Reborn As The Minor Villain In A Romance Fantasy Novel

They were now standing in a luxurious training room located on one of the bottom floors of the Supreme Guild headquarters.

It had a wide arena with reinforced walls designed to withstand powerful awakened abilities and Lucius stood on one side casually, not even bothering to take off his GUILD Leader clothes that were obviously too heavy and restrictive for a fight while Cassandra, Supreme Man's sister had taken off the vest of her new uniform revealing the slick black bodysuit beneath which was specifically fit for fights and combat.

The other two Captains were watching from the sidelines with mixed expressions… Lucius was a very powerful individual, however he was more well-known for his space manipulation abilities, not wood manipulation and though wood was a very versatile element, it really didn't hold a candle to the absolute power of space in their eyes.

Ayela raised her hand as she stood on the field as well though at the corner, acting as the referee for this match.

"Ready…"

Cassie stomped one foot on the ground as she gave a proper fighting stance and looked at Lucius who looked very bored with the entire situation.

"Set…"

Ayela really hoped he'd take it seriously, Cassie was one of the captains for a good reason… Her mastery over the water element was really high as well and she shouldn't be underestimated.

"Begin." She finished.

Cassie immediately raised both hands and conjured multiple jets of high-pressure water, blasting them at Lucius in rapid succession from different angles in a coordinated assault.

The water cut through the air like liquid blades, each stream powerful enough to pierce through concrete walls easily.

Lucius didn't move from his position at all.

A thick vine made of wood erupted from the ground in front of him, growing instantly to form a natural shield that twisted and expanded to cover his entire front.

The water jets splashed harmlessly against the wood, deflecting in all directions across the training room in a spectacular display.

One particularly strong burst redirected completely toward the sidelines, soaking Ayela from head to toe in cold water.

"Ah!" Ayela yelped loudly, her clothes completely drenched and clinging to her body uncomfortably.

Cassie gritted her teeth and didn't let up her assault for a second.

She formed a massive sphere of water above her head, concentrating her mana into it until it was dense and heavy like a cannonball, then hurled it at him with tremendous force using both hands.

The vine split into multiple branches instantly, weaving together into a dense barrier that caught the sphere and dispersed it into harmless droplets that fell like rain across the arena.

"You'll need to do better than that if you want to win," Lucius said calmly.

With a burst of water pressure beneath her feet, Cassie closed the distance between them in an instant while rearing her hand backward for maximum power.

Water mages were not well-known for close combat at all but she had used concentrated water pressure to launch herself forward like a projectile at incredible speed and threw a powerful punch at him with all her remaining strength and determination.

Lucius caught the punch that she threw effortlessly with his left hand, as if catching a ball from a child and she raised her other hand desperately to blast him with water at point-blank range however he crushed her palm with his iron grip instantly, making her scream in absolute agony that echoed through the arena.

Different bones jutted out awkwardly at wrong angles and the water she had concentrated below her feet and in her other hand fell to the ground uselessly, losing cohesion as her concentration broke completely from the overwhelming pain.

"A water mage is prided on their concentration above all else." Lucius said as he swung her over him in a wide arc like a ragdoll through the air.

He wasn't going to be using Space to cast any spells during this fight as he had promised but that didn't mean he wouldn't use it to enhance the force in his physical strikes exponentially with spatial manipulation to increase the momentum and damage output of each attack he delivered.

He slammed her down to the ground with crushing force that shook the entire room violently and a massive crater was formed as the ground simply shattered below her with a massive shockwave that blew Ayela's hair back violently and made the watching captains stumble backward in shock at the display of power.

Lucius looked over at the crater with mild interest as Cassie's body turned into water, revealing it was a substitution technique she'd prepared beforehand as a backup defensive measure and then he looked around calmly to see the real girl behind him already throwing a punch forward desperately with all her remaining strength and mana reserves in one last desperate attempt to land a hit on him.

It collided however to Cassie's absolute shock, it didn't feel like she was touching skin at all… the Lucius in front of her became wood, transforming into a solid wooden tree that erected into the ground as a perfect decoy and then a devastating kick landed on her back with maximum force enhanced by spatial manipulation to multiply the impact.

It knocked the breath out of her lungs completely, nearly shattered her spine with the force and sent her flying across the entire arena to the other side of the wall like a broken doll.

Her face collided with the reinforced surface hard and blood splattered across the pristine white surface in a grotesque pattern… Lucius placed his leg down on the ground calmly as the woman who could simply be mistaken as a corpse's broken body slid down to the ground limply, leaving a red trail, making the other three watching from the sidelines yelp in surprise and horror at the sheer brutality of the one-sided match.

"There's a healer or something here right?" He asked casually, as if discussing the weather rather than the brutalized body behind him.

Ayela shook her head quickly in panic at the question.

"No, but there's a healing machine on the medical floor that suspends the injured bodies in specialized healing liquid for rapid recovery." Ayela said urgently with concern, "Should I take her there immediately now or wait for instructions?"

"Yes you should do that right away…" He replied while turning around to the door without looking back at Cassie's broken and bleeding form on the floor. "After that, the rest of you should come back to the meeting room on the top floor for debriefing and to discuss Guild matters. I couldn't care less about what happens to her recovery process honestly."

The wood tree dispelled into nothingness as well as he left the training room with confident strides and Ayela took a deep breath to calm herself as she walked over to Cassandra who was unconscious but still breathing somehow despite the massive damage she'd sustained to her body.

Awakened couldn't be killed that easily with their enhanced constitutions and natural healing factors that kept them alive even through severe trauma.

"Dumbass… now you've really done it and gotten yourself into this terrible mess." Ayela muttered under her breath as she carefully lifted Cassie's broken and bleeding body with both arms, trying not to cause further damage to her already severely injured state.

…

The three of them were in the meeting room again with Lucius and right now they had spent the past two hours sorting through mission files that had piled up during the hiatus.

"Why are there a whole lot of missions piled up here?" He asked with a sigh. As the Guild Leader, the mission files had to be approved by them before going down to the receptionist's desk for assignment.

"After the situation with the previous Guild Leader becoming public knowledge." One of the captains said as she passed her sorted pile to Ayela. "The government put us under temporary hiatus, preventing us from completing missions but the public could still issue missions to the Guild through the online system."

The other captain did the same, adding her stack to the growing pile.

"Yes and now we have over a thousand missions to process and do…" Ayela finished as she finished looking through her own pile with tired eyes. "There are more D and E rank missions than higher ranked B ones though, so majority of the Awakened in the Guild can deal with them without much issue."

"I see… that's manageable at least." Lucius passed his own pile over to Ayela. "We've settled the missions now, what else do we need to address urgently?"

"Boss, we also need to secure several raids from the government for dungeon clearing operations. Our position is being threatened since Grimmaw has risen to Top 4 while after the recent stunt with Supreme Man, we're hanging at Top 8… it's only a matter of time before we get brought down even more if we don't take immediate action." Ayela said seriously. "We need to clear more dungeons to maintain our ranking and reputation."

"So what are the exact things that influence a Guild's rank in the top ten?" Lucius asked while stroking his chin thoughtfully.

Alexia hadn't told him about most of these administrative details… and he was learning them on the fly but it was actually fun too, except for the sheer overwhelming stress that came from managing a Guild with thousands of members.

Supreme Man was really a complete bum and failure, apart from the mission papers, he still had several hundreds of paperwork to check out personally, detailing development plans and budget allocations and whatnot that had been neglected.

It really wanted to make him blast the man's head off with a spatial attack… however he would settle for making his sister's life hell because why not? She'd been the one to challenge him after all.

It was the quiet captain that answered this time, she had purple hair tied in a neat ponytail.

"Guild Leader, the factors that influence a Guild's rank in the top ten are the amount of contribution they've made to reducing the dangers in the world which is also clearing dungeons and by what marketable profit that they have made through various commercial means." The Captain pointed out professionally. "The former Guild Leader, Supreme Man was one of the many reasons we managed to stay in the Top ten while going on lesser raids… the government sold plushies as well as other merchandise of him and he went on tours as well as autograph events across the entire country. The money generated from these commercial ventures as well as our mission completion rate kept us in the Top ten ranking consistently."

"Okay, so there are different ways for increasing your Guild's worth, either through personal income generated by the leader or by group income from missions and dungeon clears." Lucius said and then smiled. "Well I'm not going to do anything Supreme Man did with merchandising and tours, so I hope all of you are ready to raid frequently."

The Captains all saluted at him with renewed determination.

"Good, I'll be increasing your salaries as well to compensate for the harder work ahead. The real work starts tomorrow morning so from now… all of you are dismissed for the day." He said and they all nodded as well in acknowledgment. "Come early tomorrow though. I'll be a little late since I have personal matters to attend to first."

With that, all of them began leaving the meeting room however Lucius held a hand up to stop one.

"Ayela, hold on for a moment." He said and she stopped immediately as the other Captains left the room and closed the door behind them.

"Yes, Guild Master?"

"You wanted to leave the Supreme Guild and join GRIMMAW right? You paid me quite a lot of money to give you a good recommendation as well." Lucius said, he was many things but he was not a scammer who took money without delivering on promises. "Do you still want to go there now?"

"No…" She replied rather quickly then looked down at the ground. "I'll manage staying here under your leadership."

"Okay then, I'm glad." He focused back on the paperwork in front of him and she looked at him expectantly… wasn't he going to give her a refund or something for services not rendered? "Why are you still here…?"

"Well I thought I would be getting a re-"

"-fund?" Lucius finished and he began laughing heartily at her assumption, she looked at him confused and laughed nervously as well. "No refunds ever."

"Huh, why not?" She asked with growing frustration. "I need that money back."

"I'm already increasing your salary as the Saintly being that I am." Lucius said as he tapped his finger against the table. "My services don't give any refunds back ever, I apologize for the inconvenience."

Ayela opened her mouth to argue forcefully but then realized it would merely be a waste of time and energy… he was very adamant on not giving her a refund so she would just have to work it back under him over time.

"Okay then. See you tomorrow, Boss." She said and stormed out of the room in frustration, shutting the door behind her firmly.

Lucius sighed deeply and looked at the mountain of paperwork. "When will that woman get here…?"

…

Cassie walked along the hallway of the top floor nervously, her footsteps echoing in the quiet corridor. She was wearing her full Supreme Guild uniform once more after the healing process had finished.

She had sparred with him with everything on the line… and she had lost badly and decisively, rendering herself to becoming his slave according to the terms.

Thinking back on it, she shouldn't have challenged one of the world's prospective awakened to a spar, he had won against her so easily that it was just that disrespectful and humiliating to her pride.

She opened the door carefully, expecting the others to be there however it was only Lucius and he was currently signing some paperwork while giving it his full attention and concentration.

He really looked like a proper Guild Leader working diligently, unlike her brother who right about now would be looking for a woman to release his pent up frustrations on instead of doing actual work.

She didn't want to admit it… but that man was human scum of the worst kind. However he was still her brother and as his younger sister, she was supposed to protect hi-

"There you are finally." Lucius said without looking up from his documents. "Are you ready to act like a slave now…?"

The way he said it made her tremble as she closed the door behind her and entered the room slowly and cautiously.

"W-w-where are the o-o-others?"

"Is that how you're supposed to talk to your new Master…" Lucius said, perhaps roleplaying with Vanessa that night was really helpful because he felt more at ease with it now.

Cassie stiffened and then her body leaned forward a bit as she bowed respectfully.

"I'm s-sorry…"

"Master, you're meant to add master to it every single time. Who do you think you are?" He asked sternly and she shook again.

"I'm s-s-sorry Master." She said submissively and he placed his pen down deliberately on the desk.

"Come stand next to me right here…" He said and she slowly walked over to him, there was no specific expression on his face so she didn't know what he was thinking at all.

However it was hard to imagine that he was younger than her… He was simply that scary and powerful and intimidating.

She arrived at his side meekly and his hand trailed from her neck to her chin making her breath stiffen. Anything that happened right now was her fault and she was well aware of it and accepted it fully.

"You're actually normal unlike your brute brother who has no self-control." Lucius commented as he shifted his rolling chair to face her directly and looked at her face closely studying her features. "Though you both look nearly the same face-wise… however I won't talk more on it, what I will say though is that… aren't you interested in freeing your Brother from his imprisonment?"

She looked at him in the eyes with surprise at the unexpected offer.

"Yes, I meant it. Freeing your brother, I'm the one that put him there so I can get him out easily with a word." Lucius said as he looked at her face intently. "However you'll have to be the perfect servant, and follow my will thoroughly and obediently for him to even smell the air outside again. If you do that, we have ourselves a deal. I won't force you though… you can walk out right now, if you do, your position as a Captain will be renounced permanently. I can't have someone as weak as you to be a Captain in my Guild after all."

Cassie trembled where she stood at the ultimatum.

"M-m-master… what do you w-w-want me to do?" She asked nervously, she wanted to free her brother and keep her position… she was completely at his mercy now.

"How about you bend over and suck my dick?" Lucius suggested.