The Villainess With A Heroine Harem

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Since Emilia didn't hide her 'strange' thoughts from Cynthia, the raven-haired girl couldn't help but voice her doubts. "What's with your obsession of making all the mortals around you 'shine', anyway…?"

Well aware that her partner only had two categories of 'mortals'—useful and annoying—Emilia coughed. 'I-Isn't it a good thing if my allies can reach their full potential? This way, um, they will be of more help!'

The raven-haired girl hummed thoughtfully. "Oh… that makes sense."

Meanwhile, Danielle and the others had already finished watching the first demo of 'Arcadia', and moved on to the 'additional materials' without a word.

Clearly, the hero knew how to pitch his dream project, or there was no way he would be able to lure most of the world into it. Even Danielle had no choice but to concede that if she'd ended up ignoring it, her team would have missed a wonderful opportunity.

Of course, it wouldn't go nearly as well if he hadn't spent so much time and resources establishing his reputation and building mainstream trust and reliance on the full-dive gear. In fact, Emilia believed that the only reason Arcadia hadn't been released before must have been not because it wasn't ready for the world, but because the world wasn't ready to accept it. b𝚎𝚍𝚗o𝚟𝚎𝚕.c𝚘m

But now, the hero and the world will must have judged that the time was ripe. And based on the events of the original timeline... they were right.

Emilia hummed in satisfaction as she observed their convinced and impressed expressions. 'Thanks to Darryl's thorough preparations, though, convincing them became much easier.'

Cynthia chuckled. "Being so proud of the hero's achievements… shouldn't you be more worried, instead?"

'Why should I be worried?' Emilia huffed. 'He might have a good starting point and some unique advantages, being the genius developer favored by the world will, but Arcadia as a whole seems to work on a very strict and fair set of rules.'

She grinned. 'As long as I work hard, catching up to and then exceeding him will only be a matter of time.'

While Cynthia admired her partner's confidence, a certain someone was obviously displeased by the crimson-haired beauty's 'smug' face.

Of course, Danielle couldn't deny that Emilia was in the right this time, and she also didn't want to make the girl sulk again. She had no idea how to deal with that, after all.

'T-This brat… she's even more annoying than my little brother!' She groaned.

It was a pity that she couldn't just reach out to squeeze those adorably chubby cheeks as she often did with her brother. Emilia would probably hate it, after all.

Danielle could already imagine the 'hateful captain bullies her teammates again' all over various gaming news outlets if she somehow made the crimson-haired girl leave.

Even if Emilia herself rushed to clarify it afterwards, probably no one would believe it.

Perhaps feeling her glum mood, Emilia reached out to hold the soft palm of the villainess with a smile. "I think this game has the potential to change the world, Danny. If we can do everything right… maybe we can make all our dreams come true."

Not knowing how true her words were, Danielle hummed, feeling a little dissatisfied still, for some reason. "It's true that Darryl is a genius. The full-dive machines are proof enough. But… even if this will be the best game of all time, there is no guarantee that it will be the best game for us as a team."

Before Emilia could soothe the ruffled feathers of the villainess, Sylvia interrupted them with a snort.

"Instead of being the top team in a second-rate game, would you not rather be a second-rate team in a top-tier game? Or has your ambition completely gone down the drain?"

The crimson-haired girl jumped at Danielle before the girl could explode in a fury, clinging to her arm coquettishly as she scolded the heroine. "Don't mind Sylvia being her usual rude self, please! Look at all the forums… everyone else is so hyped and determined to do well in Arcadia…"

She pouted. "If we don't start preparing for the launch soon, I'm afraid we'll be left far behind the others."

The heroine and the villainess glared at each other, but under Emilia's pleading gaze, they could only put their differences aside temporarily and agree.

"Alright…"

"If you say so."

Emilia heaved a sigh of relief. 'These two bickering kids… one day I might really need to teach them a 'good' lesson.'

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The time they had for preparing themselves for Arcadia's release was far too short, but that was only to be expected.

After all, the world will wished to transform this world to its ideal vision as soon as possible. And with the hero's reputation and influence, there really was no need to be too cautious.

The full-dive technology was well-established and adopted by the mainstream already, and giving Arcadia's marketing team a few days was just enough to maximize its hype. Waiting around any more simply made no sense.

Watching the clock strike twelve, Emilia sighed. "So it'll be today, huh… just a few more hours left."

Cynthia nodded. "You have to be careful of how you behave within the game. The world will's rules and influence over the game world will be many times stronger than it is in reality. You understand, right?"

The crimson-haired girl hummed in agreement. 'Of course, I will maintain a consistent character, and leave the management of my physique to you.'

Although it would be a while before the game world's abilities started being noticed by the common people, there was no way for them to know if the world will would notice her 'abnormal' status because of her void physique, after all.

Cynthia smiled. "Don't worry too much. With the suppression of the higher-grade energy of the world will, it's actually quite easy to prevent the properties of your physique from manifesting. It will only need a few little tweaks."

Of course, Emilia understood that even if she could gain certain abilities from the 'game' in this world, how much she could take with her depended on her own acquired understanding.

But that wasn't something they could test out at the moment, so she could only leave it for later.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The 'Crimson Witches' all met up in their full-dive room two hours before the official launch of Arcadia, and Danielle spent nearly thirty minutes giving them a final brief of all the information she'd managed to gather about the game.

Emilia had to admit, when the villainess was serious, she was quite diligent and thorough. She didn't hide anything even from her 'rival', Sylvia.

As for the heroine… well, her attitude still seemed too laid back, but that could only be her way of annoying Danielle. At least, Emilia hoped that she was being serious deep down.

Once only one hour was left, they all entered their full-dive pods in advance to wait for the game's 'server' to go online, and mentally mapped out their individual strategies.

The initial spawns were expected to be in random locations, after all. If any of them messed up, it might end up dragging the whole team down by delaying their first dungeon raid.

But while everyone else was worried about how they will make rapid progress with their preferred class, Emilia had something completely different on her mind. 'Cynthia… that thing with Crystal… it will work, right?'

The raven-haired girl grinned. "There's only one way to find out."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━