I Enrolled as the Villain

I ran toward the Commoner Union squad I had been tracking. Their outlines grew clearer with each step until one of them noticed me.

Panic struck.

He shouted something, and they all scrambled to flee.

But it didn't matter.

My left eye flared up in bright violet

In an instant, ice engulfed them from the neck down, freezing their bodies mid-motion. Only their heads remained free.

I approached slowly, raincoat dragging against my shoulders, soaked and heavy.

They looked up. Wordlessly

I stopped in front of them, staring down.

"What's your objective? Why are you here?"

One of them the one in the middle, likely their leader glared up at me through the frost.

"We'll never tell you anything!" he shouted, voice hoarse but proud. "Disqualify us if you want. We don't care."

There was no fear in his tone. Only defiance.

I glanced at the leader's wrist a syncwatch. Still intact.

If they wouldn't talk…

Then their silence would speak for them.

"Hey—what are you doing?!"

I shattered the ice around his arm, letting the fragments scatter across the ground like glass, and yanked the device free. Waterproof. Luckily.

I moved to the next one. Then the next.

Each time, I broke the ice. Each time, I took their syncwatch without hesitation.

Their silence cracked faster than their shields.

By the time I finished, I stood with five syncwatches in hand cold metal, still glowing faintly with mission data.

One of them the youngest, maybe trembled.

"No… please…"

My breath left slowly. I didn't enjoy this. I wasn't proud of it.

But hesitation now would cost lives elsewhere.

"I gave you a chance," I said softly.

The five syncwatches gathered in my hand hummed faintly as I turned back to the leader, stepping forward.

He was frozen from the shoulders down, the jagged sheen of ice climbing his coat. His wrists were bare, exposed from when I took the watches. His face remained uncovered, flushed with defiance, jaw set.

I didn't speak at first. Just knelt, eyes level with his.

"I'm not trying to humiliate you," I said quietly. "But I need to take what you're carrying."

He said nothing.

So I raised my hand.

The ice creaked, then cracked. I carved it open along his chest, carefully, just enough to reach. No more than necessary.

I grabbed the edge of his coat, opened it gently, and slipped my hand into the inner pocket.

His expression shifted in Realization.

I pulled it out.

A bronze bell. Slightly dented. pulsed with quiet faint mana woven into its shape. A relic. One that could be harmless, or something far more dangerous in the right context.

My fingers closed around it, thumb brushing over the worn edge.

I didn't say anything.

Just stood up, the bell in my hand, and looked at them

And then, with one last glance, I let the ice rise.

Their bodies froze over completely the glow of disqualification flickering around them as their figures dissolved into light.

Silence fell.

I stood there a moment longer, syncwatches in hand, raincoat heavy with water and responsibility.

Then I turned and walked away.

By the time I reached the stronghold, the rain was still falling heavily but it no longer felt like a threat.

Not like before.

I paused near the edge, my coat soaked through, watching the monsters swarm below. The Rainbiters were trying again climbing, scraping, lunging. Some had reached the lower walls, others the support beams, their limbs clicking against stone.

But the students on the rooftops had already taken position. Arrows, spells, even crude spears they fought with urgency but no panic.

We'd survived worse.

I reached into my coat and pulled out the bronze bell, the relic.

It looked unremarkable, battered along the rim. But it pulsed against my skin like it remembered what it was.

I closed my fingers around it, drew in a breath, and gave it a single shake.

The sound wasn't loud. It was quiet. Soft. Like a lullaby played underwater.

Then I fed a thread of mana into its core and sealed it.

A silence followed.

Moments later, the effect rippled outward.

The Rainbiters stopped.

Some froze. Others began retreating, crawling back toward the forest shadows they came from. The rest were swiftly picked off by the rooftop turrets… and by Silas and Cendric, who moved like shadows between the towers.

It was over.

For now.

As the last of the Rainbiters were eliminated, I noticed the rain starting to shift.

It hadn't stopped far from it but the wind had dulled, and the downpour, though heavy, no longer stung against my skin like it used to.

A weaker cycle. Finally.

I landed back inside the stronghold, boots hitting soaked stone. The squads moved quickly toward me, raincoats hanging loose and battered some lined with shallow cuts, others streaked with mud.

I glanced at Silas first. His coat looked untouched, pristine like the rain itself had respected him. Then my eyes turned to Cendric.

Slashes and seams torn open across his coat, as if he'd walked through a blade field. But no blood or injuries. Just a mess of fabric.

Weird, I couldn't help but notice the way Cendric shifted his gaze, looking away awkwardly.

Rank 2 genius must've fought hard.

Too hard.

Then i look at a guy beside cendric and silas.

His toolkit was a wreck wires exposed, tools scattered, half-soaked blueprints sticking out. His hands were trembling, likely from trying to fix that turret while monsters swarmed and time pressed down on him like a blade.

Anyone would look like that.

Then my gaze turned upward the rooftop squad.

They hadn't changed much. Still composed, still standing. Just… slower. Slouched a little more than before. Their mana reserves were wearing thin, clearly.

"Con—" I started, but the rain muffled the word.

Better to speak inside.

I turned and led them back toward the entrance, where we'd first arrived. Marlen and the rest of the internal squad were already waiting just past the gate, dry under the awning.

One battle down.

But it wasn't over.

The reinforced steel doors hissed open as we stepped into the stronghold. Warm lights flickered on overhead, casting sharp reflections across the floor. The rain's thunder dulled into background noise as the heavy doors sealed behind us.

Ahead, Marlen and several squad members waited.

As I walked toward them, a few nodded, some offering faint smiles.

"Congratulations."

"Well done, Leader."

Marlen stepped forward, her eyes sharp as ever.

"So," she asked, tilting her head, "why are they here?"

I didn't respond right away. Instead, I reached into my coat and pulled out the five syncwatches still faintly humming, the screen edges blinking low red. The air around them felt… wrong.

I handed them to her one by one.

Marlen took them slowly, her brow furrowed. Her fingers hovered just over the screens, inspecting the patterns, the data.

Then—

Something tightened in my chest. A flicker.

My left eye pulsed, instinct flaring.

Warning.

In that moment, I saw it.

Beneath the surface of all five of the watches their buried deep in the circuitry, masked behind layers of false code a compressed mana signature blinked twice.

A timed ignition.

Two seconds.

A bomb.

My left eye flared up instinctively.

In a blink, all five syncwatches in our hands compressed into glittering specks, each one no larger than a grain of dust.

"What—?!" Marlen gasped, staggering back as the watches disintegrated from her palm.

The particles hovered for a moment.

Then—

Flash.

A burst of blinding light erupted from my hand— tiny, but far too bright for something so small. Even with my normal eye, I saw it. A sharp, searing flare.

Each particle-sized watch exploded in silence, mana bursting outward in miniature.

Even that… was enough to scorch the air.

If I hadn't shrunk them—

If even one of those devices had gone off at full size—

The entire stronghold would've been leveled.

We would've been disqualified.

I exhaled slowly, letting the last of the shimmering sparks fade across my vision.

"How reckless," I muttered under my breath. Not at them.

At myself.

I almost missed it. Almost let us all burn.

As soon as the light from the tiny explosion faded, I restored the watches to full size.

What appeared in my hand… was nothing but charred ruin. A blackened, broken shell. Ash and twisted metal.

I stared at it in silence.

Then closed my hand around the remains.

It burned. But i didn't let it go.

I should've seen it earlier. I'd been too focused on the objective, too confident in control. If I had hesitated a second longer… if I had handed them off without checking No, this was on me. I let my guard down. And for what? A moment of trust? That kind of mistake could've gotten everyone disqualified.

The weight of that near-miss sat heavy in my chest. I couldn't afford errors like that not now, not with stakes this high.

To be able to create an explosion that powerful…

This wasn't the work of a simple Commoner Union.

It was too advanced. Too intricate. The craftsmanship alone ruled out any ordinary hand.

Not Red Line they'd already been dealt with.

And not Valkcross either. Aurelia wasn't the type to play games with hidden bombs. She was brute force, not quiet sabotage.

No… this kind of detail, this level of precision

It had her written all over it.

Selene Dais.

The Blue Star of the Hero Association.

Of course it was her.

Only the corporate labs under her command could manufacture something so flawlessly disguised compact, silent, devastating.

A mana bomb embedded inside syncwatches? That was tech only the Hero Association could afford to waste on a test.

She'd made her move.