The Villainess Is An SS+ Rank Adventurer

One thing was for certain.

Marina with an ‘I’ (tentative) was no escape artist.

Having freed herself from the villainy of a door handle, she was now attempting to use the corner of the wooden frame to shear her bindings.

She was failing. 

Even so, I watched studiously. A look which would by no means result in my tutors holding one another as they feared for the end of the world. 

I was, after all, known for my meticulous planning, and since my fate as a beautiful princess was to be abducted to some far flung corner of the world, bundled in a damp corner with only a forgotten hermit nearby as company, knowing what would and wouldn’t work when it came to escape was highly useful.

My findings–wait to be rescued.

“What are you two doing here?!” said Marina, her cheeks burning redder than the flames she was clearly unable to conjure. “... And don’t just watch! Release me!”

I poked her once more. The wriggling instantly increased.

“We’re here on behalf of the Juliette Fixes Everything Foundation.”

“What is that?!”

“A charitable endeavour providing free tax advice. And if you desire our assistance, it will require more than donations, but answers. Now, why are you here?”

“I’m here for work!”

I was aghast.

Work was a definition I alone abused! There was nothing this failed schemer did which constituted work …  yet. 

Because where her hands were currently tied with rags, they could soon be bound with the joy of productivity instead.

“What work could you possibly be doing? Lowering the standards of schemers? Your job is to shamelessly escape every defeat while pretending like you were holding back all along. How dare you allow yourself to be captured in such a demeaning manner! These are common rags!”

“There is a silencing ward around these dungeons! It doesn’t matter what I’m bound with!”

“Is that how you were defeated, then? You simply walked into a silencing spell?”

“I did not walk into a silencing spell,” she said through gritted teeth. “I was thrown here after I was captured. By that senile buffoon. Alberic Terschel.”

“... Who?”

“The headmaster of this tower.”

I nodded, thankful I had no idea who he was. My mother and father had done an exemplary job. 

There was a reason the Royal Villa didn’t house a court mage. And that was because the more we were associated with, the greater the chances of our curtains spontaneously bursting into flames.

“Well, then it appears there’s at least one soul here who deserves acclaim.”

Marina brows furrowed in seriousness. Her shoulders dropped as she conceded to a door frame, her bindings still resolute. Her least embarrassing defeat.

“You would need to search far and wide, then. That man’s soul is currently locked away in a phylactery.”

“Excuse me?”

“Alberic Terschel,” she said with as much scoffing as venom in her voice. “He has become a lich.”

Coppelia and I looked at each other. 

“Did she say lich?”

“Mmh~ I heard lich!”

“A lich,” declared Marina, her nose wrinkling. “The greatest and most ambitious of undead. Masters of bone and flesh, life and death, darkness and decay. And all for the small price of forfeiting any notion of achieving their goals by their own merits.”

“... And you’re saying this is the headmaster?”

“I am. Alberic Terschel has now transcended the mortal coil … for reasons all to do with why I see the two of you in front of me, I suppose.”

My mouth widened.

“Once again … you’re saying the most powerful spellcaster of the Royal Institute of Mages has now become an even more powerful undead spellcaster?”

Marina rolled her eyes, going through the full spectrum of motion she had available.

“Please. Saying he’s become more powerful is a needless compliment. He was and will always be a mage of limited renown among niche circles. For someone whose writing was always bottlenecked by his own lack of ability, it’s no wonder he would try to cheat his way to acclaim through lichdom. But it’s true that whatever he was before, he is now beyond the scope of anyone here to handle. This includes you.”

I blinked in disbelief.

Why … I’d merely thought that some old imbecile with more magic than sense had tried to dye their beard!

But a lich!

They were the undisputed lords of the undead. Foes so wicked that even a dragon would pause before crushing them into dust and going back to sleep.

Mages who did away with all the laws that governed their kind, to instead seek the law of unmitigated ambition instead. They willfully tore the soul from their own body, and in doing so, became their first victim. 

Shorn of any part of themselves which could keep their unrivalled magic at bay, they were to my fair kingdom what a caterpillar was to a peony.

If a lich was responsible for the black hole reeking havoc with my orchard, then that explained why even a gaggle of receptionists were uncertain what it was!

It was … it was truly dire.

A threat beyond anything my kingdom had ever known.

And that meant … everything I now did was legal.

“Oho …”

Marina eyed my reaction with confusion. 

“What are you–”

“Ohoho … ohhohoho … ohhohohohhohoho!!”

The woman blinked in alarm, all the while wriggling slightly away from me. As she should.

I needed the space to dance and twirl.

This … This was wonderful!

A lich!

An avatar of evil! A plague upon law and order! Everything I did in the pursuit of its removal was officially righteous! I didn’t even need to bribe a judge to deem it such! The headmaster was behind this? And he’d become an all powerful undead fiend?

Why, I could reshape this entire tower brick by brick and it would be classed as nothing but an official purge of necromancy!

This was an unlimited carte blanche to do as I pleased!

I could empty its vaults, change its curriculum, audit its taxes, fire the staff and then rehire them again at lower salaries! Any hint of pushback would be squashed by pointing at the giant tombstone I raised dedicated to all the orchards which wilted due to their lack of oversight!

Suddenly, I gasped.

If it was for the purpose of destroying undead, I … I could even order a chapel demolished and its sanctified remains hurled as a weapon! 

I could double dip … for the greater good!

“Coppelia!”

“Present~”

“Are there any establishments belonging to the Holy Church nearby?!”

“The last chapel we passed was 3 days ago. The sister there was nice. She let me drink from the sacred water basin and pretended not to notice.”

I let out a small groan.

That was too far away. As much as I’d enjoy a rare opportunity to launch a chapel with only minimal fuss from the Holy Church, I couldn’t further risk my orchard by dallying.

No, I’d need to find another excuse another day.

Evidently, Marina was of the same opinion. She wore a look of disbelief at the notion I’d pass on such a chance. 

“Didn’t you hear what I said? The headmaster of this tower is now a lich.”

“Yes? … And what of it?”

Marina groaned as her bindings dug into her wrists, such was her obvious attempt to throw her arms up.

“‘What of it’?! A lich! A. Lich. Do you have the slightest idea of how absurd they are? No matter what fruit slimes you’ve beaten in your time, you have never come across a foe as powerful as this! A lich is a personification of darkness and despair! You should be terrified at just the very thought of … w-why is this so amusing to you?!”

“Ohhohohohohohoho!”

Unable to contain myself, I fully covered my mouth. Even so, it did nothing to stop the solitary tear from appearing in the corner of my eye.

A personification of darkness and despair, she says! 

… As if I hadn’t already seen six of that just today!

There was a veritable horde of receptionists just outside, watching my every step for even the slightest blunder! And when I did, that façade of customer service would be replaced with fiendish cackling as they shed their skin to reveal whatever horror lies beneath!

I should be terrified? I had no terror left to give!

“My apologies,” I said as I wiped the loneliest tear away. “I do not mean to denigrate your well-placed fear in magic superior to your own. But–”

I held up my finger, stopping the complaint as it came.

“–But I’m not a mage. And while I acknowledge the horror you must have experienced serving hoodlums as a shopkeeper, I have seen the true face of terror. And it comes not as a lich, but as an uncannily fixed smile like shaped clay. A lich is an oversized ferret in comparison.”

“A lich is not a ferret! It is a lich! Do you even know what they can do?!”

“Judging by what I see, create ghastly stains in my sky which will need cleaning.”

Marina gawped. An odd squeak came out. I wasn’t certain that was healthy.

“That is a spell of unfathomable power! Even for someone without a speck of magical acumen, you should look at it and instantly quake in your boots!”

In response, I offered my most soothing smile.

I watched as the mouth somehow widened further. An impossibility only slightly less likely than a princess defeating a lich. After all, what hope did an innocent maiden like myself have against something composed of so much vileness?

That is what a commoner would believe.

Thus, I leaned towards the captive now suddenly trying very hard to escape again.

“Rest assured, I do not take this opponent lightly. But merely exactly as I should.”

“No, no, no, no,” said Marina, as if we were haggling over hoof balm for Apple. “You are wrong. This is a lich. You are not. It’s as simple as that.”

“Indeed, it truly is. One is a lich. One is not. And the fact that I haven’t poured away my soul into some copper pot somewhere to be lapped up by a stray cat means I am infinitely more intelligent.”

Marina’s eyes briefly shut as a note of pain struck her. The harsh realisation of something so simple evading her. A common sight.

“Intelligence means nothing to the fact that a lich is nigh on indestructible,” she said with a click of her tongue. “You can disregard every encounter you’ve lucked your way through by tossing ducks and setting arcana crystals alight. The fact is that your sword is a thousand enchantments short of being able to destroy a lich. Neither you nor the clockwork doll possesses a weapon capable of disintegrating the magic which empowers its defences.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Oh? … In that case, I wonder if I should seek out whichever mages are sheltering in their corners to assist in breaking this magic?”

Marina let out a snort.

“These mages couldn’t detect their headmaster turning to lichdom even after ordering a thousand ritualistic candles to his chamber. They are utterly useless. To break a lich’s magic, it would require even stronger magic. A mage of unparalleled talent and knowledge regarding the forbidden, the arcane and necromancy.”

I turned to Coppelia.

“What did you say the Withering consisted of again?”

“The forbidden, the arcane, and necromancy~!”

I leaned towards the suddenly paling mage with a clap of delight.

“Well then, Miss Marina Lainsfont–isn’t it just as well that we have you?”

Her mouth widened. She attempted to wriggle away.

Just before she let out a groan.