Became the Patron of Villains Novel MTL - Chapter 150

Chapter 150
Alon’s face was utterly devoid of expression.

He wondered if his eyes were deceiving him and blinked several times, but the man standing before him continued to regard him with a beaming smile and a look of profound admiration.

“……You are Prince Karsem, correct?”

“Hm? Ah, yes, that’s me. Heh. I suppose I look a little different now.”

Watching Karsem rub the back of his head in a self-conscious gesture, Alon slowly managed to shut his hanging jaw.

Seolrang appeared indifferent, but Evan, who had been uncertain, was visibly stunned, his mouth agape.

People could change, but this was a transformation of an entirely different magnitude.

Alon remembered the Karsem he had encountered six months earlier.

Back then, to be blunt, Karsem had been little more than a pig on two legs.

His garments seemed perpetually on the verge of splitting apart, and his face was a permanent mask of frustration and self-pity.

And that wasn’t the whole story.

His disposition was so conceited that the label ‘miscreant’ fit him better than merely ‘troublemaker.’

But what was Karsem like now?

The pronounced triple chin that once defined his silhouette?
It was gone.
Completely vanished, as if it had never existed.

The eyes that once simmered with resentment and insecurity?
Now they were clear. So clear, in fact, that they even conveyed a sense of warmth.

Furthermore, he appeared to have grown considerably taller for some reason.

“……You are profoundly changed.”

“That’s correct. And I owe it all to you, my lord—I mean, Marquis!”

“Is that so?”

“Yes……!”

Alon was still having difficulty accepting the reality before him.

No matter how intently he stared, he couldn’t comprehend the extent of this man’s metamorphosis.

‘……This is straight out of a fantasy serial.’

Involuntarily, he thought of the web novels he had once avidly read.

A common plot involved an average protagonist taking over the body of an indolent, overweight noble. Through rigorous effort, they would shed the weight, become strikingly handsome, and earn the awe of everyone around them.

To be honest, he had never fully bought into that trope.

Even if someone lost a lot of weight, wouldn’t their fundamental bone structure and features remain the same?

But now, Alon finally understood the servants in those stories who would applaud in amazement.

‘……Now I get it.’

As he was lost in these thoughts,

“Please, take a seat. My father should be joining us shortly.”
“Very well.”

Following Karsem’s gesture, Alon and his companions settled into their chairs, and shortly after, King Carmaxes III made his entrance.

Alon, who had finally collected himself, began to partake of the feast.

Yet, he felt a distinct unease because of the general mood.

“It’s remarkable that you’ve already attained the first rank.”
“Not at all, it is entirely due to the marquis’s instruction.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes!”

……The cause was Karsem, who spent the entire banquet singing Alon’s praises.

“……He speaks of the marquis constantly.”
“I see.”
“If not for the marquis, I would surely still be living a wretched existence…… For that, I am eternally grateful!”

And he did so with immense frequency.

“No, I did very little. You accomplished this yourself. There is no need to attribute it to me.”
“No! As I said, without your influence, I would have remained as I was!”

It was excessive.

Alon felt his hand, concealed beneath the table, instinctively curl into a fist under the intensity of Karsem’s fervent, unwavering gaze.

……Karsem seemed completely, unshakably sincere.

***

The following day, after a banquet that had, for Alon, been an exercise in pure awkwardness.

“Marquis.”
“What is it?”
“I’ve looked into the matter, and it appears public opinion of Karsem has shifted dramatically.”
“To such a degree?”
“Yes. Surprisingly, he is now being rated more highly than the First Prince.”

Hearing Evan’s report, Alon inquired, a flicker of curiosity beneath his calm exterior.

“Truly, to that extent?”
“Yes. Because of this, I hear the internal dynamics of the royal palace are growing somewhat unstable.”
“Is Carmaxes not taking steps to control it?”
“It is said the king himself is remaining silent on the matter.”

Even the king is saying nothing?

At that, Alon let out a soft, thoughtful sound.

‘So that explains the look Karan gave me.’

He recalled the gaze Karan had directed at him previously.

It was a look that had been less than amicable from their first encounter, which had left him puzzled.

If the kingdom’s internal situation had indeed grown tense, it made perfect sense.

The fact that King Carmaxes III was not intervening in the palace’s current state of affairs was essentially a silent endorsement of a power struggle for the succession.

‘……From the king’s perspective, it isn’t a completely illogical decision.’

While the First Prince, Karan, was preferable to the Second Prince, he was hardly the ideal candidate for a capable monarch.

He was simply the lesser of two evils.

In such a scenario, it was natural for the king’s favor to shift as the Second Prince began demonstrating greater promise over time.

Ultimately, Carmaxes III, though a father, was a king first and foremost, and his thoughts were more aligned with his royal duties than his paternal feelings.

‘……The curious part is how a contest for power is even possible between the long-acknowledged First Prince and the only recently recognized Second Prince…… but that is not a matter I need to trouble myself with.’

In any case, after considering all the circumstances, Alon felt he understood the recent developments.

‘So Karan believes that Karsem’s change is because of me.’

Naturally, from Alon’s viewpoint, it was somewhat baffling.

He hadn’t done anything particularly extraordinary for Karsem.

“Marquis, what are your plans now?”

Evan asked at that opportune moment.

Alon responded without pause.

“My business in Colony is concluded. I intend to finish the remaining tasks and then depart.”
“Tasks? Ah, you mean the monster you mentioned before?”
“Yes.”
“Shall I wait here again?”
“That’s right…… though you seem rather pleased by the prospect?”
“Not at all.”

Evan’s face clearly displayed an expression of relief—’Thank goodness! No strenuous labor for me!’

Alon felt a faint, inexplicable irritation.

For a fleeting moment, he considered bringing Evan along, but the thought was brief.

He released a soft sigh and dismissed the idea.

In reality, this journey wasn’t for confronting the desert monster directly, but was merely a preliminary scouting mission.

Alon thought of the desert monster, ‘Scorpion.’

‘It would be convenient if I could handle it while I’m here.’

Regrettably, that desire was unlikely to be fulfilled.

He didn’t even know Scorpion’s precise whereabouts.

Unlike the other monster, Rikrakamur, whose location was clearly known, all that was known about Scorpion was that it resided somewhere in the immense desert, a place devoid of distinguishing features.

Even in the game, locating Scorpion required a significant investment of time.

You had to complete the temple questline that provided a guide, a process that took about three months of preparation before you could even think of facing Scorpion.

Naturally, one could theoretically roam the vast desert without the guide and search for Scorpion’s lair manually.

But why didn’t anyone do that?

Because finding Scorpion’s cave in the desert was akin to locating a single needle in a massive haystack.

Furthermore, there were the ‘Scorpion Soldiers.’

These were the guardians of the monster’s lair.

They were Alon’s secondary reason for focusing on preliminary work now.

Though called scorpion soldiers, for a magic-user, they were often more troublesome than Scorpion itself.

The scorpion soldiers, fashioned from sand, numbered in the hundreds.

They regenerated endlessly upon defeat, and in terms of game levels, each one was considered expert-tier, making them a severe nuisance.

Moreover, their weapons were all envenomed, meaning a single successful strike could prove fatal.

However, there was a way to circumvent these vexing scorpion soldiers—if you obtained the guide via the temple’s prerequisite quest, they would all crumble into harmless sand.

“I will set out tomorrow.”

Alon finalized his decision.

“I shall await your return here.”

As he looked at Evan, who for some reason once again seemed irritatingly content, Alon thought.

‘……Maybe I should just take him with me after all.’

***

At that very moment.

Somewhere deep within the vast desert, in Scorpion’s cave.

Or more accurately, in a space so enormous that calling it a cave felt insufficient, the scorpion soldiers—entities that should only have awoken in the presence of intruders—had risen.

Yet, they did not advance.

No, it would be more precise to say they were incapable of moving.

The hundreds of soldiers that had stirred to repel the intruder.

Crackle! Crackle-crack!

All of them were impaled by tendrils of black lightning, shuddering as they hung suspended between life and death.

Moving with leisurely grace through the ranks of the paralyzed scorpion soldiers, a Beastman with silver-gray hair advanced.

His stride was supremely calm, utterly unperturbed.

Maintaining that same unhurried pace, he ambled past the hundreds of immobilized soldiers, eventually reaching the very center of the cavern.

Ssshhh-!

Once again, soldiers began to stir and emerge from the sandy ground.

But that wasn’t all.

Shriiiiik-!!!

Instantly, far more soldiers than before erupted from the sand, swiftly encircling the man.

Soon, the monstrous roar of Scorpion, who had been slumbering deep within the cave, thundered through the air.

Yet, the intruder’s face showed not a trace of alarm.

“Ho—”

Instead, as if he found the situation amusing, the man breathed a soft exclamation.

Crackle-!

He enveloped his body in a shroud of black lightning.

In the next instant.

Zzt-!

His form vanished.

When he reappeared, there were no longer any scorpion soldiers in his immediate vicinity.

Instead, what stood before the man was—

A monster.

The scorpion, Scorpion, who had lived for nearly a millennium while safeguarding one of the five great relics of sin.

Yet, despite the sight of the scorpion drooling as it fixed its gaze upon him, the man’s smile remained bright and cheerful.

“Well, this is acceptable. When I returned to the surface, I was somewhat disappointed that the seeds had not sprouted as vigorously as I had anticipated—”

He tapped the creature’s head lightly with a single finger.

“You can assist with that.”

The moment black lightning coursed from his hand.

!!!!

Scorpion convulsed violently.

Almost immediately, the monster’s earthy brown coloration began to shift.

It deepened into a shade as dark and profound as the abyss.

Observing the transformation, the man—

“Now, shall we go and greet him?”

No, the apostle of ‘Pride’ turned his gaze in the direction of Colony.

“And while we are there, I shall pay a visit to my younger sibling as well.”

***

The next day.

Alon was making final preparations for his planned preliminary expedition, feeling somewhat more at ease.

There would be fighting, but with Seolrang and Rine having agreed to assist him, he felt a sense of security.

‘……Rine said she would make a brief visit to the royal palace, so we will depart once she returns.’

Therefore,

Alon was conversing idly with Seolrang, who was cradling a drowsy Blackie.

Until, abruptly,

BOOOOOM-!!!!

A colossal noise shattered the calm.

It was distant, yet unmistakably clear to every ear—a titanic explosion.

Alon sprang to his feet instinctively and rushed to the window.

He could not conceal his shock at the scene unfolding before him.

“Scorpion?”

The gigantic monster was demolishing Colony’s defensive walls and forcing its way into the city.

And then,

“B-brother?”

Beside him, Alon heard Seolrang’s voice, murmuring in stunned disbelief.