Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord Act 3 (Light Novel) (eBook)

Satori Tanabata (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023
250 Seiten
J-Novel Club (Verlag)
978-1-7183-8066-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Things have calmed down since Duke Hillrose's coup d'état, and now Yumiella can return to focusing on Dolkness County. Lady Eleanora has even moved into the Dolkness estate, making every day a little livelier as the county continues to flourish. Just when things seem to be back to normal, a mysterious boy that has been plaguing her dreams appears before Yumiella, claiming to be the god of darkness. The boy, called Lemn, says there are parallel worlds, and he knows that Yumiella isn't really 'Yumiella.' Will Yumiella have to reveal that she was from another world in a past life, and if so, what would that mean for her and Patrick? On top of that, Lemn reveals that one of his other selves was killed by...the Yumiella from that world?! Defeating a version of herself from another world would raise Yumiella's level cap, allowing her to surpass level 99, but can she face this god-killing version of herself?

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Things have calmed down since Duke Hillrose's coup d'etat, and now Yumiella can return to focusing on Dolkness County. Lady Eleanora has even moved into the Dolkness estate, making every day a little livelier as the county continues to flourish. Just when things seem to be back to normal, a mysterious boy that has been plaguing her dreams appears before Yumiella, claiming to be the god of darkness. The boy, called Lemn, says there are parallel worlds, and he knows that Yumiella isn't really "e;Yumiella."e; Will Yumiella have to reveal that she was from another world in a past life, and if so, what would that mean for her and Patrick? On top of that, Lemn reveals that one of his other selves was killed by...the Yumiella from that world?! Defeating a version of herself from another world would raise Yumiella's level cap, allowing her to surpass level 99, but can she face this god-killing version of herself?

Textauszug

Prologue

Several months had passed since I had graduated from the Royal Academy, and I’d slowly become accustomed to reigning as the lord of Dolkness County. The county lands had become somewhat derelict in the absence of attentive management, but after I assumed lordship, the demesne had gradually become a bustling and productive community.

This was only possible because of the aid of everyone around me. Patrick, my fiancé, helped me to communicate with the public officials and servants without being negatively misunderstood. Daemon, my deputy, made progress on various projects that he hadn’t been able to execute due to my parents’ interference. Ryuu, my dragon, became an iconic feature of the manor village, and he seemed to maintain order merely by flying around the place. Rita, my maid, worked hard managing all of the other servants.

As for me, the lord of this county... Wait. Thinking about it, I wasn’t sure I had made any contributions at all. I had continued to leave clerical tasks to Daemon, and I was pretty sure that Patrick handled almost all of our external affairs... Aha! I’d funded this entire operation. I had poured all of the funds I’d gathered from dungeon crawling into public works projects, spending them as freely as if the money just grew on the trees around the village. Other than that, I also... Besides that, I... It was no use. I hadn’t done anything of note. Even when it came to paperwork, all I usually did was give my stamp of approval with no further input.

“Am I unneeded in Dolkness County?” I murmured, without thinking about who might overhear.

“Yumiella?” The voice of the companion at my side jarred me from my thoughts. “Whatever are you muttering to yourself?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

The girl strolling down the streets of Dolkness Village by my side was Eleanora, the daughter of the (former) Duke of Hillrose. She had come to live with me following the revocation of her father’s title.

Eleanora and I were, well, something like...friends? So I didn’t mind helping her out for a little while. Because of that, Eleanora, as the daughter of a fallen aristocrat, was currently something of a freeloader—in other words, she was working even less than I was. There was no way a born and bred lady of the nobility like her could ever put in a hard day’s work.

With nothing better to do, she was consequently once again tagging along on one of my periodic inspections of the manor village, but wasn’t she bored spending time with me, going around such a humdrum town?

“I’m so happy that we get to walk together like this,” she sighed gratefully.

“I’ll support you for the rest of your life, Lady Eleanora. You won’t have to work a single day,” I assured her.

Who did this?! Who made Eleanora feel as if she were unnecessary? No matter how you look at it, I, in fact, am the most unnecessary person here.

“I’ve been helping out at the church, but... I don’t think that counts as working,” she admitted.

“What? Do you mean the Sanonist church?”

“Yes. Oh! What if we visited the church together, right now?”

“I’ll pass on going to church.”

I prefer to stay away from religion... Wait, no. That’s not my concern right now. What I’m surprised by is the fact that Eleanora felt the impulse to do something like that at all. Which brings me back to my point: am I actually unnecessary?

I continued my stroll through Dolkness Village while pondering the possibility of my uselessness. After all, as the lord of this county, it was important to see how the town was doing.

Is this actually important, though? Isn’t an inspection basically just a vacation for important people? I don’t think they actually do any work during an inspection. In fact, I’m not doing anything even approaching work right now.

I need to find something meaningful, some kind of work that only I can do...

Just then, Eleanora suddenly exclaimed, “Oh! It’s Sir Patrick!”

“Really? I wonder what he’s doing.”

Patrick had supposedly headed out this morning to take care of an errand. He’d said there was no need for me to go with him, but that had just made me wonder even more about what he was doing. This wasn’t the first time that he’d gone out without mentioning what he was up to. Where was he going?

“Let’s follow him, Lady Eleanora,” I said impulsively.

“That sounds like such fun!”

“What’s Patrick doing?” I wondered. “Could it be...that he’s cheating on me?”

“I am certain that cheating is the one thing he would never do.”

Eleanora’s confidence in Patrick was admirable. Truthfully, I had only mentioned cheating as a joke, because I also trusted him greatly. This trust truly ran deep, and if I had to compare it to something, I might liken it to—

“We’re going to lose him!” Eleanora startled me from my Patrick-based reverie. “Hurry up, Yumiella.”

“Oh, right.”

Luckily, he hadn’t noticed us at all. We continued to tail Patrick as he moved through the village.

Soon, we arrived at the outskirts of town.

“Patrick has something to do way out here?” I muttered.

“Whatever could that shack be?” Eleanora asked.

The building that Patrick had just entered was actually a guard station.

Oh, I see, he’s just doing his job.

The guards were soldiers hired by the Dolkness family, and the work they did largely consisted of maintaining order, much like a private police force. There were various stations scattered across Dolkness Village, and this particular one was positioned to observe anyone entering town. If someone suspicious-looking were to walk past, a guard would come out of the station and question them.

It occurred to me that it would probably be difficult for this small-time police force to handle an invasion from, say, a foreign army. I’d recently overheard somewhere that our guards weren’t actually very strong... That’s when it hit me—I had finally happened upon a job that only I could do.

I strode confidently towards the guard station, with Eleanora trailing behind.

“Oh, have we finished tailing Sir Patrick?”

“We’re done. I have found what I’m meant to do,” I declared. “I became the lord of Dolkness County in order to do it.”

I should have realized it sooner. I probably would have if I’d ever interacted with one of the guards, but... That’s right. Now that I think about it, I’ve never spoken with any of them before. On paper, I am their boss, so I probably should’ve come to see them ages ago.

For whatever reason, I had never found the time to come by for an inspection, nor had I ever passed by a guard in town during my walks.

Could it be that...the soldiers are avoiding me? That can’t possibly be the case. There’s no way that the heroes that protect this town would be afraid of me.

I continued my march towards the shack, and upon arrival, I vigorously flung the door open.

“Pardon me. I’m the lord of the county, Yumi—”

“Run!” a soldier shrieked.

Inside were seven men, and upon seeing me, everyone except for Patrick bolted for the back door in utter panic. The door in question was narrow—there was no way that the swarm of large men rushing towards it could escape easily through it all at once. As they piled up in an inevitable traffic jam at the exit, I cast a spell.

“Dark Bind.”

Black hands stretched out from the shadow of each man and bound their bodies. They screamed in terror, but there was nothing to worry about. Dark Bind was nonlethal, which was a rare quality for the spells that I tended to use.

“What are you doing here, Yumiella?” Patrick asked.

“I followed you.”

“I’m sorry, everyone. This is my fault,” Patrick apologized, bowing his head to the bound men for some reason. He turned to me and continued. “I’m the one who kept these soldiers away from you. I arranged things so that you wouldn’t come by for inspections, and I instructed them to run away if they saw you in town.”

Why would he do something like that? I would never do anything detrimental to the guards.

“I just wanted to help everyone,” I explained, trying to clear up the misunderstanding. “I thought I could help all the guards with their level grinding...”

Now that I had actually met them, I realized that our guards were much too weak. I wouldn’t expect them to be strong enough to beat me, but I wanted them to at least be able to deal with Dark Bind. How could anyone feel safe living in a town in which the people ostensibly meant to protect it were so easily restrained?

This was the one meaningful task I could take on.

I’ll round up all of the soldiers, and we’ll go dungeon crawling. If we’re fielding that number of people, we should have no problem pressing forward into the deeper levels. I can guarantee their safety too. Even if someone’s lower body gets slashed off and sent flying, I’ll heal them with my recovery magic.

I presented the gist of my...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 24.11.2023
• Reihe/Serie: Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord
• Reihe/Serie: Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord
• Illustrationen: Satori Tanabata
• Übersetzer: Satori Tanabata
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur
• Schlagworte: Comedy • female demon lord • Light Novel • Otome Game • overpowered gamer protagonist • reincarnated • school life in a fantasy world
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-8066-6 / 1718380666
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-8066-0 / 9781718380660