Night.

The time of the day when the forces of evil gain strength. It could be said that the night is the confidant of evil.

At that time, a certain someone woke up from a deep, partially self-induced state of unconsciousness.

The first time they, or rather, she felt, was an abnormal softness and malleability of the material below her.

This isn’t my house bin.

It was too soft and fluffy for it to be metal of any sort. Forget about a container that was originally designed for garbage. No matter how many newspaper sheets she laid on the floor, it couldn’t reach a state where it would be this comfortable.

It was a trash bin, after all.

Ex-trash bin. It’s my house bin now.

Ex-trash bin.

And so followed her next question.

Just what is this incredible material?!

Perfect smoothness, comfortableness, warmness, and even scent. As a matter of fact it camouflaged even her own foul smell, a result of spending months living in the streets. Nevermind the orphanage, her previous home, which had an even worse stink, mix of trash, cigar smoke, alcohol, and other fluids and substances of less sanitary nature.

And now that she touched that subject, she felt her own clothes were different.

Even the feel of her own body.

The fabric pushing against her skin felt soft and warm, and her own skin felt smooth and clean.

This was too much for her to handle it.

I have to wake up before I’m in too deep.

If it was a dream like this, she could probably sink and never come out.

And so, she opened her eyes.

What the—

Once again, it was all wrong.

This was too big for it to be her house bin.

Besides, since when did it have concrete walls and painting?

That was, ignoring all the other things out of place. A bookshelf, a desk, a night table, a drawer, and a full-body mirror.

As expected, none of this can fit inside a trash container!

But she was awake. Her instinct told her so. And it was that very same instinct the reason why she was still alive today.

Yeah. Damn you, Feline King of the Destruction. I’ll get you one day.

Memories of a black cat flowed in, and she shivered at the thought. No, it was better to focus on something else.

She looked down and noticed something that at the same time did and didn’t have any sense.

This fluffy surface was a bed.

But that was impossible. Beds were hard and stinky and more often than not full of stains of dubious nature. Yellow, green, white, red, she didn’t even want to guess where those colors came from.

And beds don’t just sprout out of nowhere.

So she reached a brilliant conclusion.

“This isn’t my house bin!”

… Maybe a not so brilliant conclusion.

“Then where am I?”

Good question. Where was she?

She got up from bed. It pained her to let the heavenly feeling go away, or rather, to get away from it, but understanding her current situation was on higher priority.

She could make an exception though.

Maybe later she would lay back down.

Added to the to-do list.

She looked at herself in the full body mirror.

“What… is this?”

Once again, it was all wrong.

First, the size of the black jumper she was wearing.

The sleeves were slightly longer than her whole arm, extended hand and all.

… This was kinda cute too, though.

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The sweatpants were just fine.

What shocked her was her own appearance.

Not a single stain, bruise, or even a speck of dust. Moreover, her skin was incredibly shiny, and her hair unraveled and glossy.

She was completely clean.

This increased her shock. She looked around the room, trying to make sense of anything.

In the desk, she found something that wasn’t there before.

A note. A glass of milk. And a bowl of cookies. Handmade ones at that.

Was it for her? Well, not that it mattered. If it was here, and nobody else was around, she would take it. She was hungry after all.

She munched one of the cookies. Handmade. And tasted like chocolate. Then the milk, fresh and tasty.

Surreal.

She read the note.

<< Eat this and go downstairs once you have rested >>

So it was meant for her. That made her feel a slightly better. She was starting to feel pity for whoever had lost their chance of having a taste of this.

The next moment, recollections of her past few hours flooded in.

“Oh right… that guy… He saved me and… Then I took a bath…?”

Once she had woken up from, that man had explained everything to her. Including the misunderstanding. After all she was told to take a bath, change clothes and use the guests dorm upstairs until she was fully rested.

From there, they would discuss the details of their agreement.

“That man…”

She remembered the details of their conversation vaguely, but she could tell two things from their meeting.

One, that he was a very dangerous person.

And two, that if she got on his side, she would be highly benefited.

Which meant, more chocolate cookies.

And that was good. Nothing that has cookies as a result can be bad.

* ••••

About two hours earlier that day…

“She passed out, huh…”

Lawrence was troubled. On his arms, the unconscious girl that he somewhy had saved on a whim. She was certainly a problem.

But his main issue was something else.

Namely, that fact that thoughts, emotions and feelings stranger to himself had been perceived by him. Not only that, but, even thought he was aware that the one feeling such things was someone other than himself, he felt extremely identified with the way of thinking, and even feeling.

In other words, it was as if a copy of himself that wasn’t him was possessing his mind.

No, that still wasn’t correct. More like, it was as if he was thinking in two opposite things at the same time.

In the end, he chose to spare the caterpillar girl, because he felt like it was the correct thing to do.

Or rather, because it was the thing that helped with his plan the most.

“Also, that plan… As I thought, it came to me in a moment, and even though I hadn’t planned it at all… Is it just a coincidence…? No, saying that it wasn’t my plan is also incorrect. As a matter of fact…”

The moment he had seen a certain something, the thought of carrying onwards such plan had crossed his mind. Maybe because of the adrenaline, he was just processing everything really fast, and said plan was a result of that.

Yes, this felt more like it.

It wasn’t someone else, another copy of him, but rather, he came up with such stratagem so easily that he was momentarily shocked by his own thought. Lawrence had arrived to such conclusion.

“Even so, the fact that she dropped my wallet, that the policeman hadn’t directly brought her to the station, but rather to him to check with me first. And also…”

Thinking about that last slip, he thought that there were too much lucky facts for it to be called a ‘coincidence’.

“After all, the fact that her hoodie fell of her shoulder just the right amount for me to see the QR Code on it…”

As expected this had to be a side effect of his meta-ability.

Criminal Mastermind. According to the description, it acted like a domino line of sorts. The ability increased his chance that, if he touched the first domino, the last one would fall in a position that was advantageous for him.

The adrenaline rush. The coincidences that had brought this girl here, moreover, those that allowed him to see the proof that this girl was also a meta.

Those were all derived from that single event in which she had crashed with him. Unintentionally or otherwise, it was that fact that had triggered the reaction.

So, was it right?

To make use of the fact that he had saved this girl. To use this as an excuse to tie her to him in a boss-subordinate relationship.

Or more like, a minion-crime lord relationship.

As for why he would do that…

“It’s true that, if it’s me, I can work out something. I’m fairly confident in my persuasion skills, after all. But the why… Yeah, why would I even want a minion in the first place? It’s not like I’ve decided to do anything yet…”

He was vexed.

No, that wasn’t right.

He felt like he needed to feel vexed. Because, if a normal person was given the chance of doing something like this, to use one’s debt as chains for such agreement, they wouldn’t usually do it.

But deep down, he couldn’t find a reason why not to.

He was given the chance, then why not taking it?

He was no longer a normal person after all.

He was a Villain.

“So I guess I’ll have to do it huh… No, more like, I feel like doing it.”

He wasn’t acting on ambition, hatred, vengeance, or anything like that.

Even so, he took the first step towards being a Villain: Acceptance of one’s disdain for morals.

Those individuals who follow the law do so either because humans, as sociable animals, tend to follow the flow of the crowd. “Everyone else does it, so that is what has to be done”, this is the thought that drives most people to follow the rules. Even those moral values that one takes as ‘self-taught’, are highly influenced by their surroundings.

To Lawrence, who was mostly an antisocial by nature, this pressure wasn’t even too strong to begin with.

And so, driven by the simple thought of ‘I can do it, so why not doing it?’, he decided to try and see.

Calling it a test period of sorts would be an understanding.

“It’s all set then” Having reached a conclusion, Lawrence started moving on his own.

It was now clear for him that he wanted to follow this through, at least to see where it could go.

After all, the very reason why he had wished for a power the last few hours of Wakening Season, it was because he wanted to shake off that feeling of boredom that bothered him.

Now that he was given the power to change the course of his life, why not making use of it?

In the time that had taken him to carry the weird girl in a princess carry, drop her in the couch with no further ado, and then throw himself in the nearest armchair, he had reached such decision.

It seemed it was also enough time for the girl to wake up, as she was already moaning and stretching on the couch.

Lawrence used that time to quickly decide how to deal with this girl.

He decided keeping up his ‘high and mighty’ charade would be the best. There was no way someone would follow someone so weak-willed as him, so covering for that part with acting was better. Also, were he to change his way of addressing to her now, she would get suspicious, is what he thought.

And also, he was enjoying playing the role, if only just a bit.

Ah, this is wrong bad. I’ll have to remember myself that this is just necessary…

“You’re finally awake. Well then…”

In a tone that didn’t at all fit the kitten-paw printed shirt he was wearing, he spoke. He was no longer a part-time programmer, but a villain addressing to his future minion.

“Let’s have a nice chat.”

There was a loud gulp, and then, her face got red all over again.

“Spare me… Whatever misunderstanding you have about the way of repaying your debt, you are wrong. I have no such need… And also, it’s impossible after all. There’s only holding back to a certain level, but you smell like you had an ugly fight with a slime… Or rather, just go and bath.”

It slipped.

The slime thing slipped! Shit… wait, is that also a pun?!

What a troublesome day indeed.