Lucas laughed at his lord’s pained tone, his narrow eyes narrowing further.
“I didn’t mean to imply that. Only that, perhaps, you shouldn’t always force yourself to be a good boy when it comes to love.”
“Breathe, my lady,” Mina told me, her tone even.
At long last, my awareness was returning to me. The first thing I saw was Mina’s face.
Ah. It was all a dream, I assumed. I was just waking up in my deluxe room, like I did every morning. None of that had happened. After all, dreaming of being thrust onto the stage at the last moment was common before a play.
But then I coughed and realized I was gasping for air. I hadn’t been dreaming!
I managed to finish the song, right? I didn’t run out of juice before the end, did I?
“M-Mina...”
“Please breathe,” she repeated, holding me like a princess as she stroked my back.
Grateful for her help, I focused on taking in the oxygen I desperately lacked. I remembered a manga in which a singer ran to the wings to use a portable oxygen can. I understood that scene a lot better now.
“You always work too hard, my lady.” Her tone remained indifferent, but I could sense a sigh hiding under the surface.
When my breathing finally settled, Mina set me on a small stool, then produced a teapot and a cup from who-knows-where and poured me tea so I could rehydrate. My classmates watched from afar with worried expressions, but with the terrifying aura Mina was giving off, no one dared approach.
“The public was happy. You’ve done enough. I’ll take you back to your room so you can rest,” Mina said.
She didn’t sound like she was joking, so I shook my head. I had suspected Mina of being infected by Alexei’s Ekaterina virus for a long time, but it seemed the disease had progressed a lot more than I’d thought.
“Thank you for worrying about me, Mina, but I’m fine. I’ve done the hardest part already, and the play will be over soon.”
All that was left was for me to lose to the saint and for Renato to explain our circumstances. Justice would triumph over evil, and everything would end well.
I, the villainess, would do an excellent job of being defeated. I could do it! I just had to power through. Everything was fine.
Despite how confidently I said it, I was exhausted. And I also happened to have forgotten a great lesson my past life had taught me: Things always went sour when you least expected it.
Onstage, the saint and her friends were fighting off the villainess’s people, who were disguised as monsters. The fight scene was intentionally straightforward, with Goku, the water demon, and the tree demon easily defeating the monsters. However, thanks to the advice Ekaterina had given the actors who were taking the beating—advice drawn from the countless fight scenes she’d seen in her previous life—the segment looked nothing like what the people of the empire were used to. It was far more dynamic and fast-paced, and the public loved it.
The saint and her group reached the evil mastermind at last.
“You again, Saint?” Ekaterina asked with a sneer, stepping back onto the stage.
“I can’t ignore suffering when I see it,” Flora replied, like a true champion of justice.
Yuri’s light shone on both of them.
Ekaterina’s song had clearly affected the audience; people started clapping the moment she appeared again. Flora, the sweet-looking saint, was also very popular. Students watching the play with their families whispered about her—how she truly had holy mana, how her grades rivaled Ekaterina’s and Mikhail’s, and how she was actually Ekaterina’s closest friend. Those bits of information spread across the auditorium at the speed of light.
Black and white. Evil and good. The public’s attention fixed on the two beauties that represented these opposing forces, and everyone held their breath, desperate to know how their confrontation would end.
“Is there any way I could convince you to leave?” the saint asked.
“None. I have no such intentions.”
“Stealing people’s homes is unjust. I’m sure even you can see that you are not in the right.”
“Unjust? Not in the right? Justice is for the strong to define! I say what is right!”
The villainess lifted one hand, and the saint readied herself for battle. As the drums began to sound, the light surrounding the two young women vanished. In its place, two orbs of light appeared in midair. They flew back and forth, clashing to illustrate a magic showdown. Cheers erupted.
When Ekaterina brought down her hand, the orb she was “controlling” shifted into a flash of light that struck the saint and her friends. The saint’s companions immediately collapsed as if injured.
The saint, however, held her ground. She extended her left hand toward the villainess, and white light burst forward. This time, it wasn’t Yuri’s light mana but Flora’s holy mana. She couldn’t control its intensity like Yuri could, but it was more vivid and powerful, so they’d decided Flora could handle this one visual effect herself.
Ekaterina screamed, staggering backward, until she finally allowed herself to collapse onto the stage floor.
Of course, holy mana couldn’t hurt humans. It helped cure fatigue and minor illnesses, in fact. Ekaterina was just imitating the way bad guys always collapsed in the anime and TV shows of her past life.
“This is the end,” Flora said.
“N-No... Not yet! I haven’t lost!” Ekaterina shouted back.
The villainess mustered her strength, but all she could do was sit up, propping herself on her arms with the lower half of her body on the floor. Unfortunately, Ekaterina’s ridiculously good figure made this position quite sensual, though she didn’t seem to realize it.
The villainess’s retainer fell to one knee in front of his mistress. “Please stop, Princess. We’ll look for another place.”
“There are no more places!” the villainess screamed, her voice a broken cry.
Ekaterina herself was on the verge of tears, so it sounded very believable.
“Princess,” Renato said. He paused to seize the spectators’ attention. The fact that he had the leeway to consider such things proved he truly was immune to nerves. “This is not our beautiful homeland. That place is gone, wiped away by the eruption. Your surviving people are exhausted from the long journey and countless rejections, but I know they would rather wander for eternity than see you, their dear princess, hurt.”
A chorus of “Aah!” erupted from the audience. The villainess was the princess of a ruined country, they realized. And these so-called monsters were refugees.
They’d already surmised the villainess had her reasons, and now that they knew the truth, they understood her actions. Ekaterina could sense the crowd’s satisfaction, and relief washed over her.
She’d done her job. She’d been defeated by the saint as planned, and the audience had accepted her character’s backstory. Everything had gone according to plan, and the play was almost over. It would be fine now. They’d all pulled through.
But relaxing was Ekaterina’s biggest mistake.
At this point, the villainess’s people were supposed to shed their disguises and reveal themselves as wounded humans.
They didn’t. Instead, the saint’s companions acted surprised, exclaiming, “So that’s why you did all this!”
Huh? Ekaterina thought. Ah, right! I’m thinking of the old version!
The villainess’s people only shed their disguises in the first version of the play—the one where the actors all sang together at the end. Ekaterina had scrapped that entire scene because it took too long.
She’d scrapped it, but...
What had she replaced it with?
Ekaterina felt the color drain from her face. She couldn’t remember! She’d remembered the entire script moments prior, yet she’d somehow forgotten everything—not just her lines, but even the flow of the scene.
Why?! she screamed inwardly. I wrote it all myself!
But even professional actors sometimes forgot the plot mid-performance, and professional singers forgot lyrics they sang every day.
Dread washed over Ekaterina.
I have to remember. Come on, do your work, brain!
No matter how hard she searched for the memories, they didn’t return. It was common enough: The more desperate you became, the less you could focus.
Wh-Wh-What am I supposed to do? It’s almost over, so why now? Why?!
She’d been stressed before the play, but this was something else entirely. She was frozen, her body shaking with anxiety. And yet, despite it all, she could feel Flora, Renato, and the others looking at her. They were waiting for her to do something.
I... It’s my turn to speak, isn’t it? I have to say something...
Ekaterina trembled even harder.
In her panic, she had not heard another line: “Have you been fighting all this time to give the people you swore to protect a new place to call home?”
That was the question she was supposed to answer, and every one of her classmates on the stage—as well as all the spectators—was waiting for that answer.
However, the villainess didn’t say a word.
Despite her strong tone and haughty laughter earlier, the villainess now appeared feeble and delicate in a way that captivated every person in the room. Her mouth opened and closed as though she wanted to speak, but she only shivered in silence. She looked like she was about to cry.
In that moment, the truth hit the spectators in the face. This was her true nature. She’d only pretended to be strong for her people after disaster destroyed her nation. Beneath the bravado, she was a sweet, adorable girl. The gap between their first impression and her real personality created a whirlwind that raged at fifty meters per second, devastating everyone in its path.