The Villain's Story

Chapter 970: Plans.

Alexander didn’t have much going for him, if he were being honest. He was related to a family of lawyers that did have impressive connections but weren’t famous in the awakened community much, and it was well-known Alexander had been thrown out of the Wright family.

He didn’t really have any feats, other than being one of the three students of the Sword Saint and his duel against Kazikato during the academic convergence. Even his identity as a student of the Sword Saint was… odd, to say the least.

Everyone knew Alan was the strongest and the best. Meanwhile, Lucas’s family was well-known before they were destroyed by Lucas himself, and in the short time they were aware of Lucas’s identity as the Sword Saint’s disciple…

They leaned into it heavily, advertising it everywhere. Alexander, the third student, was kind of ambiguous, and if one took a look at him, even a cursory glance, he appeared unimpressive.

While it was no lie that Alan was the strongest of the Sword Saint’s disciples, comparing Lucas and Alexander is hard, especially hard. Both had unique strengths and certain weaknesses. Even the Sword Saint and Alan are clueless as to who would win in a fight between them.

A serious fight, a duel to the death. Nobody knew this, however, besides a close few. So when Alexander wanted to challenge the curse giant alone… nobody was eager to risk that. Even with Alan backing him, it took a lot of persuasion for him to be allowed to challenge the Cursed Giant.

Eventually, a deal was struck. Alexander would fight the Cursed Giant last, when the expedition was mainly done with their tasks, so Alan and Amanda could jump in to help. Grumbling, Alexander relented.

With that done, before Ryan could continue, Alan raised his hand and declared.

“Oh yeah, also, I’m going to handle the termites by myself. The rest of Twilight can handle something else; with Olivia at the helm, they should target the automatons. I’m sure our friends at Behemoth wouldn’t mind a few extra hands, right?”

He said, grinning towards Henry and the other officials from the Behemoth Guild. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, no one really stopped him. The sight of his brief battle with the Terra King left a deep impression; however, there were some questions.

A man from the army, with a ridiculous amount of medals on his uniform, questioned.

“How will you accomplish such a feat?”

“I am not obligated to tell you.”

His eyes narrowed, the same as everyone, and he grumbled. Howard immediately butted in.

“While no one here would dare stop you, may we at least know if a large amount of environmental damage will be inflicted upon the area? While unclear, officials are planning to reconstruct the city after the monsters are dealt with and the war is over.”

He coughed and continued.

“If… large spells are to be used, it would be helpful if we know in advance and begin preparations as of this very moment… If the spell is too powerful, we would also have to plan evacuation operations for the personnel within the city…”

Everyone turned to him, especially Alan, who had an aghast expression on his face. Alexander barely suppressed a chuckle as Alan asked.

“… Dude, do you seriously think I’m going to drop a meteor on the city while you all are busy with your missions?”

Nobody really answered, and a tense atmosphere hung in the air. Howard turned his head towards the table, not daring to meet Alan’s eyes, who was shocked.

“No… I’m not going to be flinging random meteors…”

Quite a few people heaved sighs of relief, which shocked Alan even further. Ryan raised his hand, and heads turned to him.

“What about large-scale ice spells? Or other such things unrelated to… meteors? I believe proper pla-“

“Oh for fuck’s sake, no, I won’t be casting large-scale spells that will destroy the city. Alright? The damage won’t extend beyond the territory of the damn bugs, and even then, I can fix everything easily, ok? Can we move on?”

Seemingly satisfied, the official moved on, detailing other things as Alan grumbled.

After all, what did people think he was going to do? Were his previous attempts at trying to act cool backfired? Or had the people begun fantasizing during his absence from Earth? What was going on?

Sure, Alan was capable of that, but he wasn’t dumb enough to do it while people were still in the blast radius, well, people he knew and somewhat cared about. Besides, Meteor was an expensive and ‘worthy’ spell. He wouldn’t use it on some bugs!

Actually, a big maybe on that one… but not in this case! Alan was going to defeat the termites using a new strategy, one he frankly had no experience in.

The termites number in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps even reaching a million or more; however, Ryan was right when he said they were weak. Even from here, Alan could accurately assess the threat they posed from their mana signatures.

And they were weak, but there were a lot of them. A lot of them. Insect-type monsters were usually of two types. Those that started colonies and were on the weaker side, opting to fight with numbers, or those that were freakishly strong but solo huntes.

A single well-placed meteor, a big one, would get rid of the entire colony, and a few glacial collapses, or Lanesha forbid, a single ice age, would get rid of the insects easily.

But that was BORING.

Why do that? When you could opt for another strategy? One that had survived the test of time itself and was still viable even now, in the wider universe?

Of course, even though Alan disliked the term, he was referring to the strategy of fighting ‘fire’ by ‘fire.’

Or in this case, numbers against numbers.

Indeed, it was finally time to use his domain for good and get practice before it was too late.