Reborn As The Villain In A Game-Like World-Chapter 36: Playing In The Palm Of His Hands

Jack stood there with a calm expression.

’This sure is a lot of people. I feel like some sort of celebrity.’ He clenched his hand, hidden in his pocket. Having spent most of his life in a hospital bed, he’d never experienced anything like this before. His gaze swept over the crowd. The life and energy of the place were all too real. Hundreds, even thousands, looked down upon him with varying expressions. Judging him for actions that the past owner of this body committed yet continued to haunt him to this very day.

He did not care for their judgment. As a [Fated Villain], this was his destiny. To stand alone against the world. There was nothing else to do other than crush anyone who stood in his way of living a peaceful life.

Although Jack showed no external change in expression, the resolve in his eyes flared up once again. A raging fire that threatened to crush the pathetic head professor, the only obstacle between Jack and the position in the Mage Tower that would save him from certain death.

’I came to this forsaken world, isolated and destined for failure, like some kind of sick joke by the gods after I was betrayed. This will be my first step in abandoning that cursed fate and walking along my own path. This duel is no small matter. Failure is not an option. Without the protection of the Mage Tower, my future here in Velmira is looking grim indeed.’

Jack looked up toward the VIP area embedded in the northern side of the arena. Looking down upon the world with an amused expression was none other than Prince August. The true villain of this storyline, in his eternal greed for immortality and endless power, would destroy all that surrounds and supports him, including the very kingdom that Jack had recently become a duke of.

Jack shook his head in despair.

’Why couldn’t I have been reincarnated in Veranthos instead? That way, I wouldn’t need to deal with this final boss.’

Looking around the arena, Jack grappled with conflicting thoughts. He had stood in this very spot hundreds of times before; he was a veteran of the game, after all. Yet he had never noticed the crowd. They were mere background images with a soundtrack playing on a loop. Nothing noteworthy, but now...

Jack could only steel his mind. The pressure of thousands of scorn-filled eyes was quite overwhelming. He felt his usual calm falter under their intense gazes. Deciding to tune it all out and focus on his opponent, he looked over at Edward, who appeared to be in an even direr state. He was constantly twitching and shifting his focus between the VIP room and Jack. As if it were a tick, he kept patting the inner pocket of his suit jacket, a complicated expression plastered on his sickly face.

The announcer’s voice then boomed out across the arena and patiently explained the stakes and the rules of the duel. The hateful gazes increased tenfold after the mention of Jack cheating his way into his position. He could only sigh deeply in his heart. Whether he won or lost this duel, his reputation would likely never recover, not that he minded. He was a villain through and through and had no plans to right his past wrongs, even though they weren’t committed by him personally.

While the announcer explained the rules, Jack thought, ’This is it. A real magic battle with my life on the line. The announcer claims it’s not a death match, but I’m not a fool. Edward is a dead man with nothing left to lose. The question is if he can kill me.’

"May the duel begin!" the announcer exclaimed, and the crowd roared in anticipation.

Jack stood perfectly still and did nothing.

’I have the advantage in the early stage of this dance. My cards are unknown, whereas I can read Edward like an open book.’

As Jack expected, Edward quickly multicast defensive spells of various types. First, he surrounded himself in a quickly made mud hut surrounded by spikes.

’A solid defence strategy against Space and Wind schools of magic,’ Jack mused. ’I shall keep my affinities hidden as long as possible. Besides, I have the advantage, as his illness has shrunk his mana pool, so wasted defensive spells like this are perfect.’

Edward hid inside his mud hut for a few moments, noticing that Jack didn’t teleport and stab him in the back, nor did he unleash a barrage of wind blades. He concluded that Jack was unlikely to use either affinity, so he promptly proceeded to the second stage of his plan. The earth opened up beneath his figure, and he vanished into the dark depths of the ground below.

"A little rat like you only knows how to run and hide?" Jack clicked his tongue. "Tsk, if I had Water affinity, I could drown him inside his tunnels, but alas, I have no such talents."

Jack finally made his first move of the duel. Activating Psychokinesis, he formed a bubble around himself and pushed the spell into the earth at a depth of two meters. The earth was saturated in Edward’s mana, which actually worked against him. It helped Jack locate him.

Unaware of Jack’s ability to track him, Edward was using Geokinesis to swim through the soil at high speeds, cautiously trying to work out his opponent’s game plan. As Edward was also a veteran at magic battles, gathering intel on the opponent’s capabilities was of the utmost importance. Ignorance and arrogance were the most dangerous emotions for a mage to harbour, as even the most insurmountable mountain could be carved away by the river of time. Every school of magic had its strengths and weaknesses; no mage was omnipotent and all-powerful. Except maybe the dean—he was the closest figure to a demigod on this mortal plane.

Getting within a few meters of Jack, the head professor felt he had collided with an invisible wall. This wall rejected his Earth affinity mana wholeheartedly, impeding his advancement.

"What a pathetic barrier. If I weren’t so weakened, this level of Mana Control would be mere child’s play before me," Edward cursed in a muffled voice.

Moving through the earth like a fish through water, he attempted to attack at varying angles but was met with the same obstacle time and time again. With frustration, he used a B-grade spell, which consumed a large portion of his mana. The earth around him became drenched with earth affinity mana, causing the earth to surge toward the surface with tremendous force.

The spectators all gasped as they watched the entire arena’s ground become overlaid in meter-tall spikes of stone, all within fleeting moments. As the dust settled, an unscathed and unbothered Jack stood upon one of the spikes.

Edward emerged from the ground, sure of his overwhelming victory, yet he was aghast as he witnessed Jack effortlessly balancing upon an impossibly small point. He squinted his eyes. Standing like that was simply impossible without magical assistance. The question was how?

The head professor’s brain whirled as it formulated the possibilities, and eventually he came to only a single conclusion: Psychic Magic. Upon this discovery, he patted the green vial in his pocket with a smile of relief.

"For a mere psychic mage, even in this pathetic condition I will have no need for such a heinous drug," he assured himself.

Noticing that Jack was utilising one of the few advantages of Psychic Magic—levitation—Edward opted to respond with his arsenal of artillery-type spells. Aware that spikes would have little to no effect on an opponent capable of standing in the air, Edward cancelled the spikes, and the arena returned to its usual state.

Jack smirked and lowered himself back to the floor, sending a clear provocation to the professor, suggesting that his earth-based skills had no effect on him.

Edward merely snorted, thinking, ’You are still wet behind the ears, Jack, believing you can defeat me by flying around like an insect. As expected of a mere assistant. Let me give you a lesson on the gap between us.’

Edward chanted the runic language at an inhuman speed, weaving multiple runic spell matrices together. They hung in the air before him, and after a full minute, he combined them all with a single command.

"ᛋᚢᛱᛱᛟᛁ ᛱᛟᛐᛖᛱ (Summon Golem)."

His palms glowed with a deep blue as the ground trembled. Jack hadn’t bothered reacting, as he already knew that the spell was a conjuring spell rather than a directly offensive one and, therefore, posed no immediate threat. He wished to remain stationary to conserve his mana as much as his opponent allowed.

Innumerable humanoid men of stone crawled from the earth with awkward movements befitting magically animated beings. Edward then gave them a mental command as they all collectively looked toward the unmoving Jack with their lifeless eye sockets.

Jack felt an immense sense of déjà vu.

’Was it my fate to face innumerable enemies all alone once more?’

Shaking away the useless thoughts that clouded his mind, he quickly ascended to the skies. Although he believed he had devised a plan on how to deal with this seemingly disadvantageous position, he would have to test his theory first. That is, if the golems forming balls of rock as if they were in a snowball fight and hurling them in his direction would give him a moment to rest.

Luckily, many of the projectiles didn’t even reach the soles of his feet, but a few did reach his altitude.

"What a childish way to fight," Jack sneered. With a casual wave of his hand, he effortlessly returned the rocks to the golems below using Psychokinesis. The slow, dull pile of stone didn’t react to the incoming attack, causing many of them to lose a limb.

The audience was in an uproar. Some agitated commoners screamed that he was cheating and to fight like a man, and others were baffled at his unusual skill set, as many had never seen a proficient psychic mage engage in mortal combat before.

Although both Jack and Edward tried to control their expressions, beads of sweat and slight worry were hidden behind their well-trained facades. The number one rule for a mage competing in a duel was to never show any hint of weakness. Making the opponent believe there was no way of winning was the best and quickest way to victory, yet experienced mages could see through this little trick.

Jack knew commanding that many golems at once was draining Edward’s mana at a substantial rate, but so was his own defence. He had to maintain air superiority to force Edward into using this mana-inefficient method of fighting. Unfortunately, maintaining his Psychokinesis domain and levitation was costing him greatly.

If Edward was still at A grade in Mana Control, he would infuse the rocks the golems were hurling with mana protection, but due to his deteriorated state, just maintaining the golems was his limit. Controlling mana from so far away was simply impossible.

Edward hoped Jack’s Mana Control was at a lower grade than his own; a battle of attrition was always his forte and go-to strategy. Unfortunately, Edward had no way to determine the extent to which his A-grade Mana Control had deteriorated, as it was internal problems that held him back rather than his innate skill.

Psychic mages were famous for being easily overwhelmed; Edward had to acknowledge Jack’s ability to maintain flight while dodging and repelling hundreds of rocks at once. He personally had never witnessed a psychic mage with so much control over his surroundings before.

Feeling a trickle of sweat run off his brow, Edward’s nerves once again spiked. Although he lied to himself that he was prepared for death, he still was unwilling. He wholeheartedly believed he could defeat Jack with his own deteriorated skills and somehow get away with murdering a noble on stage in front of thousands. He just had to stage it as an accident somehow.

But Jack was far more competent than he was expecting, making such a scheme unlikely to work. Maybe Prince August would break him out of prison before his execution, allowing him to run away and live happily with Evelyn like before, but a part of him knew that was only wishful thinking. His mana circuit was already rotting away and barely holding on.

Edward noticed out of the corner of his eye that his defeated golems were no longer standing back up. He took a nervous look at the man in the sky, who had maintained the same bored expression since the beginning of the fight. Apart from the slight sweat on his brow, Jack showed no sign of obvious weakness.

Edward refused to fall for the man’s tricks. ’Just a little more... and he will fall from the sky.’

Edward pressed on with the assault, yet as the seconds ticked by and his reserves ran dangerously low, Jack was still the same. Edward cursed under his breath for being impatient; he believed he could end the fight quickly with that B-grade spell. Alas, it had only been a massive waste of resources.

His shaking hand tapped upon his suit pocket once again. The feeling of the cold glass vial against his shirt only brought more anguish to his blackened heart.

’Would I really have to leave this world as a monster? How would Evelyn view me?’