The Villainess Is An SS+ Rank Adventurer

The devil had timed his arrival well. 

Far better than his departure, at least … for when was darkness greater than the moment just before my joyful smile? 

Except I wasn’t smiling. 

No, not at all. I was raising my arms in exasperation.

Appearing like a dawn cresting from the wrong direction was a band of brilliant light, streaking from one horizon to the next like a golden aurora.

“Ooooooooooooooooh~”

Coppelia placed her hand to her brows, standing upon her tip-toes as she beamed at the sight.

Then, she turned to me, unhelpfully pointing at what I was doing my best to avoid acknowledging.

“Look! Look! … Isn’t this great? First it’s the super foreboding black hole threatening your tiny kingdom! Then it was a cackling lich! Then it was a reborn witch! Then it’s back to the black hole which is actually a door for an evil goddess! And now there’s a mysterious ray of light!”

I let out a tiny groan.

She’d missed the devil, and still the unwelcome guest list was overflowing past the clipboard.

“Firstly, my kingdom is not tiny. It is so vast that everybody thinks this is an open soirée. Secondly … why is there a mysterious ray of light?! I … I haven’t even done anything yet!”

Coppelia offered her sympathy as a giggle.

“It could be the other big guys. You know, one of the nicer, non-Goddess of Darkness, Mistress of Shadows, Sovereign of the Night and kicker of puppies ones.”

My mouth widened in horror.

“Are you saying this is divine intervention?”

“I mean, they probably don’t like one of their neighbours getting involved with all of our silly nonsense, right? I’m pretty sure they’re meant to have laws about that. And sometimes they even follow them.”

I raised the volume of my groan.

“Are all the heavens now going to join the dining table I haven’t set up? It seems they see the entrée is already prepared. Propriety has been tossed beneath the carpet and stepped on until it’s become artisan pâté. All they have to do now is gobble it up with their hands to complete the circle. How will I ensure there’s enough left?”

“I wouldn’t worry~” said Coppelia, uttering the words most likely to make me worry. “It might be something else too. I’m not really getting any burning holy magic from all this.”

I furrowed my brows at the golden smog.

“Are you certain? Because it looks remarkably like someone from the heavens has sneezed over my kingdom. Absolutely grim. This is not the type of holy intercession I need.”

“Well, it’s not like the big guys can’t hide it, but they normally like showing off, right? … That means there’s only one explanation left. Your sun is now officially upside down!”

I turned to the lich at once.

His hollowed eyes were facing the golden smog, his laughter silenced. 

Normally, this would be a relief. Yet all it told me was that something so calamitous had occurred it’d surpassed even his own lowest expectations.

“Coppelia says she can’t sense any burning holy magic. I sincerely hope this doesn’t mean you’ve irreparably harmed the sun. I need it working exactly the way it always has. If the sun is upside down, then so are my plans for my violets. Which direction are they supposed to crane? Directly upwards like reeds? That is unacceptable.”

The lich simply continued to stare.

“I concur with the clockwork doll,” he said after a moment, his tone almost curious. “This is not magic.”

I raised my hands, waiting for a better answer to be deposited.

“Yes? What is it, then? Because you’re not going anywhere until you fix this.”

“There’s nothing to fix. It appears mundane in nature. As highly unlikely as it seems, I believe this to be ordinary incandescent light, albeit being created at extreme intensity.” 

His skull turned towards me, the jaw breaking into a caricature of a smile.

“My congratulations, adventurer. It seems providence has deemed it fit to provide you with a saviour. A very optimistic lighthouse keeper. Perhaps when Lady Umbra steps through, she will be drawn to someone else for enough seconds that you can whisper a prayer for your soul. If you’re lucky, the goddess will even hear it as she steps on you.”

The lich’s jaw creaked as that unnatural smile widened.

It fell when I suddenly leaned towards him. 

“... A lighthouse keeper, you say?”

“A figure of speech,” he said, failing to turn away. “I’m uncertain how such luminosity is being derived. But it is merely decorative. To cast light even at this scale will do nothing but allow my spellwork a further bout of fuel. Clearly, someone other than you is desperate enough to try to drown out Lady Umbra’s shadow. I invite all aspiring meddlers to try. My [Eulogy Of The End] absorbs even the sun.” 

His eye sockets flickered towards me, hoping to see my despair.

Far from it, he saw my thinking face as I puzzled over a riddle I didn’t expect to solve.

“Hmm.”

I sent my interest towards the horizon. 

There was no lighthouse in the kingdom that could emit a band of light bright enough to pierce unholy darkness. If it existed, I’d be using it to draw an image of my smile each night. 

And yet if there wasn’t any magic involved, it couldn’t even be the Holy Church dredging up one of their artifacts to help push away the frightened mobs threatening their paid time off.

An unusual spectacle, of which few instruments were capable of emitting. 

It was unlikely to be anything purpose designed. Given the lack of prior use, it would need to be something cobbled together at extremely short notice. A prospect requiring someone both highly intelligent and likely very bored, somehow bludgeoning together the kind of apparatus which probably wouldn’t even work the first time around.

In short, the work of a gifted inventor, on par with any of the engineers of Ouzelia.

And that–was the reason why I smiled.

“Oho …”

“You cannot be serious,” snapped the lich at once, his bones stiffening in indignation. “Why are you–”

“Oho … ohoho … ohhohohohohoho!!”

The lich attempted to twist away.

He failed. 

Instead, he was gifted the sight and melody of my beautiful laughter unimpeded. And I ensured he absorbed every note. 

Because it was not only my laughter he was hearing. 

Indeed … I was currently providing it for two.

“My apologies,” I said, as the last of the mirth faded from my lips, but not my smile. “It’s just that I believe the one you refer to as a lighthouse keeper would actually suit such a title. She is famed for the lanterns upon her window which can be seen lit throughout the night as she continues her work.”

Bwooooooooooooooooooooooosh.

Immediately, a powerful wind swept throughout the field of rubble.

It scattered the leaves and rolled up my bangs, sending the pleats of my skirt sidewards. 

Even so, I continued to stand undaunted, knowing that any breeze being ushered was merely a prelude to what was to come.

“My condolences, lich,” I said, my voice easily lifting past the sudden disturbance. “As dark as your spell is, you would have fared better had the heavens chosen to intervene. After all, they may show restraint … but unfettered geniuses do not.”

The lich was stopped in his reply as the wind swiftly became a whistling gale, shaking him like a lantern upon a stick. He had nothing worthwhile to say anyway.

Indeed, he only needed to watch. And perhaps learn a lesson only a princess could teach him.

Providence came in many forms.

To most, it was a helping hand in times of need. A nudge away from an unseen precipice. A stranger’s rooftop in a storm. A spare barn when theirs had been run over by a royal procession.

But to me, providence came in the form of my siblings. 

Diligently fulfilling their responsibilities so I could focus on my important cultural studies, my brothers and sisters were my shield and armour. 

Endearing themselves to nobility and children alike, Roland, Florella and Tristan sacrificed their standards of hygiene so I could cling onto my innocence like the lich’s skull clung onto his elbow.

Naturally, Clarise did as well.

But she was also burdened with additional responsibilities.

She helped to ensure the advancement of our kingdom in ways nobody else could. And while she was no mage, she was by no means unable to perform magic. 

Why, just the simple music box she designed to assist in my singing lessons was so popular even the Royal Arc Theatre used them. When faced with an ominous ticking sound whenever the pitch was fractionally off, self-improvement rates were astronomical.  

Indeed, I had no doubt that if given due cause, Clarise could fashion her observatory into a lighthouse.

One powerful enough to drown out the shadow of a goddess.

… Even if that resulted in her younger sister almost being swept off her feet. 

Bwooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh.

For a single moment, the world became my hair flapping in my face.

Somewhere in the distance, trees groaned, branches buckled and roots were lifted as the force of a passing storm knocked into me. 

As the very ground threatened to be cast aside, all that allowed me to stay in place was my dauntless willpower, my unbreakable determination, and Coppelia holding me in place.

Something not everybody had access to.

“–Guuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

A lich screamed as his skull rotated at a hundred revolutions per second.

All I saw from him was a seamless blot of colour. Yet as the squall passed and the fractures in his bones returned, there was no time for respite. 

BwwrRuuMmmMmmmMmmmMm.

The sound of rolling thunder drummed in the air.

But it was no bolt of lightning which followed.

High above, the band of light diminished into a fine thread. The storm calmed. The darkness returned. And a lich attempted to vomit where no stomach was able to lift anything up.

A heartbeat later, the light returned as a lance piercing the darkness.

Luminosity concentrated into a shining pillar of illumination. It streaked across the blackened sky like a shooting star hurled from a trebuchet. 

And its destination was the writhing abyss. 

Painting flames in its wake, it crashed directly into the centre of that waiting void with all the might of a hammer seeking to break an anvil. 

And when it did–

BWOOOOOOOOOMPH.

Ripples of light were sent in all directions.

As I raised a pair of unfashionable spectacles somehow retrieved from my bottomless pouch, I marvelled at the sight of brilliance so total it could blind angels. 

Despite the spectacles, I could barely wince through the dazzling illumination as the light all but devoured the darkness.

It was the fury of a tide swallowing a tiny pond in the sand.

Great blots of ink writhed and squirmed like the surface of a cauldron boiling over. A groan akin to a capsizing ship filled the air. And what began to sink was the schemes of a lich whose eye sockets could only become hollower.

The lance struck and continued to strike, piercing through the abyss and exiting the other side.

“Ooooooooooh …”

Coppelia and I shared the same awe as we admired the sight. 

All at once, a sudden flash filled the sky like an encore as the lance began to fade–alongside the wart it’d struck. 

The darkness rescinded, almost seeming to collapse upon itself as the assault only persisted, for even though the lance was dissolving, the light did not. The silhouette of the sun emerged like a blossoming lily, its golden petals wrapping around the shrinking darkness. 

Daylight was approaching.

… At least for a moment.

As unnaturally as a ball pausing as it rolled down a slope, the blot of darkness ceased to shrink. 

It pulsed instead, its boundary stretched and twisted so violently it seemed it would simply be torn apart.

And then … the silhouette of the sun dimmed once more. 

Because at that moment, something even darker than black appeared amidst the last throes of the lich’s spell.

A slim thing, horizontal in contour.

It pushed its way through the black hole, its form almost like the tip of a monstrous dagger as it held the gap in place, spilling ink and malice as it arrived.

A moment later … I realised what it was. 

My, how very unexpected.

The tip of a fingernail.

And unless I was very much mistaken, it was pointing towards–

Me.