I Became the Leader of a Villain Organization

Chapter 40: Aria

~The Mausoleum, the tomb of heroes~

Right there, Aria unwrapped the black bandage around her eyes as usual.

I swallowed wordlessly, meeting her eyes, which were only revealed in that state.

They were colorless.

Two endlessly black, inky blacks that seemed to suck you in.

Two abysses that seemed like they were about to fall into.

“Ahhh…….”

Those same eyes look this way and extend their arms. Leaving behind the feeling of ecstasy that dwells in pitch darkness without light.

“I can see.”

Aria reached out a trembling hand to me, stroking my cheek with a deliberate caress, taking in my reflection in those eyes.

“This is my master…….”

Like a blind man who has lived his whole life without seeing the light of day, finally opening his eyes to face the light of the world.

“I see it, your face.”

She’s in ecstasy, like she’s seeing my face for the first time. She blushes uncontrollably, her cheeks and ears tinged with a shy glow.

“I see in my eyes, the face of the man I am supposed to be loyal to and serve…….”

“…….”

She doesn’t just see it with her eyes, but she contrasts that vision with her hands.

She stroked, caressed, and ran her fingertips over flesh and skin to see what I looked like.

I could feel her fingertips trembling as she did so.

“Alas,” she said, “I wish I could carve a blade into the pupils of my eyes to see this magnificent figure…….”

Why?

Why did she suddenly unwrap the bandages around her eyes? I didn’t know.

I just watched her do it wordlessly and Aria was just looking at me.

Her eyes, so far blinded by the black bandages, were now piercing with the freedom she had just gained.

And as her gaze fell on me, so did her touch, one after another.

She strokes my cheeks, my chin, my hair, caressing it, staring, ecstatic.

It is one of the many faces of her that I do not understand, that I do not know.

“…….”

So I fell silent, speechless. I didn’t want to disturb this emotion she was feeling right now. Knowing that this was Aria’s response to my presence, I simply remained silent.

“Why did you take the bandage off?”

I asked after the silence.

“……Hehe, the leader is being mischievous too.”

Aria giggles as she says it, and I don’t know what she means.

“These two eyes, they exist only to look at you.”

Aria says, unconcerned.

“And at the same time, to see nothing that stands in your way.”

As she spoke, she turned away.

I couldn’t look into her eyes as she turned to face me, and I couldn’t help but wonder what had changed so much since she’d removed that one bandage.

Then, the tears came rolling down Aria’s cheeks.

They were blood-colored tears.

But just when I thought I saw the tear, I didn’t see it. The tears that should have fallen were gone, like a lie.

I was silent as I walked toward the mausoleum in front of me.

I walked through the stars shining all around me and through the veil of the Milky Way to reach the clues, the answers, which would await me beyond.

In a place where it would not be strange to fall endlessly to the bottom of the universe as it is, there was an intangible path that crunched underfoot with each step.

Treading on that invisible path, I moved forward.

With Aria by my side as ever, her black bandages unraveled, her hair untied.

We walked on the stars, not even knowing what lay ahead of us, just following the path that lay before us, even knowing that this was a ‘trap’ set up for me.

After thinking about it, I burst out laughing. How can I say it’s a trap?

What could they possibly do to the Black Sword Aria, with Rain Gray by her side, to the “Black Snake” there, to call it a trap? How?

I don’t know. It was none of my business.

So I just walked.

The end of the walk came sooner than I thought, as the endless world beyond my feet warped its landscape and took shape before me.

“…….”

I, for one, said nothing. I couldn’t.

Tombs of heroes. Even the saying that a thread can be wrapped around someone who remembers them.

I heard it all.

After listening, at the same time, I reached the position of ‘heroes’ that I had been searching for so long as if this place has the answer to all the doubts that had been presented to me so far.

Once again, the landscape I was stepping on twisted and with the twist, she appeared.

“You’ve come, Lord Rain.”

She was there as if she’d been waiting for me to come all along.

I frowned wordlessly.

“The leader of the Black Snake.”

Nike Pendragon II, the girl who carried the sun.

“Innumerable people have reached this place and disappeared, regretting their foolishness.”

She said,

“Were you, too, one of the foolish preys who were lured by the absurd claims that a hero could ‘hang a thread’?”

“…….”

I didn’t answer but the silence was not long.

“Who are you?”

I had never spoken to her, never known her, but I understood her right then and there, in front of me.

The woman before me was in no way the Queen of Breton, the so-called Girl Who Carries the Sun.

She was so different that even a fool could see it.

“Hoo-hoo, your words are funny.”

“Funny?”

I asked back. There is no one to hold my weight by my side like back then. No, it shouldn’t have been.

“Please, you’d better choose your words carefully.”

Except for her, who, uncharacteristically, pulled off her dark bandages.

“Because the leader doesn’t like humor very much.”

“Oh, good, because I’m not a big fan of jokes either.”

How that comment was received, I don’t know but it made no difference.

“You mean the girl with the sun on her back-the one who lives with the innocence of the world.”

“Yes.”

The girl in front of me sounded funny, like she was literally talking about someone else’s business.

“You make it sound like it’s someone else’s business.”

“Just because we look alike, doesn’t mean we’re alike in essence.”

“─”

There, in a world of stars, with galaxies all around us, said the girl who greeted us.

She looks exactly like the former Queen of the Empire, Nike II but with a complexity that could never be imagined in the ‘real’ Nike II.

“And you, who are you?”

I asked.

“That’s not a difficult question.”

She replied.

“I am Nike, the Goddess of Victory.”

That answer made me realize something.

“At the same time, I am the goddess who blesses ‘the child’ who has the same name as me.”

Now, the woman before me was not the Queen of the Empire of Bretona that Dalgi had spoken of.

At least, not the queen I knew.

Rather, the woman before me could be the one Dalgi remembered.

Either way, there was no difference. It was nothing more than a ‘what’ that looked exactly like her.

My intuition was screaming.

“Did you say goddess?”

“─Yes.”

“Mr. Rain, the stain on my life, and on this world.”

Again, the words were beyond my comprehension so I remained silent. For there was nothing else to say.

For evil, silence is a virtue. Nothing is different now.

I knew the one good thing about being a villain, and that one ‘good thing’ was the unfathomable contradictions and evil deeds I had done.

“You speak as if you know me.”

“I know more than most.”

She, the girl there, the self-proclaimed goddess of victory, laughed.

“At least, the fact that you’ve come all this way to find answers.”

“…….”

“And the landscape here, for you, is the answer?”

I turned away from the endless vista of stars and the Milky Way.

I couldn’t help but smile at the words.

“I don’t know.”

I didn’t laugh but at the same time, I realized that until now, I had never laughed at anything.

“Because I haven’t heard the answer yet.”

I said without caring and I didn’t even have time to finish the sentence because the whole area in front of me, the world, twisted and crumpled like a sheet of paper.

-Kwazik, kwazik!

To avoid seeing what is blocking my path─

By the time I realized that I didn’t understand what it meant it was too late.