The Heroine Becomes Obsessed with Me (2)
I felt genuine murderous intent in Dwight’s eyes.
Jeffbery, I’ll admit I got a little too deep into the role.
But doing this in front of Dwight is a problem.
I pushed her shoulders away with both hands—the same Jeffbery who was clinging to me.
“Hic… hic…”
Tears the size of chicken droppings spilled down her cheeks as she buried her face in my chest all over again.
Ha… so my over-the-top acting actually moved her heart.
I’d deliberately spewed nothing but cringeworthy lines, and they’d landed!
Self-own of the century.
My plan to provoke Dwight had gone past provocation and handed him a rock-solid motive for murder.
Even if the ending where I die by that bastard’s hand was already set, I’d wanted to push that moment as far back as possible.
Damn, why is she so ridiculously pretty right now?
Thump-thump.
Completely separate from all my fretting, my heart was pounding like an idiot.
Of course it was.
My ultimate favorite character was hugging me close enough that I could feel her breath.
It would be weirder if my heart didn’t explode.
Those big eyes looked up at me.
I forced myself to ignore Dwight’s gaze—the one that looked ready to charge in any second—and sank into fierce deliberation.
One look at Dwight. One look at Jeffbery.
I made my decision.
Alright! Time to go full bad-boy concept.
I’d toy with Jeffbery like she was a plaything, then dump her in the most devastating way possible.
I’d finished the entire novel; there was nothing about Jeffbery I didn’t know.
I’d use every scrap of that knowledge to knock her soul clean out of her body.
Then, at just the right moment: I’m bored of you now. Drop the line and vanish.
It would look pathetic, but once money got involved it would be airtight.
Jeffbery would finally realize I was a two-bit bastard not even worth chewing up and spitting out.
She’d learn the lesson that the one who’d truly loved her was Dwight, and go running back to him.
I revised the plan and started sketching the bigger picture again.
Yeah. This time we lock the route in for sure.
I gazed at Jeffbery with tender affection and spoke.
“Jeffbery, don’t cry. If you cry… I feel like I’ll die.”
If you keep crying here, I really will die by Dwight’s hand, you know.
I wiped her tears away with my fingertips.
First priority: get out of this room.
Look at Dwight’s eyes rolling back in his head.
As naturally as possible.
“Ahem… ahem… I came to see Jeffbery. I heard my woman was here. I’ve been terribly rude.”
Crack.
I finally understood what people meant by “getting hit by a glare” as I carefully backed away.
“I’m taking Jeffbery with me.”
Jeffbery never took her eyes off me as she nodded.
At that, Dwight’s expression crumbled.
I scooped Jeffbery into my arms and teleported straight out of the room.
Whew, I thought I was going to die.
You have no idea how hard I was shaking just now.
The second Jeffbery threw herself into my arms, I spun my brain into overdrive and kept laying down magic circles nonstop.
Like a swordsman surrounded on all sides, swinging his blade every which way while yelling “Stay back, stay back!”, I wrapped layer upon layer of spell formulas around the two of us as a defense against Dwight.
Dwight could see through magic circles, so he would have watched every single layered formation I was pouring out.
But Dwight already seemed to have lost the will to fight.
Hard to blame him.
The person he loved—or more accurately, the person he loved and hated in equal measure—had just run straight into another man’s arms right in front of him.
And then burst into tears, completely defenseless, against an enemy who might very well hurt her.
Total system shock, no doubt.
That’s right, Dwight. Hurt for today.
They say the ground hardens after a trial; someday you’ll look back on this day and laugh.
Jeffbery has no choice but to return to you.
I’ll make sure of it.
We landed in a park near Jeffbery’s house.
In the early stages I’d treat her like I would give her my liver if she asked.
Getting a woman completely hooked so you can suck the marrow from her bones—that was classic bad-boy technique.
I pulled out a handkerchief, spread it on the bench, and seated Jeffbery.
Sweeping back the hair that had grown thicker than before thanks to Igrian’s little accident, I put on my most charming smile.
If Dwight was the flashy pretty-boy type, Double Crown was the masculine handsome type—black hair, violet pupils.
Specs-wise, I passed with flying colors.
I caught Jeffbery’s chin and pulled her in with deliberate sleaze.
If she’d fallen for the acting, I had to stay consistent.
“Did you think I was dead? You haven’t forgotten, have you? I’m a villain.”
“I lost… so I don’t have a choice.”
Is that unconditional surrender talk?
I stared at Jeffbery, a little dumbfounded.
You never had this little pride before?
Then why did you act that way with Dwight?
A wave of pity spread through my chest.
I really did root for you two.
But look at this. You’re still just circling each other.
I saw my own reflection in those sky-blue eyes.
Is this real life?
Pressing down on my heart that had started thumping again, I opened my mouth.
“That’s right, Jeffbery. You lost to me.”
I tapped the bridge of her nose with a fingertip.
When else am I ever going to get to do this?
It’s ridiculously soft.
“I thought you were strong.”
Jeffbery hiccupped as she spoke.
“But when they said you were dead… hic!”
“No.”
I looked at her with a lump-in-the-throat expression.
“You’re the one who makes me the weakest person in the world. So the only person who can kill me… is you.”
Whoosh.
Jeffbery threw herself into my arms again.
“If you leave me, I’ll kill you!”
This is better than I expected!
Brutal. Absolutely brutal.
Igrian clicked through each article one by one, checking the comments.
Igrian started posting on the platform.
The past few days had been pure chaos.
Date Jeffbery. Clean up the scandals exploding everywhere. File lawsuits against the haters.
At least having Igrian around was a blessing.
She even released the photo taken next to the congratulatory wreath the Villain Alliance had sent, and for all the sniping on the surface, a little sister was still a little sister.
I felt a little bad for Dwight, but when a protagonist goes through trials, it just becomes fertilizer for growth, right?
The current sweet-potato suffering was only the process that would deliver intense catharsis to the readers later!
But more than any of that, there was one thing I was focused on today.
The dispatch that had arrived at Demarken House this morning.
Witch Tireina has escaped from Buryuhtan Prison
Tireina Sudden.
The Talisman Witch who had been captured by Jeffbery three years ago and locked away.
Her entire body was covered in tattoos, and black opals were set into her pupils—that was where she released her magic power from.
When the wanted posters went up showing Tireina drawing magic circles onto talisman paper with her eyes like laser beams and floating the charms, people everywhere shuddered.
Just looking at her screamed, “Yep, I’m a nasty witch.”
She’d been a small-time crook who tricked people with weird chants, but if you considered that unused magic power kept accumulating the whole time she was locked up, the destructive force she possessed now was beyond imagination.
“Today, then.”
The first place Tireina Sudden would head after breaking out of prison.
In the original novel, it had been Jeffbery’s house.
She’d gone there for revenge, not knowing Jeffbery was already dead.
Once she learned Jeffbery was dead and flew into a rage, Tireina set fire to the house, poured out every curse she knew, and plastered the entire mansion in talismans scrawled with red letters.
But now, Jeffbery was alive.
This is no time to sit around.
From Buryuhtan Prison to Jeffbery’s house, even with a witch’s leap it would take at least a day.
Teleportation was impossible—her Achilles tendons had been severed the moment she was imprisoned.
That procedure had been introduced the instant academic research revealed that witches’ magic pressure points were concentrated there.
Something about mutations in existing magic genes clustering in the Achilles tendon, or whatever.
I activated teleportation.
I wasn’t going to wait for the Talisman Witch to reach Jeffbery’s house.
That woman was the type of thug who caused incidents at every stop along the way.
“Hah…!”
I exhaled hard as I landed—and found myself face-to-face with Tireina, standing in front of the ruined open ground of Buryuhtan Prison with a cigarette clenched between her teeth.