THE PERFECT VILLAIN: Another chance with a system
Chapter 24: Knife In A Silk Ribbon

Chapter 24: Knife In A Silk Ribbon

Niel headed back to the apartment while Mia and Anna stayed behind with Mira, who still hadn’t processed everything yet.

Something wasn’t adding up to him and he didn’t know why. It was the first time since he became a demon that he had to rethink his decision. He wondered how he could so easily forget that humans were truly deceptive.

The smile lingered in his head all the way back to the apartment.

It was quiet and neatly arranged as they had left it. He looked around searching for any clue he might have missed. He went to her room first and searched through, arranging everything he moved as he searched but even after that he found nothing.

He walked back into his room and sat on his bed. For a moment he was lost in his thoughts, trying to recall everything that had happened since they met.

Just as he was thinking, his gaze drifted to the table close to him. His eyes caught the mug he had left on the table the previous night.

"Wait, why is that still there?" He mumbled to himself as he reached for it.

The mug had a tiny bit of juice in it. Niel looked around the room and it was neatly arranged, he recalled them cleaning up the room and though she did most of the cleaning he was present there. It didn’t make sense that she would forget the mug after that much cleaning especially since she had brought it for him.

He looked into the mug for a while. Then, he left the apartment and headed to the open field. He sneaked out without meeting anyone’s gaze or acting suspicious.

Soon he arrived back at the tree and sat under it. He began rotating the mug gently, stirring the content in it.

For a while, he found nothing remarkable in what he was doing. Then, suddenly a bird landed on his lap chirping on his thigh.

For a moment, he thought nothing of it. Then the bird tried to fly away, his hands moved instinctively catching it mid air with no real intentions behind it.

Then he looked at the bird in his hand and back at the mug, then at the bird.

He drew the bird closer and opened its mouth, he turned a drop of the juice in its mouth and dropped it gently on his thigh. The bird shook its head, flapped its wings and flew away.

For a moment, he felt relieved but the bird barely flew a distance when it crashed into the ground.

Niel who was sitting under the tree looked at the bird from a distance waiting for it to rise again but it didn’t. He counted to ten in his mind and looked back into the mug before walking towards the bird which was barely feet away.

By the time he got there, his eyes widened in disbelief. What he saw was a skeleton, it was all that remained from the bird.

"Poison?!"

Niel blurted out in disbelief. His hands trembled as the mug fell off his hands and tumbled on a frog nearby. The frog struggled to get out from under the mug and when it did, it tried to hop but it seemed like it couldn’t.

For a moment, nothing really happened and then, almost in a blink the frog dried up till all that remained was its skeleton.

Niel’s breath hitched. She had tried to poison him but he had somehow survived.

Claire. That’s poison right? I didn’t imagine that?

Claire: Certainly. It seems really potent.

Then, how did I survive it?

Claire: Your poison abilities also come with an immunity to poison itself. I would assume that was how.

Niel’s thoughts went chaotic for a moment. He got the poison base abilities in the human world. If he hadn’t, she would have successfully killed him. This was purely luck. None of his calculations accounted for such outcomes.

For the first time since he became a demon, he felt a different kind of fear. Not the fear of death or the one of being in the presence of power like he did with Cronos but a distinct kind—one that came with underestimating an opponent. She was one step ahead and he was just lucky.

He had once said trust was a burden and he was going to set himself free from said burden and yet, in order to fit a character, he trusted again and that almost cost his life.

How easily he had forgotten the humans deceptive smile. How easily he had underestimated a delicate lady, all because he needed to play a role of a person he knew nothing about.

He turned towards the village, leaving the mug behind him. His mind carefully processing the thought of it, it was a second chance at life and he almost lost again—a second time to a human, a second time to trust.

He walked slowly to the village, every step bearing more weight than the last. He didn’t notice anyone around or if anyone had spoken to him. His expression looked like he was in denial and people around didn’t bother to approach him. It was as though they had assumed he was finding it difficult to process what had happened to his friends and that was far from the truth.

He got back into the house and headed for his room. No one else had gotten back at that time still but he didn’t care about that.

He knew he could stop pretending yet and he would have to trust but then, it felt like an impossible task with what he now knew. He needed a way out of this subjected trust and to do that he had only one thought in mind. Though it had been the plan all along, it only meant he needed to conclude it quickly.

The only way to keep the trust and stop the trust circle was to murder everyone who knew who the face belonged to. His voice came out barely a whisper:

"This village must burn."