I Enrolled as the Villain

Selene Dais had already made her move. And now, she was using the Commoner Union to do it.

Of course she was.

She probably thought her plan had worked that I'd be disqualified. That there'd be no one left to stop her next step.

But the system hadn't triggered. There was no disqualification.

That blue-haired girl always tried the cheapest method first. Cost-effective, quiet, and efficient a move that a corporate tactician would make.

Why waste resources on a full assault when you could end the game with a single cut corner? If it failed, she'd escalate.

But if it worked… she'd win before anyone even realized they were playing. Rigging a few syncwatches to explode inside my stronghold? Classic Selene Dais. Low-cost. High-risk. And almost devastating.

And it almost worked if my Mythrigan hadn't reacted in time.

Luckily… I'd shrunk them before anything could happen.

The squad was still looking at me. Eyes narrowed. Confused. Waiting for an explanation after I'd made the syncwatches vanish and reappear nothing but scorched ruin in their place.

Marlen finally stepped forward, glancing from me to the blackened husk in my palm.

"What happened to the watch, Leader?"

I raised my hand, letting them all see the charred remains.

"It's the Blue Star," I said, voice just loud enough to carry.

Murmurs rippled through the group.

"This watch," I continued, "had a bomb inside. A mana-based explosive, compressed and hidden deep in the system.It is very hard to detect until it was too late."

Gasps spread through the students.

"Wait… my dad just bought stock in the Hero Association," one of them muttered in horror.

"I never thought I'd end up fighting the Dais family," someone else whispered.

"So they're doing the Cendric trick again, aren't they?" someone whispered behind me.

"And the one who planted it," I said, turning to the squad, "was Selene Dais. The Blue Star of the Hero Association."

Marlen's eyes widened. "Selene? I thought she was focused on Valkcross's Regent."

"She was. But I guess I've become a bigger problem than she expected."

Marlen examined the wrecked watch in my hand. Her voice dropped low.

"A bomb… this small? And it could've taken out the entire stronghold?"

I nodded once.

She inhaled slowly, eyes sharp with realization. "There's no other explanation. The Hero Association's tech is beyond anything we have. Even the Empire's elite labs can't hide a bomb like that in a syncwatch."

As Marlen's words echoed like a closing statement, I reached forward and took one of the scorched syncwatches from her palm. Then, without a word, I clenched all five tightly in my hand.

The broken metal crumpled under my grip, sparks of residual mana flickering and dying as the syncwatches were crushed into nothing.

The heat still lingered, burning my palm. But I didn't flinch. I let it.

Then I looked up at them at everyone who was watching and spoke loud enough for all to hear.

"The Blue Star. The Commoner Union. They've made their move against the Velvet Eye."

I stepped forward.

The crowd parted before me like a tide splitting open. I walked to the center.

"Do you remember what I said before this began? Before we entered the stronghold?"

A few nodded. Some whispered, trying to recall. Then Silas raised his hand, a little stiff, but certain.

I met his gaze and gave him a nod.

Silas stepped forward and spoke clearly, his voice carrying through the room:

"When the Blue Star rises over the Golden Body… don't look up. The answer won't be in the heavens. It'll be in the hands beside you. That's where you'll find your truth."

Silas's words didn't sound like an answer.

They sounded like prophecy, a statement that rang through the crowd, deeper than meaning, cutting through memory. The room stilled. Some students lowered their eyes. Others straightened unconsciously, as if something within them had been acknowledged.

Marlen stepped forward, slowly. Her voice was quiet, uncertain.

"If you said that, Kael…" she began, eyes fixed on mine, "what do you mean? We all thought it meant the Blue Star would defeat Valkcross, that she was the true winner… if we hadn't gotten involved."

She wasn't wrong.

That had been the story. In the novel.

In the original Stronghold arc. Redline was supposed to crush the Commoner Union on day one, then launch a surprise assault on both remaining factions. But Selene… she disrupted the sequence.

She instigated conflict between Valkcross and Redline, using her ability the wheel of mercury and subtle sabotage to ensure her own faction remained untouched.

While Azaila faced Aurelia, bathed in her Pale God form, tore through the battlefield and disqualified her…

Selene stayed behind.

She waited.

And when both titans clashed and bled themselves dry when Aurelia, the one ranked first in the academy, stood victorious but broken the Blue Star rose above them all.

Not through strength.

But through timing.

Through strategy.

Through manipulation.

She'd flown above the battlefield, calm and unscathed, and taken the Valkcross main banner with her own hands.

That was how the novel ended this arc. With the world looking up at the sky… and seeing only blue.

"Yes," I said finally, voice low but firm.

My answer wasn't for Marlen alone.

It was for everyone watching. Everyone wondering if the story had already been written.

And whether or not we could change it.

"The future already changed the moment we entered this competition. Don't worry. I'm here."

I remembered the novel

The old Kael, the one from the book, sat watching everything through a hologram screen, looking bored, detached. Surrounded by nobles and elites, the outcome already certain in his eyes.

Lucia sat beside him silently.

Just another shadow in a story that never asked her to speak.

That was the future they were all supposed to live through.

If I hadn't come here.

If I hadn't changed.

I looked at all of them now, the ones waiting for answers, for a future that still could be different.

"I'm here. And I sure as hell won't let her beat us."

As the words left my mouth, I felt the weight settle in. Selene Dais wasn't going to stop now. If I wanted to stop her, I needed more than resolve.

I scanned the faces around me exhausted, loyal, expectant.

Then I asked something I never thought I would:

"…Do any of you have ideas? On how to counter Selene Dais?"

Silence.

Eyes widened. A few students even blinked in disbelief.

Me? Asking for strategy advice?

A whisper broke out from somewhere in the back "Kael probably already knows what needs to be done. He's just testing us."

The student next to him nodded immediately, straightening up. "Yeah, totally. It's like… part of the plan."

Gods.

I resisted the urge to sigh.

I wish I had a plan, I thought, feeling a bead of nonexistent sweat roll down my spine.

Your leader wasn't exactly the most beloved student back in middle school.

Cendric stepped forward, head lowered, hair plastered to his face from the rain. He didn't say a word.

The others instinctively moved aside, parting to give him a straight path toward me.

Step by step. Slow. Steady. Purposeful.

Something about the way he moved—

Is he…?

Wait… is this one of those cool moments?

I have seen it in novel, the kind where someone walks through the crowd all slow and dramatic, aura flaring behind them like a storm about to break?

Yeah. That kind of moment.

Now I understand.

So this is what it feels like from the other side

Cendric finally looked up. His white hair clung to his face, and his left eye the Korigan gleamed with quiet light.

"Sometimes… the body just can't hold it anymore."