn’t mean she had forgiven them. She could have made them disappear the day Ryan "died" if she wanted to.

The real reason she held back had nothing to do with forgiveness.

It was Ryan himself.

’I kept him because I thought none of it was his fault.’ She recalled, and years of memories rushed back in a flood. ’After he was born, I told myself I would raise him right. That he wouldn’t turn out like his father.’

Her face slowly twisted in disgust.

But as Ryan grew older, he started acting more and more like Victor. No matter how many times she corrected him, he didn’t listen. No matter how many chances she gave him, he wasted every single one.

Even then, she tried her best to be the mother he needed.

It wasn’t enough.

Ryan’s extraordinary luck only made him arrogant and full of himself. He never had to face real consequences for anything he did, so he never learned.

When she found out Marcus tried to kill him because Ryan had stolen his girlfriend, whatever was left of her hope died on the spot.

’Maybe I failed as a mother.’ Natasha thought with a wry smile.

’But I won’t fail as a master.’ Her eyes sharpened as the faces of her students surfaced in her mind one by one.

She hadn’t noticed something.

Dante’s image was the largest of them all.