Villain: Your Heroines Were Delicious - Chapter 240 - 28

Chapter 240: Chapter 28

Somewhere, in the deepest, most stagnant corner of a decaying apartment complex, a room existed that seemed to have been severed from the rest of humanity.

The air within was not merely stale; it was a physical weight, like a thick, putrid miasma that clung to the throat and stung the eyes.

It was a dark, cramped space, lit only by the flickering, unnatural blue light of several high-end monitors.

In the center of this rot sat a disheveled man.

He looked less like a human being and more like a creature of the earth that had been unearthed too soon.

His skin was a sallow, sickly gray, coated in a layer of oily sweat and grime that spoke of weeks, perhaps months, without the touch of soap or water.

His hair was a matted, greasy nest that fell over his bloodshot eyes, and his clothes were stiff with dried spills and bodily fluids.

The room was also incredibly messy, like a chaotic landscape of used tissues, discarded fast-food containers, and piles of unwashed laundry that had begun to grow their own ecosystems.

Not to mention the entire room also reeked of a disgusting scent, a mixture of sour sweat, mildew, and biological decay, that could make any normal person puke on the spot.

But the most horrifying aspect of the room was the walls.

Plastered across every available inch of vertical space were candid photos of Itoshi Emi.

They were everywhere—Emi walking to school, Emi laughing with a friend, Emi entering a convenience store, Emi looking pensively out of a window.

Some were zoomed in so far that the pixels were jagged, focusing on her neck, her hands, or the hem of her skirt.

At this moment…

“I succeeded! I finally succeeded!” The man let out a high-pitched, wheezing laugh that rattled in his chest, his fingers, tipped with long, yellowed nails, danced across the keyboard with a frantic energy. “I successfully hacked into her private local network… I’m past the firewall! Now I can see everything… I can see what she is doing every second of the day!”

On his primary screen, a window popped open.

It was a live, high-definition video feed from Emi’s own webcam, and it showed her sleeping on her bed, her chest rising and falling in the rhythmic peace of exhaustion.

“Ah~ Emi-chan~! Emi-chan~! You look so beautiful when you aren’t fighting me…”

The man moaned, his voice a wet, guttural sound.

Suddenly, he reached into a drawer on his desk and pulled out a bundle of fabric—a female gym uniform, faded and worn, something he hid there like a sacred relic.

He brought the fabric to his face, burying his nose in it and inhaling deeply as his eyes rolled back in his head until only the whites were visible, a look of pure, narcotic ecstasy washing over his face.

This uniform belonged to Emi. It was something he had stolen from her locker after a gym class a few weeks ago, a trophy of his devotion.

He hadn’t washed it ever since, cherishing the lingering scent of her sweat and the faint, floral aroma of her skin that had been trapped in the fibers.

To him, it was more than clothing; it was a piece of her soul.

Then, while his eyes remained glued to the monitor where Emi lay sleeping, and his nose remained buried in the stolen fabric, his hand moved with a rhythmic, frantic motion under the desk.

One can only imagine what he was doing in that dark, filthy corner of the world.

His breathing became a series of ragged, desperate gasps, the sound echoing off the photos of the girl who had no idea she was being violated in absentia.

Then, after a few seconds of intense, shaky silence, the man let out a long, satisfied moan that ended in a sharp, pathetic whimper.

“Aaaah~” he moaned, his body twitching a few times as the tension left his frame.

He sat down weakly on his creaking chair, his chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath, his face was flushed, a disturbing contrast to his usual pallor.

“Emi-chan… my sweet, perfect Emi-chan…”

At that moment, the shadows behind him seemed to thicken and coagulate. Then, from the base of his skull, where the spine met the brain, a black, single eye with a dilated, pulsating pupil emerged.

It was surrounded by a mass of thin, writhing tentacles that looked like black veins come to life.

The creature began to wrap its appendages around the man’s neck and shoulders, its touch leaving behind a trail of cold, black slime.

The man smiled, feeling the parasitic weight of the entity as he leaned back into the embrace of the shadow. “Yes, yes… you can eat as much as you want. Take the excess… feed on the love I have for her.”

The eye made a series of unknown sounds, like a wet, chattering noise that vibrated directly into the man’s inner ear.

The man nodded obediently, his gaze returning to the sleeping girl on the screen. “I know, I know. Just you wait. I will approach her soon. The plan is almost ready. And then, we can finally be together forever. I’ll bring her here, to our home.”

The eye made another series of clicking, inquisitive sounds.

The man hummed a tuneless song and looked around the room, seeing the piles of trash and the stained walls as a palace of devotion. “No worries, I’m sure she’d love my room. It’s filled with her! It’s a temple to her beauty! Is there any man more devoted to her than me? Is there anyone else who would spend every waking hour thinking only of her?”

The eye wiggled its tentacles in what seemed like a mocking gesture of agreement.

“Tsk! That Kageyama brat…!” The man’s face suddenly contorted into a mask of pure, vitriolic rage as he slammed his fists onto the desk, making the monitors wobble. “How dare he try and get close to my Emi-chan! He’s a predator! He’s definitely just lusting after her body! He’s like all the others—he wants her virginity, and once he gets it, he will surely throw her away like a used rag! Only I can love her for who she is! Only I can appreciate her purity!”

The eye made another sharp, questioning noise.

“That’s impossible!” The man screamed, spit flying from his lips. “Emi-chan is definitely a virgin! She’s saving herself for me! She’s the Goddess of my dreams! How could she be like those sluts who would sleep with other people?! She’s untainted! She’s mine!”

The eye made a low, vibrating sound, as if presenting a logical counter-argument based on the things it had seen in the girl’s daily life.

“Hmph! She’s such a pure and kind girl! There is no way she wouldn’t save her virginity for me, her fated one!” The man insisted, his voice cracking with delusion. “She knows I’m coming for her. She can feel it.”

The eye made another sound, one that carried a sense of hunger and a promise of violence.

“Don’t worry,” the man whispered, his tone shifting into something chillingly calm. “As I promised before, once you help me get Emi-chan for myself, I’ll help you kill that Kageyama brat. I’ll let you hollow him out from the inside. I’ll let you feast on his ’Origin’ until there’s nothing left but a shell.”

The eye made one final, satisfied noise before it slowly retracted into the man’s flesh, disappearing beneath his matted hair, leaving only a faint, pulsing bruise on his neck.

The man simply smiled, a terrifying, broken expression as he turned back toward the monitor, watching the silent, peaceful video of Emi sleeping.

As he watched her, the heat rushed back to his lower head, and his ’little sword’ once again stood up in a display of obsessive lust.

He reached for the gym uniform once more, bringing the scent of her sweat back to his nostrils, and prepared himself for round two.

Outside, the sun already hangs over the city, but in that room, the night was eternal.

*

*

*

At this moment, back in Emi’s room, while she was sleeping, her phone suddenly rang, the sharp, digital melody cutting through the silence of her darkened sanctuary like a razor.

She jolted awake, her heart hammering against her ribs, but she didn’t move an inch and remained perfectly still beneath the covers, her breath held, just closing her eyes and praying that the caller would just stop.

In the haze of her interrupted sleep, the sound felt aggressive, an unwelcome intrusion into the few hours of peace she managed to steal from the world.

Thankfully, after what felt like an eternity of rhythmic trilling, it did, and the room fell back into a heavy, stagnant quiet.

She was about to let out a long, shaky sigh of relief and return to Dreamland, the pull of exhaustion already dragging her back toward unconsciousness, when her phone rang once more.

The persistent vibration rattled against the nightstand, demanding her attention with an urgency that couldn’t be ignored.

She sighed, a frustrated, groggy sound, and sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she reached out and picked up the device, squinting at the harsh luminescence of the screen as she saw the caller ID.

“Nanashi?” she whispered, her voice raspy.

Nanashi was a complicated figure in Emi’s life. She used to be her primary bully back in middle school, a source of constant stress and misery.

But recently, in a strange turn of events that still baffled Emi at times, they had made up and become friends.

They had started hanging out together, bonded by shared interests that had once been the target of Nanashi’s mockery.

She swiped the screen and answered the call, “Yes?”

“Emi~!” Nanashi’s voice exploded through the speaker, high-pitched and full of a whiny, impatient energy. “You said we’re going to Boku-sensei’s signing event today! I’ve been standing here like an idiot! Where are you?!”

Emi’s eyes widened, the last remnants of sleep vanishing in a heartbeat as the realization hit her. “It’s today!?”

“Yes! I’ve been waiting for you since forever! The line is already stretching around the block, and if we don’t get in soon, they’re going to stop handing out the numbered tickets!”

“I’m on my way! Please wait for me! Give me twenty minutes, no, ten!” Emi scrambled out from under her duvet, her mind racing through the logistics of getting ready in record time.

“Hurry! If I miss getting my volume signed because you were oversleeping, I’m going to make you pay for my lunch for a month!”

With that, the call ended with a sharp click.

Emi stood up from the bed, her movements frantic, but as she reached for the hem of her oversized sleep shirt and was about to take off her clothes to change into something presentable, she suddenly stopped at the last moment, her hands still clutching the fabric.

For some reason, a very creepy feeling enveloped her.

It wasn’t the usual chill of the morning air; it was a heavy, greasy sensation, like invisible eyes were crawling over her skin.

It felt like she was being watched by something cold and hungry, something that was peering through the very walls of her apartment.

She turned slowly towards her computer setup, her gaze landed on her webcam, and she couldn’t help but shiver.

The small, glass lens looked like a dead eye, reflecting the dim light of the room back at her.

The feeling of being exposed, of her private movements being broadcast to some unseen voyeur, became almost physical.

At that moment, driven by a sharp, protective instinct, she decided she couldn’t take any chances.

She reached down, grabbed her discarded bedsheets, and draped them over her entire multi-monitor setup, effectively shrouding the computer in a ghost-like veil of fabric.

Not satisfied with just covering it, she reached behind the desk and yanked the power cables, plugging it off entirely.

At that, the creepy feeling vanished as if a switch had been flipped, and the oppressive weight in the air lifted, and she sighed in deep, genuine relief.

“Can never be too careful these days,” she muttered to the quiet room, her heart rate finally beginning to slow down.

The digital world was her domain, but she knew better than anyone that even a queen’s palace had its rats.

She shook her head, trying to clear the lingering dread. “Forget that, for now, I need to hurry! Nanashi is going to kill me if I’m late!”

She moved into the bathroom to wash her face, her mind already shifting from the shadows in the wires to the excitement of the signing event, unaware of the frantic, silent rage currently boiling over in a dark, filthy room across the city.