A Villainess Should Be Strong

"Are you two sober now?" Estelle questioned, sipping her cup of fragrant chamomile tea.

She deserved it, especially after she single-handedly prevented the destruction of her home.

Single-handedly. Heine didn't do jack shit, he just stood there and watched.

"...Yes," Minerva replied.

"Minerva, I appreciate you trying your hardest to come to my birthday, but I didn't ask for you to bring a... maniac with you,"

"Maybe that's her birthday present for you," Heine said in a snarky tone.

Estelle sent him a displeased glare.

Sighing, her line of sight turned to the half-elf Yulia Eire.

Yulia was staring at Estelle with all her might. It was as if she treated Estelle as an object of observation.

"...Hey, would you mind stopping? I don't have a good impression on you, especially after how our first meeting... turned. Your stare is not making it better," Estelle protested. She had long accepted that her acquaintances consisted of abnormal people with no common sense, but even so, Yulia's personality might be too much for Estelle to take in.

"My apologies. I shall introduce myself properly. My name is Yulia Eire, a Witch and also Minerva's older sister. I have heard about you, Estelle," Yulia was a pretty calm woman when she was not engrossed in research or in a state of drunkenness.

"Estelle Clareste, soon to be your sister's official disciple. I can't say I'm pleased to meet you, but I hope my perception can change in the future," Estelle was blunt with her words, like she always was.

"I will try my best, so could you let me see you use magic? Oh, and if possible, please let me see your status," Yulia said, making the other three visibly shocked and confused.

Estelle had long learned from the others that statuses were actually meant to be kept to themselves except when you had to go through legal purposes.

Statuses would reveal the numbers that define your pure strength, which can be used as a gauge on whether there is a chance to beat you. Asking for statuses was usually done by arrogant challengers who only dared to walk up to whoever they saw as a potential weakling.

Even though the person might not mean that, it was still considered immoral for someone you weren't close with to suddenly ask for your status.

All in all, it was a rude gesture. People preferred to attain skills like Heine [Mind's Eye] to secretly take a look at others' status. [Mind's Eye] was rare, so there was another skill known as [Seeker's Eye] that was basically a degraded version of the former, but it had many restrictions.

"..You said you'll try to improve my perception, but the first thing you say is this?" Estelle frowned.

"I thought that peeking would be rude, so I asked. Also, your magic is interesting, to say the least," To Yulia, her words was polite and would even translate to a praise.

Correction. Yulia Eire was not calm. She was just someone who lacked in common sense, and one who did not know how to act according to the proprieties.

"A slave to knowledge and nothing else, that's what she is," Heine chided.

"Didn't think it was this bad," Estelle scratched her head.

Minerva trusted her sister, and often went to help her, so Estelle's problem did not lay in trust.

Minerva herself was quite the uptight person when she dealt with outsiders, but she would be very different with the people she trusted and their acquaintances.

For that kind of Minerva to act like a saint and help her sister meant that Yulia was not necessarily a bad person.

"I could do that, but would you tell me the reason?"

"It's interesting. Although it is something I've seen before, you are way different. I seriously want to do lots and lots of experiments with you," Yulia said, devoid of any guilt. She bore a resemblance to that of an innocent child, but the reality did not conform to the description.

"Again, that's just how she is. Forgive her," Minerva said.

"You guys are already immune to this. I will probably get there someday...?"

"Years. It will take years," Heine's gaze turned melancholic, sad air enveloping his whole being as he wiped his non-existent tears with a gentle smile.

"Heine, take your medicine," Estelle snapped her fingers and sent a fireball over to Heine's face. Obviously, it was diffused before it could harm him.

"I'm healthy, thank you for worrying," Heine's smile was sickly sweet, inciting Estelle to punch his refined features in a fit of anger.

"Anyways, I could show you... I guess," Estelle's attention turned back to Yulia.

Estelle made her status visible to Yulia.

Yulia, who now had this piece of information in front of her, was excited beyond the point of normalcy.

To a devoted researcher of the unknown like her, Estelle's status was akin to being gifted 20 servings worth of A5 Wagyu beef out of nowhere.

"As I expected, you really are one of the Constellations!" Yulia exclaimed.

"Constellations?"

"You also have a seal attached to your status... In total, there should be three seals? Two are placed on your titles and one on your race. Are you aware?" Not heeding Estelle's question, Yulia continued asking.

Two for the titles and one for the race.

One of the titles should [Reincarnated One].

"..No,"

"I really want to unseal it... Would you let me have a try?" Yulia grasped Estelle's small hands and looked at her with shining eyes.

"First of all, could you explain what the Constellation means?"

"An Elven... No, the Spirits should be aware of this as well. Some of the oldest Dragonkin, too. When the legendary Sage made wonders all around the world, he was always with these Constellations,"

"The Constellations are made up of twelve people that were directly chosen by the Sage to be on his side. They were basically the world's balance protectors.

Because all of the races did not want to unite, the Constellations were assigned to keep everything in check and eliminate any threat,"

"How would you know that I'm one of them?" Estelle could not find a connection between her and the so called Constellations.

"All of the Constellations held strange powers.. And with the recent breakthrough in my research, there is a possibility that the powers in question include Creation and its polar opposite, Destruction," Yulia explained thoroughly.

"Are you able to break my status' seals?"

"Depends. Before I make a statement, could you let me check the case's severity? I'll just... do a little poke around," Yulia stretched out her hands, like a tigress waiting for the right chance to pounce on her prey,"

"Unfortunately, I am not comfortable with you peeking in directly. Could you teach me the Arcana Magic instead?" Estelle blocked her wishes. It was not that she was unwilling, it was just that she wanted to avoid revealing her status as a reincarnated one.

Disheartened, Yulia protested. "Do you really believe that you can learn it from scratch? I heard that you weren't even able to learn Minerva's [World's Library] skill. How could you learn mine?"

Indeed, Estelle had once tried to create a magic similar to what Minerva's [World's Library] does. Not once did she succeed, but that didn't mean that the failure would deter her from ever trying to do something unreasonably hard.

"We won't know until we try. Maybe I'll succeed?" Estelle grinned.

"Foolish. I could potentially allow you to unlock a new power free of charge, but you choose to go the hard way," Yulia scolded.

"My preference," Estelle reminded.

"I could.. force my way in, but would that be too discourteous?"contemporary romance

"Stop it," Estelle glared, her face turning unsightly at the thought of Yulia acting her words out.

"...Yes, yes," Yulia backed away. "I have something to do, I will go first,"

Excusing herself, she left the vicinity in a hurry.

No one said a word after her departure, but the other two knew that Estelle had already regarded Yulia as an unpleasant person.

After escaping, Yulia stopped by a nearby tree and leaned her body towards it.

She was visibly trembling, her face drained of blood.

Her body dropped down and the tremors further increased.

Looking at her hand, she bit her lips until blood came out in order to ease the pain sprouting inside her. Her entire body felt like there were thousands of poisonous insects crawling inside, each and every one of them taking turns to bite her innards.

Lying on the patch of grass, Yulia clutched her stomach. Her nails were digging into her skin, but she couldn't feel any pain. The unknown pain that attacked her was way too great for her to notice blood coming out of the skin she pierced through with her nails.

"Est-elle..." Yulia spat out, suffering through the pain. She was on the brink of losing consciousness from just pure pain. One could only imagine how it felt to be her.

It was only after more than ten minutes did the pain fly away, leaving the exhausted Yulia drenched in sweat and tears.

"What the hell..." Yulia looked up to the blue sky and healed her physical injuries. She was able to gather enough strength to get up, but her mind was already deeply affected by the excruciating pain.

done.co