Villain: Your Heroines Were Delicious - Chapter 242 - 30
Chapter 242: Chapter 30
“Boku-sensei, we’re your biggest fans!”
Touka and Emi both said at the same time, their voices harmonizing in a rare, high-pitched pitch of pure excitement.
Their eyes were sparkling with a localized intensity as they stood in front of the man of the hour.
The author was an imposing, enigmatic figure.
He was seated behind a mahogany desk, wearing a realistic skeleton face mask that obscured every feature, paired with a low-slung black cap and a heavy black trench coat that seemed to swallow the light around him.
He looked less like a novelist and more like one of the grim antagonists from his own bestsellers.
Even Nanashi seemed to have gotten over her paralyzing fear of Seijirou for a moment, caught up in the infectious energy of the event.
She stood just behind the two, her hands clasped tightly together, a bright, genuine smile finally breaking through her previous anxiety.
“Please sign this!” Said Touka, taking out a book with a black cover.
“This is the very first printed copy of the second volume! I luckily obtained it on an online auction!” Said Emi, taking out a similar black book but with a golden cross.
They carefully put down their pristine first-edition books on the desk, and with a slow, deliberate grace, the man, Boku-sensei, picked up a fountain pen and began signing them, the scratch of the nib against the paper the only sound in their immediate vicinity.
“Boku-sensei, I really like your narrative prose! It’s simply divine! The way you structure the internal monologues makes the reader feel like a co-conspirator!” Touka gushed, her face flushed with a scholar’s passion.
“Hm, hm,” Emi nodded her head repeatedly, her mechanical head-tilts signaling her absolute agreement. “Top-tier world-building. Zero plot holes. Logical reasoning.”
Nanashi leaned in slightly, adding her own praise, “I especially like how you compared the death of the Nurse in the third Chapter to a poisonous but beautiful flower. The way you described her final breath as ’the wilting of a Belladonna in the midnight frost, where the petals of life turn to a bruised purple, beautiful even as they secrete the venom of their own end’—it was breathtaking. I love it so much I had it memorized!”
“I like that too! It was so hauntingly poetic!” Touka grinned, her eyes crinkling behind her glasses.
The three girls were clearly enjoying themselves, lost in the thrill of meeting their literary idol.
However, for some reason, Seijirou felt a sudden, sharp prickle at the back of his neck.
Through the hollowed eye sockets of that skeleton mask, he felt as if Boku-sensei was staring at him.
It wasn’t a fan’s curiosity or a casual glance; it was the look of a predator observing a rival, a deep, analytical gaze that seemed to be weighing the very weight of Seijirou’s soul.
However, that sensation vanished as quickly as it had appeared as the author turned his head back to the books, making Seijirou wonder if that was just his imagination or a residual effect of the morning’s exhaustion.
Soon, the three of them finished their turn.
Clutching their signed treasures, they scurried back toward Seijirou, their faces radiant.
Touka and Emi each held a shimmering golden ticket aloft, waving them in front of his face like trophies.
“Seijirou-kun! Look!” Touka exclaimed, breathless. “There was actually a lottery hidden in the limited pressings! Whoever got this golden ticket wins a private tour of Boku-sensei’s actual mansion! That is the inspiration for the ’South Side Mansion’ where the entire first volume took place! It’s a masterpiece of Gothic architecture!”
“We can even bring a plus one,” Emi added, her voice flat but her eyes gleaming with a stubborn light as she looked directly at Seijirou. “And obviously, I’m bringing you. You are my designated party member for this quest.”
“And I’m bringing Nanashi-san!” Touka declared, reaching back to grab Nanashi’s hand.
Nanashi had looked a bit depressed just a second ago, staring down at her own standard white ticket with a slumped posture, but her face lit up instantly upon hearing Touka’s words.
She looked at Touka with a mixture of surprise and profound gratitude, the shadow of her past with Seijirou finally starting to fade behind the warmth of a new friendship.
“Alright, alright, why don’t we get some lunch first?” Asked Seijirou, raising a hand to stem the tide of excitement before Touka and Emi could begin a second, even more detailed analytical breakdown of the mansion’s floor plans.
The suggestion was met with immediate, enthusiastic approval.
The adrenaline of the signing event had left the three girls famished, and even Nanashi seemed to have found a second wind, her appetite returning as the immediate threat of Seijirou’s presence was tempered by the festive atmosphere of the mall.
*
*
*
At this moment, sitting in a dark, claustrophobic room that smelled of unwashed hair and copper, a man in a grime-stained hoodie was gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached.
He leaned into the flickering blue light of his monitors, his eyes wide and bloodshot as he stared at a live video feed.
He had successfully hacked into the mall’s high-definition security network, and now, he was watching Seijirou and the others eating lunch in the food court, talking and smiling with each other.
“Why!? Why is that man with my Emi-chan again!?” he hissed, his voice a dry, rattling whisper. “He’s touching the table where she sits… he’s breathing the same air. It’s filthy! And why is my Emi-chan hanging out with that bitch Nanashi!? She’s the reason why I haven’t gotten together with my Emi-chan! She’s the poison! She’s the one who stands between us! She should die! She should rot in hell and burned for eternity!”
Just then, the black, single eye with its mass of countless, writhing tentacles emerged from the back of his neck.
It pulsed with a rhythmic, sickly light and made a series of wet, mocking sounds that vibrated directly into the man’s skull.
“Shut up!” the man snarled, swatting at the air behind his head. “That bitch… Nanashi… she was jealous of Emi-chan from the very start. She sabotaged our relationship back in middle school because she couldn’t stand that I only had eyes for Emi! I just knew it! That bitch always wanted to be my girlfriend back then, hmph, if she’s sensible and knows her place, maybe I can make her my side chick once I have Emi-chan in the cellar. But she doesn’t deserve even that!”
The eye made another sharp, mocking sound, its tentacles performing a series of complex, mocking gestures that seemed to laugh at the man’s delusions.
“You bastard!” The man glared at the reflection of the mocking eye in his dark monitor. “How dare you say that!? Emi-chan is saving herself for me! She’s pure! Why would she even act like a slut and agree to a foursome with that bastard Kageyama!? She’s being coerced! She’s being brainwashed by his money and his status! Once I save her, she’ll see the truth!”
The eye narrowed, its pupil dilating until it was a vast, hungry void as it made a sequence of low, vibrating noises, like a sound like meat being ground in a heavy machine.
The man blinked, his expression shifting from rage to a sharp, sudden curiosity. “Huh? You have a method? A ritual that makes you stronger if you are fed by the blood of a virgin?”
The eye nodded slowly, its tentacles curling in a grotesque mimicry of a formal bow.
The air in the room suddenly grew several degrees colder, and a faint, oily smoke began to rise from the man’s shadow.
He grinned, revealing a creepy, yellowed expression that looked like a crack in a tombstone. “Alright… alright, let’s see it. If that’s what it takes to ascend, then so be it. Next week, exactly next week, we can start our plan. After all, everything is now coming together. You’ll kill Kageyama and tear his soul to pieces, and I… I will finally get to keep Emi-chan for myself. Forever.”
The eye made a final, clicking noise of agreement before it slowly melted back into his neck, vanishing beneath the skin and leaving only a pulsing, black bruise behind.
The man smirked, his ego inflated by the promise of supernatural power.
He stood up abruptly, his joints popping, and tried to walk toward the door to get some air.
But in his haste and the gloom of the room, he tripped over a tangled pile on the floor and he stumbled, his foot catching on a heavy black trenchcoat that was piled alongside other unwashed clothes, discarded masks, and trash.
“Fuck!” He kicked the garments away with a vicious snarl, the heavy coat sliding across the floor and revealing a glimpse of a familiar-looking skeleton mask buried beneath the grime.
He didn’t look back, his mind already miles away for the next week, where their plans can begin, before walking toward the door and stepping into the hallway.
