I'm a Villainess but So Popular

Episode 21

Translator : Missme Editor : Aru

“……what are you?”

I said to Edwin Boyleis, who was leading the bullying, “My first-round opponent and follower of Eugene” then walking out with my hand in my pocket like a bully in the ’80s.”

“Hold, hold on, Edwin…….! She’s….!”

“No way, Yerine……! Spade…..?”

Yeah, there’s no way he couldn’t recognize this face when it was so rumoured.

My hair stands out even to my eyes, so who doesn’t know my face?

Seeing those who checked my face faltered, I purposely opened my red left eye wider and glared at them fiercely.

“I won’t say it long. Get the hell out of here.”

I said clearly with my arms folded and my back erect.

But if they were the ones who would be turned off after being told to, they wouldn’t bother Erica in the first place.

A couple of people looked nervously at me, constantly looking at me, and the rest of them stood idly with their mouths open as if they didn’t understand me.

The only person who did not give up openly was Boyleis.

“Didn’t you understand? Leave her alone and get out of here.

Boyleis, who clearly showed no intention of following my words with a bad look on his face, replied with a snort.

“You’re from seven families and you’re famous, but I don’t know what right you’re telling me to do this or that.”

said Boyleis, who had crept away and slowly approached me.

“Are you a professor? No, you are not. You have no right to give me orders.”

When I heard that, I burst into laughter.

Then he narrowed his forehead. I tapped my head with my index finger as I looked at Boyleis, who was staring at me because he didn’t know what to say.

“You, it doesn’t work well here than it looks.”

The remark sent Boyleis into a rage.

“What are you–”

“You, I know that you only believe in the power of the Ace family, but you have to lie down looking at the place to lie down.”

In my words, except for Boyleis, the rest looked at me with puzzled eyes.

Then, Erica, who kept her head down, moved weakly.

“If you’ve thought of staying with Eugene, shouldn’t you be able to figure his personality? Eugene doesn’t like to have useless problems like this. You shouldn’t make room for that.”

I heard a crackling sound.

With it, Boyleis lowered his voice and began to growl.

“Who are you to order me to do this and that? You were just lucky to enter the Academy without any skills.”

I smiled back at his words with a hearty smile.

“Sorry, what are you saying now?”

“There’s no way you can do magic properly without primary and secondary education. There’s already a rumour going around that you joined hands with the prince to enter the school.”

Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

There was already a conclusion in my head.

The conclusion is that I should cut this baby off when we have a fight later.

“You know, Boyleis, you think I’m giving you orders now?”

Raising the corners of my mouth, I smiled and asked Boyleis cheerfully.

There is a rumour that people who must have been really mad are scary when they laugh.

From this point on, Boyleis suddenly flinched and started to show a little bit of firmness.

“Ye, yeah. What is it then if this isn’t a command? Get rid of the illusion that all your powers will work even in the Academy, Spade.”

Slowly approaching Boyleis who said so, I warned him a little.

“I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. This is not an order.”

At that moment, I drew in my head the magic fire circle, which I often think of, to the point where I’m sick of.

At the same time, a flaming red flame began to spark from the right hand, with a splash of fire.

“Argh!”

I may have been deliberately igniting the magic fire, but a scream broke out among the crowds behind them.

“It’s a threat.”

I opened my eyes wide and rolled up the corners of my mouth and said with a smile.

I don’t know well because I can’t see my own face, but perhaps my eyes twinkling to the point where the eyeballs pop out and dealing with the fire looks quite scary.

As the magic fire was activated and the heat gradually spread around, Erica raised her head.

At that moment, my eyes met with her cherry blossom-coloured eyes, which seemed to be dripping wet.

“Sorry, my hands are a little slippery. If I slip a little more, you might get hit with it, right?”

“Hiik-”

Already, all but Boyleis’s personnel were creeping back and preparing to get out of this situation.

Boyleis, by contrast, was so surprised that his hands were just shaking as they were.

“Oh, come to think of it, Boyleis.”

With a broad smile, I turned my head toward him, and said, looking straight at his white-paled face.

“You were my opponent in the first round, weren’t you?”

“Wha, what?!

According to the response, it seems that he did not even read it properly after receiving the paper with the opponent’s name on it.

‘Wow, you really only tried to live up to Eugene, but you didn’t prepare anything else at all.’

“I’m really looking forward to the game in the afternoon, Boyleis.”

“Tha, that’s ridiculous! You’re lying, aren’t you, Spade?”

Boyleis stuttered.

Now he seemed to have abandoned the idea of confronting me.

The fear of meeting me in the first round of the tournament seemed to have hit him harder.

“I’m sorry, but it’s true, Boyleis.”

“Y, you–”

“Yes, as you said, I’m not incredibly good. So I’m going to try really hard, and I want people to know that.”

After saying that, I talked while growing a big flame.

“So I’ll try my best to play against you in the tournament later. Then you’ll be satisfied, too, right?”

“S, Spade, wait–”

“Oh, that’s right. Even though I’m not that skilled, I have enough skills to make you one whole roast.”

When I smiled as a finishing touch, all of them screamed and splashed into the woods.

But Boyleis, who didn’t even have the strength to do so, flopped down on the floor and said,

“Spade, gi, give me a break……… If I go right now, you’re not going to deal with me with flames, are you? Isn’t that right?”

I replied with a broad smile.

“I’ll see it. Oh, right, if you touch her one more time, and then–”

I laid my voice low and muttered in a tone as threatening as possible.

“At that time, I won’t even care about the tournament or what, but your life is about to end.”

After banging my teeth, Boyleis stood up and ran to save his life, leaving me and Erica in the backyard.

It wasn’t until the gang of bullies disappeared that Erica raised her face properly.

Immediately he approached her and handed her a handkerchief.

“Wipe it off with this for now…..”

Then I reduced the size of the flame, which had continued to be activated until then, and put my right hand beside her.

“Let’s warm up a little with this and then go in.”

Looking blankly at me, Erica took my handkerchief quietly and began to brush her head and face roughly.

After a while, she had roughly drained the water, roughly squeezed out her handkerchief and folded it finely and returned it to me.

“…thank you.”

With her cheeks flushed and a small voice of thanks, my eyes turned sideways. I had to bite my lips and try to hold on to the leash of reason.

“Oh, no, it’s nothing…”

I’m sorry, Erica. I hate it when you’re in pain and suffering, and I’m so sorry that you’re wet, but you look so cute right now…….!

I looked as serious as possible because it was clear that the real relationship would end if I was caught.

“You were that girl back then… right?”

“Huh?”

“The pencil case.”

I nodded enthusiastically, startled by Erica’s question, looking up at me, I mumbled.

“Uh, uh! That’s right, that’s right!”

“I’m sorry back then……”

Erica, who said so, buried her face in her lap.

I was wondering what to do with this, and Erica kept talking with her face buried.

“I’m sorry. You know, I’m a commoner, and I barely know how to use magic, so everybody hates me. You’re a great wizard, and you’re a nobleman, so I thought you’d hate and bully me…… So I was scared and eventually avoided…….”

I listened quietly to Erica’s burst of words.

‘So that’s why she was afraid of me that day……’

Then Erica raised her head again and grabbed me by the collar and said,

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have thought you’d be the same as those kids.”

Erica looked straight at me with her pinkish jewelled eyes.

At that time I admired the sincerity in her eyes, without much thought, “Cute, pretty, our heroine is the best.”

“Oh, no. Just, um…..I understand enough. I would have done the same.”

Erica smiled gently at my words.

“Thank you.”

Ugh, am I going to die of a heart attack before the first round?

I don’t know, if I fall down, Cassius will come running and save me.

“But why did you help me…..?”

“Uh, uh, it’…”

If I say <i>‘of course, you are my favourite heroine and it broke my heart to see my favourite heroine being bullied’</i> in front of her, I will naturally be treated as a madman.

“Well, it’s–”

But when I saw her looking closer to me and looking at me with twinkling eyes (though I may not have intended to look like that), I couldn’t escape the answer.

“I, in fact, want to get close to you…..”

In the end, the real intention had to come out.

In my answer, Erica asked, surprisedly, with rabbit eyes.

“Why? Is there a reason you want to be close to me?”

Of course, there is. Because you’re my lovely heroine……..

After thinking about how to give a normal answer, I finally decided to gloss over it.

“Well, does it have to be for a reason to get close? I just thought I could be a good friend with you.”

Is this… is this enough?

On Erica’s face, looking far away at me without saying anything for a while, I regretted it for 3 seconds.

But she immediately closed her eyes, smiled brightly, and spoke to me in a more relaxed voice.

“Pfft, what’s that–”

I looked at her face and thought.

‘Mom, I got close with my favourite heroine, today…..is the happiest day of my life…..’

So I sat in the backyard with Erica, laughing for a while.

***

“Yerine Spade.”

I proudly entered the court line at the voice of the professor calling my name.

The professor, who confirmed my name and face, immediately called the name of the Boyleis.

“Edwin Boyleis.”

Boyles, who came in with a bite of his lips, seemed nervous at a glance.

“Ready.”

I lowered my posture to the professor’s words and turned the simulation inside my head.

‘There should be no error……’

Of course, it took little effort to beat him.

But to make it perfect, I need to control my mind and power.

“Start!”

As soon as I heard the whistle, I activated the magic fire, and from my right hand, a wide red flame slur began to dance.

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