I Am a Villain, So What?

Chapter 231: What’s wrong with Alicia?

Alicia had expected the feeling to disappear by morning.

It didn’t.

The previous day at the market had been perfectly ordinary, right up until that stranger brushed past her. Just a cloaked man in a crowded street. Nothing worth thinking about. Yet, the image of that sword pommel—a silver phoenix with broken wings—remained stubbornly lodged in her mind.

The emblem of the Royal Guard of Valemont.

Alicia frowned, aggressively smoothing out the bedsheets in one of the guest rooms. Why was she even thinking about it? The kingdom was ash. It had been gone for fifteen years. Even if some former royal guard had somehow survived the slaughter, what did that have to do with her?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

She had a new life now. A life that didn’t involve running, hiding, or the crushing weight of a dead crown. A life she was actually starting to feel comfortable in.

Normally, physical chores helped clear her head. Today, her mind was a mess.

By the time I came down for breakfast, I already knew something was off.

Alicia wasn’t openly distracted—she still moved with that flawless, mechanical efficiency—but I had spent enough time around her to recognize the micro-expressions.

And then there was the food. The edges of the eggs were slightly browned. Not burnt enough to ruin the meal, and certainly not enough for anyone else to complain. But Alicia possessed Level 9 Fire Magic Comprehension. She could probably toast a marshmallow inside an active volcano without burning the outside. If she overcooked the eggs by even a fraction of a second, her mind was somewhere else entirely.

I didn’t ask her directly. Alicia possessed an incredibly frustrating ability to answer questions with deadpan deflections without actually giving any information—a habit she had definitely picked up from me.

Instead, I cornered Lily in the kitchen before heading to the Academy.

"What’s wrong with Alicia?" I asked, leaning against the counter.

Lily paused, wiping down a cutting board. "I was hoping you knew, Boss. She froze up at the market yesterday. Said she saw something familiar, but wouldn’t tell me what it was. She’s been brooding ever since."

I tapped my fingers against the wood, my eyes narrowing slightly. "Keep an eye on her. If anyone suspicious comes near the diner or the estate, let me know immediately."

"Understood."

That afternoon, Alicia found herself reorganizing the back storage room. Not because it was messy, but because she desperately needed a task to shut her brain off.

The room held various crates of diner supplies and a few personal boxes Lucien had dumped there months ago. As she shifted a heavy wooden crate aside, a small, wrapped cloth bundle slipped from the top shelf and tumbled into her hands.

Alicia froze.

She recognized the faded, dirty fabric. It was the meager bundle of confiscated ’trash’ the black market broker had taken from her when she was sold. Lucien must have demanded all her personal effects when he bought her and simply tossed them in this room, never mentioning it.

With trembling fingers, Alicia peeled back the fabric.

Inside lay a simple silver hairpin. Tarnished. Unremarkable. To anyone else, it was worthless junk.

To her, it was the only piece of her mother she had left.

She stared at it, the cold weight of the silver grounding her. The timing felt like a cruel, calculated joke. Yesterday, she saw the crest of the Royal Guard. Today, the hairpin she had deliberately buried in her memories.

Alicia sat heavily on a nearby stool, clutching the metal. A deeply buried memory tried to claw its way to the surface—warm sunlight, a palace garden, a gentle voice brushing a little girl’s silver hair.

Alicia violently slammed the mental door shut.

No. She gripped the hairpin until her knuckles turned white. I don’t want to think about that. Not today. Not ever.

Some things were better left dead.

When I returned to the estate that evening, I found Ariana already sitting comfortably on the living room sofa, reading a thick alchemy grimoire.

At this point, the Duke’s daughter basically lived here. I didn’t even question how she bypassed the perimeter wards anymore.

"Welcome back," she said, not looking up from the pages.

"Should I be worried that you’re in my house before I am?" I asked, tossing my coat over a chair.

"No."

"That wasn’t a reassuring answer, Ari."

Ariana casually flipped a page. "I brought new stabilization catalysts for the kitchen’s mana stove. You’re welcome."

I sighed and looked around the quiet hall. "Where’s Alicia?"

"In her room," Ariana said, finally lowering the heavy book. Her violet eyes locked onto mine. "Is she upset about something?"

"I thought you would know. You two talk more than I do."

"I assumed you knew," Ariana countered smoothly. "You’re Lucien. You always notice everything."

"That’s a severe overestimation of my babysitting skills."

Ariana gave me a flat, unimpressed stare. I stared back.

Eventually, she sighed, closing the book entirely. "Something has been bothering her since yesterday. She’s completely walled herself off. I tried offering her some tea, but she just thanked me and shut her door."

If even Ariana was concerned, it wasn’t just a minor mood swing.

"I’ll figure it out," I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck.

Later that night, long after the estate had fallen silent, Alicia stood alone by her bedroom window.

The Capital’s magical streetlamps stretched out into the distance, painting the city in a warm, peaceful glow. It was safe here. Stable. Entirely different from the blood-soaked, burning world she remembered.

She looked down at the tarnished silver hairpin resting in her palm, then slowly closed her fingers around it.

Fifteen years.

Fifteen years since the monster tides broke the outer walls. Fifteen years since the royal guard was slaughtered trying to buy her an escape route. Fifteen years since she stopped being a princess and became a hollow shell.

She had accepted that it was over. The dead were dead. The past was the past.

So why did the sight of that broken phoenix still bother her so much?

Because you know they didn’t all die, a quiet voice whispered in her mind.

Far below the surface of the Capital, entirely removed from the quiet streets and the pristine Academy District, a lone cloaked figure walked through the suffocating dampness of the city’s lower sewers.

His boots sloshed through the grime with practiced, deliberate steps.

Strapped tightly to his waist was a battered longsword. Carved into the steel pommel was a silver phoenix with broken wings.

He navigated the twisting, putrid labyrinth flawlessly until he reached a dead end. He reached out, tapping a specific sequence against the wet stone. The heavy grinding of gears echoed in the dark as a section of the wall slid open.

He stepped inside, pulling his heavy cloak tighter.

The hidden cavern was massive, lit by rows of sputtering mana torches. It was an absolute hive of activity. Hundreds of armed soldiers, tacticians, and scavengers moved with military precision. Crates of smuggled weapons were being pried open. Maps of the Capital were pinned to the damp walls.

The cloaked man walked past the bustling soldiers, ignoring their salutes. He kept his eyes locked on the far end of the cavern, heading straight toward the heavy red door.

Inside that room, the Chancellor and the Knight Commander were finalizing the details of a massacre.

The Valemont Restoration Army was finally preparing to move.