How to be the Villain When Every Character Likes Me

2 - Their Strange First Encounter in the Garden

Two years ago...

"Young Master, we've arrived." The guard opened the door and bowed courteously. I stepped down gingerly, my eyes flitting to and fro as I surveyed my surroundings.

We stood in an expansive front garden, hastily weaving through the garden and entering the entranceway of the main palace. Guards were stationed everywhere as we walked, escorting us to the fourth parlor room in the east wing of the palace.

As we swung past a corner, the guards' metal armor clanking on the smooth marble floors, I suddenly felt a swift pang of dread. My breath stilled as a frozen and stifling feeling jumped my gut. I glanced at the empty walls and the well-lit hallway around us, trying to force my breathing to normal. Shaky breaths soon escaped my lips as I gulped hard, trying to swallow that trepidation that was inexplicably building.

My heart dropped. Without warning, I hit the floor with my arms splayed back and my legs ready to sprint. The guards didn't even have a second to process before a grey-blue smoke hit the entire party, stunning the servants and immobilizing the standing palacemen.

Cowering on the floor, I watched as the smoke hovered just two centimeters above me, enveloping the burly figures of the palace sentries and the lanky bodies of the attendants. The slight blue glow made my body stiffen.

A high-rank mana plume.

I gaped but still held my breath. One of the guards shakily raised his hand up with his waning remaining strength. His body already collapsed on the floor, his eyes red as he tried to fight the asphyxiation that clouded and painted his senses. He slowly began siphoning air from the surroundings toward him. Huge gusts of wind flew into him, sending him flying backward. His back hit the corridor's wall with a heavy clap as he groaned in pain. As the smoke shrouding his body cleared, his eyes glistened, a small light of hope, as he tried to gasp for air.

Looking at his desperate, loyal display to fulfill his duty, I could only shake my head. It's no use, even if he is an air mage.

The gales continued, harshly pinning his body to the wall and drying his pained tears. As the smoke shrouding his body cleared, his eyes glistened, a small light of hope, as he tried to gasp for air. But as he took his breath, his pupils constricted. The acrid remnants of the smoke, imbued with dark mana, lingered insidiously in his lungs. Each desperate inhalation only compounded his torment.

The guard's breaths came in shallow, agonized bursts, his chest heaving as he struggled against the invisible grip of the tainted air. He coughed violently, but the smoke clung to his insides, refusing to dissipate. His vision began to blur, darkness creeping in from the edges as oxygen deprivation took hold. Panic set in, his hands clawing at his throat in a futile attempt to clear his airway.

My breath was waning too. The feeling of my heart thumping heavily against my chest, trying to squeeze out the last bits of oxygen stubbornly lingering in my lungs, I forced myself to move away.

I closed my eyes, ignoring the burning feeling of oxygen deprivation. The familiar feeling of circling my mana round my body became increasingly strained as my mind drifted to that smothering feeling that felt like it was crawling out of my chest into my heart and onto my lips, desperately begging them to open and let the cool yet acrid smoke in.

Then, after painstaking effort, I felt my mana halt and rush back into my mana heart. Without warning, I shot my hand up to a seemingly empty wall and grinned.

"Caught you," I snickered. I clamped my fingers into a fist, digging my nails into the palm of my hand as I felt the mana around the concealed man strangle him as hard as I seized.