Young Master's PoV: Woke Up As A Villain In A Game One Day

Chapter 491: End Of Leverage

I looked up ahead.

The high wall of the Ebony Tower seemed as if it was cut clean just a couple of meters above its base, most of its front section was demolished into debris that was currently blocking my path.

Using my innate ability, I raised several dozen earthen hands from the ground and made them clear the rubble in an instant.

I was then about to resume walking… but instead, I saw something that made me pause.

There, sitting on the topmost steps leading up to the wide double doors, was Casey.

She was leaning back against the shattered stone frame, her head tilted up toward the early morning sky.

Her blue hair was matted with sweat and dirt, dark red scabs running through the strands.

Her sleeveless black vest was shredded at the side, exposing skin that was a mottled, sickly blue-black from having a few fractured ribs.

Her left arm hung at an unnatural angle, completely dead to her side. But what drew my attention the most was her lips. They were turning purple. Her breath was misting, looking as though she was breathing fog.

Her poison was flaring.

I would’ve worried about her dropping dead, if not for what was resting on one of her bloody thighs — the Ebony Crown.

But that still wasn’t the end of my shock.

In her good hand was a severed finger. It was pale and slender and wearing an Ivory Ring that seemed to have melded into the flesh itself.

Casey was holding that finger… that Ring close to the Ebony Crown. So close that small yet noticeable cracks had started appearing on the obsidian band.

It was a threat, daring me to take even a step.

Casey’s unsaid warning was that she would break the Crown in the blink of an eye, long before I could get a chance to pull anything funny.

So she wanted to talk. Cute.

What I couldn’t believe, however, was what my sister had done.

Thalia actually went ahead and cut her own finger just to win this. What level of desperation was this?

We didn’t even know if the Ring would’ve worked without its designated owner supplying it Essence. Yet she took such a big gamble. All for what? To beat me.

I knew she didn’t like me, but this was beyond crazy. Even for her! This wasn’t sibling rivalry, this was some unhinged obsession.

I shook my head in disbelief, then addressed the girl holding my Crown hostage, my tone as nonchalant as ever. “You look like shit, Snowrite. Where’s Alexia?”

Casey exhaled another misty breath, then slowly moved her gaze to me. Her eyes were heavy and slightly unfocused as if it was taking her immense effort just to stay awake.

“Just a single scratch,” she murmured, loud enough to only reach my ears. I was kind of grateful because after my ascension, it felt like everything was overwhelming my senses. Especially my ears, they felt like they would rupture any moment now from all the noise. “I went above and beyond, pushing myself to the absolute limit, even damaging my Essence pathways… only to manage a single scratch on her.”

Ah, yes. A delightful mix of imposter syndrome and existential crisis. That tended to happen to people who were stupid enough to fight Alexia. I should know.

After going against her, you’d start wondering if you were really cut out for this career.

But what I still wanted to know was how did Casey do it? Because no disrespect to her, but at this point in the story, she shouldn’t be strong enough to manage even that — a single scratch on Alexia.

Not unless she ambushed my blind friend. Judging by her battered and broken body, though, an ambush was not what happened.

That was clearly the sadistic handiwork of Alexia.

So Casey Torr Snowrite had fought the Fist of Heaven head-on and somehow survived.

How?

I frowned, struck by sudden realization. “Glacier Splitter…”

That was the only explanation that made sense.

But it shouldn’t have been possible, not in her current state…

Right?

Casey’s ears visibly perked up, a small smile playing on her cyanotic lips at the mention of her family’s secret swordart. “One of these days you’re gonna have to tell me how you know so much.”

I kept staring at her in response, silent, feeling the winds of dawn pick up against my shirtless back.

The Snowrite heiress let out a raspy breath, her shoulders shivering like the rest of her body. “You know how ridiculously strong she was? Your sister and her friends always knew that Alexia Von Zynx would be the sole obstacle standing between them and victory. She’s a living cheat code. We had plans for every other member of your cohort. But not for her. Neither the Phantom Knight nor the Tyrant of Apex were the biggest threat to us. It was her.”

If she was trying to poke at my ego, it was working.

Casey huffed out a dark chuckle that immediately degenerated into a fit of violent coughing. “I mean, the girl beat Kaelron like it was nothing! Do you know how difficult it is to fight that guy once his insidious curse takes effect on you and saps half your power? It’s like fighting with both your hands tied behind your back. And she still did it. Effortlessly, might I add. But… Kaelron did his work.”

“The necrotic debuff,” I mumbled.

“Yeah,” Casey nodded weakly. “Kaelron’s spiked mace that gave her the puncture wound on her shoulder was enchanted with a damage-over-time debuff. But being the genius she is, Alexia managed to keep the damage to a minimum thanks to her Essence Circulation. You guys also had healing potions in abundance which helped her. We had accounted for all this. Our real objective was actually to distract you so I can sneak up into Ebony Castle and fight her. My sword was laced with a fast-acting neurotoxin. We knew no matter how precise Alexia’s control over her Essence was, she wouldn’t be able to fight the debuff and the poison at the same time. All I needed to do was get a single cut on her… but gods-damned she gave me the run for it.”

“Yeah, that’s great and all, but can we circle back to how you said I wasn’t the biggest threat to you guys? That really hurt my feelings.” I said, taking half a step forward— only to stop when her bloody thumb pressed a fraction of a millimeter closer, driving Thalia’s Ring into the central spire of the obsidian crown.

The crack immediately lengthened by a hairsbreadth.

“Ah-ah,” Casey wheezed, her blue-tinted eyes flashing with clarity before going back to hazy. “Don’t tempt me. I might be dying, but my reflexes are still faster than a corpse’s.”

“You’re not dying, Snowrite. You’ve just dramatically over-exerted yourself,” I replied, rolling my eyes as my face turned serious. “So let’s get to it. You have the Ring. You have the Crown. Why isn’t my sister’s faction victorious yet?”

The blue-haired girl was quiet for a moment. Then, “I want to make a deal with you—”

“You have some nerve, you conceited bitch,” if I sounded angry, it was probably because I was. I really was angry. “I came to you first! I extended you a helping hand and you spat back in my face! I offered you a way out of the corner you are backed into—”

“You offered me a gilded leash and asked me to put it around my neck myself!” Casey rasped out, her throat bobbing. “You asked me to open the Northern borders to the world! Not to just you, to the world! You’re fully aware it goes against our culture, and you still made such an ask!”

“That’s it?” I scowled. “That’s the entire reason you rejected my help? What good culture would do to a dead woman?! You’ll be six feet under in a few months!”

Casey shook her head slowly, raising her chin at me a little. “It’s not just that. It’s the assumed authority with which you asked for it. You did not tell me your plans, nor did you have any intentions of doing so going forward. You also kept all your other demands vague. Why? Because once I’m obligated to you and signed your contract, I wouldn’t be able to defy you.”

My scowled eased a little. “I told you those favors wouldn’t be one-sided.”

Her gaze hardened in response. “Okay. Then look me in the eyes and tell me you wouldn’t have lorded over me once I took your hand. Tell me you wouldn’t have controlled Siocgard through me. People say Theosbanes always pay their debts. But they also say Theosbanes collect their debts tenfold. So tell me, Lord Theosbane, that I wasn’t trading my autonomy for your money.”

I stayed silent. I respected her intelligence too much to lie to her face.

Yeah. She wasn’t wrong. I was going to do exactly what she said. But unlike what she was probably thinking, I wouldn’t have done it for power.

The North was the first one among all the other five Safe-Zones to fall. In the game, the Queen of Black Rot turned the entire great white plains into a mass grave.

Frozen ghouls, flesh-sculpted horrors, skeletal monstrosities, and all kinds of undead abominations ravaged whatever life remained after the first onslaught.

The destruction that ensued was unprecedented.

But it didn’t just end there.

Two years after the Queen of Black Rot’s first appearance, a Phase 9 Portal ripped open in the northern skies.

A Phase 9 Portal…

First of its kind in Earth’s recorded history.

A gateway for a god to descend upon the mortal world— or, well, a false god anyway.

The Fall of North directly accelerated the Final Apocalypse, granting Spirit King himself the access to humanity’s home.

In simple words, if the North fell, the rest of the world was on a countdown to extinction.

My demands to open Siocgard’s borders, to breach the North’s centuries of isolationist xenophobia, weren’t born out of greed for their land.

I was just a kid juggling a dozen different catastrophes, trying to pave a way to a happy ending.

But obviously, there was nothing I could say to convey that.

Taking my silence as my answer, Casey sighed. “My uncle butchered my family like pigs and forced me to eat snow to survive. I didn’t claw my way out just to be leashed. I would rather die under the weight of my own failure than live under someone as their vassal. As their puppet ruler. You wanted friendship? Friendship can only exist between equals. Anything else is just servitude.”

“…And what’s your proposition?” I asked, mulling over her words.

Casey flicked her gaze to the Crown in her lap before looking back at me. “Fifty million Creds for this. And then, after today, we will be friends. I’ll help you in your future endeavors as an ally. And you will help me reclaim my birthright without any ulterior motives… only if you want to, of course. Because friends don’t force each other into personal fights.”

I had made a great many deals with a great many people in my time. Hell, I have made deals with actual gods and demons! To this day, I can confidently say I never heard something so absurd.

“Just to be clear, you want fifty million Creds… and a pinky promise of friendship?”

“…Sure. Yes.”

“You never had actual friends, did you, Snowrite?”

Casey suddenly looked flushed, color rushing back into her freezing cheeks. “Huh? No, why would you say that? I-I had plenty.”

Sure, girl.

A soft chuckle left my lips despite myself. Then I took a deep breath. “Twenty. I’ll give you twenty million Creds, and you’ll be accompanying me and my personally selected Team on our first mission as second-years.”

It couldn’t have been more obvious how confused she was. “But—”

I cut her off before she could start an argument. “No. This is non-negotiable. I don’t care if you break the Crown. You’ve already kind of overplayed your hand. My sister would know you betrayed her after waking up. If I reject you here, you’ll have no allies. A lot of enemies, though… and I don’t think you want any more of those. You’ve burned your bridges. I commend how you went about it, but your leverage ends here.”

As the morning rays finished painting the sky in shades of orange and violet, the quiet set in thick between us.

Casey looked troubled. Because twenty million would only buy her ingredients for a cure, not an Alchemist who could concoct it.

Even Cadets in the Alchemical Society would charge more than that to brew something capable of neutralizing the Frostbite poison, let alone a master Alchemist who would demand political favors or astronomical fees.

In the end, however, she had no choice. So she bobbed her head in mock obedience. “As you wish, my lord—”

Swoosh—

A soft wind suddenly rustled her hair. She flinched, blinking and bewildered… then gasped when she realized I wasn’t standing where I was before.

In fact, I was nowhere in sight. I had vanished.

Glancing down, Casey confirmed the Crown on her lap was gone as well.

She lurched to her feet and haphazardly snapped her head around— only to find me walking toward the high throne, my back turned to her as I twirled the obsidian Crown in my hand a few times and placed it on my head.

“How—”

“Go rest now,” I said over my shoulder. “You’ve proved your point. You’re strong.”

Casey started after me, still shocked, but her legs gave out. Before she could finish taking her step, she swayed and fell sideways, her vision going dark.

When she woke up, the Mock War would be over.