NTR: Minor Villain Wants to Be the Main Villain - Chapter 70

Chapter 70: Sober and Miserable

On the other side of the house, Lui was looking less like a man and more like a jittery skeleton who’d overdosed on espresso.

The dude was wrapped in a bedsheet like some bargain-bin ghost cosplayer, crouched in the corner of his room with only his wild, darting eyes peeking out.

He was shivering so much it looked like he was about to vibrate through the floor.

Every little noise—a creak of the floorboards, a faint breeze, a goddamn pin dropping—had him jumping like he was auditioning for a horror movie scream queen.

His eyes were the real showstopper, though: wide, bloodshot, and locked in a manic stare at one very specific spot in the room.

That spot, right there on the floor. The one where the knight had fallen after Artis handed him his shiny-armored ass.

The same spot where Lui, in a moment of pants-shitting panic, had plunged a knife into the guy’s unconscious chest, fearing the aftermath of the showdown.

Now?

Now he was living in full-blown paranoia mode, convinced the dead knight’s ghost—or maybe just his pissed-off spirit—was about to pop out of the floorboards and haunt his ass for eternity.

Every creak of the house sounded like a vengeful knight dragging himself back from the beyond, ready to turn Lui into a human shish kebab.

It wasn’t guilt eating him alive. No, guilt required balls, and Lui had clearly lost his somewhere between stabbing the guy and curling up like a scared toddler.

This? This was pure, unfiltered terror, and it was chewing him up like a piece of stale gum.

In a twisted way, Lui’s desperate stabby solution was the only thing he could think of to ensure survival—for himself and his chaotic excuse of a family.

As Artis so eloquently put it, if Lui didn’t handle the knight situation, the whole household would be fucked. Literally and figuratively.

After all, the poor bastard of a knight had his dick unceremoniously lopped off by Lui’s daughter and was then beaten like a piñata by Artis.

That kind of humiliation? You don’t just walk it off. You come back for blood, or at least revenge that involves heavy doses of screaming.

And let’s not forget how this whole mess started: Lui owed the guy a few measly silver coins. A few!

Yet here he was, dodging death and nearly being turned into the poster boy for cuckolded husbands everywhere.

Weirdly, though, whenever his mind wandered to that particular scenario, his cheeks flushed crimson.

Was it shame? Embarrassment? Or… something darker that he didn’t have the spine to admit? Either way, it wasn’t the time to psychoanalyze his inner kinks.

“I n-n-n-need… rum… I ne-ne-ne-need sake… I ne-need something…”

He stammered, practically gnawing at the edges of his blanket like a stressed-out hamster.

And here’s the kicker: Lui hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol in over a week. A fucking week! For nearly five decades, booze had been his constant companion, his one true love, his liquid courage.

His liver had built up a tolerance so legendary it could make a rhino keel over in envy. Yet now, here he was, sober as a monk and shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.

Lui without booze was like a bard without a lute, a knight without a sword, or a prostitute without… well, you get the picture.

And that was the problem. Decades of hard-earned alcohol tolerance had turned into his own personal hell, leaving him stranded in the wasteland of sobriety.

His veins screamed for the sweet burn of a stiff drink, his tongue dry and twitching like it was trying to remember what whiskey even tasted like.

He was a man dying of thirst in a desert, except the only mirage in sight was his wife’s judgmental glare and a bunch of nonexistent tavern doors.

The cruel irony? Not a single fucking drop of alcohol was in the house. Not even some suspiciously fermented juice.

He wasn’t the type to stockpile liquor—he wasn’t that classy. No, Lui was the guy who hit the tavern, drank until he could see through time, and then stumbled home reeking of bad decisions.

But now? Now he couldn’t even do that, because he was terrified of running into knights.

“Wh-what if they know? What if they know the knight is dead? Stupid fuck! Stupid fuck! FUCK!”

He shouted, punching the air like it owed him a drink.

His thoughts were a swirling shitstorm of paranoia and regret. And the longer he stayed sober, the more his brain turned into a chaotic, screaming void.

“Fuck this. Fuck everything.”

He growled, clawing at his hair.

“They’ll fucking know it’s me… I-if someone saw me leaving with the knight, then… I-I-I… they’ll find me and kill me… and then they’ll come here and see Juliana, and then they’ll…”

Lui’s cheeks burned red, and not from shame. Nope.

It was that other kind of heat—the one that makes you hate yourself just a little more. His pants, unwashed and reeking of desperation, betrayed him with a twitch of movement.

Everything was messing with him—his guilt, his paranoia, and now his own dick acting like it was auditioning for a comedy special.

Even Juliana didn’t look him in the eye anymore. And honestly, now that he was sober, he got it.

Who the fuck would? He probably looked like a mangy dog that wandered into the wrong village.

But screw her. Screw everyone. Right now, all he needed was a drink—just one blessed drop of alcohol to put his scrambled brain back together.

But fear gripped him. The fear of knights, of retribution, of someone pointing a gauntleted finger and saying, “Hey, aren’t you the guy who was with one of us the night he went missing?”

The thought made his blood run cold… or maybe that was just his withdrawal. Either way, he couldn’t step foot outside without his legs turning into jelly.

“Ar-Artis… yeah, he’s the reason I’m like this… He should take responsibility… Yes, yes, him…”

Lui’s bloodshot eyes darted around the room like a paranoid squirrel on caffeine.

Slowly, with all the grace of a collapsing building, he began to stand. His joints popped and groaned in protest, sounding like an ancient door that hadn’t been opened in centuries.

With legs wobbling like a drunken giraffe, he hobbled out of the room, muttering incoherent plans under his breath.

The creaking floorboards seemed to laugh at his misery, but Lui didn’t care. He had a target now.

Artis was going to fix this mess, even if Lui had to crawl over and guilt-trip the bastard into pouring him a drink.

…

After what felt like an eternity of pain and humiliation—his joints popping like faulty fireworks and his legs wobbling as if they were made of wet noodles—Lui finally reached the shoji door.

He leaned against it for dear life, his breathing ragged, his body begging for mercy.

The entire house had been eerily silent during his torturous journey. No wife. No daughter. No one. Honestly, he was fucking relieved. How would he even face his daughter after that incident?

“Just some sake… a little booze… and all of this will be over.”

He whispered to himself, as if the alcohol gods were listening and about to bless him with liquid salvation.

The thought gave him a shred of courage. He squared his hunched shoulders—or at least tried to—and braced himself for what lay beyond the door. Artis. The man. The fucking reason he was in this mess.

Lui hadn’t seen him since… well, since the world turned to shit. He had avoided him like a plague-infested rat, too afraid to meet his gaze, let alone say a word.

But now? Now, he had no choice. It was time to grovel. Or beg. Or something.

He reached for the door, fully prepared to slide it open like he owned the place. Old habits died hard, after all. But just as his fingers brushed the frame, a rare moment of hesitation stopped him cold.

‘Wait. Should I… knock?’

The thought struck him like a bolt from the blue. Lui couldn’t remember the last time he knocked on anything.

Doors were for barging through. But this? This was different. This was Artis. And Artis didn’t seem like the kind of guy who appreciated unannounced visitors—especially not ones who were about to ask for a favor.

Hand trembling, Lui rapped softly on the shoji, the sound so pitifully weak it might as well have been a mouse tapping its tiny paw.

“Come in.”

The voice was calm, deep, and so fucking self-assured that Lui felt his balls shrink on the spot. Taking a deep breath, he slid the door open—and immediately wished he hadn’t.

His jaw hit the metaphorical floor. On the bed, there was Artis, all naked glory and rippling muscles, looking like he’d just stepped out of a steamy erotic novel titled “Conquered by the Hero.” But that wasn’t the kicker.

No, the kicker was the person kneeling in front of him…