I Am a Villain, So What?-Chapter 177: Ghost..?

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Elisha asked.

"No."

It was a rejection that required absolutely zero thought. I shot it down instantly, and Elisha glared at me.

"Why not? You just said sitting here was fine."

"This log is public property," I replied, taking another bite of my stew. "My time isn’t."

"We’re not exactly on good terms, are we? Let’s just resolve this amicably!"

"No."

I didn’t hate Kael’s naive belief in saving everyone. But chasing ideals without understanding his own limits, only to be crushed by their weight and lash out at others, was pathetic. We had come too far to resolve things ’amicably’. My ribs still ached from the aura-enhanced punch he landed on me in that alleyway.

"Cadet Lucien!" Elisha hissed, keeping her voice low so the other cadets wouldn’t hear. "Were you the one who stopped the magic at the Grand Plaza that day?"

"Who knows."

"Ugh...! You! You fought Kael that day while the city was burning, didn’t you? What happened?!"

"Don’t know."

"Argh!"

Elisha stood up abruptly, her face flushed with frustration, and stormed off to join another group near the main fire. As she sat down with a deeply sulky expression, a few of the other cadets shot me dirty looks.

’Can’t be helped.’

Kael’s heroic beliefs weren’t inherently bad. His failure to save the city wasn’t a reason for criticism either; he was out of his depth. But he couldn’t handle his own defeat and tried to pin the blame on me to protect his fragile ego. That was undeniably his fault, and I had absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.

Yet, I had to keep my mouth shut.

Elisha was intensely noble and prideful. If she found out that her perfect ’Hero’ had broken down and attacked someone who actually saved tens of thousands of lives, it would shatter her faith in him. If this small flap of a butterfly’s wings turned into a storm that drove a wedge through the Protagonist’s party, it would be a catastrophic misstep. They were the world’s main shield against the late-game apocalypse. I needed them intact and functioning.

To prepare for the disasters ahead, keeping my mouth shut was the tactical choice.

...And it was absolutely not because she had mooched five cups of my coffee earlier. Definitely not.

The Ironridge Border Camp was known for its harsh, egalitarian environment. In the military, the concept of noble privilege was minimal. If you asked Commander Sophie Verdant to name the single perk of being the camp leader, it would simply be having a large private tent to review paperwork in peace.

The tent flap opened.

"I’m back," Valerius said, stepping inside and taking a seat on a folding chair. He looked exhausted.

"You’re late," Sophie noted, not looking up from her desk. She pushed a canteen of cold water across the table toward him.

She continued reading her patrol reports while waiting for the Gold-Rank instructor to quench his thirst.

"Phew. That hit the spot," Valerius sighed, wiping his mouth.

"So... did your scouting run find anything?" Sophie asked, finally setting her pen down.

The Desert White-Ants attack this afternoon was just the tip of the iceberg. Over the past month, monster attacks in this sector had skyrocketed. Worse, over ten border guards and reclamation workers had gone missing during routine patrols. No bodies. No blood. Just gone.

Knowing Valerius was one of the continent’s top archers with exceptional tracking skills, she had asked him to investigate the perimeter under the cover of night.

"Nothing concrete," Valerius shook his head.

"I see." Sophie sighed, rubbing her temples. She understood. Her own seasoned trackers hadn’t found a single clue in a month either.

Seeing her frustration, the usually cheerful Valerius bowed his head apologetically. "I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help, Commander."

"No, it’s not your primary job. You’re here to babysit your club," Sophie said, waving a hand dismissively. "I’m grateful you went out late into the night. Go store your gear in the armory and get some rest."

"Understood. ...Oh, wait."

Valerius looked up sharply. His usually relaxed, slit-like eyes narrowed even further, a serious tension settling over his shoulders.

"What is it?" Sophie asked, her instincts flaring.

"...Do ghosts appear in this desert?"

"Ghosts? What kind of nonsense is that?"

Valerius twirled a strand of his curly blond hair, a nervous habit. "While searching the eastern dunes, I definitely saw something moving. But there was no mana signature, no sound, and absolutely no tracks in the sand. I thought I saw a ghost."

Sophie furrowed her brow. She wanted to trust the instincts of a Gold Knight, but the report was hard to swallow.

"Do you think this is the Arctic Necropolis? This is the Iron-Sand Desert."

"I know it’s not a typical undead zone, but you never know. Something unnatural might be hiding out there."

"That’s a bad joke, Valerius. I’ve been stationed here for five years. Even necromancers avoid this climate because the heat degrades corpses too fast." Sophie gave a firm shake of her head.

Valerius stood up, conceding the point. "Alright. I’ll head to my quarters. Good night, Commander."

"Get some sleep. Thanks again for the effort."

*****

Late at night, the camp was completely silent.

Inside the women’s barracks tent, a sleeping bag wriggled violently.

Squirm. Shift. After tossing and turning for four straight hours, Elisha finally kicked off her heavy blanket and sat up, breathing heavily.

"Why... why is this happening to me...?" she whispered into the dark.

She was completely bewildered by a physical phenomenon she had never experienced in her seventeen years of life. Her mind was racing. Her eyes felt impossibly wide and clear. Her body was physically exhausted from the journey and the kitchen prep, yet her brain absolutely refused to shut down. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

’Did I achieve some sort of martial enlightenment today that banished my physical fatigue?’ she wondered.

She had no idea it was simply the effect of chugging five concentrated cups of Lucien’s Caramel Macchiato.

’Maybe a walk will calm my nerves.’

Elisha quietly slipped on her boots and stepped out of the tent.

The camp was illuminated by low-humming mana lights to deter nocturnal predators. A massive, invisible alarm ward covered the perimeter; if any unregistered lifeform entered, the sirens would blare instantly. Because of this, there were very few active sentries patrolling the inner grounds.

It was the perfect setting for a midnight stroll.

The cold desert air bit at her cheeks, but she felt a strange, jittery thrill, as if she were the only person awake in the entire world.

While wandering near the outdoor kitchen area, a glint of metal caught her eye.

She stopped. Resting on a wooden drying rack next to the water basins was a familiar silver thermos. Her mouth instantly watered.

Lucien’s coffee bottle!

Elisha scanned her surroundings with a fierce, calculating gaze. The sharp eyes of a Ravenscroft swept the empty kitchen area. The coast was clear.

’Heh. Cadet Lucien is so careless, leaving precious alchemical stimulants just lying around,’ she rationalized to herself, creeping toward the rack. ’I should probably inspect it to ensure no one has tampered with it. Yes. You never know when an assassination attempt might occur!’

Expecting to find the sweet, highly addictive brown liquid inside, she popped the lid open.

It was bone dry.

"...Tch."

He had washed it out and left it to dry.

Disappointed, Elisha placed the thermos back on the rack. As she turned around to continue her walk, her peripheral vision caught a sudden movement.

"...!"

Something was out there.

Just beyond the camp’s invisible perimeter ward, a shadowy figure vanished behind the crest of a large sand dune. It moved too smoothly, too silently to be a border guard or a monster. It felt entirely too cunning.

Without thinking, Elisha reached her hand to the side. A small tear in space opened, and she pulled her signature red compound bow from her subspace inventory.

She slipped past the perimeter ward, her boots crunching softly against the frozen sand, and quickly climbed the dune where she had seen the figure.

She reached the top and looked down the other side, her arrow nocked and ready to draw.

Nothing.

The moonlight illuminated the rolling desert for miles, but the dunes were completely empty. More chillingly, the smooth sand where the figure had just been standing was utterly undisturbed.

No tracks. No footprints.

’A ghost...?’ Elisha thought, a cold shiver running down her spine that had nothing to do with the winter wind.

Atop the dune, Elisha found nothing. No presence, no tracks in the smooth sand. Just empty space.

A ghost?

Elisha hunched her shoulders, rubbing her arms. The freezing desert wind suddenly felt much colder. She looked around at the endless, pitch-black dunes. Just a few dozen yards away from the perimeter, the darkness was absolute.

She didn’t want to admit she was scared, but her instincts screamed at her to return to the light.

She hurried back down the dune. Her brisk walk quickly turned into a light sprint until she crossed back through the invisible perimeter ward and into the glow of the camp’s mana lights.

Relief washed over her. I wasn’t scared. Unidentified shadow-type monsters are just tactically dangerous. That’s all.

Sighing, she turned to head back to the women’s barracks to try and sleep.

Then, she saw it.

A figure wearing a dark coat slipped between two large supply tents.

Cadet Lucien?

She wasn’t entirely sure, but Lucien Ashborne was the only person she could imagine prowling around the camp alone at this hour.

This was her chance. There were no other cadets around to interrupt. She could finally corner him and demand to know exactly what happened in that alleyway with Kael. She needed to know why he was secretly acting like the Empire’s Executioner.

Elisha quickened her pace, silently closing the distance using the advanced footwork of the Ravenscroft family.

She tracked the dark figure toward the center of the camp, where the heavy hum of the main mana generator vibrated through the ground.

Turning the corner of the final tent, she stepped into the light. "Cadet Lucien—!"

She froze.

It wasn’t Lucien.

Gathered around the heavy steel casing of the camp’s generator were three humanoid figures draped in tattered, shadow-like rags. They had no skin. Their faces were pale, featureless skulls with pitch-black voids for eye sockets.

Desert Wraiths.