Young Master's PoV: Woke Up As A Villain In A Game One Day

Chapter 492: Am I The Only Emotionally Mature Person In My Friend Group?!

“No, seriously! There should be some kind of punishment for those assholes!”

I understood why Ray was angry, but the person he was angry on behalf of was currently busy stuffing his face with food.

With a dark look, Vince was wolfing down his third plate of roasted sausage and buttery mash, chewing so hard I was worried he’d crack a tooth.

He swallowed with a heavy gulp of fruit beer before slamming the bottle onto the long dining table.

“Ray, shut the hell up,” Vince grunted, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “My ribs are still mending. Talking hurts. Crying hurts. Listening to your squeaky voice hurts even more.”

“I am not squeaky!” Ray squeaked. “What they did to you was false imprisonment! They broke probably a dozen laws, and I’m not even talking about the Academy’s Code of Conduct yet!”

“Are you seriously educating me on laws?”

“No, I— well…”

It was dinner time. We were sitting in the dining hall of our villa, trying to wind down after an excessively long and chaotic week.

We got Vince to recount what happened.

His reunion with his siblings didn’t go… well. They recognized him from when he tried to force his way into their home the last time, pushing their father to the ground.

They weren’t willing to listen to anything he had to say at first, so it took him a little effort to make them understand that he was actually their estranged brother.

Unfortunately, making them understand didn’t automatically make them love him. Especially when they didn’t even remember him properly.

And especially especially when his siblings’ adoptive father was right there, chipping in with his own warped commentary of Vince’s life.

The old man told the kids how their older brother was a felon and a swindler involved in all kinds of shady business.

Basically, Vince was painted as some kind of untrustworthy criminal. Which… was true to some extent. But he wasn’t even given a chance to explain himself.

But Vince’s misfortune didn’t end with that disaster. When he returned to the Academy, downcast and miserable, it was the night before the start of Mock War.

And how was he welcomed? With a mace to the back of his head. He was then taken captive by my sister and handed over to Yasmeen, who kept injecting him with her blood for days.

Little by little, he lost control of his own body.

By the time Michael raided the Ivory Knight Sector, Yasmeen had full control over him. Using Vince as her puppet, she was able to surprise Michael and suppress his innate ability like she did to me.

It was exactly as Casey told me. They really had plans to deal with each one of us. Vince was a major part of those plans. He was a counter-measure capable of specifically locking down the Anomalies like Michael and myself.

I was tempted to be impressed… if I wasn’t busy being so thoroughly disgusted by the sheer audacity of their strategy.

“It doesn’t matter,” Alexia sighed from her chair, gently dabbing a napkin against her lips. “They did it because they knew they wouldn’t be held accountable for it in the first place. Both Princess Alice and Prince Willem were either accomplices or accessories to the crime. No prosecutor is going to press charges against royalty. Even if they do, the court will just keep delaying the proceedings forever.”

“But that’s… that’s wrong!” Michael shot up from his spot, angry and frustrated. “That means they could do anything and just get away with it.”

“Uhh, yes?” Alexia scrunched her lips up. “Why are you acting like you’ve never met nobility?”

“Argh!” Michael groaned, running a hand through his hair. “This is not it! I’ll get them. I’ll make them pay myself.”

“Yeah, you make sure to do that, buddy,” I squinted my eyes at him… then looked around. “But can we first address the fucking elephant in the room?”

My gaze stopped at the far end of the table.

Sitting there tied to a sturdy wooden chair was a girl of dark hair and darker eyes. She had pale skin that was split and stitched together across her face, arms, legs, and… practically her entire body.

The girl looked like a porcelain doll that someone had smashed on a street and then painstakingly glued back together with crude wire and black thread.

She wasn’t wearing the standard Academy uniform anymore— just an oversized hoodie that hung off her gaunt frame.

Above all, she looked genuinely terrified to be here.

Her mouth was gagged shut with a thick strip of cloth, probably a handkerchief. Her hands were bound behind her.

Her eyes were frantically darting around the room. Every time Michael groaned or Ray raised his voice, her shoulders twitched, as if expecting someone to hit her.

There weren’t a lot of fresh bruises visible on her body aside from the ones she already had, but I knew for a fact Michael and Alexia had unnecessarily roughed her up a lot while detaining her.

Yes, that girl was Yasmeen.

And yes, as soon as Alexia was eliminated, Michael met her in the medical ward. Once her treatment wrapped up, the two of them found Yasmeen’s apartment and camped there until she returned.

The moment she did, my two friends pounced on her, knocked her out, and discreetly dragged her to our villa.

So now we had this situation on our hands.

I pointed my fork at her. “Can someone tell me why we kidnapped her? Is this a revenge thing or a hostage thing?”

“Revenge thing!” Michael answered. “She used our friend against us in a Mock War! They stooped so low, and for what? A Mock War?! Tell me you’re not angry about that!”

“I can’t. I am angry,” I sighed my response out. “But what would kidnapping her achieve? I doubt you are going to torture her. And if someone like her friend or a roommate reports her missing, the Council would investigate her disappearance and come knocking on our door within minutes.”

“Sure. But… no one is going to report her missing,” Vince picked up his beer bottle, stood up, and started walking toward our silent captive.

His boots dragged against the hardwood, his stormy gray eyes darkening. He looked really menacing as he went over there to sit on the edge of the table, towering right over her.

Yasmeen flinched a little, leaning back as far as the golden lasso looped around her arms and legs and waist would allow, her chest heaving under the oversized hoodie.

Vince, on the other hand, just calmly tilted his head, taking a slow sip from his bottle while staring down at her stitched face. “You are all alone, aren’t you? No close friends, no flatmates, no one in your family who gives a damn about you. You were probably assaulted by a close relative when you were a child. My guess is your own father. Your mother, not wanting to tarnish the family’s name, covered up the abuse. It made you feel like you were the one at fault.”

Yasmeen’s face went slack, the terrified look in her eyes melting away to shock… then anger. She started thrashing wildly in her confines, but Alexia had long since paralyzed her.

And if she tried summoning any Cards, we would crush them. She knew that. She knew not to resist.

But Vince’s cold reading probably struck a nerve so hard she didn’t care anymore.

That reaction only served to amuse Vince. “You asked yourself if your family’s name is more important than you. Not knowing how else to deal with your emotions, you turned all that hatred inward. You began hurting yourself whenever you felt powerless. You wanted to get close to people, you wanted to make friends too but… self-harm is an excellent social repellent, isn’t it? Nobody likes talking to a weird girl with cuts on her wrists, right? Eventually, you found something that made the loneliness bearable: the belief that your noble blood made you superior to everyone beneath you, so you could despise commoners before they ever had the chance to despise you. In the end, you found solace in the very family name you swore to hate.”

Yasmeen was practically growling and grunting, her screams muffled by the gag and wild anger flashing raw in her eyes.

If she wasn’t currently paralyzed and tied down, I had no doubt in mind that she’d have jumped on Vince to strangle him on the spot.

Oh, I also had to give credit to Vince.

I now understood why he and Juliana hit it off so well. Both of them were sadistic bastards who took genuine pleasure in dissecting people.

“Hey, it’s fine. Don’t get so worked up. If it’s any consolation, I can tell you that your tragedy doesn’t make you special. It’s a classic story actually.” Vince leaned down until his eyes were level with hers. “I know it because I’ve seen a dozen variations of it in the gutters. The only difference between you and the street rats I used to run with is that they turned to drugs and guns, while you became a fascist bitch.”

“Okay, enough,” I got up myself. “Even if no one is looking for her, what are we going to do? Like I said, I doubt anyone here would torture her. And even if someone does, we get nothing out of it. She was just following my sister’s orders.” I snapped my head around. “Alexia, you say something! Help me out!”

Alexia, usually so good at articulating herself, just gave me an unbothered shrug at that moment.

I lost my damn mind. “What the—?! Girl, don’t just shrug! You’re the wise one among us! Why am I acting as the voice of reason today?! It’s not a good look on me! In fact, why did you help Michael bring her here anyway? Pulling such reckless and questionable stunts is expected of me, not you two!”

“You know what, Sam? Just shut up! Shut up!” Michael barked at me.

I scowled. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, zip it!” Michael waved a hand in my direction and looked away. “I can’t even look at you. It’s so unfair.”

“…Uh, what? What’s unfair?”

“Your appearance!”

I was… confused.

Michael continued. “You already looked so good, but now after your ascension, you look so unreasonably fine that it makes me want to throw up. Look at your skin! Look at your hair! You’re glowing! Glowing! Every time you open your mouth, it hurts! I want to punch you!”

Okay, I was really at a loss for words. Was this guy complimenting me or threatening violence?

But before I could speak up, Alexia jumped at the chance to ask, “Wait, has his appearance really improved that much?”

“Honestly… yes,” Ray replied, giving me a look. “It’s a little irritating. I want to punch him too.”

What the actual fuck?!

“Awww! I want to see him too! Why am I the only one who can’t see!?” Alexia started whining like a toddler. “I don’t know what any of you look like, but you guys get to bask in my beauty all the time! This is systemic oppression against the sightless, and I will not stand for it!”

I had so many questions in my mind, but the most pressing one was: “How do you know you are beautiful if you’ve never seen yourself?”

“Because I’m me,” Alexia said to me as if that was answer enough, then turned toward Michael. “Mickey, Ray, do me a favor and rate everyone in the group. I want a precise breakdown. How hot is everyone, who’s the sexiest, who’s the prettiest—”

“No! We’re not doing this again!” I shouted. “And can we please stay on the topic?!”

“Don’t worry, Sam,” Vince said, his eyes still focused on the stitch-faced girl. “No one’s going to torture her. If anything, I have a proposition for her. I think her innate ability is very interesting and I can make great use of it.”

Beast Tamers were incredibly rare, that was true.

A Beast Tamer like Yasmeen — who could control humans as well, without violating the laws that mind controllers and telepaths had to abide by — was essentially a holy grail.

That was the same reason Yasmeen also piqued my interest when I saw her power in action.

I could only imagine the possibilities a shrewd guy like Vince could cook up with someone like her at his disposal.

The only problem was, “What if she refuses?”

“Oh, she won’t.” Vince smirked at me, then leaned down to whisper something in Yasmeen’s ear. As he spoke, I could see the girl’s face hardening, going from enraged to reluctant.

Finally, when he pulled back, she gritted her teeth and nodded.

“See,” Vince beamed. “She’s already so cooperative.”

Ah, of course. Silly me. If someone refuses to work with you, you just blackmail them.

Now I don’t know exactly what Vince used to blackmail her, but judging by the suddenly drained and defeated look in her eyes, it definitely worked.

My friend then pulled out a stone tablet from his pocket and put it on the table right next to him. I recognized that artifact as the Slate of Ten Commandments.

The way Vince grinned at Yasmeen next made me feel a little pity for her. The poor girl was going to be worked to the bone.