0̵̹̺͇̰̪̲̝̬̝͔͔͓̲̣̠̾̎̉͛̈̆͘͘͝͠2̷̛̰̠͍̳̭̪̬̦͓̞͊̈́̉͘̕̚6̷͖̭́̽̌̽́͌̀̕͝
“No.”
“What?”
“They said there would be cookies today, I’m not skipping that just for information. I’m not that selfless,” Corlissa responded firmly.
Kinfael let out a defeated sigh before relenting, “Fine, meet me at the battle arena after you get your cookies.”
“Understood, Your Highness,” Corlissa spoke before proceeding to acquire her highly desired cookies.
After taking her sweet time, leaving the First Prince to impatiently tap his foot on the barren training ground, Corlissa had finally graced him with her arrival along with a cookie in her mouth.
“Hello again, Your Highness.”
“You sure took your time, anyway, this area is empty, the closest place to hide and eavesdrop is out of earshot. To stay safe, there’s barrier magic which will prevent the Headmistress from listening in.”
“Since you took so many precautions, I suspect that we are not here simply to talk about what tea you enjoy.”
“Haha, you never cease to surprise me, but yes, you are correct, I suppose this counts as an interrogation time. You can start,” the prince said with a hidden glint in his eyes.
“You are supposed to be able to read minds but you can’t, or rather the Crown Prince was never able to read minds in the first place.”
“Ho~ I’m surprised you got this far AV794D. Congratulations, I suppose, for not falling into their control. However, I would like to know how much you have found out.”
“I hoped that you wouldn’t dispose of me this early but it seems that I have no other choice. I won’t follow your script, I will write my own story depending on my own selfish desires.”
“You should be grateful for my generosity, if any of the agents heard you then you would be sent to the Dela Morte without fail.”
“Without fail, you say?” she began with a mocking smirk, “I suppose I can’t forget the agent that was sent to my room at night to give me a warm welcome. I must thank you for the warning though, it was my fault for not listening but I’d rather not be sent to my death.”
“So you do know about it. What is your motive?”
“I want to save the humans you have imprisoned and free them.”
“Free them? The moment they learn the truth and be ousted into the real world, they’ll lose everything they know, they’ll suffer from the pain of the truth. Isn’t this false paradise better for ignorant humans?”
“I can’t deny that but I at least want them to pave their own path to follow, to gain their own will to oppose those who have bound them to your script. It was such a cliche script though if you were going to imprison their souls at least make their false lives a bit more interesting.”
“You’re darker than I expected.”
“I am the villainess after all.”
“Hmm~ Don’t worry we won’t be making a move yet, especially not under my supervision, it’s getting quite interesting so I might as well continue watching what happens. Although I am quite interested in the true nature of your magic, it has never once appeared in our world nor can it be evaluated by our experts.”
“I have to thank you all for being the ones to let me cultivate my magic, your torture, your mishaps, your ignorance, your lethargy is what bred the strength that I have now.”
“I see, I look forward to the show you’ll put on, Miss Veronique,” Kinfael stated with an amused smirk.
Corlissa mirrored his smirk and calmly walked away back to her room.
The moment Corlissa made her way to her room and closed the door, creating a completely soundproof room, she leapt onto her pillow then screamed while rolling around. “ARGHHHHH!!! WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO MAKE MY LIFE SO DIFFICULT D*MN PRINCE!”
The young child then took a deep breath before composing herself, “Yes, that is completely fine. I can work with this, my suspicions were confirmed but I won’t be silenced, for now, I’m closer to the truth now, everything's coming together. All I need to do is play the waiting game, I can use the rest of my school life to prepare and pick up on every small detail.” With a melancholy smile resting on her face she finalised, “She can rest in peace soon.”
“BUT STILL, THAT PRINCE IS RUINING EVERYTHING!! ARGH! Wait...composure, yes composure...I am supposed to play the villainess, I suppose I’ll play along for a while and become the best villainess. What do they do again? Spilling wine and tripping the heroine, if my memory serves me right. I might as well spice up everyone’s life a bit, school is quite boring,” Corlissa rambled to herself, her expression warping to another odd smirk.
‘How odd, I’m expressing more emotions than I thought I still had. I’m quite sure I lost everything in my 5th death but it doesn’t feel too bad to be experiencing emotions again,’ Corlissa thought with a small contented smile.
The Veronique prepared for another day as she gradually succumbed to a memory-filled slumber, replaying all the key moments in each of her lives and the pure suffering that had intertwined with it. Rewatching their backs grow further away as she was left on the ground looking longingly towards the light, the anger that she was immersed in as the cruel smirk danced on Evie’s expression. The memories that had repeated within her restless sleep plagued her to the core, as she grew familiarised to the smirk of the Luxiere, the excruciating feeling of suffocating in rage slowly simmered down into a void.
She no longer felt animosity towards that smirk, she had grown immune to the emotions that she had felt previously, she had a new life, one where she had the power to remove the shackles binding her fate to the wrong path.
The young child woke up devoid of emotion in her expression but gradually sunk into reality as she gradually gained more energy but was still lethargic. Today was a special day, after all, the important event in her past lives would occur on this date, she had re-lived every torturous chapter of her life enough to memorise everything down to the minute detail.
It was a rather innovative idea at the academy at the time, an academy festival. The most popular event was the fighting competition, students could enter with their party or by themselves as long as no outsiders were included as it was an academy event that was supposed to display the strength of their academy to visitors who would report about it in the newspaper. It was also the event where Evie’s strength would gain popularity while Corlissa gained scorn amongst the entire student body.
Evie who was knocked down by Corlissa’s dirty play would still end the match standing victorious, the 3 love-struck baboons would then find out that the Veronique had drugged Evie and thus exposed her, causing her reputation to plummet to irreversible lows. The trio of absolute donkeys acknowledged how despite the odds, Evie still prevailed and had the unwavering will to not falter even when the chances were slim.
Since Corlissa decided to play her part, she planned to decrease the odds of Evie winning using her own strength instead of the underhanded tricks that she resorted to because she was weak in her past lives. Now that she had the power to do so, she might as well play the part with as little effort as possible, using underhanded methods at a petty catfight is deemed as too much effort in the eyes of the Veronique.
As she sat down with her food, she opted for cuisine from the East, as usual, she was approached by Miss Vontaine who was energetic enough for Corlissa to visibly wince.
“I completely forgot about the festival! Are you going to participate in the battles, none of the first years except for Miss Luxiere are willing to participate, after all, imagine having to fight against the seniors! They’re so cool but scary!” Amy fangirled, Corlissa could only sigh out of tiredness, she found that Amy had too much energy in the morning and felt her energy being drained.
“They’re just old, there’s nothing to them aside from that and I don’t think any of the strong seniors would participate since they would just be displaying their attacks to everyone.”
“Isn’t that a good thing..?”
“No, since they would also be displaying all the holes in their attacks as well, some people could analyse them and find out the weakness and then leak that information to future enemies for money. Although, after saying all that, I’m going to participate because it’s my first year and I should experience everything from the very start.”
“Woah! I’m rooting for you!! You better win,” Amy playfully nudged Corlissa with her elbow, who responded with a rare genuine smile despite it being faint.