Surviving as a Villain at the Academy

8 – The Demon Realm Rift Uproar (4)

My nape tingled throughout the entire lecture. I didn’t need to look back to know whose gaze it was. It must be Ruslan’s gaze, surely Ruslan’s gaze.

Ever since Arias had shown subtle favor to me, he had been all over her more than me, so he probably wants to tear me to shreds. The original Ruslan in the original work had gnashed his teeth at the original Frau because of the previous incident too.

It would probably be a bit annoying for a while.

Especially at times like the fencing class tomorrow, he’ll probably try to knock me down unknowingly.

It didn’t matter. With the power I had partially received from Asti, the chances of Ruslan defeating me converged to 0 anyway.

Ruslan as he is now couldn’t possibly defeat me, even if the grown Ruslan with various power ups could. The power Asti possessed was real despite seeming a bit sloppy.

Ruslan had probably made considerable efforts after getting beat up by me a month ago, but I was in a situation where I had basically cheated, so there was no way he would land a hit on me before the first chapter ended.

Speaking of which, it was about time for the first chapter to begin.

The novel I had written adopted a game format in parts, splitting it into chapters for each major plotline, and creating a final boss for each chapter… In terms of the timeline, right now was chapter 0. The prologue portion of the novel.

In other words, Frau harassing Arias in various ways and causing disturbances was the prologue portion. And in this prologue section, I had to make Ruslan a bit stronger so he could stop the final boss of chapter 1 with his power.

So what I had to do was… harass Ruslan and his companions in various ways using Asti’s power.

I planned to follow exactly what the original Frau had done for now, but I didn’t know if I could do it well. I seemed to have succeeded very well in provoking their hostility, but… the issue was how I would harass them.

The demon realm rift uproar that would happen soon would suffice to harass Arias a bit, but that wasn’t connected to the hidden piece.

In other words, it was an incident completely useless for strengthening Ruslan. Merely a small happening.

But I had grasped the outline. The original Frau and Asti had actively utilized rifts to heighten the unease within the academy.

Then I just had to pull that off as well. Don’t worry about failing. Better to aim for the right timing rather than fretting pointlessly. Even if I failed, giving the hidden piece to Ruslan would be fine.

First of all, the first hidden piece was the fairy fruit that greatly raised Ruslan’s senses. With just that one hidden piece, Ruslan could become noticeably stronger.

It was a fruit with incredible effects even if someone without talent ate it, and for Ruslan with his monstrous talent, there was no need to even mention the impact.

By the way, the ‘senses’ of the fairy fruit also included adaptability to magic power. In other words, whether you get it early or not makes too big a difference

The earlier you eat it, the more the effects are maximized, so I had to give it to him as soon as possible for Ruslan to become stronger.

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The problem was that he would probably try to wield that strengthened power against me, so I had to withstand it somehow.

In short, not a single bit of lecture material was entering my head right now. I just stared blankly at the chalkboard, busily taking notes, but my thoughts were entirely somewhere else.

I would fail out of this academy or not, but in any case the world would be destroyed soon, so I didn’t have time to cling to things like this.

And the crystallization of Frau’s accumulated efforts still shone, so for now, just taking some notes casually seemed like it would suffice without allocating study time.

….My nape still tingles.

Sure enough. They were still staring at my nape. Especially Arias Winstlet.

She looked just about ready to shoot lasers from her eyes, so I turned my gaze away casually. Arias was the heroine I had meticulously designed, so I had some affection and various other emotions toward her, but I didn’t show it overtly.

Better to firmly plant hostility in him than pity her and mess things up. On the contrary, being completely indifferent, showing not a shred of interest, would actually give him greater stimulus.

Why else is there a saying that the opposite of love isn’t hatred, but apathy.

Arias would also certainly harbor lingering attachment, not attachment, toward Frau, and that attachment would soon change to anger at Frau.

If Arias grew stronger with that anger as momentum, it would be a welcome thing for me. She too had to become someone who helped Ruslan from right beside him.

Anyway, what I had to do was simple. First bring Asti to the manor, then release her in the secret place where the fairies resided and open a rift there.

…If rift-related incidents occurred twice in a row, surveillance would surely grow more stringent, but that wouldn’t be a particularly big issue for Asti anyway.

“With that, today’s lecture is over. I know it must have been boring, thank you for your hard work.”

While absorbed in thought, the lecture had ended at some point. The history professor smiled wryly at the students who had been half-asleep but stood up and left the classroom.

Lectures continued after that, but as I kept thinking about what would happen later, I couldn’t properly absorb the lectures. Time passed by, and before I knew it, all the lectures had ended.

Everyone was cracking their joints, saying how they nearly died of boredom, and headed back to their respective dormitories.

And at that time when they were heading back to the dorms.

Oooong-

A strange vibration swept through the entire classroom. The stirrings of tremendous magical power. The instant I felt those stirrings of magic power, I sensed that Asti had made her move.

Not just me, some students sensitive to magic power also looked around restlessly with wide eyes. Such an sudden stir in magic power was a clear sign that a rift was opening.

“Huh, what?”

“Wait, isn’t this a rift opening?”

“Are you imagining it? A rift, what rift? How enormous is the church within the academy?”

Confusion swept the academy. And that was natural, since something that defied common sense had occurred.

Something that went against the common knowledge that rifts couldn’t appear in places under the church’s influence.

The enormous church existed right within Celcius Academy itself. Its scale was among the top in the Tilantis Empire, so a rift had never opened within the academy until now.

In that situation, it was obvious why they couldn’t accept this situation.

Of course, the common sense they believed in was actually mistaken.

It’s true that it’s difficult for rifts to appear in places under the church’s influence. However, if a being that surpasses the church’s power opens a rift, the church’s power can’t stop the rift from opening either.

Simply put, despite seeming so careless, Asti was a high-ranking demon from Hell. And not just barely holding her position.

The Fallen Angel Astoroth.

She had originally been one of the highest angels, a Seraph, even in the lofty heavens.

But after falling, she had rapidly weakened and could only become a high demon, not an Archdemon… but at the present point, which was still just the beginning of the novel, there were almost no existences that could stop her.

So naturally, the church’s influence meant nothing against a rift opened by such a being.

Of course, the demons emerging from it wouldn’t be highly ranked either… but the news of a rift appearing itself was enough to throw the students into a panic.

Not long after, the news spread through the entire academy that a rift had opened in Marronier Hall, the dorm reserved only for the most exceptional female students.

And the word came that demons were pouring out of that rift, and they were subjugated by the disciplinary committee of Celcius Academy faster than expected.

Of course, the casualties were 0. No one was hurt.

The demons were so pathetically weak that there were even words saying the disciplinary committee was confused.

Since we had done this to legally get Asti out of the dormitory, it would be more troublesome for our side if there were many casualties. If they got nosy trying to figure out why the rift had opened, poking around here and there, Asti and I would be the ones put through trouble.

For now, I had tied things up very neatly. I left the academy with a satisfied smile, and as soon as I exited the academy, I could see Asti bearing a similar kind of smile.