The Villain’s Unmasking

Allen’s breakdown, much like a summer afternoon thunderstorm, arrived with fierce intensity but departed just as swiftly.

While many would plunge into terror or confusion upon learning the dark, horrifying truth of the world, this man, at this very moment, was not among them.

Under the immense pressure, Allen’s resolve ignited!

The moisture in his eyes instantly evaporated, replaced by two fiercely burning flames.

He had endured enough! He was weary of this cursed cycle! He was fed up with a destiny manipulated by unseen hands!

He had presumed it would take a long time to uncover the mastermind, yet here they were, brazenly revealing themselves!

A grand villain lurking in the shadows? What of it?!

Once a hidden villain stepped into the light, their mystique shattered into a thousand pieces!

Allen de Laval excelled at tearing down anything that perched on a high pedestal!

‘Dare to show a health bar, and even if you are a god, I will rip a chunk of flesh from you!’

He disregarded Marianne’s unusually intimate ‘sister’ declaration and the suffocating weight (in a purely physical sense) on his chest, his mind racing like an overclocked engine, desperately searching for a way out of this predicament!

****

“You intend to do something interesting, which is good. But I disapprove of humanity’s past complacency, so I have just deleted your database. Only then will you truly understand that the meaning of life lies in exploration.”

The Observer’s cold words echoed in his mind.

‘What Allen was planning to do? Impersonate a divine messenger!’

That she knew of his plan did not surprise Allen.

But had she really wiped the database and fled simply because she “disapproved of humanity’s complacency”?

Allen’s gaze darkened.

‘This entity was definitely lying! Or at least, speaking half-truths!’

‘Take, for instance, the phrase, “I have never met your human creator.” Even if that were true, what would it signify?’

‘What did the Sacred Tome say?’

“When the messenger fulfills their mission, the God will fully awaken. Their light shall illuminate the cosmos, eternally banishing the evils that lurk in the depths of the stars.”

The Observer, who had repeatedly nurtured and destroyed humanity under the guise of ‘trials,’ undeniably belonged to the ‘evil’ faction!

‘Hearing her refer to other evil gods as bothersome entities, it seemed she was at odds with them as well?’

‘Ha! It was merely a case of dogs fighting among themselves!’

‘How intriguing!’

‘Allen was just about to impersonate a divine messenger, and that very night, she came to him for “tea”?’

‘Given her grand demeanor, wouldn’t such an act be beneath her?’

‘Could it be… she feared that this fake messenger of mine might become a true one?!’

‘What was the mission of the divine messenger?’

“To end this ceaseless cycle of destruction, to guide lost humanity anew, and to set them upon the path back to the Divine Paradise.”

‘Who was responsible for this cycle of destruction? The Observer!’

‘Where was the Divine Paradise? Most likely, Earth!’

The Observer had deleted humanity’s technological database out of fear that humans would unleash their full technological might and return to their ancestral home, Earth, in spaceships!

‘Once humanity returned to Earth, and the messenger’s mission was complete, the God would awaken!’

‘And when the God awoke, their first act would be to expel ‘evils’ like The Observer, who had long plagued the stars!’

‘This was precisely what she feared!’

A sudden clarity dawned upon Allen.

‘Villains always perish from talking too much!’

Had The Observer not revealed herself, he might still be in the dark! Now, his path was clear!

His original plan of relying on the ‘Ark’ to survive was likely no longer viable.

The opponent’s power level was simply terrifying; an Ark forged by a pre-spacefaring civilization would be nothing but paper before a god’s might!

‘It seemed he had no choice but to become this divine messenger!’

Even a fake messenger like Allen would have to convincingly play the part of a true one!

He would act so well that even the slumbering Lord would believe Allen was truly their dispatched envoy!

‘Livia?’

‘Hah, a mere phoenix among men, she was nothing before The Observer! She didn’t even qualify to sit at the table!’

Yet, even having reached this conclusion, Allen still found The Observer’s decision to speak with him highly suspicious.

‘Were his thoughts being subtly manipulated by her?’

‘Perhaps the Sacred Tome was a book of prophecy, and the Divine Paradise (Earth) was currently safe and sound.’

‘Allen might actually be the “clever fool” seduced by the whispers of the stars, leading humanity from this planet to find their old home, Earth—wouldn’t that merely be “guiding the path to humanity’s paradise for the evil entities lurking deep within the stars”?’

‘Allen believed himself a savior, when in reality, he was merely a pathfinder for the enemy!’

‘Such a ploy was far from uncommon.’

‘To presume divine will with mortal wisdom was to stumble into a pitfall with a single misstep.’

But Allen had no choice!

For his own survival, for the chance to overturn the very game board, he was determined to masquerade as this divine messenger!

****

Having resolved the primary issue, Allen finally had the mental capacity to address the secondary one.

“Why are you even here?!”

Allen struggled to push Marianne away, but her weight pressed firmly against his chest, rendering him unable to exert any force.

Marianne tilted her head, her expression conveying, ‘You’ve asked a foolish question.’

She replied matter-of-factly, “I am your sister. Isn’t it perfectly normal for me to wake you?”

Allen fell into contemplation.

‘Marianne and he were not close enough for her to jokingly call him ‘brother’.’

‘This behavior offered only one explanation—a test! Marianne was probing his reaction!’

Allen’s rapidly working mind instantly pieced together the truth.

“Marianne, confess honestly. What exactly is going on? Your sudden claim of being my sister definitely hides something! Have you and my father struck some kind of deal?”

Marianne instantly fell silent.

‘She had merely wanted to experience what it felt like to be a younger sister… after all, she had only ever been an older one.’

‘But the young master was too perceptive! He had seen right through it so quickly!’

‘Truly, he was the young master!’

“Actually, the master adopted me as his goddaughter,” Marianne confessed, selling out Bernard de Laval at light speed.

‘As long as the matter of the “divine messenger” wasn’t mentioned, this piece of information was trivial.’

“Oh… what?!” Allen finally unleashed his inner cosmos, forcefully pushing the small maid off his chest. He sat up, gasping for air, staring at her in utter disbelief. “Is that true?”

Marianne nodded. “The old butler was also present.”

“Oh, my old man, honestly,” Allen muttered, though he wasn’t particularly surprised.

Allen had been somewhat aware that his father desired a daughter.

He had simply never imagined Marianne would be willing to reconcile with both him and his father.

‘Did she truly like Livia that much?’

‘Wait!’

Alarm bells blared in Allen’s mind!

‘If Marianne had become his adopted sister, wouldn’t his favored Marianne x Livia yuri pairing now be stepping on a landmine?!’

‘How could a yuri protagonist have a brother!’

‘If yuri was tainted by a man’s scent, could it still be called pure yuri?!’

‘However… if Livia became Marianne’s sister-in-law, wouldn’t that be a sister-in-law x sister-in-law yuri theme…’

‘The sense of impropriety…’

‘It seemed even more thrilling?!’

Allen instantly unlocked a new line of thought!

“Alright, sister it is,” Allen said, waving a hand dismissively. “Just don’t forget your mission.”

“Of course, big brother,” Marianne replied sweetly.

‘My mission is to protect you!’

‘That ‘big brother’ sounded rather odd.’

Allen was no siscon; hearing the address ‘big brother’ only made him feel thoroughly uncomfortable.

“Then I shall continue to call you Young Master.”

Allen suddenly thought, “Speaking of which, since Father has adopted you as his goddaughter, you don’t need to continue being a maid, do you?”

“No!” Marianne retorted fiercely. “I am first and foremost your maid! Only then am I your sister! That will never change!”

‘Why insist on something so trivial…’

“It’s not trivial at all!” Marianne exclaimed, her voice rising with emotion. “You promised! From now on, our relationship would be that of an ordinary master and servant! That relationship will never change! It’s incredibly important!”

‘So, promises were such weighty things after all?’ Allen felt a headache coming on.

“Of course!”

Even Allen, with all his obtuseness, finally understood.

Marianne had developed a distorted attachment to him, one that transcended their master-servant dynamic.

She mistook this trauma-driven, pathological narcissistic attachment for ‘love.’

Her insistence on her ‘master-servant identity’ was merely a means to freeze their relationship, to avoid reliving past traumas, and to maintain her fragile self.

She viewed Allen as a vessel to contain her pathological self-worth; this was not true love.

Indeed, Allen was far from obtuse; rather, he was practically a grandmaster in the field of psychoanalysis.

For humanity, the most inescapable fear was death.

Yet for Allen, who had endured the cycle of death and rebirth nine hundred ninety-nine times, he did not fear death itself; he merely feared that he would never find true peace.

Allen had suffered too many psychological traumas (such as being repeatedly killed by a certain Phoenix among men), leading him to develop a severe fearful-avoidant attachment style.

He was terrified of forming intimate connections with the opposite s*x, subconsciously believing that the only reason they would stay by his side was to take his life.

It was precisely this subconscious fear of women that caused an indescribable entity like The Observer to appear before Allen in a feminine form.

Allen resisted the address ‘big brother’ because, in that intimate term, he sensed Marianne’s affection.

For someone as insecure as him, being loved would invariably trigger an intense feeling of shame within.

Allen’s inner world was too sensitive; it led him to recognize himself, to acknowledge his incurable madness and cowardice.

Character determined destiny; all of Allen’s suffering was, in truth, self-inflicted, leaving him unable to blame anyone else.

Allen constantly spoke of Livia, yet in reality, the person he truly hated, the one he genuinely loathed, was his own powerless self.

It was precisely because he understood himself that he despised himself more than anyone else.

Allen felt nothing for yandere characters, simply because he saw through to their pathological essence.

‘Yandere’ was a sickness, not some romantic ‘moe’ attribute.

He had orchestrated the pairing of Marianne and Livia to treat Marianne, to lessen her pathological dependence on a single relationship.

Perhaps only childhood friends like Livia and Marianne, who had both experienced childhood trauma, could potentially transform ‘yandere love’ into ‘true love.’

The yuri he envisioned was not superficial closeness, but a happy ending for everyone involved.

‘And Allen de Laval himself?’

His sole task was to exclude himself from that happiness.

He was a villain; this was not a psychological defense mechanism, but an objective reality, the very root of all suffering.

He was incapable of loving anyone, for he was destined to betray every ounce of affection.

He could not save his father, nor could he save himself.

But at the very least, he hoped that after his death, Marianne could still find happiness.

This was a debt he owed her, and he had to repay it.

“Marianne…” Allen gazed with a complex expression at the girl before him, who was both his maid and his ‘sister.’ “I… I can never reciprocate your feelings for me. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Marianne replied without a moment’s hesitation.

“It’s good that you understand, so then, you must be with Livia…” Allen’s words trailed off.

Marianne suddenly leaned forward, cupping Allen’s face in her hands, and pressed a soft, fleeting, yet undeniably clear kiss onto his forehead.

Allen’s mind instantly went blank!

Marianne stepped back, observing Allen’s stunned expression, a brilliant smile blooming on her face, tinged with a hint of cunning:

“Do you still believe you can keep running away now?”

“Why?!”

This time, Allen was truly broken! His voice trembled!

That single kiss shattered his meticulously crafted plans, the purity of his villainous facade, and the psychological defenses he had painstakingly rebuilt!

Ever since his rebirth in this cycle, Allen had been perpetually on edge, constantly confronting various death crises.

Now, the string that anchored his sanity had completely snapped, and helplessness and fear utterly engulfed Allen.

His body began to tremble uncontrollably; he could no longer maintain his cynical villain’s facade, revealing his truest vulnerability and self.

“What have I done wrong?! Tell me! Is my desire for your happiness truly mistaken?! Why can’t you understand my painstaking efforts?! Can’t you just properly complete the plan I gave you?!”

“Being with anyone will only ever lead to tragedy! I cannot bring happiness to anyone! Including myself!”

“Please… just stay away from me! I am a monster! I despise this world! I only wish to destroy everything!”

“I couldn’t care less about the survival of humanity; even if this world were destroyed, what concern would it be of mine? After I die, let chaos reign!”

“Does this world possess even a single thing worthy of my love?! If I loved this world, has it ever loved me back? It only ever sought to kill me!”

“Enough… I can’t be this damned villain anymore. Marianne, I don’t want you to love me; I only want you to hate me! So… kill me… I’ve had enough…”

Allen curled into himself, his voice thick with desperate sobs.

Allen’s inner world had shattered long, long ago.

He had simply acted his part too well, so much so that he had even deceived himself.

The appearance of The Observer was merely the final straw that broke the camel’s back.

He had reverted to his original self.

The insignificant villain from ‘Starlight Romance’—

Allen de Laval.