I Will Create a Good Ending for the Yandere Villainess

Trials were the creation of the Jester using scenes throughout history belonging to Hearth—the world where it all took place.

Not only was it a way to test a mage's ability and potential, but also a mean for them to ascend up the ladder of Tiers, but it also acted as a form of entertainment for the gods watching.

However, to both create the Gates leading into the Trial and the Trial itself, the Jester must get something out of it.

In exchange for entertainment, the gods offer a percentage of their mana to the Jester. However, since all the rankings of Gates were different from one another, a measurement was created.

God's Value.

As long as the total number of participants managed to attract enough Divine Attention, they would be eligible to enter the Trial.

And if you weren't able to satisfy the Jester's requirements, it would forcefully send you to the Below Under—a realm filled with nothing but horrors...

It was also a place that Lillian would want to avoid at all costs.

Only a handful had managed to escape from there, but not without cost to their mental or spiritual selves.

This was the main reason why most Trials were taken in groups.

It was also seen that the failure to meet the Jester's requirement was a form of punishment for wasting its time, which Lillian found quite comical, but also chilling.

After recalling this piece of information, Lillian soon snapped out of her deep thoughts as she was face-to-face with a wall of rubble.

For the past dozen minutes, she and Viesta had been walking along the roof of the train to take a look at the obstruction blocking their way.

Having hopped off the train, Viesta looked towards Lillian, with her fingers pinching the rim of her hat.

She then asked:

"So, why was it that you wanted to check this out?"

Lillian, getting down from the roof of the train, looked toward Viesta with a smug look as she summoned a glass shard.

The woman raised an eyebrow, curious about the random item that Lillian held in her hand. But as soon as she took a look at it, she immediately flinched back.

What she saw was a grotesque human face—with no lips—smiling at her broadly.

It was a frightening thing to see, but it was something that allowed Viesta to grasp Lillian's intentions. However, before that, she asked:

"W-wait... You have a Shard? Like the Shard feature part of the system?"

Lillian, who was about to chuck the shard, looked back at her, grinning.

"I did say I'm lucky~..."

"Yikes...! You sure are! I killed who knows how many in my Trial and didn't get a single one." Viesta, envious of Lillian's luck, rubbed the back of her neck with a sigh.

"Jeez... I gotta find a posse of my own to take on my next Trial."

"Hahaha, you'll find one, I'm sure."

Lillian didn't really need to think much. Currently, if she played her cards well, she could have both Marionette, Millis, and Reph for a future Trial.

And as she thought that, she paused and scratched her cheek with a thoughtful look.

'I gotta find my 5th member.'

For each Trial, only a total of 5 people could join, unless there was a special circumstance where that rule was voided.

It was also the maximum number of part members you could have in the game.

Lillian chucked the glass shard towards the rubble. She watched as the shard spun through the air before shattering and reforming into the heavy Beetle.

And luckily, it was just about large enough to fit inside the tunnel.

The Beetle glanced around for a moment, raising an "eyebrow" at its narrow surroundings. Then, it noticed Lillian crawling under before pointing towards the rubble.

"Alright, Beetle! Clear up the path!"

As Lillian said this...

Nothing happened.

Lillian tilted her head, noticing the Beetle hadn't moved an inch at her command. And turning around to face it, she found it cringing at her.

Its eyes were narrowed, and its face became much more tense and wrinkled as it stared at Lillian with a look of bafflement. If it had eyebrows, its expression would definitely be a lot more dramatic.

It was as if it was asking Lillian: "How do you expect me to get through that?"

Lillian rolled her eyes, giving an exaggerated shrug, "I dunno, spit on it or something? Isn't your saliva really acidic—?"

Splat.

Stepping back, Lillian swiftly avoided a ball of acidic saliva, which melted slightly through the concrete.

Sizzle...

Her face darkened, but then turned twitchy as irritation took over.

The Beetle gave a low and distorted chuckle, watching as Lillian threw a tantrum before looking towards the rocky obstruction and spitting on it.

Sizzle...

Lillian watched expectantly as the Beetle's saliva ate through the stone, her face lighting up as she found her plan to work. But then, disappointment took over as the stone stacked above rolled over.

She and the Beetle watched this happen with dark expressions, even watching as one rolled from the top and landed on Lillian's foot.

"YOWCH!"

Lillian kicked the rock off her left foot and hopped on the spot, clutching her toes with a pained expression.

The Beetle raised one of its pointy legs and pointed it at Lillian. It then opened its mouth and—

"GYEHAHEHA!"

—Began laughing.

Lillian glared at it and grabbed onto its leg. The Beetle's body then warped and stretched, transforming back into its shard form.

The Rabbit then threw the shard back into her Mana Realm with a look of annoyance, as she eventually placed her foot back on the ground.

"Tch, stinkin' good-for-nothing Beetle."

She then turned back to find a wide-eyed Viesta, who seemed to have been stunned by the Beetle's presence.

Lillian tilted her head and asked:

"You alright, Viesta? Does he look that ugly from behind?"

"H-huh? O-oh, no. I-I think I was just affected by its Predatory Aura..."

Lillian raised an eyebrow before widening her eyes and opening her mouth into an 'O'.

'Oh... Predatory Aura... I forgot about that.'

In the game, you would be able to see the win rate of each battle. However, to the people of this world, this could be measured using a feeling radiated by a monster.

Predatory Aura.

Monsters would unconsciously radiate an intimidating aura of their estimated strength to a small radius around themselves.

Passively, this would allow them to find other monsters to devour and to grow in strength while also paralysing weaker monsters or putting them in a state of panic.

But humans were different in the sense that they didn't radiate this aura. And because of that, they were safe from being detected by monsters relying on other creatures' Predatory Aura.

And instead, they were given an intrinsic tool inside their body that allowed them to sense the strength of the monster. But that feeling would only appear if the chances of losing your life outweighed your chances of winning.

Lillian gave a small hum, "Really? Well... I guess he was really tough to take down, I suppose..."

Now that she remembered, she didn't even take it down. The Violet Tree, Morbasker did. And now that she thought about it, why didn't she sense its Predatory Aura?

Scratching the back of her head, Lillian wondered.

Did she actually have a high chance of winning? Or did she just have a high chance of living through the encounter?

'Well, I suppose Marionette was there, since she was just playing dead.' She then glanced down at her necklace, 'Could this also play a factor?'

...

Her lucky necklace definitely did play a part in her survival and fight against the Beetle, but as she thought about it more...

To what extent would her necklace protect her? If she were left alone to bleed out, how would her necklace go about saving her?

Could it... Save her from an inevitable fate?

Lillian, feeling a tap on her shoulder, snapped out of her thoughts. Finding herself back on top of the train, she found Viesta pointing towards the corpses.

"Do you have a lot of room inside your spatial storage?"

Lillian, blinking at her, smiled wryly, "There are way too many of them. I can't fit them all in my ring."

"Seriously...? Man, I can't fit them in mine either." Viesta facepalmed, disappointed, "I got a ton of stuff inside her spatial ring... This sucks, we could've made some money on these."

Soon enough, they returned to their cabin and listened to the intercom to find themselves thanked by the train driver and the staff. But not only that, but they even heard some cheers from the passengers.

Lillian gave a low hum, amused:

"Welp. I'm glad that they love us painting the train red." She chuckled.

After an hour, the authorities arrived, surprised by the number of corpses found within the tunnel before making it to the train. And soon enough, the obstruction was cleared.

They eventually made it to their stop, the Town of Blackridge.