Struggling as a Villain

Richard was annoyed by his indecisiveness. He kept on pondering if he should use Hell Blaze until the end, and because of that, he wasn\'t able to finish the bastard off.

\'God knows how long this will go on...\' Richard inwardly sighed.

"Why are you behaving like you are disappointed? Were you really wanting to kill a student right after enrollment?" Lucy\'s voice held extreme seriousness when she asked. Her eyes contained that faint doubt and slight disappointment.

She has been monitoring each potential student since the beginning, and from her observation, she deemed Richard to be a responsible and mature student, despite what the rumours suggested. As such she decided to put his name into a representative nomination.

However, who could have believed that her decision would get questioned right after a few hours when she witnessed Richard, along with his two companions, beating the crap out of a weak child?

"If only you know the true identity of that being you call a student." Richard\'s words made her frown, as she glanced at the yellow-haired boy who was in section D and had chosen the \'Survival\' group as his primary.

She hadn\'t seen any suspicious movement from him, and he was fairly average in most of the things. If anything, Lucy wondered how such an average child got admission here. However, just based on that, she couldn\'t have believed Richard\'s words...but at the same time, she wasn\'t going to blame anyone one-sided until she thoroughly investigated.

"Professor..." Suddenly, a patrolling guard inched closer to Lucy before whispering, "We are moving in a loop."

"---!" Lucy\'s eyes widened as she didn\'t realise that until now. But now that she looked closely, the distance between them and the academy wasn\'t lessening at all, even though they had been walking for the past twenty minutes.

Lucy shot her head toward the elf before commanding, "Stop creating your illusion, Princess. You aren\'t escaping this with your tricks." Lucy couldn\'t believe that the well-behaved and disciplined princess she met in the morning could be this deceiving.

However, Nora shook her head before refuting, "It\'s not me, ma\'am." She pointed at the boy whose back was facing them.

A frown marred her face, as Lucy approached the boy slowly. Among the four, Lucy knew that only Nora had the ability to create illusions, so how come...

"Stan...why don\'t you slowly turn towards us?" Lucy suggested as she slowly moved toward the boy.

The soldiers had already taken out their weapons to apprehend the possible sorcerer behind the spell, and Richard, as well, was ready to attack the moment the clone decided to show its real face.

The clone must have been aware that investigation could lead to the revelation of its identity as inhumane, that\'s why it was acting up already.

With no response arriving from the boy Lucy signaled the two soldiers on either side of Stan, and she held his shoulder from behind.

"Fuck!" However, in the next moment, a curse escaped her lips when suddenly the boy fell to the ground, or more like the skin shell of Stan dropped to the ground.

Lucy\'s eyes widened as she saw the lifeless deformed shell of Stan laying there.

Her senses were already on high alert but she didn\'t sense the movement at all.

"Don\'t panic, Lucienne." Hearing her full name, Lucy knew who it could be before she turned her attention towards the white-haired man who suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

"Headmaster." The soldiers greeted the man with their heads bowed while Lucy was still shocked to see the man here.

"You knew about this?" She asked, to which, Marcus nodded,

"I was aware and was observing the whole situation from the beginning. I was hoping you could bring that fake to me, but sadly, that thing was sharp enough to sense my intent and run away when it had the time."

Lucy was startled as she asked, "Fake? What do you mean, fake? I have met Stan\'s parents before. He belongs to the same town as me."

Marcus\' eyes reflected grief when he said, "Sadly, Lucienne, the boy you knew, died last night. His body was found in the morning."

Lucy\'s eyes parted wide upon hearing that. Although she didn\'t have a close relationship with that boy, she was a good friend of Stan\'s mother. And considering the school security Lucy could have never even dreamt of having a student get killed within the campus.

"Headmaster, did you sense where that thing went?" Richard stepped forward and asked the older one since his concern lay on exterminating that evil being who was growing at an astonishing rate by trampling over others.

Marcus shook his head, "That clone has the ability to completely erase its ether on will, which makes it nearly impossible to track him through Detection. However, I think you can find him again?"

While glancing at Nora, Marcus asked.

Richard also turned towards Nora only to hear her saying, "I think...he has already left the island."

Richard frowned, "This soon? Why didn\'t he get caught by the security?"

"Because it never was on the island when you were fighting it." Suddenly a familiar voice echoed in his ears as Richard turned to look at Ethan.

Every eye turned toward Ethan who was being accompanied by Elizabeth, before he added,

"It was here until you reached the shore, but after that, that clone left a copy of itself to fight you three and escaped the island as soon as it could. And considering you all must have stopped tracking it, the clone had enough time to leave the island while suppressing its presence."

Richard took a strong gulp upon hearing that.

He was not fighting the clone itself but just a copy of it? Yet that copy was also fighting on equal grounds as Richard...then what about the actual clone?

"How do you know all this?" The Headmaster inquired.

Ethan heaved a sigh before confessing, "I can see what it sees...like our minds are connected. However, those flashes of memories always remain vague and brief, so I cannot be a hundred percent sure."

The headmaster remained silent for a bit before asking, "Richard, Nora, and Ethan, come to my office." Saying so, the older one disappeared.

Richard glanced at Nora and Ethan before he walked to Lilia and told her, "Go back and wait for me. This won\'t take long."

"But master your arm..." Richard\'s left shoulder was slightly twisted, and there was a wound he received on his thigh, which still was burning.

Cupping her cheeks he assured her, "I will have a potion and return after the meeting as soon as I can. So please go home now and wait for me." He planted a soft kiss on her forehead before walking away.

Lilia traced her master\'s back with her eyes before she decided to heed his words and turned around to leave…only to hear a familiar voice calling out,

"Lilia?"

It was Amelia.

--------***-------

While they walked towards the office, Richard asked the elf, "Were those two clones difficult to defeat?"

Nora shook her head, "They weren\'t that difficult to deal with and your maid was actually overpowering it without even using magic."

Richard raised his brows, "Then why did you take so long dealing with them?"

Heaving a sigh, she explained, "They were actually immortal. Every time we killed them, they returned to life and continued fighting."

Richard rubbed his eyes with his fingers before mumbling, "Divine essence..."

Nora\'s ears twitched, "What did you say?"

"Ah, it\'s nothing. Anyway, Ethan, where did you last see that clone?"

Ethan didn\'t have to think much before he responded, "Underwater. It was swimming."

"Hmm...that clone has gained enough conscience to know how difficult it would become for it if it had stayed here."

"But the last time they were fighting mindlessly, devouring people and whatnot." Ethan followed, "It has only been twenty days since that incident."

"Well, they are not humans and probably have the trait to grow with each of its hunts."

Ethan clenched his fist hearing that. To think someone was using his powers and face to kill innocents was extremely infuriating.

If only he had been strong enough, he would have hunted down that clone himself rather than seeing everything from the background and relying on Richard to deal with the mess Ethan created.

Nora looked at the silver-head with a worried look, but after what misunderstanding Yulan created she couldn\'t approach Ethan carelessly.

With numerous emotions swirling in their heads, the trio reached the headmaster\'s office.

Now it all depends on the Headmaster\'s decision on how he wants to deal with the devil. Richard couldn\'t mindlessly pursue the clone by leaving the island or he would get rusticated. And leaving that clone alone was also not a solution.

Things are about to become complicated….

—----**------

A/N:- Thanks for reading.