I Will Fulfill the Role of the Villain-Chapter 170

The name Felix carries the meaning of happiness, prosperity.

Born in a tiny, powerless country compared to the vast Hainere Empire, he nevertheless lived a childhood that could be described as relatively happy, just as his name implied. His parents were commoners, scraping by with subsistence farming. They were kind and loving, despite their lack of money or influence.

A weak nation. Poor, powerless parents. A life far from affluent.

But it was still a life he could confidently call happy, a life he believed would continue that way forever.

Until the Hainere army invaded.

The adults called it conquest.

A powerful nation expanding its territory by annexing weaker states to bolster its own strength — a practice so common that it wasn’t just happening here, but all across the continent.

But that explanation fell on deaf ears. Whether it was conquest or not, to Felix, it was nothing more than violence that had stolen his home and shattered his family.

The people of his village, who had once cursed Hainere as if they would never forgive them, soon started to rejoice as their lives improved under the empire’s rule, acting as though they had already forgotten their homeland.

He hated it. Hated it so much.

He couldn’t remember exactly when, but it was during some festival. That day, he saw the emperor of Hainere for the first and only time. Surrounded by citizens singing praises of his great achievements in expanding his territory by conquering one country after another, the emperor passed by with that infamous smile of his. Felix seethed with rage, but that was all.

He had neither the strength to act on that fury nor the courage to confront anyone.

He knew it, deep down. That his anger was nothing more than the temper tantrum of a child who couldn’t accept reality. That he was only looking for a target to vent his frustration.

So, he decided. He would just get used to Hainere and try to reclaim the happiness he had lost.

But the moment he resolved to move forward, his life was once again thrown into the abyss.

One night, while walking home from work, he was attacked by a group of strangers. When he regained consciousness, he found himself in an unfamiliar place. And as soon as he realized he was standing in a foreign land, despair set in.

His captors were a group of people who had the air of scholars. They all wore the same drab uniforms, their faces expressionless and grim. Whenever he saw them, they were either buried in books or scribbling something down.

There were others like him in that strange land. The cramped cell he was thrown into was filled with boys and girls around his age, all with the same blank, haunted eyes.

As he got to know them, he learned that the place they were trapped in was Vite, a city under the Rockbell Empire’s control. And the so-called scholars there — they were nothing short of madmen.

Each day, one of his “comrades” would be called out from the cell. Most never returned. Those who did came back gaunt, eyes unfocused, barely conscious.

“One of you. You’re next. Get up.”

Those words marked the start of the true hell.

The people in those uniforms repeated the same acts every single day. They injected them with strange substances, placed them on top of bizarre drawings etched onto the ground, and sometimes put them under with some kind of drug. When they woke up, their bodies were covered in fresh stitches. And the pain was unbearable.

Only after enduring it several times did Felix finally understand. This was an experiment — and they were the lab rats.

“This one’s showing exceptional responsiveness. He might actually be a viable subject.”

Because of that single comment, Felix was dragged out of the cell twice as often as the others. Eventually, he developed a resistance to the drugs they used to put them to sleep. He was forced to endure that unrelenting, excruciating pain fully conscious.

Surrounded by those scholars, looking down at him as if he were nothing more than a piece of meat, he suffered things he couldn’t even begin to describe.

He vomited blood. He vomited everything he’d eaten. The pain was so intense that he wanted to beg them to just kill him and end it all.

Eventually, he started to wonder.

Why was this happening to him? What had he done to deserve this? Why was he being subjected to a fate worse than death?

One day, during one of his rare moments of clarity, he managed to ask one of the scholars.

The man’s response was simple.

“There’s no one who would come looking for you if you died here. You have no country, no family left.”

Those words felt like a death sentence. As if to say that all of his suffering had begun the moment his country fell, when his homeland was crushed under the heel of Hainere.

At that moment, a face surfaced in his mind — a face he had all but forgotten.

The Emperor of Hainere.

For the first time, that face stood out so vividly, so fiercely in his memory. A rage so intense it threatened to consume him ignited, scorching through his veins.

After that, his memories became fragmented. Everything felt searing hot, as if his body was burning from within. The last thing he remembered was the black smoke rising around him and the terror-stricken faces of the scholars who had tormented him daily.

When he opened his eyes again, the nightmare was over.

The scholars who had tortured him lay dead, their limbs torn apart as if savaged by some wild beast. The facility he had been held in was nothing but ruins.

Feeling a strange, overwhelming power surging within him, he wandered aimlessly. He was no longer a boy. He ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) was something else — something filled with nothing but rage.

Instead of feeling grateful for having survived, instead of feeling relieved to have escaped that hell, he was consumed by the seething hatred that refused to abate.

So he wandered. And whenever he encountered someone who annoyed him, he killed them.

“That can’t be true, right? The people who were killed recently... all of them...”

“Yes, the conclusion is that they were all killed by black mana.”

“What the hell? That’s terrifying. Someone’s out there killing people with black mana? What is this, NOX?”

“NOX? Come on. NOX is just a myth. It’s a ghost story created to keep mages in line, a fairy tale from the old days.”

One night, in a shabby tavern, he overheard people talking. And in that moment, a path opened up before him.

Felix had destroyed the scholars who had experimented on him. He had destroyed their facility. And yet, the rage still simmered, refusing to dissipate.

If he was going to die anyway, he decided, then he would make sure to pay back every ounce of suffering they had inflicted on him.

Thus, the name Felix, which once symbolized happiness, was discarded forever.

***

“Did you create NOX just to get revenge on Hainere?”

“I needed a symbol too.”

Theo stared at Felix, whose entire body trembled uncontrollably as he struggled to contain his emotions.

If rage could be given a physical form, it would look exactly like this. Felix was nothing but a vessel of seething hatred. There was no room for any other emotion.

“Hey, Commander Redrick.”

Felix’s voice was strained, punctuated by ragged coughing.

“You came here to spout some nonsense about atonement, didn’t you? Trying to convince me to purify that mage? Waste of time. I’m not doing anything.” novelbuddy.cσ๓

“......”

Theo’s eyes sank deep, as if the light in them had been snuffed out. His pupils, now empty and hollow, gleamed with only one thing — murderous intent. Unconsciously, Theo’s hand moved to grip his sword. In that moment, he was ready to kill Felix without a second thought.

And then —

A soft, faint sound. Something dropped from inside Theo’s coat.

“......”

It was Luke’s button.

Theo’s eyes glimmered as he stared at the engraved name on the button. Slowly, he bent down, picked it up, and slipped the sword back into its sheath.

“Aren’t you going to kill me?”

Felix’s voice came from the darkness, laced with mocking laughter.

“Why not? Go ahead. Because of me, that mage is on the brink of death, right? Doesn’t that piss you off? Doesn’t it make you want to rip me apart? I understand. After all, we’re only human. That’s why I already became a monster a long time ago. Go on — why don’t you try doing the same?”

“...I’m not going to kill you. And it’s not just because you’re the only one who can save Luke.”

“Oh? Acting all merciful now?”

“Don’t get me wrong. I have no intention of showing you mercy. If I could, I’d break every bone in your body right here and now. I’d rip out every single tooth so you could never speak again.”

Felix burst into maniacal laughter. See? You’re no different from me. You’re just like me!

“But I won’t do it.”

“......”

“I’m going to take you to Hainere and make sure you pay for every single crime you committed through the proper channels.”

Felix’s laughter abruptly ceased.

“You’re right,” Theo continued, his voice devoid of any warmth. “No matter how good a person is, if they lose someone precious or face injustice, they’ll feel rage. But Felix —”

Theo’s voice was chillingly even, stripped of any emotion.

“There are countless ways to channel that rage. You could have made other choices. The reason you’re in this state right now, kneeling before me like this — whose choice was that?”

The smirk on Felix’s lips gradually faded.

“The consequences of your choices? Despite the pain you carried, you abused other war orphans just like you, forcing them into a life of crime. You fell apart because those children refused to follow you. How are you any different from the Sahar scholars who tortured you?”

Benzie. Hays. Dante. And all the other children. Not one of them remained loyal to Felix. Not a single one stood by his side.

“I wonder what you have left now, after all your so-called revenge. And even if you had succeeded, would that rage truly have been quenched?”

Theo kept pressing, one question after another. And Felix — Felix could not answer a single one.

“There were plenty of opportunities for you to reclaim your happiness. Just like the meaning of your name.”

“......”

“You called yourself a monster. If you’re truly determined to become nothing but a monster driven by vengeance, I won’t stop you. But if there’s even a part of you that still wants to hold onto your humanity, then think it over.”

With those words, Theo turned around and walked away.