How Could the Villainous Young Master Be a Saintess?

Chaotic, lawless darkness swallowed the heavens. Black blood poured endlessly from above, cleaving the island apart.

Shicodale knew he could not remain in the dormitory any longer.

The black cloud was not advancing at a constant speed. It was accelerating, spreading faster and faster. At first, its expansion had been nowhere near this terrifying. Now, in the span of a single afternoon, it had crossed from one end of the island to the other and completely smothered the sky above the Academy.

The heavens were shrouded in chaotic gray-black darkness, making it impossible to tell the time of day. Streams of black crystalline matter descended like insurmountable walls, dividing the Academy into countless isolated sections.

At a glance, the dormitory district Shicodale had once known so well now resembled a vast black graveyard. One enormous black tombstone after another had fallen from the sky, sealing off every road that had once been passable.

The black blood cascading from the chaotic cloud made no sound of its own. Only the cracking and splintering of rooftops and floors marked its passage as it punched straight through them.

Shicodale made no attempt to destroy the gray-black streams pouring from the sky. His instincts warned him never to touch them. It would be pointless. Nothing could withstand their weight.

It looked as though the sky itself had ruptured and was bleeding necrotic blood, destroying the earth beneath it.

Shicodale stared blankly at the dying heavens.

Every instinct screamed at him to flee, yet his mind seemed to have shut down. He stood frozen in place, utterly lost, unable even to decide which direction his first step should take him.

There was nowhere to run.

The rotting sky had already enveloped him, while an invisible barrier boxed him in. There was no escape.

The ground beneath his feet was on the verge of collapsing, yet it was the only place left for him to stand.

Where else could he possibly go?

Even the wind seemed to have vanished. The gray-black fluid appeared capable of swallowing sound itself. Shicodale could hear nothing except the constant cracking and crashing of buildings collapsing around him.

Whenever he opened his eyes, he saw a graveyard of gray-black pillars.

Whenever he closed them, he saw a village consumed by flames and Moon Elves fleeing for their lives.

The two scenes overlapped, savaging what little remained of his reason and sanity.

Before, he had at least possessed something resembling a home—a corner where he could curl up against the wall and tremble.

Now, even that hiding place was gone.

It felt as though the necrotic sky might collapse at any moment and erase both his body and soul.

The trauma of the past and his utter helplessness before this apocalyptic disaster threatened to crush him. He desperately wanted to find someone on the street. Anyone. A companion.

But the streets were empty.

He had remained inside his own dormitory, shut away in his room, and had no idea when the entire district had emptied out.

Perhaps everyone had already fled.

Or perhaps the descending gray-black fluid had divided the dormitory district into isolated pieces, cutting off all movement and even preventing voices from carrying between them.

Shicodale suddenly felt as though he were the only person left in the world.

He looked around in mounting panic, hoping to find anything familiar—a person, an object, anything at all that might soothe the darkness slowly spreading through his heart.

He found nothing.

What in the world had happened?

Shicodale tried to force himself to be strong, but his legs gave out despite his efforts. He sank against the base of a wall.

The precarious dormitory behind him had become his final source of emotional support. It felt as though, the moment one of those black streams pierced the building, his mind would collapse along with it.

Loneliness.

Oppression.

Confusion.

Helplessness.

Once again, Shicodale was being forced to confront just how weak he truly was.

“Tap. Tap. Tap.”

At that moment, a faint sound came from the street.

Pale-faced and huddled against the wall, Shicodale gradually realized that it was neither an auditory hallucination nor the sound of another building collapsing.

It was the familiar sound of human footsteps.

Someone was there?

As the footsteps grew clearer, Shicodale knew he had not imagined them.

They unmistakably belonged to a person.

He jerked his head up. A faint glimmer of hope entered eyes filled with exhaustion and despair as he stared toward the source of the sound.

The good news was that he really did see a figure.

The bad news was that the person was dressed very strangely.

The distance between them continued to shrink, but the figure did not seem to be approaching Shicodale deliberately. Shicodale remained pressed against the dormitory wall while the stranger walked along the main road.

The crashing of collapsing buildings was deafening, yet Shicodale could still hear every one of the stranger’s footsteps with impossible clarity.

They were so familiar.

Could it be...?

A trace of life returned to Shicodale’s bright eyes as he watched the figure draw near.

When the stranger was about to pass him, Shicodale could no longer suppress the emotions surging inside him. He called tentatively toward the dark silhouette.

“Vinny?”

“...”

The cloaked figure stopped.

For some reason, Shicodale felt the air around him suddenly congeal.

The stranger had clearly heard him. Slowly, the cloaked figure turned in Shicodale’s direction.

In an instant, Shicodale felt as though a pair of bloodshot, predatory eyes had locked onto him.

It was the same instinctive terror a person felt in the instant before a venomous snake struck. Every hair on his body stood on end.

“Vinny... is that you?”

Despite his terror, Shicodale gathered his courage and asked again.

He knew Vinny’s scent. He was also intimately familiar with the weight and rhythm of his footsteps.

They were not perfectly identical, but the cloaked figure carried unmistakably strong traces of Vinny.

That was why Shicodale had recognized him.

Yet even after Shicodale asked the same question twice, the figure said nothing.

A serpentine stare pierced out from beneath the edge of the hood and remained fixed on him without shifting an inch.

“I-I’m sorry! I must have mistaken you for someone else. I’m so sorry!”

Terrified, Shicodale hurriedly apologized.

The scent truly was similar, but this person could not possibly be Vinny.

Vinny would never look at him with such naked hostility.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

Forcing himself to appear calm, Shicodale turned to leave.

Rumble—crash!

Before he could take a step, the building ahead collapsed with a thunderous roar, completely blocking his path.

Shicodale looked up at the gray fluid suddenly descending in front of him, his scalp prickling. Then he glanced back at the cloaked figure, who was still staring directly at him, and forced out a smile uglier than a grimace.

“Ha... haha. I don’t seem to be having much luck. Sorry. Sorry!”

He turned to find another route—and nearly walked straight into the dark figure.

Shicodale stopped short.

The cloaked man had somehow appeared directly in front of him.

Shicodale flinched like a frightened white rabbit.

“I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to block your way. I’ll go the other direction. I’ll find another way.”

His sense of danger was clearly working. He apologized frantically, desperate to avoid the stranger.

“Wait.”

The single word rang out like the sudden tolling of a funeral bell.

The cloaked man’s voice was hoarse and ice-cold.

A wave of numbness ran through Shicodale’s spine, and he immediately straightened.

At the same time, his heart jolted.

That voice was so familiar, even though it had become harsher and colder.

“Y-you...?”

Shicodale’s emotions churned with unease. He was desperate to see the face beneath the hood, but his powerful sense of danger warned him not to look—to avert his eyes and stay away.

It was no longer his decision.

“Who said you mistook me for someone else?”

A low, unsettling chuckle escaped the cloaked man as he turned toward him.

“You recognized me. Why are you in such a hurry to leave?”

“I... I...”

The voice was unmistakably familiar, and Shicodale began stammering even worse.

His intense curiosity and longing for Vinny urged him to find out the truth.

His instincts told him never to try.

But he no longer had a choice.

“You’re curious about the face beneath my hood, aren’t you?”

“There’s no need to be so polite. If you want to see it, then look. It’s hardly a big deal.”

Before Shicodale could react, the cloaked man pulled back his hood.

“?!”

Shicodale stared in shock at the face he had yearned to see day and night.

“Vinny? It really... it really is you?”

Shicodale nearly burst into tears, especially here, in this apocalyptic nightmare.

He instinctively raised his arms, about to throw himself at the person before him and pour out everything he had endured.

Then he abruptly stopped.

No.

Something was wrong.

Shicodale’s pupils contracted. Stiffly, he lowered his raised arms.

No.

The Vinny before him looked real from every angle. Even his scent was exactly right.

But...

Something about him felt terribly wrong.

How could Vinny ever make an expression like that?

How could he look at Shicodale as though he were prey?

Yet everything his senses told him felt undeniably real.

The contradiction brought Shicodale’s mind to a grinding halt.

“What’s wrong?” Vinny asked with a smile. “It’s only been a few days. Have you already forgotten me?”

“No. I haven’t.”

Shicodale shook his head stiffly.

“Oh? Then what is it? We haven’t seen each other in a few days, and now you’re acting so distant. Are you rejecting me?”

The moon-blue-haired young man tilted his head. A glimmer of amusement passed through his moon-blue eyes.

He resembled a cat that had caught a mouse but was in no hurry to eat it, preferring to toy with it first.

“N-no, that’s not it. Vinny, where have you been these past few days?”

Shicodale swallowed with difficulty and suppressed the urge to flee.

He knew that if he dared turn his back now, the person before him would lose what little patience he possessed.

“Where have I been?”

Vinny tilted his head. His mouth curved like a zipper pulled only halfway, leaving him neither smiling nor expressionless.

“Do I need to report my whereabouts to you?”

“?!”

Shicodale’s eyes widened, and he instinctively covered his mouth.

The presence before him was almost identical to Vinny’s, but Shicodale was now certain.

This was not Vinny.

At the very least, he was not the Vinny Shicodale knew.

“Ah, sorry. Sorry. I seem to have frightened you.”

Vinny forced out what he apparently believed to be a friendly smile.

“I haven’t been in a very good mood these past few days. My emotions have been a little unstable.”

The sight only terrified Shicodale further. The blood drained from his face.

Who smiled like that?

And with Vinny’s face, no less. Had Vinny’s face always been capable of looking this terrifying?

“N-no. It’s normal to be emotionally unstable when you’re in a bad mood.”

Shicodale clenched a fistful of his clothes and forced himself to remain calm.

“Mm. Exactly.”

Vinny nodded in agreement.

And then—

Silence.

The conversation died.

Shicodale was so frightened that his thoughts had fallen into disarray. Completely at a loss, he could not force another word from his mouth.

The Vinny across from him, meanwhile, almost never spoke to anyone under ordinary circumstances.

Naturally, an awkward silence settled between them.

“Vinny, I’m glad you’re back. I’m really glad you came back.”

Shicodale also found their silent staring painfully awkward and tried to find a new topic.

Unfortunately, his conversational skills were abysmal. The only things he could think of were awkward, clumsy remarks better left unsaid—the kind of remarks that would steadily exhaust the other person’s patience.

“Mm. I’m back.”

Vinny, however, did not become impatient.

Instead, he watched Shicodale desperately search for something to say, and the curve of his lips slowly deepened.

He enjoyed watching the little white rabbit struggle with all its might to keep the big bad wolf from eating it.

“Was... was the trip difficult?”

Another painfully awkward question escaped Shicodale.

“Difficult?”

Vinny sighed.

“I very nearly lost my life over there.”

“Really?”

Surprise appeared on Shicodale’s face.

“Of course. What, you don’t believe me, little tagalong? Oh, no. I mean...”

Vinny paused as though thinking.

“What was your name again?”

The moment the blue-haired young man said those words, Shicodale sank deeper into despair.

“Oh, I remember now. Your name is Shico—”

Vinny stopped and smiled.

“Ah, sorry. Sorry. I got it wrong again. That isn’t the name you use in public. You’re called Dale, aren’t you?”

Shicodale swallowed hard. His expression looked ready to crumple into tears.

How was he supposed to answer that?!

Never mind how this person had learned his true identity.

Who in the world was the man standing before him?

Shicodale grew increasingly panicked.

“V-Vinny, stop joking. How could you forget my name?”

His voice trembled.

“Oh?”

Vinny’s tone abruptly changed.

“And what if I tell you I really did forget?”

“Th-that would be perfectly normal!”

Shicodale hurriedly tried to smooth things over.

“You’ve said my name so many times. Of course you might forget it occasionally. That’s completely normal.”

“Haha. Yes, perfectly normal. Isn’t it?”

Vinny seemed satisfied with that answer.

“What a touching reunion this is, little tagalong.”

“Y-yes.”

Shicodale no longer dared correct the way this Vinny addressed him.

“Vinny, you—”

“Shh.”

Vinny suddenly raised a finger to his lips.

“Let me listen.”

“Huh?”

“If the Hero’s little tagalong is here, then that person must be somewhere nearby too. Isn’t that right?”

“What...?”

Shicodale stared blankly at him.

What did he mean by the Hero’s little tagalong?

Was he referring to Shicodale?

And who was “that person”?

“I don’t really understand what you’re talking about, Vinny.”

“You don’t understand?”

Vinny grinned.

“Oh, come now, little tag—no, Dale. Considering the relationship between us, isn’t it a little distant of you to say something like that?”

Shicodale swallowed again. His arms instinctively wrapped around himself as he took a step backward.

“Do you truly not know where that person is?”