Reborn As An Overpowered Villain

Melissa was running around the track. Melissa noticed Lucien was observing her from the side, his eyes fixed on her since the moment she had started running.

She felt embarrassment creeping inside her due to the intensity of his gaze, as though he were trying to bore a hole straight through her skull. So, she turned and shot a look toward him, raising her brows, and as if Lucien understood perfectly well that his staring was not something she appreciated, he turned his head away and did something that nearly made her stumble mid-stride despite there being no obstacle in her path.

Lucien conjured a black obsidian throne, its armrests broad and commanding, its back arching toward the sky with great dark pillars jutting out from behind it as though they were ready to be launched into the very heavens to strike them down. And Lucien, with quiet ease, settled into it. Despite how gruesome and forbidding the throne looked, he sat as though he loved sitting on that throne. He pressed his back against the throne comfortably, and then drew out a book from his dimensional ring and began to read.

Melissa's gaze drifted away from Lucien and it turned toward the sun slowly rising in the east, casting a warm glow of red and orange across the ground, and she could not quite believe that Lucien was reading a book at this hour, in a place like this.

But it all made sense to her a moment later as Melissa remembered that Lucien was, after all, the one called the Northern Blade, and he stood above her in rank by such distance that he might as well have been a man standing in the heavens while she was someone barely crawling on the ground. Lucien must have reached that great height because he had trained vigorously since a young age and had spent his time with extraordinary discipline, wasting none of it on unnecessary things, and so it made perfect sense that he would read a book even at this hour.

Still, Melissa could not help but steal glances toward him. Why was he doing all of this for her? Should he not use his time to train himself rather than waste it training her? What would he gain from training her? Nothing, surely. But then, quite suddenly, she remembered how Lucien had been gazing at her while she was running just a moment ago, and how he had been watching her even during her stretches.

Melissa glanced down at her body and felt her neck and cheeks burning red.

Does he want my body? Does he like me or what?

Melissa slapped both her cheeks immediately and shoved those thoughts away. She was thinking bad things. Extremely bad things.

Oh, God! Why am I even thinking like this?

Melissa drew a deep breath and shook those thoughts away from her mind. She had been completely thinking in the wrong direction, because in what world would Lucien be interested in her body, and why had her mind even wandered there?

Lucien was likely training her to ensure Melissa could keep up with the other students so that she would not grow discouraged and drop out, which would make Lucien a target of other professors since he was the one who had gotten her into the academy without an entrance exam and had even placed her in the top S class.

Suddenly, everything clicked into place. Lucien was making certain she showed no weaknesses that might give other professors reason to come after him for admitting a girl without examination, and if she were to falter and fail to keep pace with the others, Lucien, in the worst case, could lose his teaching position entirely. It would only stir bad rumours and, in the worst case, it would damage his reputation and wound his pride greatly.

Yes, that is why he is training me.

Melissa puffed out her chest and nodded to herself, satisfied that everything had now been sorted out in her head. And the reason he had been staring at her during stretching was simply because he had been giving her pointers and correcting her form the entire time, which naturally required him to observe her closely. And just moments ago when he had been watching her run, he was likely assessing how she moved or devising the next phase of her training, or perhaps he was merely keeping watch to ensure she did not laze around and run halfheartedly, since she had only been told to run with no set number of laps. Which meant she could, in theory, shuffle along at a near walk pace and drag it out until six in the morning without having to exhaust herself much.

But Melissa had no intention of doing that. She had not even considered it until just now. She wanted to keep pace with the other students. If possible, she wanted to graduate with top marks and become one of the finest in her class.

Melissa felt a flicker of embarrassment at how ambitious her own thoughts had become. She glanced again at Lucien, and found he was still buried in his book. She quickly realised that the reason for her ambition was likely standing right there, because seeing him made her feel that if Lucien could reach such heights, then perhaps she could too. She might not close the distance between them in these two years at the academy, but perhaps, just perhaps, someday in the future she might catch up to him.

Just as Melissa was lost in thought, a shadow swept past her and a rush of cold air touched her face. Melissa looked ahead and immediately knew who it was.

Eleena.

Eleena had shot past Melissa with such speed that it seemed as though she were deliberately trying to avoid Melissa. Melissa had already run several laps herself, resting in between multiple times, yet she had not once seen Eleena stop, not even for a single second. What was stranger still was that each time Eleena lapped her, she seemed to be moving faster than the time before.

Melissa genuinely could not make sense of what was happening with Eleena, or whether Melissa was simply imagining things.

But, Melissa did not have time to think about Elena any longer because Melissa just finished another lap. And with joy she reached into her dimensional ring and took out a water bottle and a small towel. She quickly wiped the sweat from her face and took a long drink of water, wanting very much to rest a little longer, but Lucien turned his head slightly toward her and tilted it forward in a silent gesture to resume running.

Melissa wanted to ask for a few more minutes but caught sight of Eleena who had already reached the halfway around the track again, and for some reason Melissa could not bring herself to stand still any longer. With a mildly bitter expression aimed at Lucien, she tucked the bottle and towel back into her dimensional ring and broke back into a run to complete another lap.

***

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