Giving Every Yandere Villainess Her Happy Ending!

I sat up slowly, swinging my legs over the side of the hospital bed. The room spun once before stabilizing.

Whatever healing magic Annabele had poured into my skull, it definitely was holding.

But more importantly.

The mirror.

Something the physician had left on the side table, probably for checking pupil dilation or some other medical nonsense.

That didn’t matter to me, though. Medical matters were best left to the professionals, and a former general turned lazy pervert was about as far from a medical professional as it got.

All I needed was to check my appearance.

”...Huh.”

It wasn’t as bad as I’d feared.

The face staring back at me was sharp. Narrow jaw, dark hair that fell in uneven strands over pale skin, eyes somewhere between gray and silver.

Still, there was no denying it.

The face leaned a little too much toward the chubby side.

Not as bad as I’d thought, but obvious enough that I couldn’t ignore it.

The foundation was there, though. Symmetrical features. Decent bone structure. The kind of face that could be handsome if someone actually bothered to put in the effort.

I was still the child of a powerful family, after all.

Even if this body’s original host had been pathetic, he had at least inherited the Brimstone line’s best genes.

”Now this... this is something I can work with.”

I muttered at my reflection.

”Might even be better looking than my old face.”

Then I checked the bandages wrapped around my head. They were clean, but I could feel the tender spot beneath them where the knuckle dusters had connected.

A nasty bruise was blooming along my temple. That would take time to fade, unless I do something about it, of course.

I set the mirror down and pushed myself to my feet. Two days of rest, the physician had said. That was two days I didn’t have.

Villainesses are villainesses for a reason. They don’t just sit down and wait. I needed to be in top shape as fast as possible if I wanted to achieve my life-long dream.

”System.”

I said aloud, testing the word.

”Status screen. Character sheet. Menu.”

Nothing, not a single interface or a helpful goddess chiming in with tutorial prompts. Disappointing, but not unexpected. The novel I’d read hadn’t been that kind of story.

Fine. I’d do this the old-fashioned way.

I closed my eyes and reached inward, the way I’d done in the forest when I had healed myself. The warmth was still there, a small ember buried somewhere in my chest.

Light magic.

The Brimstone family’s genetic gift towards this body.

The original Reyn had barely touched it. Five pages of a beginner’s textbook, memorized just enough to pass the bare minimum, then abandoned. A waste that bordered on criminal.

But the ember was there. And I’d spent decades learning how to take raw potential and forge it into something deadly.

Even if most of it never really came close to literal magic.

I cupped my hands together and focused.

”Alright. Let’s see what you can actually do.”

✧ ✦ ✧

The answer... was, surprisingly, nothing.

Not even a single breakthrough handed to me through sheer divine convenience just because I had finally decided to better myself.

This was going to be harder than I thought.

Guess my talent really was just normal talent. Nothing godly.

But that wouldn’t deter me.

I still had hundreds of other novel tricks up my sleeve. If this body didn’t have some absurd power like the others that could be awakened through a change of heart, then sheer, utter brute force and consistency would have to make up for it.

Because if novels had taught me one thing, it was that using your magic twenty-four seven at a young age should eventually give you the mana capacity of a literal nuke.

And while this body was 18 years old. That’s still young in my book.

And how was I supposed to maintain something like that?

Well, my training as a soldier should be more than enough. If I could stay calm under heavy ordnance and gunfire, then maintaining enough concentration for a minor light spell should be manageable.

’Okay, enough thinking...’

I focused my mind, and the warmth bloomed in my forehead again.

The effect was negligible from a healing standpoint, but hopefully, the training wasn’t.

Now, I just needed to make sure I kept this spell active at all times.

Then I’d see if it actually did anything to my mana reserves.

Because as far as I knew, as Reyn Brimstone, and from my memories of reading the novel, magic in this world was definitely trainable. And if I remembered correctly, repetition had also been involved when the original protagonist went through his training arc.

”If there was ever a time to stop thinking about hot, deranged ladies, it’s now.”

As wonderful as they were, I needed every bit of brainpower focused on the strongest magic that the fifth page of that textbook had to offer.

✧ ✦ ✧

The hours bled together.

I didn’t leave the hospital room. And the physician had long since gone home, the hallway outside quiet save for the occasional creak of old wood settling. No one came to check on me.

Not that I expected anyone to.

I sat cross-legged on the bed, hands resting on my knees, the tiny spark of light magic humming at the center of my forehead.

Maintaining it was... strange.

Not difficult, really. The spell itself was so simple that even the original Reyn had managed to learn it. A basic light attribute technique meant to soothe minor aches and accelerate natural healing.

The kind of thing most Brimstone children mastered before they turned ten.

But keeping it active continuously was a different beast entirely.

At first, it was easy. The warmth sat there, and I found myself almost bored. Was this really supposed to be training? I’d endured worse conditioning drills back in basic.

Then the first hour passed.

The warmth didn’t fade, but my awareness of it sharpened. Like a pebble in your shoe that you couldn’t quite ignore.

Then my temples began to throb. The sheer mental effort of holding the spell in place finally had started to take effect.

By the second hour, I was sweating.

”Alright...”

I muttered through gritted teeth.

”This is more like it. If magical hypertrophy existed, this is definitely one way to have it happen...”

The spell wasn’t draining my mana, but it was definitely draining my focus.

Every minor distraction pulled at me: the building’s faint creak, the distant chirping of birds outside, the memory of Annabele’s pink eyes welling with tears during my false redemption speech.

All of it threatened to shatter my concentration.

And every time I slipped, the spell flickered.

But I’d catch it. Force it steady again before it actually got dispelled. Then wait for the next assault on my attention.

It was infuriating. It was exhausting.

It was exactly what I needed.

No pain, no gain, right?

Then...

”Reyn, are you awake?”

Annabele’s voice came through the cracked door before her pink eyes found me sitting cross-legged on the bed. She exhaled in visible relief.

”Thank the gods. Sorry I’m late... I finished my homework early so I wouldn’t be distracted when I came to visit you.”

Flicker.

My spell vanished.

Gone.

Hours of concentration, shattered by a single sentence.

I couldn’t even be annoyed. If anything could reasonably break my focus, it was her. That earnest, almost excessive devotion, already rearranging her schedule around a man she barely knew.

And now that I thought about it...

That kind of dedication was one step away from obsession. All it needed was the right direction.

Guess I was already one step closer than I thought.