Reborn As An Overpowered Villain

Melissa turned on her heel immediately and walked toward Eleena, stopping just an inch from Eleena’s face, eyeing her with pure, undisguised hatred.

Eleena had a smirk on her lips and opened her mouth to say something, but before a single word could escape her, Melissa slapped her sharply across the cheek. "Keep your theories to yourself, you fucking ugly bitch," Melissa snarled.

Eleena's smirk faltered and her right cheek swelled red. "I knew you were wearing a facade all this time," she said, looking Melissa up and down as though she were something that had crawled out of a drain. "Acting all innocent, trying to gather pity from others, right?"

"Stop your bullshit, Eleena." Melissa lifted her hand to deliver another slap, but Eleena caught her wrist this time and held it firm.

"You should be the one stopping this act of yours." Eleena snapped, leaning forward until her face was mere inches from Melissa's. "How long do you think you can fool everyone?"

Eleena began drawing her fingers slowly through Melissa's hair. "You must have trapped plenty of nobles with that pretty face of yours, and now you have set your eyes on Lucien." Her voice turned cold as ice. "But remember this: your facade will not last. You slutty little bitch." Eleena tightened her grip around Melissa's wrist and shoved it away with a sharp jolt, making Melissa wince inwardly from the pain.

"You can't accuse me like this," Melissa protested, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, fighting with everything she had not to cry. This had never happened to her before. No one had ever called her these things, no one had ever leveled accusations like these against her, and hearing them from Eleena for the first time was breaking something inside her. Melissa could feel her throat tightening and her breaths growing short and shallow.

"Oh, I can, and I will soon enough present proof before everyone," Eleena said, lifting her hand to strike Melissa. But before her hand could descend even an inch, it stopped mid-air.

Lucien suddenly appeared at Eleena's side like he had already been standing there beforehand and caught Eleena’s wrist in an iron grip, holding it motionless.

Melissa had instinctively stumbled back a step, and seeing Lucien arrive like that, something inside her finally gave. Every feeling she had been holding back burst through the gates all at once, and she began to cry, her vision blurring and her throat aching. Without quite knowing why, she stepped behind Lucien, pressing herself against his back. "I am not a slut," she choked out in a trembling breath. "I am not a bitch. I am Melissa." Her nose was running and her whole body shook with each word that came out of her.

***

"What did you say to Student Melissa to make her cry, Student Eleena?" Lucien asked, and the temperature in the surrounding air seemed to drop by several degrees.

Eleena went silent. Her eyes trembled as the reality settled over her that Lucien had stepped between her and Melissa, of all people, and was now looking at her as though she were the one who had done something inexcusable. "You do not know girls like her, Lucie-"

"Professor Lucien," he corrected her, his voice edged with irritation. "That is what you will call me."

Lucien had been watching from the sidelines, telling himself he simply wanted to observe what kind of dynamic two of the story's female leads might share with each other. And what he had witnessed was something that went entirely against the nature of the story as he understood it. Eleena and Melissa were supposed to be on good terms with each other, or at the very least maintain some neutral, civil acquaintance. What he had seen instead was something he could never have predicted.

He had noticed them exchanging words at a distance, too far to hear, but their body language and expressions had told him plainly enough that there was no warmth between them, and that the hostility was running far deeper on Eleena's side than on Melissa's. He had expected the situation to fizzle out on its own and had actually breathed a quiet sigh of relief when Melissa seemed to walk away, because the last thing he needed was to be forced to intervene in a confrontation between two heroines. A villain stepping in to break up a fight between heroines was something of a situation that Lucien had no proper word to describe because it should be the other way around, he should be the one to quarrel with one of the heroines and another heroine or hero should appear to save.

But fate, it seemed, had other ideas entirely. Melissa, who had walked away, immediately turned on her heel and walked straight back, and then she slapped Eleena across the face.

Melissa had slapped Eleena. The sheer improbability of it had frozen him completely to the spot. Heroines were supposed to slap him, not one another, and the situation had unfolded so suddenly and with so little warning that by the time his mind had caught up to what his eyes were seeing, it was already over. He had not moved. He had not even managed to take a single step.

And then the words once again began between them, back and forth, growing sharper with every exchange. Then, suddenly something happened, and Eleena's temper finally reached its limit and her arm swung upward, and that was when Lucien decided to move not wanting to be frozen like before. He had crossed the distance between them in an instant and seized Eleena's wrist before her hand could find Melissa's face.

Lucien was still feeling unreal just imagining the sheer scale of things he had come across to witness. He shoved his thoughts back and turned his attention fully back to Eleena, who was glaring at him with a ferocity she was making no effort to conceal.

"Speak," he ordered.

"You!" Eleena snarled at him and shouted back. "Let go of my hand first."

"Answer me first," Lucien demanded once again, making sure he did not let go of Eleena’s hand.

"I knew it," Eleena muttered, more to herself than to anyone else, her eyes shaking as she looked between him and Melissa. "She has already gotten to you." She began moving toward him, whatever she intended was unclear.

Lucien stepped to the side immediately and extended his free hand outward to stop her advance. "Stay where you are and answer my question." He tightened his grip on her wrist deliberately so she could feel exactly where the power in this situation rested.

Eleena winced and the words came tumbling out of her in a rush. "You are being fooled by her appearance. She is trying to ensnare you and make you fall into her lap. She will corrupt you and bend you entirely to her will, making you do whatever she wants."

***

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