The Villains Need to Save the World?

Book 7: Chapter 417: Tri-Academy Joint Campus Festival at Margarita Resort Plains in Progress

At the outskirts of Olsylvia City, the Rose Society’s new territory, Margarita Resort Plains, the tri-academy joint campus festival was currently taking place. The joint campus festival would be held for a total of three days and take place over the night. Normally, it would have lasted only one day had the academy been arranging the event alone. However, since the three of them were doing a joint event, it would last three days.

Bella’s Rose Society was the sole sponsor of the joint campus festival. Her society’s wealth had surpassed Carlos’s Golden Legend Society many times over and was now more than ten times as wealthy as the second-placed Wealthy Club. The gap between the two was also widening by the day. Even if Carlos wanted to catch up, it had already become an impossible task.

The power of the Rose Society was no longer the same as before Bella joined. Back then, it was a small and temporary club formed by several rich girls. Now, it was a super society filled with tons of high-class female members. All the famous beauties of the Olsylvia Academy were members of the Rose Society. The current Rose Society had the momentum to go against the academy’s no.1 society, the Fraternity.

But the two sides couldn’t fight. The Fraternity’s members were all handsome men of the philosophical party, which meant there were no direct clashes with the all-girl Rose Society that was secretly a lily garden. Both sides had also agreed on certain aspects, so with mutual understanding between Bella and the several heads of the Fraternity, they tacitly avoided each other’s territories during the turf wars.

At the moment, people speculated the Fraternity was going to war with the Rose Society, but it was all a push from some third party. The Golden Legend Society and the Mask of Darkness were all possible culprits deliberately spreading misinformation in order to prevent the Rose Society from gaining momentum. Afterward, they’d be able to just reap the benefits.

As for the rest of the major societies, the Door of Truth was unlikely to go to war with the Rose Society, as the Radiant Church’s papal heir, President Maria, and the four Holy Maidens were all in the Rose Society. For similar reasons, the Ironblood Cross Society wouldn’t come to find trouble with them since several strong student presidents from branch campuses were in the Rose Society.

The remaining “pseudo-loli” Charlotte’s Wronged Angels Society was simply a passerby society that was there to be cute and was no threat to the Rose Society. The Rose Society had already become a super society, just like the Fraternity. As for the rivals Golden Legend Society and the Mask of Darkness, they had no choice but to turn around when facing the Rose Society.

The three great academies’ joint campus festival had a clear division of labor, with the Olsylvia Academy as the principal host. As the art school, the Antoinette Academy set up a stage for songs, dances, and other free to watch performances because they were holding a music festival. Even though the students were required to wear their school uniforms to distinguish them, the art school girls took advantage of a loophole in the rules. They did not have to be in their uniforms while performing on stage.

Alessandra Academy for the Foreign Races organized a food festival. Due to the language barrier, they chose an event such as food that involved less talking and more eating. That way, they could reduce the frequency of speech and avoid the embarrassment arising from communication issues. Human students weren’t strong in that department. While most female students were learning the Elvish language and didn’t know any Fae, the boys were even worse. Other than a small minority who studied the Draconic language, most of their foreign language ability was nil.

Bella and her little sister Lisha held hands and casually wandered around the stalls at the campus festival as if they were shopping. Kriss was by their side, looking at Lisha with some envy in her eyes. Lisha’s body was more on the loli spectrum. Holding Bella’s hand, it would at most look like a daily routine of two sisters walking together. Others wouldn’t think much about it. But Kriss was different. She and Bella already had all sorts of scandals flying around the school about them, so it was better to stay lowkey in a public space.

Priest President Isaman, following behind Bella and the girls, was in a tangled mood. She had had enough with watching Bella showing off her little sister and her girlfriend. Isaman, being forced to look at the PDA, felt strange envy rise up within her. Even she herself did not understand why she felt that way. Could it be that some baddie had secretly sneaked into her heart as well?

The other three Renegades, Mage Ariel, Marionette Master Elaine, and Assassin Noreya, did not come today. It was not because they didn’t want to, but because they had been hiding their stunning true faces for certain reasons: they were known as the three “ugly girls” of the Rose Society where everyone had the beauty of the gods. It wasn’t so convenient for them to come out with Bella right now. Things would be awkward if the lie was seen through.

Ariel and the others didn’t want to reveal their beauty yet. If they became as eye-catching as Kriss and President Isaman, then it would bring them a lot of unnecessary trouble. They were currently staying behind in the Rose Society’s newly-opened event area, the maid cafe, to help out the society.

The Rose Society’s event in this campus festival was a maid cafe. All the members of the Rose Society put on gothic maid outfits and cat ear headdresses to entertain the guests in their luxurious maid cafe. The cafe was reservation-based and accepted only girls while firmly declining the boys. 

In the face of such tyranny, many boys wanted to protest. However, when they saw the store next to the maid cafe, they were so shocked that they didn’t even dare to start trouble anymore and slipped away. It turned out that to the maid cafe’s left was the bodybuilding club run by the Fraternity. At a glance, you could see that it was a place where philosophers gathered. For the sake of their chastity, the men had no choice but to refrain from finding trouble. If anyone from the Fraternity had their eyes set on them, they might end up in a tragedy of being dragged in to “work out”.

The last guy dragged in for a “workout” had an ache in his butt for a full week and couldn’t even sit down. Ever since then, these straight men would have shivers run down their spines any time they saw the members of the Fraternity.

To the maid cafe’s right was the Wronged Angels Society’s masquerade ball, a gathering of all sorts of traps and masters of crossdressing. For straight men, this was as dangerous as the Fraternity’s bodybuilding club. In consideration of their own integrity, the guys gave up on the idea of sneaking into the Rose Society’s maid cafe and went to look for other entertainment instead.

The maid cafe was indeed attractive, but it was a lost cause, as the shops on both sides were too dangerous. If you weren’t careful, you had the risk of being bent. Even the most gentlemanly of men could only accept the painful choice of not going to the maid cafe when faced with this situation.

Bella was currently out enjoying herself, having no idea that a long queue had formed at the Rose Society’s maid cafe. She wanted to take advantage of this joint campus festival to buy some gifts for her girl friends, as well as the girls from the Renegades.

Currently, aside from the World Destructors Demon God Angel and Evil God Mia, the Chaos Bringers, Collapsing Evil Dragon Lolita, and Devouring Holy Dragon Euphenisia at Bella’s side, the strongest in combat ability would be the Renegades. They were even stronger than Bella in her Demon King form, so it would be foolish of her not to send them a few gifts to nourish their relationship.

Most of her friends could be satisfied with some common gifts, but the likes and dislikes of the Renegades were different from an average girl. Before signing a subordination contract with them, Bella just about had an idea of their preferences as the mistress.

At the joint campus festival, students from other academies would bring over novel items to trade at the stalls. This was not the Alessandra Academy for the Foreign Races. The food there couldn’t be bought with human currency, and only things such as obsidian or other precious objects could be used. It made things hard for Bella. After they set up their stalls here, though, she was able to trade with them using the human currency.

According to the temporary agreement between the three academies, the human race’s gold coins would be used as the universal trading currency for the joint campus festival. As they also had to trade at the campus festival, the foreign race students temporarily set aside their hostility for the humans and agreed to use human’s gold coins for the time being.

Apart from food, this was the first time Bella had seen the foreign race students’ special items. Compared to human merchants, the foreign race students weren’t as calculating, and they followed this principle while trading with the human students too. They would not inflate the prices on purpose and charged whatever the item was worth. They wouldn’t try to talk up their commodities and drive up the prices afterward either.

Many of the things sold by the foreign race students were contraband. The human empire alliance’s commercial regulations only restricted humans, not foreign races. So, they were more open in the things they chose to sell. Even undomesticated demonic beast eggs could be bought. Demonic beast eggs and pet eggs were different. Pet eggs were demonic beasts that had undergone training and would not easily cause harm to their owners. Meanwhile, the demonic beast cubs coming out of demonic beast eggs might be aggressive, as they were not previously trained. Thus, they were considered dangerous goods.

Many human students were only looking around for fun. Most of them didn’t dare to buy the goods sold by foreign races. The prices were as high as hundreds and thousands of gold and had to be paid by cash. Many of the foreign race students were quite stubborn and only recognized visible currency. They would not use the magic storage cards certified by the federation of empires, which meant they would not accept magic storage card transactions.

The storage rings of most students had the space of around a bookcase, with the stronger ones about the size of a wardrobe. The largest storage ring you could buy on the market these days was about the size of a room, and it cost an arm and a leg. However, the super luxurious storage rings that Bella casually pulled out were calculated in the size of football fields. These were considered legendary existences for the others.

Influenced by the storage rings, most students did not bring much money with them, especially gold coins. Nobody would bring tens of thousands of gold coins with them. So, they could only look at the merchandise. Unless they really wanted it, they would settle themselves and become onlookers.

The one thing Bella did not lack was gold coins. Ever since taking in the Empress of the Manasvir Empire, Empress Manya Felan, who was also a transmigrator, Bella secretly controlled the treasury of the human continent’s wealthiest empire. She was already sick of seeing this glittering gold. 

Even more, Bella herself was not lacking money either. In one of her duchy territories, the Darkness Sacred Region near the Sarnia Duchy, was a large number of undead and spirits that did not need any rest. They were more cost-effective than robots, working day and night for Bella. They would mine, develop, expand the city, and the likes. After controlling most of the beastmen continent, the Darkness Sacred Region had already expanded their scope and reached into beastmen territory.

With these zero-cost “workers”, it was hard for a “dark capitalist” like Bella to even go broke. She was a standout even for a Demon King. Other Demon Kings summoned undead and spirits to fight for them, but only Bella would use them to labor day and night for her and earn money without rest. Who knew if this was considered normal or against the style of Demon Kings in their world? But the Demon Kings probably wouldn’t know how to complain if they found out.

Bella was anything but poor right now. She very naturally picked the most eye-catching store. The person who set up this stall was one of the six great Vow Breakers of the Alessandra Academy for the Foreign Races, Fallen Angel Monarch Jasmine. Jasmine looked at Bella a little curiously. Even though this beautiful golden-haired knight was wearing the general uniform of the Olsylvia Academy, she wore a knight’s badge on her right shoulder, revealing that she was a Holy Knight.

Jasmine couldn’t recognize Bella, but having seen Sacred Demon God Samantha’s surrogate body not long ago, it was hard to blame her for being curious at Bella’s arrival. Although her stall had many different things, none of them would truly interest a Holy Knight. Bella acted as if she was meeting Jasmine for the first time and nodded to her as a means of saying hello. Then, she turned back to focus on what was up for sale.

Bella soon discovered that the items Jasmine sold were really too expensive. They all started at the price of ten thousand gold coins, an even higher price point than the hundreds or thousands the other stalls were charging. Despite being expensive, though, they were definitely good items. All sorts of high-leveled demonic beast eggs, high concentration poisons, storm potions, and cursed magic scrolls were put on display. There were also dark forbidden books, such as the full sets of “Necromancer Zachary’s Experiment Notes” and “Accounts from McCarthy the Cursed”. Bella almost had the illusion that she was shopping at a black market.

Jasmine deliberately sold her contraband in a different text. She used the ancient demonic language, especially those forbidden books. They were all in a language that your average Joe would never understand. This way, she would not be investigated. Bella could understand the language of demons and was able to tell at first glance that Jasmine was selling banned books. More terrifyingly, she was selling the full sets, not leaving any parts. If they were translated, more forbidden magic would inevitably circulate into this Other world dimension, which wasn’t something Bella was willing to see.

“What’s wrong, Holy Knight? Could it be that you understand the ancient text written here?”

“No, I don’t. I just suggest you not to sell such books. I get the feeling that they’re cursed.”

Seeing Bella’s silent and speechless appearance, Jasmine almost thought she could read the words written on those ancient forbidden books, so she had opened her mouth to ask the question in human language. Bella only now realized that this Vow Breaker could actually speak the human language. She could have just told her that early on, couldn’t she? Was there really a need to act silently? Bella was almost forced to communicate with her in the demon language.

“If you say so, then I won’t sell them. Right, anything caught your eye? I’ll give you a 50% discount.”

“Fifty, huh? Can I get a free gift too if I buy something?”

“You’re funny. Alright, I like you anyway, so I’ll give you the discount and, if you see something you like, you can also choose any item within ten thousand gold coins as a free gift.”

The onlookers felt so angry that they almost cursed aloud. The extent of Bella’s brazenness went far beyond their imagination. This was a typical example of a person not satisfied with a bargain. What pissed them even more was how rich and unruly the stall owner Jasmine was. She even agreed to a 50% discount with an add-on freebie just because she fancied the other person. That alone made many of the viewers envious to death.

Bella didn’t stand on ceremony with Jasmine either. She looked around and instantly set her eyes on a well-sealed wooden box. It seemed to have gone through some years and had strange characters engraved that she presumed to be the ancient dragon language. As for the price tag, it cost two hundred thousand gold coins in cash and accepted precious objects of equal value in a trade.

Sealed treasure boxes like these were called “mystery boxes” by the industry, referring to the various ancient underground relics found by treasure-hunters with much effort. In the sealed state, whether it was an astonishing treasure or a curse, nobody knew.

These were described as “gambling boxes”, similar to “jade gambling” on Earth. On Earth, people would buy mineral stones to see whether they struck jade, while the gamblers here would buy sealed boxes to see whether they get a treasure or a curse. It was all based on luck. The only difference was the consequence when you don’t get lucky. All that happened if you lost while betting on jade was your money, but failing at a treasure box gamble could end your life on the spot.

In the eyes of outsiders, it wasn’t worthwhile to gamble two hundred thousand gold coins on this box. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that this was something only a madman would attempt. At most, people would gamble about ten thousand gold coins, but even if this two-hundred-thousand box was filled with obsidian or a night pearl, it was still a loss that could not be recovered.

Bella reached out without hesitation and grabbed the wooden box. In her eyes, the exorbitant price tag was nothing but just an afterthought. The moment Bella touched that box, a fair and dainty hand pressed down on it from the other side. Someone had chosen this special box at the same time as her, and Bella could judge from the delicacy of that hand that it belonged to a girl. 

“Stop right there; I’m taking this box. I came first, so I’m clearly first.”

“Um, Princess Hetivel, aren’t you a Radiant Holy Dragon? Why are you fighting me for this dark box?”