The Villainous Noble Regressed With The Villain System

"Ugh. My head hurts like hell."

I mumbled, waking up from a weird dream, I couldn't make any sense of.

"Oh, you are awake?", a voice called out to me.

I instinctively flinched and tried to search for my weapon, and turned around, only to find out that the source of that voice was the Student Council President, Alicia Rowan.

She was covered in blood all over her body, her tattered clothes, a testament of the fight she must have undergone.

I still couldn't move my body, but as soon as I saw my sword, I grabbed it.

Out of pure instinct.

Alicia is not particularly a friend, I can trust, so I need to assess the situation right now.

"There's no need to be so tense," Alicia said, raising both her hands slowly, her palms open. "If I meant you harm, I wouldn't have waited for you to wake up."

Her voice wasn't sharp—it was tired. Strained. Almost… hollow. The kind of voice someone uses after they've killed too many people in one night and lost count.

Still, I didn't lower my guard.

"Where are we?" I asked, gripping the hilt of my sword tighter, though my arms trembled slightly.

"The underground infirmary. West Wing." She gestured around us, and only then did I notice the faint antiseptic smell. The walls were stone but smoother here, reinforced with mana lines that pulsed gently, like veins of light.

"West Wing was abandoned after the spatial instability incident last year," I muttered.

There was a mention of it in the novel, due to its strategic importance in all the events.

I looked around, and noticed that more people were here too, mostly for the purpose of being treated.

I see, so she used this as some sort of primary treatment center for the injured Guards and students, and civillians.

The fact that I am inside the Academy means, she must have done something to the barrier to let it enter me.

"Sigh...I seriously didn't think that the Administration would go this far. Usually, if a student is under suspension, they would be allowed to enter the Academy at least. But in your case, they modified the barrier itself to reject your entry, until your suspension was over. We had to modify it to bring you inside.", Alicia said, while pouring some hot coffee.

"Now, let's get to the main point.", she said, offering me the cup of hot coffee.

I looked at the coffee, out of suspicion.

She,.as if knowing something like this would happen, poured another cup, and drank herself.

I was a little taken aback, after receiving such treatment from Alicia, who is as upright as Aster, the protagonist.

"All the thralls stopped moving in an instant. As Unnatural as it sounds, when I arrived to investigate why it happened, I found your body and brought you inside."

She kept her cup on the table and looked at me straight in the eyes.

"So, what did you do exactly?, she asked with a serious tone.

Sensing that I was hesitating, she stood up from the chair, and bowed deeply, astonishing the other second year students present there.

No one had ever seen Alicia act this way before.

Moreover, bowing to a recluse like me was beyond their comprehension.

"Please, I beg you to tell me what exactly did you do, to stop those thralls. "

I can understand her desperation too.

She doesn't want to kill them, hoping they would convert back.

And she can't exactly deploy the already injured students and guards to defend the barrier without killing them.

If there was a method of restraining them without harming them, then she would definitely want to know it, no matter what.

"Can we talk in private?", I asked, signalling her if something secret.

She understood and signalled the others to move away from that room.

There was no way, I was going to tell her that I used my family's mana technique.

But, I can use her to speed up the process of finding Ariana.

The faster I find her, the quicker this thing could be resolved.

All that was there to manipulate Alicia, and make her think that she owe me big time now.

***

(Ariana's POV) :

The civillians were getting all rowdy, so I moved to a quieter place.

Is this what you call tit for tat?

Such a long history of vampires being oppressed by this human race.

And, now the tables have turned, finally.

I am just going to sit back and enjoy the sight of chaos a bit more, before making my move.

Well, the cure to this vampirification is Not the tears of the Saintess after all.

***

Outside the Academy gates—just beyond the trembling edge of the protective barrier—a chill wind howled across the broken courtyard.

The skies had dimmed to a sickly shade of violet. And atop the marble pillar engraved with the symbol of the Academy—a sword piercing through a radiant star—stood Valerys, barefoot and cloaked in shadows, her eyes shimmering with molten crimson.

A quiet tension held the air. Even the writhing thralls below her were still—suspended in a daze of silence.

Then she opened her eyes.

"…Hah. Crimson Pact Arts, huh?" Valerys let out a short laugh, both amused and mocking. Her voice cut through the wind, though no one had asked for her to speak.

"You've got guts, Dorian Valen… Using a technique crafted by us, the Children of Blood, against ourselves? You're either reckless—"

A flick of her wrist, and red energy crackled at her fingertips like blood set ablaze.

"—or interesting."

Her fingers snapped.

The atmosphere warped.

In a flash, the thralls—hundreds of them—jerked awake, their crimson pupils flashing with new life. The pact was broken. The choosing process... undone.

Whatever illusion or pause the Crimson Pact Arts had granted was forcefully bypassed by Valerys' blood magic—not just suppressed, but overwritten.

The air trembled with renewed violence.

With an eerie screech, the thralls began barreling into the barrier, clawing at it like maddened beasts. Their limbs twisted, bones snapped into unnatural angles to grant better reach, better grip. The barrier, already strained, flickered blue and gold like a candle about to die.

And then Valerys extended a single palm.

"Let's see how well this barrier holds," she said softly, almost lazily.

A beam of condensed blood—dark as night, pulsating with demonic sigils—shot forth from her hand, like a lance.

The beam struck the center of the barrier.

The entire dome vibrated. From within, students stumbled, a few even falling unconscious from the pressure. Mana lines flickered violently along the dome's surface.

Cracks began to form.

Inside, defensive wards strained to hold. Professors had yet to arrive. The few upper-year students capable of maintaining defensive formations had already been deployed at other breach points. Alicia had been forced to centralize defenses at the East Gate, leaving this section weak.

Valerys tilted her head, licking a smear of blood off her fingers.

"I'm more interested in you now, Dorian Valen," she whispered, almost fondly.

"More than the Saintess."

Her gaze drifted toward the Academy building. Beneath her, the thralls howled louder, and the cracks in the barrier pulsed with red light.

And then, she vanished from the pillar, as mist swallowed the sky.

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Author's Note :

Please comment down your thoughts on this chapter.

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