Chapter 7: The Villainess Entrance

A pair of hands squished his cheeks, followed by an affectionate pinch on his tiny nose.

"Aww, look at him! He looks so cute while pouting. It’s just too precious!"

Neo let out a long, exhausted sigh. Since morning, he had been endlessly squished by the maids while sitting in the hallway. He was surrounded by them while the rest of the servants were busy working under the guidance of his mother, Sylvia. Her attention shifted to him every few seconds just to make sure he was doing alright.

Today was a very special day for him, or more appropriately, for all the people working for it. It was his birthday. Since it was morning, the staff’s busyness was sky-high. He just couldn’t understand why the maids in front of him were playing with him instead of actually working.

"Oh my goodness, so fierce!" the young maid squealed, completely unfazed by his killing intent. She covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.

’I am the heir to the Draven family, and here I am getting forcibly squeezed by the maids,’ Neo complained internally, rubbing his sore cheeks. But alas, the world was cruel.

It had been exactly four days since his little... accident. Ever since he forcefully broke through the bottleneck, awakened his Mana Core, and successfully formed the circle, his life had changed. And of course, not exactly for the better.

Everyone would think that proving himself to be an unprecedented magical prodigy would grant him a little bit of personal space. It did the exact opposite.

Sylvia, his usually composed and graceful mother, had basically turned into a human koala. She refused to let him out of her sight for more than five minutes. It was as if she genuinely believed that if she blinked too slowly, her baby boy would disappear.

She carried him everywhere, always checking to see if his mana core was stable. He had stopped his daily training for this exact reason. If he began his secret training now, he would truly be found out by them. The further cultivation of the circle couldn’t occur naturally through innate talent; it had to be carefully cultivated over time. So, if he started training and cultivating toward the second circle right now, his parents would get really suspicious.

Neo’s gaze caught Sylvia, who glanced at him again to make sure he was alright. Since his birthday party was planned for the evening, she was way busier than anyone else in the mansion. His father was also busy in his office, making sure to complete all of his workload before the celebration began.

"No, no, move the ice sculpture closer to the main pillar! And tell the kitchen to double the sugar in the pastries—the capital nobles like it sweet!" Sylvia commanded, pointing toward the dining hall for the servants.

Neo slumped back against the sofa, his feet dangling uselessly over the edge. Boredom was slowly eating away at him. He wasn’t allowed to train, and he wasn’t allowed to go outside because of all the carriages arriving with supplies. He didn’t have anything to do to pass the time.

Just as his eyelids started to droop, Sylvia turned around to check on him. Her eyes softened after noticing his bored expression. She immediately instructed the butler to handle things, walked over, and sat beside him on the couch, gently stroking his hair.

"Don’t worry, my little Neo, you won’t have to feel bored for much longer."

He blinked, looking up at her curiously, not knowing why she was saying that. Was someone else coming to squeeze his cheeks?

"You know my best friend is coming today, right? She’s arriving to help me with the final preparations," Sylvia continued, her eyes sparkling as a small smile curled up on her lips. "And the best part is, she also has a child exactly your age. A little girl. You can finally have a friend to play with!"

A friend.

He couldn’t help but frown. He wasn’t good with children. Most of the time he hated it, even though he knew he was in the same situation right now. They only cried, babbled, and attracted unwanted attention.

’Another snot-nosed, crying toddler I have to babysit. Sigh... it seems my fate is well written by the gods to never let me rest peacefully.’

He remembered the last time some noble family had visited for business. They brought their child along and forcibly handed the kid to him to play. He had decided to ignore the boy, but then that little brat began to break all his toys. Neo didn’t care much about the toys, but when that kid dared to touch his stuffed dragon, he crossed the limit! He got a slap from Neo’s small hand and started wailing. Since the kid was just a child, his parents didn’t understand why he was crying, not knowing Neo had actually beaten him.

Neo didn’t want any more similar incidents happening. He looked at his mother and opened his mouth to ask exactly whose kid he was going to be babysitting for the afternoon, when a sudden sound interrupted them.

The sound of a carriage nearing the grand doors could be heard, along with the clopping hooves of horses.

"Oh! They’re here!" Sylvia gasped, her face lighting up. She stood gracefully, reached down to grab his small hand, and guided him toward the grand doors of the mansion, where the guests seemed to have already arrived.

Just outside, a carriage had already halted. The guards immediately moved to open the door for the guests. The crest imprinted on the carriage was a silver crescent moon wrapped in thorny vines, looking quite attractive.

As the carriage door swung open, a tall, handsome nobleman with slicked-back blonde hair stepped out first, wearing a warm smile on his face. Right behind him, supported by his hand, stepped out his wife. She was a stunningly beautiful woman with violet hair and lavender eyes. She wore a small, excited smile, acting as if she was going to meet her best friend after years apart.

As Neo looked at them, curiosity spiked in his stomach. He looked particularly at the woman, feeling a strange familiarity with her looks.

Just as he was deep in confusion, the nobleman turned back to the carriage and reached his hand inside to support someone.

"Come on out, my little star," he said affectionately, pulling a small figure out and settling her comfortably into his arms.

It was a little girl.

She was dressed in a beautiful, cute dress, and her silky violet hair fell straight past her little shoulders. But what was different about her was not her face or her cuteness. It was her eyes. She had deep lavender eyes, similar to her mother, but they lacked any kind of emotion or sparkle a child should contain. Her expression didn’t look curious or excited; it was as if everything around her was simply not worth her time to look at.

She looked around the mansion with an uninterested gaze, and finally, her eyes landed on him.

Neo couldn’t help but stare right back at her. For a moment, he tried to analyze if he had seen her somewhere, because she looked unnervingly familiar to him.

Then suddenly, as if receiving some kind of divine insight, he finally remembered something. The violet hair. The cold eyes that bore absolutely no emotions. Suddenly, all the pieces clicked together as he finally recognized her.

’Shit, how the f*ck is she here? Where the f*ck did this butterfly effect arise from?!’

The little girl in front of him was no minor figure. She was one of the most ruthless, emotionless disasters to exist in the entire anime. If someone asked him who the strongest person in the world was, would his answer be the male lead? Nah. It was her. Not this current baby version, but the one who would become one of the main Villainesses of the story.

She was none other than Nora Valentina, the Villainess, also famous for the title ’The Calamity Reaper’. She was the biggest hurdle in the protagonist’s path to power.

In the original anime, Nora Valentina wasn’t just a bad person; she was a natural disaster walking on two legs. She was not just a genius prodigy. Even the most talented figures fell to their knees before her.

Just like her eyes, her personality was filled with cold ruthlessness. Anyone who got in her way would simply be eliminated. There was no such word as ’mercy’ in her dictionary.

She stood alone at the apex of the world, feared by kings, emperors, dragons, and every other race alike.

Even the male lead, after learning about her talent, had tried to sweep her off her feet to make her one of his harem members. But to his dismay, instead of falling in love with him, she hadn’t even considered him an existence worth looking at. That was the most satisfying part of the anime Neo had watched. She was the only girl in the entire show who hadn’t fallen for the protagonist’s overpowered charm, boosted by the help of his System.

It also showed just how emotionless and cold her personality really was—enough to dismiss the male lead.

In the final, blood-soaked arc, she literally burned the kingdom to ashes. She turned the sky black and slaughtered thousands without a single change in her expression, all before the Hero finally defeated her in a tragic, earth-shattering showdown.

That was her role. Though she was untouchable, her fate was doomed the moment she caught the attention of the male lead.

But right now, seeing her in front of him, looking at him with that same blank expression on her face, he couldn’t help but feel a massive sense of crisis. He didn’t care about her in the slightest, but he cared about her involvement with his family, which might risk their safety and his own life.

In this world, the ranking system was based on the number of mana circles cultivated around the core. It was as follows:

1st Circle → Initiate

2nd Circle → Apprentice

3rd Circle → Adept

4th Circle → Expert

5th Circle → Master

6th Circle → Grandmaster

7th Circle → Saint

8th Circle → Sovereign

9th Circle → Paragon

10th Circle → Ascendant (Demi-God)

...

Only a small number of people were ever able to touch the realm of the 9th circle. There was no known person in the entire world who had managed to form the 10th circle. Even if a person remained in seclusion for centuries, this realm couldn’t be crossed by mortals unless they had true, overwhelming talent, someone strong beyond the very limits of the world.

And Nora was the first and only person in the entire history of the Velkrath Empire to breach that rank. She was a monster wearing human skin.

She reached the 10th circle in her early twenties, something unheard of for any normal Awakener in history.

Even Kael, the male lead who possessed that ridiculous, reality-breaking System, couldn’t reach Ascendant before she did. She was out of his league for ninety-nine percent of the story. It was only at the very end, when she was on the brink of destroying the world, that the male lead triggered a hidden System quest. He forced his way into the Ascendant rank through sheer plot armor just to defeat her.

She was the villainess for a reason. Her power was currently sealed inside her, waiting to slowly unleash itself after her awakening.

Neo swallowed hard, not knowing what he should do. Should he tell her to return immediately to wherever she came from? No, that would be stupid and disrespectful. He couldn’t just tell his mother’s best friend to return home just because he didn’t want a walking disaster in his house.

She hadn’t even awakened her power yet; she was just a kid with an innocent face. Or so he tried to imagine.

As he tried to look at her, he couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes, as if he was afraid of being marked as her target. When he finally forced himself to meet her gaze, she was looking right back at him with a perfectly expressionless face.

Most kids her age would be squirming, looking around the grand mansion with curious eyes, hiding their faces in their father’s neck, or smiling. But Nora just stared. Her eyes were completely blank, devoid of any childlike wonder, curiosity, or warmth. It was like looking into a beautiful doll with nothing behind its eyes, as if she was just a hollow sculpture meant only to be admired.

He honestly doubted if she was even a normal child right now. She looked so deadpan, so indifferent to the world, that it sent shivers down his spine again.

’Note to self: Do not offend that little girl.’

"Sylvia!"

The beautiful woman, Nora’s mother, broke the silence as she rushed past her husband and immediately threw herself into his mother’s arms, a radiant smile on her face.

"Elara! It’s been too long!" Sylvia laughed brightly, hugging her best friend tightly.

"We came as quickly as we could. The roads were surprisingly clear," the blonde nobleman said, stepping up with Nora still resting blankly in his arms. He offered Sylvia a light bow. "Duchess Sylvia, you look as beautiful as ever. But where is that love-sick husband of yours?"

Sylvia rolled her eyes playfully while pulling back from the hug.

"Cassian is buried under a mountain of paperwork in his office. He’s trying to finish everything as early as possible so that he can actually enjoy his son’s birthday. He’ll come down before the evening, I promise."

"Haha, I remember that guy used to hate handling paperwork. It seems love-sick men really do change after marriage."

Sylvia folded her arms across her chest defensively.

"Oh, don’t call him that, Liam. You are exactly the same. Haven’t you been wrapped around Elara’s finger since your wedding day?"

Liam chuckled casually, scratching the back of his head, unable to refute her words.

"Hehe... Of course! If I didn’t wrap him around my finger, he would just slip away from me."

Elara looked around, and her gaze suddenly caught the little figure holding Sylvia’s fingers.

"Oh... my goodness! Who is this adorable little one? How can he look so cute?!"

She crouched down to his eye level, losing her aristocratic composure. She looked at Neo with an expression of pure, unfiltered adoration, exactly the way someone looks at a fluffy puppy.

Her fingers immediately reached out to his cheeks, squeezing them softly as she patted his head.

"Look at those cheeks, so soft! And his eyes, too—they are just like yours. Hello there, little Neo. I’m your Auntie Elara."

Neo forced himself to give her a polite smile. He felt like swatting her hand away, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it because he could feel someone’s constant gaze resting right on him.

’Yep, it seems I now have to babysit the villainess.’