I Reincarnated as a Villainous Noble and Want to Enjoy a Laid-Back Harem Life – I Have No Intention of Getting Involved in the Main Story, Just Want to Live Comfortably with My Female Slaves, but Everyone Around Me Keeps Treating Me Like a Hero - Chapter 2.18

A single wing extended from her right shoulder.

A tail protruded from her lower back.

Two horns sprouted from her head.

At this point, Hamenos could no longer be called an elf. She had become something else entirely.

“Uwehhhh…”

Lying beneath my foot, Hamenos let out a pathetic groan.

“…I see now.”

After a long session of reconstruction, she had finally spilled everything she knew.

“You were manipulated, huh?”

According to her, it all started when a white-haired old man approached her one day and led her down this path.

Both the spell that stole magic from the World Tree and the ritual that utilized it were given to her by this mysterious figure.

However, the magic that nullified spellcasting? That was her own creation.

Apparently, Hamenos had a unique trait—her voice was completely inaudible to elemental forces.

She had taken advantage of this by continuously emitting an ultrasonic frequency from her throat, one that neither humans nor elves could perceive.

In other words, it wasn’t magic at all—it was a physical phenomenon caused by her body.

So, even without my modifications, Hamenos had already been a monster in her own right.

“You believed him rather easily, didn’t you?”

“…It didn’t matter if I was being used as a pawn. As long as this kingdom was destroyed. My life was already over anyway.”

“I see. So that’s how it is.”

“Yes. I didn’t care. No matter what his true intentions were.”

“You’re quite the nihilist.”

This so-called “old man” had a keen eye for useful tools.

Hamenos had never appeared in the game.

And yet, in both the game’s storyline and my current reality, the World Tree’s spirit had lost its magic.

Was the cause truly the same in both cases?

Not just Hamenos—this white-haired old man, a figure capable of orchestrating such an event, had also never appeared in the game.

“So it’s the same culprit after all.”

This was just like before.

Back when I had exposed the sinister presence hidden within that fateful conference—the very reason I had been given the unwanted title of hero.

Back then, an unknown intruder had transformed into a demon right before my eyes.

Now, I was seeing the same pattern.

A demon that had never appeared in the game.

An unknown player pulling the strings.

And now, Hamenos—another figure absent from the game’s events.

At the center of it all was this elusive white-haired old man.

What a pain. This was definitely going to be a problem.

“Haaah…”

No, I should set that aside for now.

First, I needed to deal with the immediate issue—the crisis in the elven kingdom.

I might have gone a little overboard, especially with her watching.

I needed to show my good side, at least a little.

Cleaning up this mess completely would be the best way to do that.

“Alright, time to crush it.”

The spell siphoning the World Tree’s magic had been using Hamenos as a conduit.

Now that it was destroyed, another large-scale spell—one fueled by the stolen magic—had begun to shift.

In preparation for what was to come, I quietly began my next move.