Rogue Villain-Chapter 303: You First

"Hold it right there!"

However, someone dropped down from the sky before they could return to the city to grab the promised meal. Mara pointed at Karandiel, who clung to Ackster’s arm like a koala.

"What’s all this about?!"

She then meekly turned to Ackster and lowered her arm as she bowed.

"My lord...?"

Ackster didn’t feel embarrassed and didn’t do anything about Karandiel except stop her from escalating the conflict with a bunch of swords of light.

"This is who I was talking about. Karandiel, meet Mara. Mara, meet Karandiel. I’ll answer any questions and all that as soon as you put down your weapons and stop staring daggers at each other."

"You first."

Karandiel pointed at the openly hostile Mara with a sword.

"As you wish, My lord."

Mara ignored Karandiel and dispelled the magic she conjured. But she did send one fireball into the field instead of making it disappear. Karandiel ignored the mushroom cloud and tugged on Ackster’s arm to guide him to the city. Unwilling to lose out, Mara grabbed Ackster’s other arm after asking for permission.

Wilma furrowed her brow, but she neither did nor said anything.

’Bastard.’

After cursing Ackster in her mind, thankful he couldn’t read minds like her Grandma, Wilma trailed after them. She kind of wanted to see what was going on or what would happen.

Mara and Karandiel glared at each other as they walked back to the city, all the while unaware of the slime smugly resting inside his shirt.

Ackster almost got a headache from thinking about what to do. It was nice they both appreciated him to an almost unbelievable degree, at least until one saw his face, but it wouldn’t be good if they saw each other as enemies. They would need to fight together in the future.

That would be impossible if they would rather fight each other.

Ackster considered letting them duke it out and choose the victor. It would be a shame to lose either of them since they were incredible fighters, and both would be useful in his mission. But it would be better to take only one than to let them both drag down his team’s overall combat ability with their lack of compatibility.

Since neither of them seemed intent on doing anything just yet, Ackster held off and decided to try and make them get along. After all, it would be best if they could cooperate. They might even feel a sense of rivalry and competition that would help them bring out more of their capabilities.

Ackster didn’t know how to feel about him being the prize in that competition.

The first step was a peaceful dinner. Kargas and Wilma would be there and could act as social buffers to keep Mara and Karandiel in check since he doubted they would obey his request to stay calm beyond a certain point.

’I guess power makes people slightly...eccentric.’

Out of every strong person Ackster had met, he couldn’t remember one without a track record of having a colorful personality. The closest exception might be Wilma or Tararat. But they weren’t quite at the level of strength where people tended to go slightly mad. At least Tararat wasn’t.

Ackster couldn’t be sure about Wilma. But she didn’t seem that crazy, so she shouldn’t be that strong.

A brief thought about judging people’s strength by their craziness being a crazy metric flashed through Ackster’s mind, but he hurriedly discarded it. What would happen if he realized he wasn’t strong since he was sane or if he was crazy and, thus, strong? He didn’t need those kinds of thoughts.

But apart from himself, Ackster’s crazy-strong-scale seemed to match. The Sword God was by far the craziest person Ackster had met, and he, in addition to the Calamities and the true dragons, was a major cause of the world’s destruction in alternate realities.

As he thought about that again while walking, Ackster realized that he himself might have been involved in several occasions of the River of Time branching out. He had a certain level of influence, according to The One Outside Time, and his life and death might spell the destruction or salvation of the world.

Ackster also realized how many times he had almost died. Each and every time, another reality might have branched where he died, and the world ended. It was a maniacal way of thinking that put Ackster in the center of the world since he was the one who would save it or fail to save it, inviting its doom.

But even if he saw how egotistical and grandiosely deluded it seemed, he couldn’t find fault with it.

Ackster almost wondered how the different realities would have played out after his death. But that was a useless thought. All he could do now was focus on staying in the main stream of the River of Time and saving the world.

Before he knew it, Ackster was already sitting at the finest table in the finest restaurant in the finest part of New Vieva. Fortunately, Mara used her magic to obscure their presence, and they—with their striking appearances—didn’t cause a stir as they walked through the city.

Although Ackster had grown a lot stronger, he hadn’t escaped his paranoia. And the last he wanted was for The Hero to hear about Karandiel, a temporary collaborator of hers, parading around the city, clinging to the arm of a handsome stranger.

The Hero might have stopped looking for signs of Ackster duping him six years ago. But if he was still The Hero that Ackster had read about, he would grow suspicious about the previously frigid Karandiel leisurely hanging out with a playboy-like guy like a love-struck little girl.

Ackster had finally found more than a faint glimmer of hope, and he felt like he was making steady progress toward the fulfillment of his mission. He wouldn’t let something as inconsequential as a rumor about the savior of Tenger get in the way of that.

But, it looked like he might not get what he wanted as Mara and Karandiel were about to blow the restaurant to kingdom come.