The smile on Lucian's face drops as his eyes follow the sword that was almost touching the skin of his neck to the person holding the sword, Luna.
"What are you doing?" Lucian's voice carried a strong, harsh tone. He doesn't want to believe that Luna is going to betray him at this moment, not when they have gone this far together. He wants this to be a misunderstanding.
"Thinking about myself." Luna stated boldly, but Lucian could sense the lack of resolve around her, almost as though she was filled with fear, afraid of him. "When you said that you wanted to be the one who killed Luna, I thought it was for the same reason I wanted her dead, revenge because she tried to kill us, but you only wanted her powers. You were only thinking about yourself, Lucian. In a way, it almost seems like you are no different from that dead bitch."
Lucian's face twisted into a dark expression, genuinely offended that he was being compared with Nova. "Put down your sword." He said. He didn't want to fight Luna, not that Luna was someone who could fight against him in combat; he would win. Lucian knew everything about Luna's combat ability, her strength, and her weakness, and he had been personally helping her in her training for physical strength, along with teaching her some combat skills that could help her stand and fight for herself in the future. Not once did Lucian think that Luna would ever want to use what he taught her against him, but then again, humans are ungrateful creatures; that's one thing Lucian has come to accept ever since Thorin betrayed him, and Luna, like Thorin, was also human.
"I'm not trying to strike you down." Luna said sincerely.
Lucian arched a brow in doubt at her words.
"I just don't trust you." Luna continues, refusing to put her sword down. "If you are the villain now, then we can't be teammates anymore. I will join another team if I can." Her healing ability was useful, so she was sure that regardless of her appearance, others would accept her into their team. Luna liked how Lucian never judged her based on her appearance, even though they had gotten on each other's nerves and insulted each other a lot of times. Their relationship at first started like something that couldn't work out, but at the end they were able to work together regardless of their differences.
"Why?" Lucian asks, annoyed, knowing something that Luna didn't want to admit to his face. She may be weak and may not be the best option as a teammate, but other than her healing ability, she was loyal, and that was the type of person Lucian wanted by his side.
Luna put her sword down and sheathed it. She looked at Nova's dead body that was filled with horrific wounds. "Working with you has been interesting, Lucian. Don't worry, I'm not going to tell the others that you are now the villain."
Lucian scoffed. "There will be no need for that. I can't believe that you actually let Nova's words get into your head. The real reason you want to quit is because you are afraid of me. You think that I will kill you one day just to steal your ability like I just did to Nova."
Luna clenched her jaw, embarrassed that Lucian knew the truth. He was smart and dangerous; she didn't want to ever enter into his book of targets. "Think whatever you want, Lucian; we were told that the villain of this game is destined to die. I want to live, Lucian; I don't want to die."
"Then I'm your best bet. I may be a jerk, but I'm not the sort of trash who murders my own teammate."
'especially when you haven't done anything to me.' Lucian thought.
"I'm not going to die." Since the beginning of the game, he had been hearing others say that he won't make it. He hated hearing it. "I remember one of those 12 jerks said that there has been a villain who won the game. I'm not going to fail. Join my team if you want to win and make it out of this place alive, Luna." He said softly, "I may be the main villain of this game, but this game also has a sub-villain who exists in every dungeon, but I don't know about what is going to be waiting for us out there, outside the dungeon." Lucian smiled to himself when he saw that got Luna's attention. He exposed Nova's hidden quest to her. Nova's system has required that she gain the trust of two weak players and then offer both players as a sacrifice to the dungeon's main villain; that way, she will be allowed to leave the dungeon without having to fight the beast.
"I wish I could bring her back to life and kill her again." Luna said in anger after listening to the truth. She hesitated and then said, "Fine, let's continue together as a team. We are going to need more people in our team, but with you being a villain, I don't think anyone in their right mind would want to team up with us."
Lucian was amused, wondering if Luna realized that she insulted herself. "If no one else is going to join my team, I'm going to make sure that I'm not the only guy wanted dead around here." Lucian moves through his broken system.
'This dungeon has a boss, who must be stronger than other monsters, so if this is truly like a game, there must be a way for me to contact other players through this damn system.'
"What are you doing?" Luna asked anxiously. She has a feeling that she isn't going to like the outcome of Lucian's plan, and his reply confirmed that.
"Making this game fun for our viewers up there by creating chaos." He smiled mischievously.
[Unrecognized player… not authorized…]
"Oh, shut up." Lucian grumbled out and forcefully got the system to do what he wanted. He made a video of himself with Nova's dead body while smiling. Luna watched with her mouth wide open in surprise.
In Lucian's video, he introduced himself as the new villain, stating that he started out as an ordinary player who was useless in the game until he killed Nova and gained his new status as a villain, leaving out the fact that he was only able to steal Nova's powers through his cheat skills and that his broken system wasn't capable of leveling up.
Lucian exposed Thorin as the hero and made wide possibilities of what could happen to anyone who killed him; perhaps they would become the new hero, a key player who is destined to survive. After stating that the same possibility could work with him, he laughed widely with Nova blood stained on his cheek before putting an end to his video. He gave every player access to his video.
Luna charged towards Lucian immediately after he was done, regaining herself as she knocked him off his feet and they both fell on the ground. She grips the collar of his worn-out clothes in rage. "You rotten… insane…" She felt lost for words. "I thought you said that you wanted to make it out of this alive. You didn't only set out a hunt for Thorin but for yourself as well." Luna felt like she made a mistake by choosing to stay with Lucian. She felt like the manipulative bastard was impossible to reason with. Regardless of pointing out his mistake to him, he was still grinning like an annoying fool.
"It's a trap." Lucian admitted. "I'm not going to be a coward and hide my new identity like everyone expects me to. Only you know the real truth about me; the others only know what I told them, what I want them to believe, so not everybody is going to want me dead. With the perfect act I just did, they will be too afraid to face me."
Luna raised her fist, and Lucian eyed it.
"Hit me." He warned, "And I will hit you twice as hard." He didn't care about gender.
The problem between Lucian and Luna's chaotic team is that as much as they hated to admit it, they shared a weird dark personality; they are both revengeful.
—------------------------------------------------------
"Nova." Thorin sobs. Tears pour down his eyes as he looks at the image of Nova's dead body that is displayed by his system; she was brutally murdered, and her eyes were left open, staring at nothing after her death.
'I should have stopped him from taking her,' he thought without bothering to think about Nova's formal identity as the villain that she hides from him. 'Lucian, I'm going to kill you no matter what. I will make sure you die a worse death.'
Thorin was distracted by his thoughts and barely noticed the fast movement heading towards him from behind. Before he could move, the sword that was used to attack him by one of his teammates scratched against the skin of his back and let out blood.
His attacker gritted his teeth in anger because the cut he made wasn't deep enough to cause serious damage. "I'm the one who deserves to be the hero; that power that has been wrongfully given to you belongs to me."
The rest of Thorin's teammates scream in surprise but make no effort to help their captain; instead, they linger close to the wall to watch the outcome.
Thorin was surprised and angry. 'I can't show weakness. To think that they all fell for Lucian's tricks.' He didn't believe that anyone who killed him would gain his ability, yet he couldn't understand how Lucian now had Nova's ability. Thorin wouldn't have believed it if he didn't see Lucian use Nova's lightning ability in the video he made.
Thorin's attacker yelled and charged at him again, using all his strength to try and cut Thorin down with his blade.
Thorin didn't pull out his sword; he easily knocked the sword out of his attacker's hand and then proceeded to strangle the man on the neck with his bare hands. His strength easily crushed his attacker's throat; the bones gave a painful crack as he gave his attacker a quick death.
"I'm the only hero around here. Is there anyone else who wants to challenge that?!" He yelled to the rest of his teammates, who kept a safe distance from him and shook their heads.
'I can't trust anyone in my team anymore.' Thorin thought in anger, 'This is all because of you, Lucian.'