Reborn As An Overpowered Villain

"So, Melissa," Princess Amber said, "you only met him just a few days ago."

"Mm-hmm," Melissa nodded. She had lost count of how many times she had confirmed that the story she was telling Princess Amber and Eleena was accurate.

"But then why is he so protective of you?" Princess Amber asked for the umpteenth time. She had been pelting Melissa with question after question, not letting the poor girl take even a moment to breathe. Amber tapped a finger against her chin and added, "Does he like you or something?"

Melissa, who had been walking beside Princess Amber and Eleena, felt her steps come to a sudden halt. She turned toward the princess and said firmly, "No, he doesn't like me, and nor do I like him." She tried desperately to put an end to the topic then and there. "It's just that I healed his mother and my help may be needed in the future, so he is keeping me safe." Melissa constructed a convenient story on the spot, choosing not to reveal that the duchess had been completely healed of her miasma corruption and that the likelihood of her requiring Melissa's healing again was quite low. Still, it was plausible and believable enough, so she leaned into it.

"Oh," Amber exclaimed brightly, "that makes sense."

"You are correct, Melissa," Eleena joined in for the first time, having largely listened until now. "He is far too ruthless to care for someone out of genuine affection. He is probably keeping you close so that you can heal his mother should she fall ill again." Her chest rose and fell with a slow sigh, as though some invisible burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Yet even so, Eleena's eyes narrowed toward Melissa at the end of her words. "But you are not the only one with light affinity. There are others who possess it, so why was it only you who could heal her?" she asked, and the question sent a faint shudder crawling down Melissa's spine.

Melissa had already revealed that she possessed light affinity, something that would have come to be known eventually even had she stayed silent about it. However, she had kept hidden the fact that she was supposedly the Saintess of the Goddess of Light, a title she still could not fully digest. She did not entirely understand what it meant, nor did she wholly believe that someone like her could hold such a position.

From the story of the Hero King that Melissa had read, a Saintess had always accompanied the hero king on his journey, and piecing that together, she understood that the title carried great weight and a lofty standing.

Yet to think that a girl like Melissa could truly be one of those Saintesses, that she had only heard from the story, remained something she could not quite swallow.

Pulling herself out of her thoughts, Melissa quickly assembled another answer. "Perhaps it was because of the strength of my light affinity," she replied, and with a small lift of her chin she added, "Lucien mentioned that he had never encountered anyone with such a powerful light affinity before."

And for the briefest of moments, Melissa caught the faint twitch of Eleena's eyes, which Eleena smoothed away so effortlessly that had Melissa blinked, she would have missed it entirely.

Before either the princess or Eleena could press further with more questions about her affinity, Melissa's stomach released a long, hollow groan, loud and shameless, announcing without any subtlety that it had not received a single morsel of food since morning. Melissa felt her face flush hot with embarrassment as both girls turned to look at her stomach. "That was quite a sound," Princess Amber remarked, and Melissa's cheeks grew even warmer.

"I have not eaten anything since morning, your highness," Melissa muttered, hoping to at least justify the embarrassing interruption.

"Melissa, stop calling me your highness," Amber huffed, planting both hands on her hips. "I have told you already that you can call me Amber, just like everyone else does here at the academy."

Melissa nodded weakly. "Alright, Amber." She winced inwardly the moment the name left her lips. If her parents were ever to learn that she had been addressing the emperor's daughter by her given name alone, they would freeze where they stood before launching into a lecture so lengthy and relentless it would have no end in sight.

"We are very close to the dining hall, Melissa," Eleena interjected smoothly. "We should hurry along."

Amber nodded and quickened her pace, and Melissa followed behind the two of them. Melissa had no idea where the dining hall was, nor how to reach it. After leaving the classroom during break, Melisa had gone around asking students for directions, though most had either bowed rapidly to her and scurried away without another word, or pointed vaguely in some general direction that told her very little.

It was during this wandering that Melissa had run into Princess Amber and Eleena, and the princess had extended an invitation for Melissa to join them for lunch.

Melissa had tried her best to decline as politely as she could, feeling uneasy around them after the interrogation of the previous day, and particularly because of how Eleena had asked outright, in front of the entire classroom, about the nature of her relationship with Lucien.

That single question had drawn in all the unwanted attention Melissa had been working so hard to avoid. Most of the students already seemed to have drawn their own conclusions about her connection to Lucien, having seen her walk beside him through the hallway and enter the auditorium together with him.

The attention had already been suffocating the moment she stepped through the classroom door, and it had only worsened when Amber and Eleena appeared at her desk and began asking about her origins.

So Melissa had declined their invitation. But then the princess had offered a genuine apology, admitting that she had no business asking about Melissa's origins so bluntly and in front of everyone, and that it had not been an act befitting from a princess. And, that the princess should have considered Melissa's comfort before speaking. Following the princess, Eleena had also apologized, saying that she should not have asked about her relationship with Lucien so openly, as Melissa might not have been comfortable sharing something so personal in that setting.

Seeing the sincerity and remorse written plainly on both their faces, Melissa had softened and agreed to join them.

And as they walked, Melissa had found herself opening up on her own, sharing how she had grown up in a village, helped in the fields, and healed the wounded. She recounted how Lucien had appeared at her kitchen door in the dead of night while she was just sitting down to eat, how he had taken her all the way to the capital of Duskbane Duchy at night, and how she had healed his mother, and from there the story continued all the way to their arrival at the academy.

Melissa was not so careless as to reveal everything, of course. She kept to herself the part about falling asleep against Lucien's back during their horseback ride, the part about weeping in front of Lucien’s room while thanking him, and certainly the part about the duchess gently suggesting that she might like to see Melissa wed to Lucien, which unsettled Melissa even now.

How could the duchess speak of marrying off her son to a girl she had only just met? It made no sense to Melissa. So the pieces that were embarrassing and better not shared were tucked away and she shared nothing of them. And when the conversation circled back to the question of why Lucien was being so protective, a question to which Melissa genuinely had no certain answer, she ended up creating a theory that Melissa might be needed again for healing the duchess in the future, which was believable enough that she half believed it herself.

Melissa shook the thoughts away. Her gaze drifted to the side, and through the window she looked out at the wide blue sky above as she followed behind Amber and Eleena. She let the quiet of it settle over her for a moment and breathed in slowly. She hoped today would be a kind and peaceful day, nothing like the one before it, in which trouble had knocked at her door again and again without pause or mercy.

I hope today will be nice and comforting, she thought to herself, still watching the sky.

***

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